"Cowering In The Ditch"
The Sage of Sipsey Street reacts to this post:
I posted this at AP's and I'll post it here:
Your (AP's and like-minded friends) ideological purity is commendable. Reminds me of some communists and the dialectic I once knew. I suppose I could have taken that position, but then no one would have heard about Gunwalker then, would they?
We all come to the Road to Damascus by different ways. Condemning people you do not know because they are not as far down that road, or entered by a different byway is, well, there's a word for it.
I stand by every word I wrote about Dodson, and all the ones I will write when I am able to say more.
Just remember that Dodson has struck a mightier blow against the domestic enemies of the Constitution than you or I, or anybody else has in decades.
Despise him if you will. Suspect him if you will. You still cannot take that away from him.
But, by all means, as is your right you may spit on his boots as he strides by you, cowering in the ditch, taking the fight to our common enemy. There's a word for that too.
Mike Vanderboegh
III
Speaks for itself, it does.
But the version of the Damascene Conversion that I learned had Saul actually leaving the He-Man Christian Killer's Klub prior to his beatification.
I wonder what David Olofson thinks.
Or Vicki Weaver.
posted by Concerned American | 11:32 AM
26 Comments:
Do we really think the corrupt slave masters will change because a house slave ratted out his other house slaves?
Typical slave think....
Ornellicus
Why don't you ask David Olofson what he thinks about Gunwalker? You'll get a damned different answer than you think.
Again, how are we supposed to win without oath keepers AND how are we supposed to recruit them when we spit on the first one who shows up?
Mike:
Ask your informant if he will still go on unconstitutional gun raids as a Federal agent.
He is still on the BATFE payroll, right?
CIs are part of the game.
Beatification of a guy who is still getting checks from the Gestapo and who came forth not at the beginning but in the middle is the issue.
You should know better.
And "cowering in the ditch", Mike?
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Get a grip.
Don't forget Waco survivors and families. Also the 80% of the ffl's that have been forced out of business, some beaten, homes trashed, and some killed in the process. Yes I'm glad he came forward but must question why, in what way were his own toes stepped on? What is his agenda? Truth and justice is certainly not on the top of the list. How many citizens has he personally screwed in some way? Is the Nuremberg defense of "just doing my job" acceptable now? Should his boots be licked instead of spat upon? Maybe neither.
I have a different perspective on Gunwalker, the details of which are not relevant except for the Chasing Sparklies aspect.
I am damned proud to know men like AP who will not tongue kiss the first ATF Agent or other Government slug who decides to use a Patriot and the Patriot Movement for personal gain because it is an expedient means to a CYA end.
Fact: These whistleblowers came forward for their own reasons - none of which were Constitutionally motivated or had to do with a sudden desire to respect the Second Amendment.
Fact: These ATF Agents are still pulling a paycheck and, as pointed out by AP, CA and others, will kick in a door and send an American to prison for a
2A "Violation" in a heartbeat.
Fact: These ATF Agents have been violating 2A and other Rights for their entire careers.
Fact: These Agents will likely end up being promoted within ATF or will land at a sister agency and continue their careers of violating the innate Rights of Americans.
Fact: ATF was in line for a 13% budget cut, and now their budget has been restored with an increase.
I am not going to condemn the act of getting the Gunwalker info out there. It helps the Liberty Movement to have a legitimate example of misdeed and bad judgment against our Masters.
But, FreeFor needs to understand when they are being played and avoid the urge to get kissy-face with kitten-stompers and Patriot murderers.
The biggest scandal since Watergate...not so much.
Cowering in ditches...not so much.
Resist!
Now!
Kerodin
III
Dutchman,
How do you figure he is an oath keeper? Living up to your oath 2% of the time, and acting against it the other 98% doesn't make you an oath keeper. It makes you a criminal and a traitor.
If he renounced every un-Constitutional thing that he and his employer did, that would be one thing. But whistle-blowing just one event, and not the others is self-serving at the very least. He can still win full favor amongst our crowd. He just has to continue doing the right thing.
Win oath keepers over, or recruit them?? If they are already a true damn oath keeper, we don't need to recruit them or win them over to our side. They would already be here. Ridiculous logic.
Further more, do you think anything patriots do are going to win over a significant number of jack boots to our cause? When the enemy surrenders, do we take them in and expect them to fight for us? Of course not. They showed their allegiance, and will have to answer for it.
