A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
-Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States

To start, I’d like to point out the wording of this particular Amendment.
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.“
There is no “unless.”
There is not “but only if”.
There is nothing wavering about that.
The right to keep and bear arms, under the Constitution of the United States, shall not be infringed.
Now, take the word “infringed” down to its bare bones. If the dictionary example I gave is to be trusted, it means that the right shall not be encroached upon or interfered with.
Take this down another notch, and basically what the Constitution is saying is that the right of the people to keep and bear arms won’t be messed with. Ever. At all.

I don’t know about you, but I see encroachment upon this right all the time. And yes, I am, to some extent, talking about Barack Obama who voted yes on an Illinois handgun ban, among other things. (Barack Obama on Gun Control)
Now, if you were curious and happened to click on that link (and if you weren’t if you could do so now,) scroll down roughly half the page to “Respect the Second Amendment.”
Now, notice the clause.
“But, local bans okay.”
Excuse me?
I encourage you to really think about what this is saying.
“Yeah, the Constitution’s okay, but I mean if the community doesn’t want it, they can go ahead and steal people’s liberty.”
This is like saying “Oh yeah, freedom of religion is fine for the Constitution, but if the Protestants in Maine don’t want Catholics around, they can go ahead and ban Catholicism.” Or, “Freedom of speech? Well, if the local governments find it dangerous, by all means, shut down the newspapers.”
The only reason this goes over at all is because guns are  dangerous.
Well, I have news for you…so are words.
And people are up in arms about freedom of speech on both sides of the aisle, because words aren’t physically dangerous.
Neither are guns, in and of themselves.
A gun sitting on the table won’t jump up and shoot you of its own accord.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for localism. I think it’s one of the better systems of managing the United States. And I’m all for States Rights…but not when the states infringe upon the people’s liberties as President Obama was suggesting. In my mind,what’s in the Constitution is in the Constitution. It’s the supreme law of the land. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

In all honesty, the Second Amendment was not written to protect you from home invasion. At least, not outright. It was written for an even grander purpose; to protect you from tyranny. Which is why the first thing any tyrant would do is restrict or ban your access to firearms.
It is for this purpose that you must always be wary of such legislation. Even hiding behind “enlightenment” and “progress,” gun bans have only one end; even bigger government.
An armed populace, after all, can (and will) revolt more readily than one without arms.
So think about this for a few seconds.
If a governmental leader, any leader, wants to stay in power, they need the support of the people. Say what you want about Hitler, but he was deadly intelligent. And he knew this better than just about anyone.
Look at all the people he had eating from his hand.
Therefore, if they have the wrong intentions and think they can silence the people, the first thing to go will be the weapons.
Can’t have militias to stand up to dictators, now, can we?
Oh, and another thing about Hitler?
He liked weapon restrictions, too.
Just saying.

And if the Amendment protects you from tyranny, what are you doing when you throw that right away?
You’re denouncing that protection. You’re inviting tyranny.

Not to mention that gun control is largely ineffective.
You can’t un-invent the gun. No matter how many times you try to ban it, it will still exist.
Destroy all records if you want, but just try to find and eliminate the people who know how to manufacture them.
The real records aren’t on any file; they’re stored in human memory.
And if guns exist, people will get a hold of them. It’s as simple as that.
I know in mentioning this that there will be people thinking “But many countries in Europe have banned guns, and gun violence has decreased!”
Well, yes. Because the sheeple citizens don’t have guns.
But what about knife violence? What about death by blunt weapons?
What about the criminals who do have guns, and the victims who are powerless to stop them?
You can kill a person with a toaster, if you want to, but you don’t see those being banned.

Personally?
As a female in a world where crimes against women are on the rise, I fully intend to own and carry a gun.
And I don’t relish the thought of being up against a world where only criminals have them.
(Speaking of women and guns, I read a quote somewhere that was something along the lines of “women promoting gun restrictions is like poultry promoting Colonel Sanders” Maybe I’m just bizarre, but I totally agreed.)

In closing, I apologize for the lack of professionalism in this post.
I know it has been a flurry of my own opinions and sentiments, but I hope at least something struck home and made sense. I said in my first real post that we all need to be passionate about politics all the time.
We need to be even more passionate about our rights, every minute of every day.
But even more so, we need to know our rights. It scares me that a lot of people don’t seem to.
Which is why I’m working on a post devoted entirely to the Bill of Rights.

…You’ll see that later, if you stick with me.

