Posted on 12/29/2010 8:00:50 PM PST by NewJerseyJoe
The news media wasted no time in attempting to portray New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as a darling of the National Rifle Association after he commuted the sentence of Brian Aitken.
<snip>
On the pro-gun right, some were espousing the theory that Christie’s commutation was a strategic move to set up a legal challenge to the overly restrictive nature of New Jersey’s gun laws. Both the anti-gun left and the pro-gun right seem to believe that Aitken’s commutation was a shrewdly calculated move to win favor for the governor in Southern and Western states in the event that he jumps into the 2012 Republican presidential primaries.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
He is a strong advocate for the Constitution with the exception of the Second Amendment ... oh well. All in or nothing.
He has been clear on this subject. He is not our friend on this issue. I don’t know why bloggers get so upset that he keeps his word on this issue.
Yeah, it sucks, but he warned us, unlike most politicians.
At the end of the day I am afraid that Christie is just going to be another big bag of hot air bringing attention and glory to self!
No political leader is going to agree with me on everything.
Christie has his hands full with his state’s financial mess, and I wish him success.
>No political leader is going to agree with me on everything.
You got that right.
In fact people on this site will disagree with my sentiment regarding things like DOD, Air Force, NASA and Active Army: Eliminate them.
The DOD has lost accountability of TRILLIONS of dollars; that’s not “oh, we put it into ultra uber top secret projects” that’s LOST as it “it disappeared;” that level of mismanagement demands that agency be disbanded. If **absolutely** necessary then recharter a new agency to fill the old’s role. (In addition, the DOD [and the rouge Army Air Corps known as the Air Force] and NASA are NOT a constitutionally chartered organization as the Army and Navy are.)
As for the active army; the founders never intended for the US to have a standing army, as evidenced by the 2-year limit on ALL congressional funding for the army. In fact, prior to WWII the US had NO standing/active army.
If NASA and the DOD *REALLY ARE* necessary then the Constitution could be amended to explicitly charter them.
Then there is the possibility that Christie’s action was a rational response to one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice ever, regardless of its connection to guns.
Christie is the best possible governor that anyone in New Jersey could expect. He is not Presidential material without a Damascus 2AMD conversion.
“At the end of the day I am afraid that Christie is just going to be another big bag of hot air bringing attention and glory to self!”
He has already proven to be much more than that.
Chris Christie is an object lesson in the merits of voting for a moderate Republican when the alternative is an ultra-Liberal Rat. Chris is far from perfect, but he’s sooo much better than Corzine.
Agreed. He’s great for NJ bu if some Freeper starts mouthing that this assbag is “presidential”, the truth is finally coming out is that he’s a “Youtube Governor”.
Who was fighting Indians and maintaining order in the West?
What were our dads and grandfathers enlisting in before WWII?
I didn’t say there wasn’t an Army, I said there wasn’t an Active/Standing Army.
The likes of the Western Frontier were quite likely two-year-at-a-time funding-chunks by Congress [like today] for the SPECIFIC PURPOSE of “[calling forth the Militia] to execute the Laws of the Union” [as per Art 1, sec 8] AND/OR “The United States shall [...] protect each of them [States of the Union] against Invasion” [Art 4, Sec 4] either of which would be QUITE unlike the general-funding of today.
To be very technical there should exist NO federal army that is not specifically raised [and funded] and commissioned for a certain task like, for example, upholding Art. 4, Sec. 4 by enforcing the Mexico / CA, NV, AZ, NM, TX borders with heavy use of “interlocking fields of fire.” This “world police” crap we are currently running would, I think, utterly disgust the founding fathers; though, perhaps not as much as the militarization of our police forces would.
The WWI and even WWII armies were raised and trained virtually simultaneously. I’ve read that the amazing thing about the start of WWII was that the almost the entirety of the pre-war army WAS merely the training apparatus for the WWII fighting-troops.
Also of interest are those historians who contend that the US won WWI precisely because we were not fighting the then-yesterday’s war but training for the war-as-presented [that is, trench-warfare]. This fits with several of “Murphy’s Laws of Combat” one of which reads something like “Professional soldiers are predictable; the world is full of amateurs.” Which if you consider Iraq and the losses over the period of time we’ve been there it has been a working display of this ‘law.’
You are correct about the funding, but it was still a standing/active military, those were regular GIs and career soldiers fighting Indians, and career soldier Black Jack Pershing was there in WWI, as was career soldier Patton, both graduates of West Point. How would you train soldiers today that need years of training, and how would you handle nuclear missiles and forward bases and prepositioned materials and fueling bases that are needed for survival today?
When the enemy bombers, nuclear missiles, submarines, and carriers are all doing their thing, and their paratroopers and troop transports are hitting our shores only hours after leaving their own nations, it is too late to put together a military machine to save your selves in this modern world.
