Polygamy, Marriage Equality, and Male Disposability

Last month, Slate had this interesting pro-polygamy piece by Jillian Keenan:

Recently, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reintroduced a tired refrain: Legalized gay marriage could lead to other legal forms of marriage disaster, such as polygamy. Rick Santorum, Bill O’Reilly, and other social conservatives have made similar claims. It’s hardly a new prediction—we’ve been hearing it for years. Gay marriage is a slippery slope! A gateway drug! If we legalize it, then what’s next? Legalized polygamy?

We can only hope.

Yes, really. While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end with same-sex marriage. We need to legalize polygamy, too. Legalized polygamy in the United States is the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice. More importantly, it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.

I’m not really going to look at gay marriage or the concept thereof.  The interests of liberty would probably best be suited by getting government out of it and letting individual churches decide; and otherwise leaving alone thousands of years worth of humanity’s history and understanding of marriage.

But polygamy starts to change the dynamic of human society much more violently, and leads us towards barbarism.

Read that last section and notice what’s missing.  Slate says it would “help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.”

Notice what’s missing?

Polygamy is not good for men.

Before the institution of marriage came about, strong or fortunate males got mates, weak or unfortunate males did not.  That’s not exactly a world that preserves liberty.  That’s a world where a few powerful men with multiple wives procreate and advance their own personal societies, and extra men truly are made disposable.

As per the joke made by President Calvin Coolidge, a rooster can mate a dozen times a day… but he’ll do so with a dozen different hens.  Those dozen hens don’t need a dozen roosters.

Those other eleven roosters in a polygamous society, deprived at a basic level of ever being able to reproduce, or to create families of their own, aren’t going to ever be productive.  They are predetermined genetic losers because they didn’t have wealth and power enough to attract women – women who simply flock to the most powerful, best providers in society and join a harem.  That helps protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and the (powerful man’s) family, which Jillian advocates.

It also leaves the other eleven out there susceptible to the idea that if they blow themselves up and kill a bunch of people from a different society for the powerful man, they’ll get their own harem of 72 virgins in the afterlife.  So why not go on suicidal missions to protect that powerful man’s family?  Seems like a good enough idea.  They’re already destined for the genetic dustbin anyway.

From Slate commenter Paul Murray:

Polygamy is the natural state of affairs in our species. A small number of men – “partiarchs” – have multiple wives and children, forming tribes. They hand their wealth over to their heirs, and the other sons are discards, “arrows in your quiver”, to be spent and used up in incessant wars with the tribe on the other side of the river.

This is great for women. Any woman would rather be fourth wife to a winner than have a loser all to herself, and in a polygamous, patriarchal, tribal society almost all the men are losers.

Problem is: these men have no reason to contribute to society. None. So these societies tend to be poor because its mainly the labour of men that creates wealth. It is no coincidence that civilisation rose when monogamy was invented and mandated. It’s the promise “for every man who works, a wife and children” that built the roads, dams, and bridges.

You think polygamy is a fine idea? Head on over to tribal Africa, or tribal anywhere else, and welcome the future. How ironic that the end-game of feminism is to reintroduce actual patriarchy.

This feminist-leftist moral relativity about polygamy truly does begin to destroy society.

There are entire branches of the “pick-up artist” community dedicated to revenging the wrongs of their own beta-hood by treating women like dirt.  The theory is that women treated like dirt think that they’re in the presence of a great and powerful man – because that powerful man can afford to treat women like dirt, so then any man who treats women like dirt must be powerful enough to have his pick.  Really, he’s just an asshole, but he’s mimicking the tricks of powerful assholes, and turning everyone into assholes.

He’s half of the equation.  The other half is the Slate author who wants to join in polygamy with 100 other women and Brad Pitt.  He can afford to raise their offspring, she can be well-provided for, and she gets the status of being wife #384.  Remember what she writes:

it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families

Her perfect world where she’s wife #153 to George Clooney actually justifies the degenerate pick-up artist slimeball, and sends the world ever-spiraling down.

All of this slowly reduces society into a culture of barbarity, a culture where a few powerful men really can rule the world completely – a savage patriarchy – but women’s self-interest is preserved.  They get to pick powerful mates, and they get their genes provided for by the powerful males.  It’s a very brutal, animalistic tribalist society that replaces civilization.

Polygamy is great – if you’re one of the powerful men, or one of the chosen women.  To everyone else, it’s death one way or another.  The most successful elements of humanity did away with polygamy for a reason.

Obamacare and Car Insurance

Didn’t expect to do another Obamacare post so fast, but I just found out my car insurance went up.  I’m with a very major insurance company, and in the many, many years I’ve been with them, they aren’t the type to raise rates arbitrarily.  I called up and asked why my rates went up about $50.

The answer I got was that in my state, the company has assessed the new costs of Obamacare and started raising rates to compensate for those increased costs that Obamacare is causing.  The increased health care costs as a result of Obamacare are now raising car insurance rates because those same car insurance companies also end up paying medical bills for those injured in car accidents.

So watch your statements, call and ask.

Somewhere in that red tape tower, your rates just went up.  Broken windows.