Interesting Pro-Gun Reading:

1.) Raging Against Self Defense: A Psychiatrist Examines the Anti-Gun Mentality by Sarah Thompson, M.D
2.) More Guns, Less Crime; An Interview with Author, John Lott
3.) Armed Females of America Which has a wealth of resources, organizations, and readings, the link to which I have provided.
4.) Views of our Founding Fathers (and others) on gun rights

And no, that isn’t meant to be arrogant or self-centered or any other label. It just is.
We’ve all heard it, because it’s all over the media. It’s in books, on television screens and plastered across magazines: the continual war against capitalism.

They damn it as selfish, they spit the word out as if it were venomous.
Capitalism.
And yet, no one seems to truly know what capitalism is.
The dictionary definition goes something like this: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
But the true definition would look more like this quote by Kenneth Minogue:
“Capitalism is what people do if you leave them alone.”

As a proud, self-proclaimed individualist and a libertarian, (about as far up as you can get on the Nolan chart, actually, and slightly to the right) it is this definition which sums up my feelings for economics…and just about everything else. When it comes down to it, we need to be individuals before we are anything else; you wouldn’t, for instance, be in your right mind if you had a child without knowing how to care for yourself first.
We are reasonable people here, after all.
Therefore, if you restrained from having a child to take care of until you could properly care for yourself, you wouldn’t go out and try to save the world until you knew what you were doing with your own body.
Would you?

The fact is, you don’t have to look far to find it. In the race of government vs. private operated, well…we all know who wins.
Let’s see…USPS, Social Service, Cash for Clunkers, the Fed…Even if we stray from organizations, private industries always win out.
I mean, let’s face it. Without competition, business everywhere flounders. If there’s no one to compete against (and nothing to compete for) nothing gets done.

Let’s see, if I can think up one nightmare…
Okay. Here goes.
So.
A company (let’s call it Pear) takes over everything. Everything. Cell phones, music players, laptops, desktops, and everything that goes with them.
Pear does not build its products to last.
However, this does not effect the price. The laptops will still cost about 1200 dollars per computer. This means that every few years, if  you want a new computer, it will cost 1200 dollars. And this does not include any extras you purchase for that computer. 1200 dollars for the machine itself. So, every…let’s say four…every four years or so, you’re paying 1200 dollars for a computer….and then for the extras. If you bought your first computer at age fourteen, you would have to pay for your next computer by eighteen. About the time you’d be planning to head off to college. So on top of tuition, meal plans, residency bills and book bills, you would have to fork over another 1200 dollars for a computer on which to write your papers, keep track of your grades, and communicate with friends and family far away. Now, this computer has changed minimally over the past four years. Maybe Pear updated its word processing. So writing your paper won’t be quite as time consuming as it was before. But all the other little flaws remain.

So, your (hopefully) four years of college pass smoothly. And, once again, it’s time to buy a new computer…your old one has totally kicked the bucket. Now, not having a computer isn’t an option. Assume you’re entering a work force in which you need a computer. So, you pay yet another 1200 dollars for a computer that still hasn’t changed in any real way.
That’s $3600 by the time you’re 22 just for a new computer every four years. This isn’t counting, as I said, school bills, groceries, Christmas presents for mom and dad, etc.
And this isn’t just for computers. In this imaginary little world, you’re stuck with the same issue on all fronts.
Your phone, your music player, your home computer, your laptop, gaming systems; it’s the same deal. A lot of money for a product which has not changed in years.

Now, a few years later (you’re 30 and have paid 6000 dollars total only for computers) an entrepreneur begins her own business manufacturing and selling computers. She starts out small, but the product is good: solid, basic computers that have fewer flaws than Pear’s, last longer, and cost less. As word spreads, this new business gains in size and popularity.
As would be expected, Pear all but has a heart-attack and finally (finally) they begin to make progress.
The new company matches or betters them, and the process starts again.
Now, consumers have choice. If Pear customers are no longer satisfied with Pear’s service, they can switch to the New Company or vice-versa. And then, inspired by the success of The New Company, other business begin to sprout up, offering even more competition.

Remember, these businesses are competing for you and your money. So as this competition increases, so does quality…but prices decrease. For instance, two laptops. Both are of the same quality, offer the same services, have the same features, last the same amount of time, and look very similar. The difference? One costs 1,000 dollars while another is 600.  Which one would you purchase?