But the founders were very clear, they feared a "standing army" as they new that once removed from the hands of "the people" it could be a tool used by a tyrannical government to subjugate its people, that is why they almost always referenced citizen militia's when talking about the DEFENSE of the states and the new Federal State.
Completely correct... But the sheeple just keep their heads down and continue to graze while being led to the slaughter.
>How would you train soldiers today that need years of training, and how would you handle nuclear missiles and forward bases and prepositioned materials and fueling bases that are needed for survival today?
That’s actually the easy part: make such assignments rotate among the various state National Guards.
This benefits two ways: it keeps such posts manned AND it keeps trained personnel in-practice.
>When the enemy bombers, nuclear missiles, submarines, and carriers are all doing their thing, and their paratroopers and troop transports are hitting our shores only hours after leaving their own nations, it is too late to put together a military machine to save your selves in this modern world.
And yet the reason Japan never invaded mainland America was summed up in this quote:
“You cannot invade the mainland United States.
There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.”
— Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Japanese Navy)
I believe that an armed & trained population is actually a better than a standing army; further, a LOT of what you describe can/should be interdicted by the NAVY which IS authorized to be ‘standing.’ There is a story that shortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was the guest of the Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: “You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?” The soldier replied: “We will shoot twice and go home.”
There is a completely different mentality between a people who have a standing army, and how it is used, and a people who ARE the militia. One of which is that a militia-only people will be much less eager to tromp around the world looking for wars, this is because THEY will be the ones shooting and getting shot at. Secondly they do not have the illusion that “the army will protect us” they have first and foremost in their mind [regarding defense] that they ARE the defense and it is up to them to protect themselves.
There is also the distinct possibility that our Army will be used against us Citizens; the existence of the Oathkeepers is proof that this is AT LEAST possible. I think the realization, while late in coming, is a good thing: America is NOT immune to “It can’t happen here” thoughts and complacency.
You keep going back to almost ancient times, WWII was 65 years ago, do you think that a rifle behind every tree kept the USSR from taking over the world and eventually stopped them, and ended their conquest/domination of the planet, do you want to offer that as the answer to China of 20 years in the future, do you think that America would even survive such a childlike isolation, do we even want to live in fortress America as the enemy shapes the world in military, trade, alliances and conquest, until they have us cut off isolated, and with no options left except to die in place as we fight to the death and destroy our own families, cities, culture, infrastructure, peoples and nation, and lose anyway to an enemy that already owns and occupies Mexico, and Canada, and Hawaii, and Alaska?
As far as the National Guard, I was in a high speed Special Operations Guard Unit, you cannot keep a large number of such time consuming units manned, because they are closer to active duty in required devotion and training time, in other words, they are not 2 days a month, 2 weeks a year and only localized training, for one thing they require a lot of foreign and domestic travel. You don’t just “rotate” military specialties from different units, to different units either.
We had militias then, we have militias now, we had a professional military then, we have one now.
What about our standing Navy and Air Force, are they part of this disarmament?
You assume that I would intend to keep the “one weekend a month and two weeks a year” schedule in effect.
As for the “childlike isolation” argument I have to counter that if we wish our government to keep their dicks out of our affairs it behooves us to be much the same on the international scene: keep our dicks out of other’s business.
Cuba is a good example of how America absolutely fucked things up internationally by playing “Big Brother” to Cuba and basically alienated them by refusing to allow them to “sink or swim” on their own; that was probably the biggest reason that Cuba became communist. Our current troubles in Afghanistan are EXACTLY traceable to our own foreign policy from years ago: when we pledged to support them in rebelling against Russian rule/invasion we embellished [to the point of deception, IMO] what our support would be and they had heavy losses because they overplayed it relying/hoping on [active] American involvement that never really materialized.
As a Country America lies: to its citizens (Social Security will be optional, there aren’t any death panels or rationing in Obamacare); to its allies; to everyone... and then we have the audacity to think that “America is great”? If America was truly about Truth and Justice, then yes America IS Great — but America is not about that, at least not right now. Right-now right-now America is about spending far more than it makes, it is about pushing around those smaller and weaker (look at the difference between tax ‘misunderstandings’ WRT Rangle vs. Andrew Stack or David Koresh*), it is about “Because we can” and not “Because it is RIGHT.”
The American people are, I think, fed up with the law being applied one-sidedly; as if being a politician or bureaucrat immunizes you from having to follow the law that everyone else has to follow. (Or using such immunity laws to, in effect, get around having to comply with the Constitution.) I believe THAT is the reason that the turnover rate against incumbents this past election was so great; will it make a difference? I do not know; certainly if we “go back to sleep” it will not.
*The whole Waco incident started over a TAX DISPUTE, which should have been settled in civil court (the government claiming things weren’t proper, Koresh claiming that he had the proper licensing and paid the proper taxes); it ended up being justified/spun that Koresh and his group were a bunch of perverts: as if being a pervert [and possibly violating some OTHER law] nullifies your rights to trial and defense...
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