Obama’s Sequester Release of Illegal Aliens and the State of the Border

Via HotAir:

This makes me more enthusiastic about the sequester, just because now I’m curious to see how derelict he’s willing to be in his duties to in the name of putting political pressure on the GOP. Next up: Suspending TSA checkpoints at America’s airports, maybe? Where else is he going to find two percent savings in three-plus trillion in spending?

In a highly unusual move, federal immigration officials have released hundreds of detainees from immigration detention centers around the country in an effort to save money as automatic budget cuts loom in Washington, officials said…

The agency, Ms. Christensen added, “is continuing to prosecute their cases in immigration court and, when ordered, will seek their removal from the country.”

Officials did not reveal precisely how many detainees were released or where the releases took place, but immigrants’ advocates around the country have been reporting that hundreds of detainees were freed in numerous locations , including Hudson County, N.J.; Polk County, Texas; Broward County, Fla.; and New Orleans; and from centers in Arizona, Alabama, Georgia and New York.\

What the folks at HotAir miss is that this is a win-win for Obama.  He gets to say that we don’t need border security.  If people don’t notice an immediate difference, he’ll be able to argue that border security isn’t important.  Those in favor of sequestration as a means to get any cuts at all are going to find that’s the consequence of that argument.

After sequester Obama can say that the border will be secured when the funding comes back, and in the meantime he gets to release some undocumented Democrats to go vote for his party several times over.

Drudge has this for his headline pic:

Meanwhile via WaPo:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Monday that her agency would be forced to furlough 5,000 border control agents under mandatory spending cuts, likely allowing more illegal immigrants into the country and potentially compromising national security.

Napolitano said the cuts, known as the sequester, would disrupt the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to conduct customs inspections at ports, leading to increased waiting times for travelers and cargo shipments. Disaster relief funding would be reduced by $1 billion, she added, meaning relief for victims of natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy and tornados in Joplin, Mo., and Tuscaloosa, Ala., could be cut.

At the borders, Napolitano said the department would have to scale back patrols between ports of entry in the southwest United States, after years of making progress in stopping people from entering the country illegally from Mexico.

Furlough for Border Patrol is primarily going to consist of rescinding what’s called administratively unscheduled overtime (AUO).  The short version is that Border Patrol Agents basically work 10 hours every day to cover overlapping shifts and so they can continue working when there’s work – it’s the nature of the job.

It’s not standard overtime – agents don’t make “time-and-a-half”, it’s basically just a 10-hour standard workday.  It’s set up so that if an agent is out chasing a group of illegals, he doesn’t just look at his watch and go “crap, shift’s over” and let bad guys he’s tracking go – and he doesn’t have to work to chase them down and do so without getting paid.  There’s also FLSA, which is Fair Labor & Standards Act pay.  AUO represents an increase over base pay of about 25%, and FLSA represents about another 5-7%, depending on the number of hours worked.  FLSA exists so that workers can’t be forced or incentivized to work for more hours with less pay.  After a 25% increase in hours – from 8 hour a day to 10 hours a day, from 40 per week to 50 per week – if an agent has to work 60 hours one week, AUO doesn’t pay anything additional.  The agent is basically working for free – that’s where FLSA comes into play.  It’s not a lot, but it’s some compensation for long hours.  Then there’s also discussion of cutting one day per two weeks for field agents – resulting in working 9 of 10 days – another 10% reduction in pay.

Ultimately, USBP personnel and some associated agencies are looking at about 40% pay cuts.

When that average of 2 hours of work per day goes away, you have that much less coverage.  When you cut down on hours, you cut coverage.

You also begin to hemorrhage good employees.  Congress through DHS has made nationwide pushes for new employees, especially the Border Patrol.  (They’ve also mandated certain numbers to be maintained.)  This brings in people from across the country to work in new locations – ultimately many good, qualified people lured in for the pay.  But the problem is that when you cut their pay by about 40%, you’re going to have employees leave.  “Federal agent” looks good on a resume, and there are plenty of police departments and sheriff’s offices who will offer lower pay that suddenly looks more appealing when agents can increase their standards of living by moving back home.

Not pictured: A good place to get pizza, someplace to go fishing, Hobby Lobby, Target, Dave & Busters, a motorcycle shop, a comic book shop, or much of civilization at all.

Another issue that will develop is corruption – for people who are flexible in their morals, the good pay is an incentive to stay on the straight and narrow.  With a 40% pay cut, those who were immunized to corruption by a good salary will suddenly find enticements by criminal enterprises that much more inviting.

All of this is no small part of what’s being targeted by Obama’s sequestration.  He’s already pushing for amnesty, and now the rumors of reductions in Border Patrol coverage have led to greater alien traffic.  Anyone who knows any Border Patrol Agents can ask them – they’ll tell you that traffic is up.

Reduction of coverage by Border Patrol, ICE, Customs, and other border control agencies ultimately do result in increased numbers of illegal aliens.  A drastic reduction in pay will lead to more officers committing criminal acts, and lead to a loss of good personnel.

And all of this contributes to damage done to the nation.  In the short-term, it can be used as a cudgel against political opponents.  In the long-term, it’s ultimately destructive to the nation and fitting to someone with a firmly anti-American mindset who’s out to fundamentally transform the nation in order to make things “fair” on the world stage.

