Posted on 01/19/2013 5:32:14 PM PST by Bratch
In 2008, the Anchorage Daily News ran this deck bellow the headline: “NO MORE GUNS: Alaska State Defense Force stripped of many powers.”
Irony knows no bounds when it comes to the Tea Party.
In 2008, Tea Party Queen and Shoot ‘Em Up and Hang ‘Em Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) disarmed brigade members of the Alaska State Defense Force (think volunteer militia) at the recommendation of the state military officials, based on a report by an investigator with the Washington National Guard.
(I)n a major decision proving unpopular with at least some of the force’s roughly 280 members, the state is taking away the brigade’s guns.
Yes, Sarah Palin, as executive of the state, took away their guns. And no, conservatives, you can’t have it both ways. Clearly they gave Sarah Palin the report and she took executive action on it (also known as “tyranny” when a Democrat does it).
“The report does not say Westall was a bad commander,” Campbell said. “The report says the state defense force, it’s a voluntary organization, it’s part time, it’s dedicated volunteers serving their state, but they don’t have the intensity of training, the skill sets the National Guard has.”
As a result, Campbell recommended to Gov. Sarah Palin that brigade members should no longer be armed.
The state also read a report on said militia, and yet the state was not accused of hating Republicans. Do not try this on a national level.
A report ordered by George W. Bush’s Department of Homeland Security warned of right wing domestic terrorism, writing that “the economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.” This caused massive right wing hysteria by the usual suspects. Michelle Malkin quickly donned her Republican Poutrage, and the Drudge and Breitbart followed with their angry misunderstandings of reality.
The report was unveiled in April of 2009, during the beginning of the Obama administration, and so naturally Republicans screamed and hollered about how it hurt their feelings to have a federal agency report the facts until the agency decided not to distribute the report to law enforcement. (No such whining when the same agency released a report on left wing terrorism.) This was before the Obama administration figured out that catering to crazy only enables it.
Sarah Palin has a reputation as a great gun freedom fighter of the Right (in spite of her struggles with actually shooting a gun on her reality TV show). The fact that she directed her administration to disarm the militia in 2008 and yet we heard nothing of this during the 2008 election suggests that disarming the militia is equated with “liberty” and “loving the second amendment” when a Republican does it.
When a Republican is in charge, the cult salivates at the use of dictatorial power. It’s a form of security for them, resulting in what psychologists describe as an urge to be dominated and controlled, stemming from their deeply shameful suspicion that they can’t control themselves.1
We must remember Sarah Palin’s affectionate relationship with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is sending out his civilian armed posse to patrol for “illegal immigrants” and to “protect” the schools. It’s a wonder Palin didn’t explain to him that in her own state, they found that “administering a part-time civilian force brings a high liability risk to the state.” Yes, really.
Why is that? Because they are not trained as well as the professionals. Go figure. This conclusion comes dangerously close to suggesting that education matters, gravity exists, there is such a thing as expertise and that not everyone should be armed with a gun. But outside of their own actual records, Republican exceptionalism demands that we attribute equal weight to non-exerts and arm chair wannabes, lest we be called “elitists”.
All you need to do in order to represent second amendment “freedom” is pose with guns and put cross hairs on your opponents. You can disarm the militia in your state without DESTROYING THE CONSTITUTION so long as you have an “R” after your name. Also, posing while leaning on the flag in short shorts helps (warning: do not try this as a Democrat or you will be branded a hater of the troops and an enemy of freedom).
If you have a “D” after your name, don’t you dare even mention enforcing the existing gun safety laws, or else the Tea Party (read: Civil War Resentment Party) will denounce you as a “dictator” and threaten to throw you in jail for violating their imaginary Constitution. You know, the one they would have written if only they had won that awful war of “Northern Aggression”.
Remember patriots, image is everything. Substance zero.
Update: This is for the Palin fans. The question is, what would the right’s reaction have been if this same scenario had happened under President Obama. With a title reading “NO MORE GUNS” they would have gone insane. They’ve already jumped the “tyrant Hitler” shark over 23 executive actions that do little more than direct gun safety commissions and enforce existing laws. Only two address limiting the availability of a category of gun or a magazine capacity. If Obama ordered Arpaio’s posse to be disarmed because they were a “liability”, would the right be defending that as they are Palin’s actions?