So the rundown:
Government run = Bad
Monopoly = Bad
Privately owned = Good
Competition = Good

And this is all very basic. There’s far more to capitalism than this.
I’m also no expert, so feel free to call me on errors.
But, think of it this way; capitalism is the only economic system that encourages competition. And competition is the only way you’ll find companies offering good-quality products at lower prices.
So who wins, here?
You do.

Capitalism is not your enemy; it is your friend.

Up Next:
I lied. It might not be taxes.
If it is, the promise to make it interesting still stands.
I just realized there’s still a lot of other issues I should write about before I tackle taxes.
Or, to be perfectly open, flat tax, which I really like the look of.
Anyway, to be perfectly honest, I don’t know what I’m going to write about next.
The only way you’ll know is to stay with me… ; )

I don’t mean anything against public-school teachers, and by no means do I think that all children (or adults) educated by the public school system are moronic idiots who don’t deserve a job.
I have relatives who work as teachers, and friends in public school.
And, of course, I understand that not all public schools are the same and that not every teacher is planning on indoctrinating their students.

However, the fact is, by and large, public schools are failing our students. They’ve gone from a means of education to a means of government indoctrination.
Fearmongering? No. I promise you, this is truly what public schools have become. As a survivor of nine long, terrible years, I can tell you this for a fact.
After all, when you think about it, every single person who works at a public school works for the government.
They’re being paid by the government.
Is it really any surprise that the government is therefore factoring in the opinion-forming process of our students?
And do we really want an America in which every student can spout off the doctrines of the government, but couldn’t point out Arkansas on a map?
History is failing; children are fed “facts” from biased, incompetent textbooks which present American history as benign.
Foreign Languages are weak at best, with most schools employing a loose, fill-in-the-gap curriculum which teaches the basics of grammar and vocabulary, though not much else.
But failing most of all?
Mathematics.

Older generations lament the critical condition of mental math abilities; they point out time and time again the fact that most young people need to use the calculator function on their cellphones to check their change or dole out a tip.  With bizarre new programs coming into play, including Everyday Math which stresses the use of calculators in order to solve math problems. In many schools (including my former elementary school) these new systems are employed without consideration for students without a basis on this form of math. While the incoming grades begin with Everyday Math, older students are left at a loss in trying to muddle their way through a program so different from the one they are used to.

Everyday Math encourages students to solve math problems by any means necessary…including the use of calculators and counting blocks in place of pencil-and-paper formulas.
As a student who attended a school which implemented everyday math, there are a few things I should relate to you.
1.) By sixth grade, I still could not do basic multiplication without the help of a table.
2.) I saw fractions only once: in second grade. The next time they came up, I was a freshman at my independent high school which (unsurprisingly) had kept to “old” math. Needless to say, I was at a complete loss.
3.) I couldn’t tell you any of the math I learned between third and eighth grade.
4.) I am guilty of using the calculator function on my cellphone to add up prices and tax on purchases because I cannot do it in my head.
5.) I dread the basic, simple things math is supposed to teach, like handing out change.

If these are the results of teaching simple math, I don’t want to know what the economy is going to look like, soon enough. Not unless some really brilliant math teachers step up and above the system.

And I’m not a slacker. I’ve kept up steady As and Bs throughout my school career. I can’t (and don’t want to) imagine the dust that has settled in the brains of the slackers.

Which, of course, leads to my next topic: Public schools are erasing the individual.
The students who slack off are rarely called out. Students who excel are rarely lauded.
All in the name of “equality.”
In some schools, educators even do away with the concept of private property. Shiny new pencils and notebooks and bright new crayons are taken from the children and put in a communal box.
These supplies are now for the use of everybody in the classroom. No one owns them; not anymore.
What we have to remember, here, is that public schools are entirely in the hands of the government in a way that the nation is not.
If this is the way they run an institution owned by themselves, we should take notice. Eradicating the indavidual and erasing the rights to property on government-owned territory should tell us one thing: if they could, this is the way in which they would run our nation.

And this is not to mention the out-and-out neglect which our government-run schools inflict on children with learning disabilities. Obstacles such as dyslexia are often ignored until the child no longer believes they can learn, thinking themselves stupid. Even once such a thing is discovered, it often is not handled. If the child is lucky, they will receive extended time in which to take their tests. Through battling with school boards, the parent might score a laptop and learning program with which the child may work. This appalling neglect of children with such workable conditions should infuriate you.
These are bright children with a condition that could easily be remedied or worked around. And they are being taught to hate themselves, and to hate learning. They are being taught, even if not in an outright fashion, that any work they put into their education goes to waste.
This does not bode well for the child’s career later in life.