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It is amazing how “discretionary” spending is paying for the fundamental functions of government – like military & border security, yet “mandatory” spending is paying for handouts to Democrat serf constituencies so they can keep getting their Obamaphones and EBT cards.

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Janet complains about lack of bed space:

“Look, we’re doing our very best to minimize the impacts of sequester.  But there’s only so much I can do,” Napolitano said. “I’m supposed to have 34,000 detention beds for immigration.  How do I pay for those?  We want to maintain 22,000-some odd Border Patrol agents. I got to be able to pay their salaries.”

Bed space solved.  With that money saved, pay agents.

Obama and the Minimum Wage

From the NYT:

WASHINGTON — President Obama called on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour from $7.25 and to automatically adjust it with inflation, a move aimed at increasing the earnings of millions of cooks, janitors, aides to the elderly and other low-wage workers.

And it will do nothing to help anyone looking for a job.

The White House said that the move would have profoundly positive effects for low-income families without unduly burdening businesses or raising the unemployment rate. It cited research showing “no detectable employment losses from the kind of minimum wage increases we have seen in the United States.”

There are always losses as the cost of hiring employees goes up.  Thus employers hire fewer employees, and employees at entry level don’t get the skills they need to get the next rung up on the ladder.

The White House also pointed to companies like Costco, the retail discount chain, and Stride Rite, a children’s shoe seller, that have previously supported increasing the minimum wage as a way to reduce employee turnover and improve workers’ productivity.

As employers, they can increase wages on their own.  This is what Costco did.

As Costco Senior Vice President Jeff Long said recently in support of increasing New York state’s minimum wage, “At Costco, we know good wages are good business. We keep our overhead low while still paying a starting wage of $11 an hour. Our employees are a big reason why our sales per square foot is almost double that of our nearest competitor. Instead of minimizing wages, we know it’s a lot more profitable for the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity and commitment, product value, customer service and company reputation.”

And they’re also a very large business.  Y’know what a raise in the minimum wage does to them?  Nothing.  Y’know what happens to their competitors?  Their competitors have to spend more on employees.  It creates a barrier to entry.  This prevents their competitors from entering the marketplace with the advantages of being able to hire lower-wage workers.  This prevents unskilled workers from getting a stepping-stone job.

This makes life easier for Costco, who get to increase the expenses of their competitors through governmental fiat.  This is crony capitalism for Costco.

It hurts the people it’s supposed to “help”, driving them to unemployment and dependency on the government and right into the hands of political parties that will give them handouts.  The special interests in this case are the big businesses who benefit from destruction of smaller businesses, and the government officials who benefit from manufacturing more unemployment to create more people dependent on government handouts.

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Education and the Disposable Male

Mary Katherine Ham at HotAir begins to ask why men are falling behind in education, while women’s education is improving vastly:

Even addressing the issue of male academic underachievement can result in backlash from people incensed that society would bother caring about the disadvantages of men after spending decades and centuries ignoring the disadvantages of women. I understand that impulse, but as a person who cares deeply about her brothers, father, husband, and the possibility of raising decent men, should the opportunity arise, I have to care. Many others would no doubt feel the same if the problem were addressed with any frequency.

Boys score as well as or better than girls on most standardized tests, yet they are far less likely to get good grades, take advanced classes or attend college. Why? A study coming out this week in The Journal of Human Resources gives an important answer. Teachers of classes as early as kindergarten factor good behavior into grades — and girls, as a rule, comport themselves far better than boys.

She could begin to find the answer to the question here:

In fact, the greatest danger I see to us right now is that in our desperation to bend over and give women everything they want and everything that they say they need, we’ve unbalanced society to the point where we’re just in danger of seriously toppling over.

And really, the only difference I see between the traditional role and the new one for men with respect to disposability is that maleness, manhood – it used to be celebrated, it used to be admired, and it used to be rewarded – because it was really fucking necessary and because the personal cost of it to individual men was so incredibly high.

But now, we still expect men to put women first, we still expect society to put women first, and we still expect men to not complain about coming in dead last every damn time.  But men don’t even get our admiration anymore.  All they get in return is to hear about what assholes they are.

GirlWritesWhat has a rather large video series where she breaks down what’s going on in the gender politics realm, and how the feminist movement often ignores the fact that women have held a lot more power than they often claim.  These two videos wreak utter havoc on many feminist arguments.

When taken in that context, it’s easy to see why boys are falling behind.  Traditionally strong male roles are demonized, while the idea of male privilege (which was there to balance for male disposability) is still believed to hold some kind of influence.  Girls still get the advantages of traditional chivalrous protection, and now they get institutions that seek to “balance the scale”.  Girls are favored, boys are not.  Girls are given advantages while boys are told they’re the oppressor and that they’re needed as much as a fish needs a bicycle – because that’s how the educators view them as well.

It’s a cultural shift, much of it pushed by feminists of both genders and chivalrous men who wanted to put women higher on a pedestal with regards to the rest of life – who didn’t understand, didn’t know, or didn’t care what the effects of neglecting one gender at the expense of the other would mean.  We can see throughout the Middle East what nations that denigrate women amount to; and now we’re beginning to see what a nation that denigrates men amounts to.