1. Note: These are real psychological theories on authoritarianism that are worth a look if you want to understand the consistent hypocrisy of the right. The conservative base can be seen as suffering from a desire to submit to an authoritarian who represents “traditional values”. The underlying theory is that the authoritarian personality has a weak ego unable to manage their id impulses. Alfred Adler proposed an alternative theory that power-over seekers are compensating for a feeling of inferiority, which might explain why Republican leaders are able to manipulate their base by stoking resentment of “liberal elitists”. Professor Bob Altemeyer expands on this theory in his book “The Authoritarians”. John W. Dean’s book, “Conservatives Without a Conscience” discusses the psychology of obedience to authority. For more on how the Republican fear that they can’t control themselves causes them to seek policies that impose rigid moral control, read “Red State Blue State”.
They really are scared of Sarah, aren’t they?
And they really are scared that the people will be alerted to Obama’s tyranny before it’s cemented.
Correct. To libs, having a right to something means lib constituents must be provided one of whatever it is from the public purse.
Well, I guess that's a correct statement. Course the fact the the moon could be "seen" to be made of green cheese doesn't mean that it IS made of green cheese.
She was their commander in chief. If she want’s to disarm them, as members of the units, when they are “on duty”, she can. She can’t disarm them of their private arms, even if the ones they were using for militia duty were privately owned. Seems like not the thing to do, but the story doesn’t seem to give the details of the reason for doing so.
Yup, yup, yup, remember all that stuff, but none of it's relevant to the actual question I posed (and which I tried to phrase in the most non-confrontational way possible) unless you think they're suddenly going to see the light and treat her decently the next time. Step off a bit, and if you'd like to try again to frame an actual answer to my actual question, please do so.
Thanks onyx for the clarification!
The founders assumed people in power would abuse that power without structured legal limitations on their power.
Both Republicans and Democrats have exceeded the power of the constitution and both parties have abused Americans because they were disloyal to the constitution.
The left/right stuff is nonsense when it comes to using and abusing power these days. I don’t know what has happened to the courts who were supposed to enforce the limits of the constitution upon Washington, but we may as well stop pretending, lay them off and save the money.
A decision to disband a state militia is not a violation of the constitution. A federal government disarming it’s citizens is a violation of the constitution.
It doesn’t matter who does it. The article is comparing a constitutional act with one that is not constitutional.
It's a diversion wrapped in a partial truth. She didn't "disarm" anyone. She stopped supplying state-owned weapons to them and changed the duty to one of not being armed. Like a judge deciding that the bailliff didn't need to be armed for his duties and then taking back the city-supplied weapons. The bailliff, as a private citizen can still own/bear arms...
What you essentially had was a semi-autonomous, almost rouge entity that was issued state- owned weapons. That situation would concern me, too.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In a lawsuit-lawyer’s lexicon, it’s called a “lottery of a lifetime.”
This is the author of the second story....if this is their sources then it’s truly a full-fledge frontal attack on many levels.
I’m picking up these type of anti-Palin stories all over now.
Award-winning writer and filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn’s best-selling The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power was published by Macmllan/St. Martin’s in May of 2011.
I had a serious case of Schadenfreude last year when the Romney people were all in a bind when the full force of the Obama/MSM/Pop culture machines were upon them. One of their lackeys wanted me to become a Facebook and “Twitter Warrior” for the cause. No effing way! They can go train and “Orca” to do their bidding.
Payback’s a bitch eh Willard? ;)
Well, that settles it then. As long as it was a decision made while she was CIC, then that makes everything AOK. The current administration is proud to follow this line of thinking, and thanks you for it.
The piece linked was written by a flaming lefty, that is without dispute. However, the ASDF had a purpose and in a region like Alaska, that purpose could have a huge impact. What was done was kneel the state before the feds and stated that "we will be reliant upon federal response during times of emergency". So much for that independent spirit and rugged individualism. The problems that existed within the ASDF could have been addressed and corrected without such drastic actions.
Ping
Who knows?
A democrat governor armed them after 9/11, Governor Palin disarmed them for liability reasons and a change of mission, and Governor Parnell wants to disband them entirely.
That is an awful lot going on during a 9 or 10 year period.
The founders feared a militia that might degenerate into an armed gang or that would take orders from a tyrant. “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” means that citizens needed to be armed to ensure that any militia was regulated and would not be used by the government against the people.
That is the first time I've seen it explained that way, and it makes so much sense. Militia themselves must be well-regulated by "the people," who have equal right to bear arms as those in the militia. "The people" are always on equal footing. Disarmed people are subjects to official government "militia" designees. People with as much right to bear arms as the militia in what ever form it takes, are guaranteed the ability to, perhaps, keep the militia honest.
Have I interpreted it correctly, do you think?
If so, it makes good sense in a way I'd not thought of before.
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