Neal Boortz says it best in his book Somebody’s Gotta Say It.

“Child abuse is neither always obvious nor intentional. The most rampant form of child abuse in this country is not only legal, but committed routinely. It is the act of taking what arguably is, or should be, the most precious things in your life – your children – and places them in the hands of the government.”

In the end, this is exactly what you are doing with your children when you send them to public schools: placing them in the hands of the government. When you put your children in public schools, you no longer have any real say in what they learn, or from whom. You have no say in how they learn. In short, you’ve lost all control of your children’s minds. Don’t believe me?
Ask students simple questions. Ask them about American history, math, or basic concepts of grammar.
Most likely, they won’t be able to answer without a struggle.
Many public schools seem to be teaching children government principles above fact. They teach children to expect nothing but the same.
Ask a child what they want to be when they grow up. Odds are, it has something to do with education, medicine, or public service.
There isn’t anything wrong with this when it comes to the individual. But if children aren’t thinking outside the box on something as abstract as future careers…?
You do the math.

I could go on even further than this. I could ramble on about teacher’s unions, about the horrific hypocrisy and tyranny in the government of school boards, which closes their eyes and ears to the concerns of parents.
But I’ll leave that up to you.
You’re a thinking person, capable of drawing such conclusions for yourself.
Check out a book from the library.
Lies My Teacher Told Me, for example.
Talk to local, publicly educated children.
The results may shock you.

Founded by Jared Fuller and Christopher David Pille, Year of Youth is a movement dedicated to liberty, localism, political and economic freedom. Its Executive Board consists of many experienced liberty activists, many of whom founded their own branches of Young Americans for Liberty and liberty-based newspapers, college groups, a complete array of impressive action. Its core team, too holds an impressive number of young liberty activists.

The cause of Year of Youth?
To revolutionize our government, to restore it to the parameters of the Constitution, without firing a single shot…a war fought on the battlefield of ideas.

The purpose is to take government down a peg or two, to knock the politicians from their high horses and return them to the Constitution, which seems to have been battered and bruised throughout the years. And it will all come to a high point on November 5, 2012.
This is Project 2012: to elect to office a candidate who will not make it their goal to “stay the course,” but to change course, to find American government as it was meant to be. Benjamin Franklin once called this great nation “A republic…if you can keep it.”
And this is is exactly what the Year of Youth strives to do; keep our republic. If the youth aren’t keepers of the republic, then I pose one question: Who is? Who else will restore and strengthen it, if not the youth?

Since hearing of YOY, I’ve heard many times from youtube and facebook comments, the lament that this movement is wasted on the youth. That the youth of the nation is nothing but apathetic trouble. They couldn’t be more mistaken.
We are the future. Those of us who cannot yet vote will be there at the next election. We have the potential to swing this government in an about face. And we will.
I can promise you that.
We are strong, we are determined, and we have the greatest cause I can think of: the future of our beautiful nation.

To learn more (and I highly encourage you do so) visit www.yearofyouth.org
There’s hope in the future, and it’s Nov. 5, 2012. Will you be there?

More YOY? You got it!

Revolution’s Eve: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJQ_lE6UL1o

The Youth Revolution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_adrf-qKwQ

The Youth Revolution (Extended): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1qk5s4Ea8U&feature=channel

If you “don’t care” about politics, you’re throwing away a whole lot more than you understand, possibly including every single one of your causes.
We all have causes: Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Gay Marriage, Animal Rights…the list goes on and on. But these causes are dominated by one thing: politics.
At the top, they have nothing to do with society, economics, or religion. They have everything to do with the politics of the situations.
I would never deny that society, the economy, and religion (or lack thereof) drive such causes. But at the root, the drivers of the causes will get nowhere unless they crack into policy and dive headlong into a sea of bureaucracy and politicians, ready to fight their way through.

Apathy gets us nowhere.
Wait. Strike that. It DOES get us somewhere…right to bondage.
Bondage. Slavery. Total dependence on (what else?) government.
This is the only place apathy will lead us, and it is a dark, dank situation. You need only to read any Ayn Rand book to understand the depth of such a situation; I’d recommend Anthem for newcomers to the world of Rand. (The Rush song, Anthem, is a good choice of music, as well.)