Not so long ago, the average American man in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, financial independence, marriage and children. Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. This “pre-adulthood” has much to recommend it, especially for the college-educated. But it’s time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn’t bring out the best in men.

…

It’s been an almost universal rule of civilization that girls became women simply by reaching physical maturity, but boys had to pass a test. They needed to demonstrate courage, physical prowess or mastery of the necessary skills. The goal was to prove their competence as protectors and providers. Today, however, with women moving ahead in our advanced economy, husbands and fathers are now optional, and the qualities of character men once needed to play their roles—fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity—are obsolete, even a little embarrassing.

…

Relatively affluent, free of family responsibilities, and entertained by an array of media devoted to his every pleasure, the single young man can live in pig heaven—and often does. Women put up with him for a while, but then in fear and disgust either give up on any idea of a husband and kids or just go to a sperm bank and get the DNA without the troublesome man. But these rational choices on the part of women only serve to legitimize men’s attachment to the sand box. Why should they grow up? No one needs them anyway. There’s nothing they have to do.

They might as well just have another beer.

Thomas Sowell’s quote about traditions being the distilled experience of millions of lives holds here quite well.  While some traditional roles that involve male disposability may start to decline as society advances (and some have), and some that involve protection of females decline, throwing all those gender roles away has led to big problems as well.

Interesting the WSJ writer’s use of the term sand box.  She uses it euphemistically to discuss a play area for child-men, but there are plenty of men in another sandbox on the other side of the world out doing traditional male roles as well (and some women who are also there out of their own sense of civic virtue – which goes to their personal character and changes in culture that allow them to serve – without sidetracking this too far).  Traditional roles aren’t totally broken everywhere – but that speaks to a different part of American culture.

Senate Approves Bill that Legalizes Sodomy and Bestiality

From CNS News:

Senate Approves Bill that Legalizes Sodomy and Bestiality in U.S. Military

(CNSNews.com) – (Updated) The Senate on Thursday evening voted 93-7 to approve a defense authorization bill that includes a provision which not only repeals the military law on sodomy, it also repeals the military ban on sex with animals–or bestiality.

On Nov. 15, the Senate Armed Services Committee had unanimously approved S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a provision to repeal Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Article 125 of the UCMJ makes it illegal to engage in both sodomy with humans and sex with animals.

…

“If we have a soldier who engages in sodomy with an animal – whether a government animal or a non-government animal – is it, in fact, a chargeable offense under the Uniform Code? I think that’s in question,” Maginnis told CNSNews.com.

“When the reader stops laughing, the reader needs to ask the question whether or not this is in the best interests of the government, in the best interests of the military and the best interests of the country? I think not.”

Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

Dave Attell explains some risks (NSFW language).

 

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But they don’t call me MacGregor the barnbuilder or MacGregor the stonemason!

Ruling Innocent Men

There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

The Wall Street Journal had a piece a while back on this very topic.

As federal criminal statutes have ballooned, it has become increasingly easy for Americans to end up on the wrong side of the law. Many of the new federal laws also set a lower bar for conviction than in the past: Prosecutors don’t necessarily need to show that the defendant had criminal intent.

These factors are contributing to some unusual applications of justice. Father-and-son arrowhead lovers can’t argue they made an innocent mistake. A lobster importer is convicted in the U.S. for violating a Honduran law that the Honduran government disavowed. A Pennsylvanian who injured her husband’s lover doesn’t face state criminal charges—instead, she faces federal charges tied to an international arms-control treaty.

The U.S. Constitution mentions three federal crimes by citizens: treason, piracy and counterfeiting. By the turn of the 20th century, the number of criminal statutes numbered in the dozens. Today, there are an estimated 4,500 crimes in federal statutes, according to a 2008 study by retired Louisiana State University law professor John Baker.

WSJ has a graphic here showing the expansion of federal sentences by type of law.  Those with regards to immigration may be disproportionately represented due to the constant violations of immigration law on the US southern border, but the rest paint an interesting picture.

There are also thousands of regulations that carry criminal penalties. Some laws are so complex, scholars debate whether they represent one offense, or scores of offenses.

This is where Cass Sunstein and the nudgers come in.  To give one example, 922(r) compliance.  It gets really complicated really fast.  The short version is that there are a limited number of foreign-made components that are allowed to be used in certain types of firearms.  Furthermore, the regulation is full of vague terms like “sporting purposes”.  Three Gun competition is a sport, but it’s not a Fudd sport approved by the Ruling Class, so it doesn’t count.

But “sporting purposes” turns into vague law that’s subject to the whim of whoever is enforcing it.  Assembling a firearm with the wrong number of components arbitrarily assigned turns into a 10 year prison sentence.

Counting them is impossible. The Justice Department spent two years trying in the 1980s, but produced only an estimate: 3,000 federal criminal offenses.

The American Bar Association tried in the late 1990s, but concluded only that the number was likely much higher than 3,000. The ABA’s report said “the amount of individual citizen behavior now potentially subject to federal criminal control has increased in astonishing proportions in the last few decades.”

A Justice spokeswoman said there was no quantifiable number. Criminal statutes are sprinkled throughout some 27,000 pages of the federal code.

This is where someone like a “regulatory czar” is a very, very bad thing.

One area of expansion has been environmental crimes. Since its inception in 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency has grown to enforce some 25,000 pages of federal regulations, equivalent to about 15% of the entire body of federal rules. Many of the EPA rules carry potential criminal penalties.

Regulations on pollution output can kill industries, regulations on endangered species can destroy people’s rights to their own land, regulations on car MPG can destroy entire auto industries, regulations on oil drilling can artificially hike energy costs and shunt international dominance to nations willing to exploit available resources.

Occasionally, Americans are going to prison in the U.S. for violating the laws and rules of other countries. Last year, Abner Schoenwetter finished 69 months in federal prison for conspiracy and smuggling. His conviction was related to importing the wrong kinds of lobsters and bulk packaging them in plastic, rather than separately in boxes, in violation of Honduran laws.

According to court records and interviews, Mr. Schoenwetter had been importing lobsters from Honduras since the mid-1980s. In early 1999, federal officials seized a 70,000-pound shipment after a tip that the load violated a Honduran statute setting a minimum size on lobsters that could be caught. Such a shipment, in turn, violated a U.S. law, the Lacey Act, which makes it a felony to import fish or wildlife if it breaks another country’s laws. Roughly 2% of the seized shipment was clearly undersized, and records indicated other shipments carried much higher percentages, federal officials said.

Professor James Duane mentions this case in his video “Don’t Talk to the Police”.

The myriad of laws that no one, not even the lawyers, are aware of, is one of the big reasons Prof. Duane gives for not talking to the police and thoroughly exercising 5th Amendment rights.

This overabundance of laws and regulations and rules make it so that simply to CYA, you can’t even trust someone you should be able to trust.  Talking to police when you’re truly innocent could result in a prosecutor or bureaucrat somewhere along the line finding out that you’ve broken a law or regulation you didn’t even know existed.  This slowly turns people against each other, and makes everyone more suspicious of their government (not necessarily a bad thing), but the myriad of laws and regulations is so overwhelming that it makes people not trust anyone.  The officer at the end of the professor’s speech says he never tries to put innocent people in jail – and while he might not – a prosecutor or bureaucrat might.

Or the authority figure might just go after someone they’ve decided they don’t like through use of other means.

The number of regulations that exist without regard for consequences are legion, and every one is a slow affront to the freedom of the individual.  Not all regulations are bad, but many are mindless, and operate without any regard for the consequences or second and third-order effects of their regulation.  Plus government employees, by the nature of their employment, are usually insulated from any negative consequences that their own regulation creates.

Well, usually.

Gunwalker Update: Family of Brian Terry “Not Victims”?, Obama Rejects Calls for Holder to Resign

FOX has the story here.  H/T to ABR.

In a surprise move in a controversial case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona is opposing a routine motion by the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry to qualify as crime victims in the eyes of the court.

The family asked to intervene as victims in the case against Jamie Avila, the 23-year-old Phoenix man who purchased the guns allegedly used to kill Terry. Such motions are routinely approved by prosecutors, but may be opposed by defense attorneys.

However in this case, U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke argues because the family was not “directly or proximately harmed” by the illegal purchase of the murder weapon, it does not meet the definition of “crime victim” in the Avila case. Burke claims the victim of the Avila’s gun purchases, “is not any particular person, but society in general.”

“Society in general.”  I guess he’s no particular person.

Under the federal Crime Victims Rights Act, the Terry family would have the right to confer with prosecutors and speak at Avila’s sentencing. Some speculate that the U.S. Attorney’s Office may cut a deal with Avila in exchange for information to be used against his associates. That deal could mean little or no jail time, and a controversial sentencing day in the courtroom. Having the Terry family fight that deal, could further embarrass and complicate Burke’s case.

Burke may also be trying to protect the federal government. The family may pursue a wrongful death claim against federal agents, including Burke himself.

“If the evidence shows Brian’s death was proximately caused by the negligence of government, there may be a cause of action,” said Paul Charlton, the family’s attorney.

Coffey says that puts Burke in a tough spot.

“The government’s already been put on notice that they might be facing a wrongful death action by the family. And you have to wonder if the government’s efforts to deny the family the status of ‘crime victims’ is part of a strategy to avoid legal responsibility for some of the tragic mistakes of Operation Fast and Furious,” he said.

Burke refused comment when asked why he opposed the family’s motion and his possible conflict of interest.

A bureaucrat scumbag dodging responsibility and trying to protect the scumbags in government who were responsible for this from being held accountable?  Really?  Say it ain’t so!

Sipsey Street Irregulars has some comment on this.

Meanwhile a politician defends his pet bureaucrat.

President Barack Obama has forcefully rejected calls for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign over a controversial federal law enforcement operation that allegedly allowed hundreds of guns to flow to Mexican drug cartels.

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) and the National Rifle Association have called for Holder’s resignation over “Operation Fast and Furious,” the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives investigation that monitored suspicious gun sales. Several of the weapons have been recovered from drug gangs in Mexico and two guns were found at the scene of the shooting death of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent last December.

However, when asked at a roundtable with Spanish-language print media on Monday whether Holder should quit, Obama said flatly, “No.”

“He was kind of uncomfortable with the question, I’d say,” one of the journalists on hand, Antonieta Cadiz of La Opinion, said.