“But,” you might say, “Apathy isn’t really that big a problem! Look at this past election! Look at how much people care about Obama!”
People always seem to care more than they usually do around election time. This past one, perhaps, lifted people’s interests a little more than the last ones. With no chance of a returning president, both parties went wild in campaigning. The media had a field day tearing apart some politicians and lauding others. Everyone, from school children to the very old, became involved in some way. The election was everything, or seemed to be.
And then the election was over…but not the media spree.
In fact, the amount of attention given to politics after the election ended lasted an astoundingly long time. And maybe the shadows of this attention still last, especially in light of the health-care bill controversy.

But the fact is, we’re still in a kind of post-election limbo. It hasn’t even been quite a year yet since Obama took office. And I’m already noticing a slip of interest.
There was a brief spark of good old American “fight your hardest for something you believe in,” but it was only a quick spark…we’re slipping back into dim apathy as people begin to put up mental blocks to protect themselves against opinions they don’t agree with.

The brutal truth?
We need to be as interested in politics all the time as we were when the elections were underway.
Why? Because without passionate interest, nothing will ever change. We’ll always be stuck in a static political limbo of “stay the course,” which no one in their right minds wants. Staying the course means more debt, more taxes, more useless initiatives.
In other words, more of the same.

So, if people are so apathetic, where’s the light at the end of the tunnel?
You’ll see.
And it starts in the same place most think of as the source of the problem.

Every. Single. One.

They bid for attention on all fields: art, sports, politics, mindless gossip, news, music, and literature. This blog is no exception.

Yes, I am bidding for your attention. But I wouldn’t dare to generalize it.

I am bidding for your attention. For your eyes, your mind, your precious time.

I am bidding for five minutes of your focus.
But, I am bidding for a good cause: the cause of American liberty, which never dies unless the support from its people withers.

I am afraid it is sorely in danger, and has been for a long time. Every freedom we hold dear hangs in the balance, and it is time to stop letting it teeter on the edge. It’s time to take back our rights endowed to us by the Constitution. That beautiful document which started the most perfect government this world had yet seen: the American Republic.

It is in the first Amendment of this Constitution from which my Username takes its inspiration.
Licentia Liquendi: Freedom of speech.
1791, the year this Amendment was ratified in the Constitution of the United States.
It’s time I use my most powerful weapons and my greatest allies in this battle for liberty: my words. I am taking advantage of my beloved right to free speech in order to, I hope, give some support to the amazing theme of American history: liberty.
Such is the sole heart and focus of this blog. I hope I can do it justice.

Yes, I am female. Just so you’re aware or didn’t catch the blog title.

I tend to consider myself a conservative libertarian, but I try not to limit my views to any one frame of thought.

I am a core team member of a brilliant, brilliant group called Year of Youth, and I thank my lucky stars it exists. Check out YOY and Project 2012 at www.yearofyouth.org and prepare to be blown away.
(More on this fantastic movement later. It deserves all the attention I can give it.)

I’ve held an interest in politics ever since I knew what it was. Namely, the Bush/Kerry election, which was when I first started paying attention. I’ve been (perhaps unwillingly) captivated ever since.

My real passion for the topic of politics, however, really erupted after a trip to D.C, during which a friend told me I’d make a good politician.
Light-bulb moment.

You knew this was coming:
Jefferson? He’s my hero. I think the man was spot-on with most everything he wrote.

Ayn Rand fits somewhere up there on the list of heroes, as well.

I am unabashedly  Christian (Catholic, to be more precise) and, yes, it does influence the way I think about politics. You’ll see more of that later. I promise it isn’t nauseating.

I really, really, really do not like Obama. And I didn’t much like McCain either. Sarah Palin, however, I find quite interesting.

I support our troops; I think they’re all heroes. I do not support the war on Iraq. However, I understand the necessity to tie up loose ends, and respect the decisions made by the generals and other commanding officers. I think we need to remember that they’re the only ones who really know what they’re doing in the face of current events.

I’ve been writing since I was first able to hold a pen. Recently, I’ve considered putting this to work as a speechwriter or political columnist.
I think this blog is a fine start.

I enjoy debating. Feel free to start one with me.

I take my rights seriously. Every single one of them.

All of my opinions are carefully formed. I’ve thought about each one of them to the point of exhaustion. Every idea, every quote, every opinion has roots in research and careful thought. I don’t tend to make snap decisions or to be the victim of unfounded and rapidly changing views.

And perhaps the most important fact about me?

I believe that the United States of America is the best country on this earth with no exceptions. Yes, it has its problems. Just like any other nation. But, in my mind, the benefits outweigh all else.