Given how politicians lie and would refuse to admit wrongdoing of any type, once enough info comes out in the mainstream on Holder, he’s likely to be out the door and under the bus as fast as communist revolutionary wannabe Van Jones or communist mass-murderer idolizer Anita Dunn.

Gunwalker Update: Video of Hearings, ATF Retaliates, ATF Head Refuses to be Thrown Under the Bus, Congressman Issa Goes To Mexico, Plot Thickens

To start, for those who didn’t get to see the hearings on June 15th, here are videos of the hearings courtesey of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s youtube channel (be warned, volume may be VERY loud):

Part 1   —   Part 2   —   Part 3

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Then today from David Codrea at Examiner and by Mike Vanderboegh at Sipsey Street Irregulars:

“ATF served Special Agent Vince Cefalu with termination paperwork today.”

That’s the word from Jay Dobyns, himself a subject of Bureau retaliation, in a post on CleanUpATF.

Gun Rights Examiner reported on Cefalu in May of last year–He was the agent assigned to do nothing because he came forward to complain about ATF mismanagement.

To put a face with a name:

Cefalu was the subject of a CNN story in May of 2010.

He said ATF managers turned against him after he reported in 2005 what he said was an illegal wiretap plan in a racketeering case. Records show ATF disputes his claims of the planned illegal wiretap. But he said that started a series of retaliatory measures that ended up in 2007 with him in a desk job. His only negative evaluation, he said, was the year after he criticized the planned wiretap.

“Had I not exposed some unethical, potentially criminal clearly outside policy conduct and actions by law enforcement that I was working with, none of this would have happened,” Cefalu said. “I would still be working in the field.”

Jay Dobyns, meanwhile, is this high-profile guy:

He infiltrated some bad biker gangs (including Hells Angels, Mongols, AB, MS-13) and after sending several of them to prison, was subsequently threatened by the gangs.  His family was threatened and his house was burned down.  “Some law enforcement sources” even blamed him for setting fire to his own house, and there are plenty of folks skeptical about him in general.  He’s written a book, filed suit against the ATF for not protecting him, and generally has made enemies of the govt and biker gangs.  Quite the character.  But here at least, even being a character doesn’t change the ATF’s actions.

But then, nothing’s really a surprise with the ATF.  They’ve been a good ol’ boys club of unaccountable bureaucrats for a while, tasked with regulating Constitutionally protected goods and private property.

Now to our next character, ATF Director Kenneth Melson:

Recent news suggested that ATF Director Kenneth Melson was about to resign.  The same day, Sipsey Street said that wasn’t the case.  Fastforward to today and Kenneth Melson is refusing to step down.  Looks like Issa’s staffer was right:

A spokesman for House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa told The Daily Caller the congressman expects his investigations into the Justice Department’s gun walking programs to point to a much higher political appointee than acting ATF director Kenneth Melson.

So Melson’s standing pat.  From the LA Times story:

“He is saying he won’t go,” said one source close to the situation, who asked for anonymity because high-level discussions with Melson remained fluid. “He has told them, ‘I’m not going to be the fall guy on this.’ “

ATF’s Fast and Furious and Operation Gunwalker go much higher than the ATF.

One more face – Congressman Issa, the congressman who was running the House Oversight committee, and was stonewalled by the DOJ to begin with, by being given page upon page of “redacted” files related to the ATF’s Fast and Furious project:

He’s now going to Mexico to find out what’s happening down there, as a prominent Mexican attorney was just killed with guns walked by the ATF.  That may well turn up a lot more info on what’s happened, as well as Melson talking in the next few weeks.

Nate Beeler’s Washington Examiner cartoon pretty much sums it up (as stated on Sipsey Street Irregulars):

The only question left is exactly why/how did people above the ATF director come to the conclusion that guns should be smuggled by the US government in order to undermine the security of the nation, creating an artificial crisis and demand for crackdown on citizen rights.  And above the ATF director, there really aren’t that many people left.

There’s just the guy who called the US “a nation of cowards” and supported a total ban on guns in DC, nationwide registration, and was instrumental in the paramilitary assault on Elian Gonzalez’ home and the other guy who told John Lott “I don’t believe that people should be able to own guns.“

Remember, Eric Holder authorized this:

The basis was that one or more of the members of the household had a concealed carry permit, or else had owned guns – that a member of the household had gone through state background checks, training, and paid fees to be able to carry a firearm for personal safety – jumping through legal hoops to ensure his own 2nd Amendment rights.  So BORTAC team of operators, the equivalent of a federal SWAT team, stormed the house, on the basis that someone who went out of his way to be a law-abiding citizen had a firearm (BORTAC was the same type of group that murdered BPA Terry was part of many years later – but chasing rip crews rather than 6 year-olds).

It seems like Holder has spent his whole career trying to ruin the lives of hispanic people, firearms owners, and Border Patrol Agents.  But this ain’t over by a long shot.

—

I probably won’t be posting much for a couple weeks – there are fish that need catching, and I’m sure there will be a lot of news in the next couple weeks if Melson talks.  Like I said over at JawaReport:  David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh are names you need to remember. They’re the Woodward and Bernstein of Gunwalker.  For those of you who want to keep up on it, you may want to hit up their blogs and of course check back here for updates, too – JBH may well run with some more politics, economics, or a Gunwalker take of his own.  In a couple weeks I’ll probably have another big update to catch up on all the happenings of this story, then some economics posts and a palate-cleansing hot chick or two.

Gunwalker Update: Public Relations Operation?

Previously blogged about on The Patriot Perspective.

Bob Owens at Pajamas Media asks that same question today.

The most damning revelations coming out of the hearings on Operation Fast and Furious held by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are the unmistakable indications that the program was never designed to succeed as a law enforcement operation at all.

A quartet of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) agents and supervisors turned into whistleblowers to bring the operation down, but only after U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down in the Arizona desert. Two of the weapons recovered at the scene of Terry’s murder were traced to the operation.

Fast and Furious, also known by the more accurate “Gunwalker,” allowed known straw purchasers to buy large quantities of firearms — often a dozen or more semi-automatic rifles — at a time with the full knowledge of ATF agents and executives. The guns were then smuggled into Mexico, as frustrated front-line ATF agents watched, under strict orders to do nothing.

ATF agents testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee could not explain how the operation was supposed to succeed when their surveillance efforts stopped at the border and interdiction was never an option.

ATF Agent John Dodson, testifying in front of the committee, said that in his entire law enforcement career, he had “never been involved in or even heard of an operation in which law enforcement officers let guns walk.” He continued: “I cannot begin to think of how the risk of letting guns fall into the hands of known criminals could possibly advance any legitimate law enforcement interest.”

The obvious answer is that Gunwalker’s objective was never intended to be a “legitimate law enforcement interest.” Instead, it appears that ATF Acting Director Ken Melson and Department of Justice senior executives specifically created an operation that was designed from the outset to arm Mexican narco-terrorists and increase violence substantially along both sides of the Southwest border.

Success was measured not by the number of criminals being incarcerated, but by the number of weapons transiting the border and the violence those weapons caused. An ATF manager was “delighted” when Gunwalker guns started showing up at drug busts. It would be entirely consistent with this theory if DOJ communications reflected the approval of the ATF senior officials they were colluding with — but as we know, Holder’s Department of Justice refuses to cooperate.

At the same time in 2009 that federal law enforcement agencies (the ATF, the DOJ, and presumably Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security) were creating the operation that led to the executive branch being the largest gun smuggler in the Southwest, the president’s team was crafting the rhetoric to sell the crisis they were creating.

On television, in various news outlets, and even in a joint appearance with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Obama pushed the 90 percent lie, implying that 90% of the guns recovered in Mexican cartel violence came from U.S. gun shops.

Stratfor’s piece on the 90% myth.

Issa said it the other day at the hearings (quoted from Kurt Hofmann’s piece at Examiner):

Issa: I am going to follow a line of questioning I think I have been seeing develop throughout here with law enforcement experts.  You have two points, you know the old expression, you connect the dots.  The first point is the straw buyer; the last point is the scene of the crime.  You’ve said, each of you, Special Agents, that in this case, as soon as you got to the next point of connect the dots, you were generally sent the other direction.  You were not allowed to go beyond that next point.  You weren’t even allowed to follow that next point, even when they headed north with the weapons.

Now, if an operation like Fast and Furious seems to have a pattern, a consistent pattern, that you’re only looking for two points–the beginning and the end–it’s not a criminal prosecution.  It’s not an effective one.  Plus, of course, if you take the logic that you can’t prosecute a straw purchaser if the gun is in Mexico, if you take that point, then that part of it was frivolous from the start, even though today, every one of those straw purchasers has been charged, oddly enough, with the evidence that was available before that gun ever walked beyond the first step.

So let me just ask a question for your supposition, but I think it’s a very well educated one.  If you only look at the beginning and the end of the dot, isn’t the only thing you’ve proven is that guns in America go to Mexico?  Now could that be a political decision?  Could that be a decision that basically, we just want to substantiate that guns in America go to Mexico–something we all knew, but would have considerable political impact, as Mexico began complaining about these, and they could say, “Well, yeah–we’re even rolling up the straw purchasers.”  It wouldn’t change the fact that Mexicans were dying at the behest of the United States, but wouldn’t it ultimately meet a political goal?

Also from Pajamas Media:

At the same time they were damning gun dealers in public, the administration was secretly forcing them to provide weapons to the cartels, by the armful and without oversight. More than one gun industry insider suggests that the administration extorted cooperation and silence from these gun shops. As the ATF has the power to summarily shut dealers down for the most minor of offenses, that is very, very possible.

This is something I noted previously as well, which starts with a g- and ends with an -overnment regulatory authority.

From the house oversight committee, here is the PDF file of the ATF agents accounts of Fast & Furious.  You can read the actual testimony and statements of the ATF agents who participated in this “felony stupid” operation.  Except it wasn’t stupid… it was calculated.

More from Pajamas Media (which I suggest reading in its entirety at the link):

As there is a pattern of behavior to suggest that Gunwalker was not a botched law enforcement operation, but was instead an effort by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department to carry out a subversive anti-gun policy of the Obama administration, it is pertinent to examine Obama’s past associations with anti-gun groups.

From 1994-2002, Obama was a director of the Joyce Foundation. Joyce is a progressive organization dedicated to “social justice,” and one of their primary areas of advocacy has always been the funding of gun control organizations. Joyce has long attempted to erode Second Amendment rights, and during Obama’s tenure as a director went so far as to try to subvert Second Amendment scholarship. Joyce gave millions to effectively buy law reviews with grants, and then used those reviews to publish only papers that attacked the individual rights interpretation. The goal was to so pervert legal scholarship that the scholarship would affect Supreme Court decisions.

Joyce director Obama, and those surrounding him, internalized fellow Chicagoan Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. While the Joyce plot narrowly failed, it affirmed Alinsky’s strategy of agitating, fanning hostility, and disorganizing the public in order to force radical change.

We know that Obama’s friends in Joyce Foundation-supported gun control groups suspiciously have not attacked the administration’s gun-running, but instead have attacked the Oversight Committee’s investigation.

The blog that is linked with reference to the Joyce Foundation-supported gun control groups is Snowflakes In Hell, a very reputable, very long-running gun rights blog.

This operation wasn’t just “felony stupid” as Congressman Issa called it.  The agents working the field, their supervisors, and even some second-line managers may have been felony stupid and “only following orders”, but that’s not adequate.  The program ran for fifteen months, and had supervisors “giddy” when guns were found at murder scenes in Mexico.

That doesn’t add up.  Fifteen months worth of work by hundreds of people, by lawyers who drafted up the legal justification for this crime, by agents who participated in it, by supervisors and managers who ran it, and by directors and attorneys general and probably a president who authorized it is not “felony stupid”.

Hanlon’s Razor:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

If the plan was (quoting myself, but other folks have noticed it, too):

1. Tell US FFLs to sell to straw purchasers, let guns go to Mexico, let criminals with guns kill people, including US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and numerous Mexican citizens.
2. ???
3. Bust up drug cartels in another nation.

That doesn’t make any sense.  None.  Zero.  A five year-old can tell that won’t work.  Hell, it’s on the Evil Overlord list!

Highlights from the Oversight Report:

• The supervisor of Operation Fast and Furious was “jovial, if not, not giddy but just delighted about” walked guns showing up at crime scenes in Mexico according to an ATF agent. (p. 37)
• Another ATF agent told the committee about a prediction he made a year ago that “someone was going to die” and that the gunwalking operation would be the subject of a Congressional investigation. (p. 24)
• The shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords created a “state of panic” within the group conducting the operation as they initially feared a “walked” gun might have been used. (p. 38)
• One  Operation Fast and Furious Agent:  “I cannot see anyone who has one iota of concern for human life being okay with this …”  (p. 27)
• An ATF agent predicted to committee investigators that more deaths will occur as a result of Operation Fast and Furious. (p.39)
• Multiple agents told the committee that continued assertions by Department of Justice Officials that guns were not knowingly “walked” and that DOJ tried to stop their transport to Mexico are clearly untruthful.  (p. 45-50)

Hanlon’s Razor doesn’t work here.  This isn’t stupid.  Stupid doesn’t last 15 months and survive the shock of realizing their operation might have killed a congresswoman. This must be intentional.  No one could be “giddy” about weapons they facilitated going to a drug cartel being used in murders.  No one stupid can want that.

The only thing that makes sense is that the ATF agents, supervisors, managers, US attorneys and attorney general and in all likelihood the president – who’s ultimately responsible for the DOJ – is that this was their intention.  Everyone who’s not a whistleblower is a willing accomplice in this mess.  I’m sure, much like the anti-gun groups mentioned at Snowflakes in Hell, they thought it was all for The Greater Good.

Consider this, from page 38 of the report:

Q. [S]omebody in management . . . used the terminology “scramble some eggs.”

A. Yes, sir.

Q. If you are going to make an omelette you have got to scramble some eggs. Do you remember the context of that?

A. Yes, sir. It was – there was a prevailing attitude amongst the group and outside of the group in the ATF chain of command, and that was the attitude. . . . I had heard that . . . sentiment from Special Agent [E] Special Agent [L], and Special Agent Voth. And the time referenced in the interview was, I want to say, in May as the GRIT team or gunrunner initiative team was coming out. I was having a conversation with Special Agent [L] about the case in which the conversation ended with me asking her are you prepared to go to a border agent’s funeral over this or a Cochise County deputy’s over this, because that’s going to happen. And the sentiment that was given back to me by both her, the group supervisor, was that . . . if you are going to make an omelette, you need to scramble some eggs.

So what’s the omelette?

That Greater Good of US citizen disarmament, and ultimately US citizen control, is one that the left has been dreaming about for a long time, and Operation Gunwalker just fueled the meme that “guns are bad, m’kay”.  It’s also a theme that the international left is a huge fan of.  The idea that free independent people should be allowed to arm themselves against tyrants is so repugnant to… well, leftist tyrants… that they’ve even supported genocide in order to further gun control.  (Even though the armed community was doing well a few years prior.)

And the idea that the US government wouldn’t murder US citizens for a progressive big-govt Greater Good was disproven decades ago.

The only thing that makes sense is that this was part of a greater operation to undermine US citizens rights and to achieve disarmament of free people by going “under the radar” and nudging the public into believing that US gun rights need to be curtailed, and government need more power over the citizenry.