"how are we supposed to win without oath keepers" — The objective reality is every BATFE agent swore to "support and defend" the Constitution then spends a career betraying that oath, violating the Second Amendment, and ruining the lives of his or her fellow Americans if they merely peaceably exercise an unalienable individual liberty. The BATFE agents going public with Project Gunrunner aren't "oath keepers"; they're simply engaged in bickering with their bosses as to the timing of when to make arrests. If you disparage moral behavior as "ideological purity" then that's a sad reflection upon yourself.
Pentagon employee, Larry Franklin, gave sensitive information to two members of AIPAC for several months and even years, despite agreeing to wear a wire and meeting with the two repeatedly to gather evidence, he went to jail for felony espionage.
It's unlikely that we'll be able to arrest and charge Dodson, I would if that chance presents itself.
Dodson can lessen his "sentence" by providing evidence of all the false raids, fraudulent charges, and testi-lying he's done and that done by others.
CA speaks truth.
Is Vanderboegh getting pissy again?
Splitter!
We're the Popular Front of Judea!
*sigh* I'm having 1995 deja vu with all this.
This grieves my heart having broken bread with the both of you.
If once a statist/commie/thug means always a statist/commie/thug applies then what does that make the Dutchman?
He's living, breathing proof an old dog can learn new tricks.
"how are we supposed to win without oath keepers"
Liberty is not a goal that can be achieved by converting a majority. The majority doesn't want liberty and never wanted liberty; that's part of why we don't have liberty now. Liberty will be achieved when the minority of libertarians can defend their property from looters, no matter who or where the looters are.
"how are we supposed to recruit [Oath Keepers] when we spit on the first one who shows up?"
A crisis of conscience is different than a voter switching to a leading horse in a winner-takes-all majority vote race. You don't "recruit" people to have a crisis of conscience, you receive them when they come crawling to you after the horror of their actions becomes apparent to them. You try to forgive them if they are making a sincere effort to repent and to help clean up the damage they've done. General Smedley Butler is one of the all-time great examples of an Oath Keeper. Deserving of being spit on is the proper mindset for any jackboot who is repenting from the belief that prior restraint on RKBA can be good.
"Oath Keeper" was not claimed to be merely the party faction nickname at the top of a Republican ballot form. Are you telling me it is?
ScottJ just gave the definitive answer IMHO.
This whole ATF-DHS-IRS-Whatever mess is not going to be dismantled
over night. Throwing people who are willing to come forward about abuse under the bus is not going to help.
This has to be fought on multiple levels.
Rigid Black-White thinking, while commendable in one sense, is not practical.
Nobody is throwing anybody under the bus. The objection is to the idea that whistleblowers are Good Guys, as opposed to allies-of-convenience. Yes the guy did a very good thing, putting his career on the line. Rewarding and honoring him for that as though he had never done anything wrong at all demeans and diminishes those who actually never did.
Folks:
Let me be clear.
Intel operations/investigations often depend on informants.
Informants are part of the game.
No one has said anything negative about Gunwalker as an operation, despite MBV's harumphing in the second comment above.
Where the problem arises is where the handler (be it policeman, prosecutor, or thin-skinned old woman) "falls in love" with the informant and/or the case.
"Falling in love" is a metaphor (obviously) for the handler's loss of objectivity in his informant's veracity or other bona fides, or, even more dangerously, in the importance of the case to the exclusion of all other concerns.
That is why I was taught, more than 20 years ago when I started to work informant cases both as a trial prosecutor and an investigative prosecutor, the iron laws of informants:
1) Never, ever trust a rat.
2) Use the rat for all you can get, then send the rat to jail
What happened here is that Mike published his sloppy-kisses love letter to Agent Dodson, and Arctic Patriot published a cautionary balancing piece in response.
I published both here with a neutral editorial posture, noting that:
Timing can sometimes be the only difference between an accomplice, a brave man, and a cynical opportunist.
You make the call.
At that point, the Sage of Sipsey Street became unhinged and spewed at those who would question his received wisdom, ending:
...But, by all means, as is your right you may spit on his boots as he strides by you, cowering in the ditch, taking the fight to our common enemy. There's a word for that too.
Hence the title of this post - "Cowering In The Ditch".
(continued)
(continued) By referring to those who question his positions and statements as ditch-cowerers, Mike has modeled the behavior of a handler who has lost objectivity not only about his rat, but also the importance of his work in Gunwalker versus the larger picture.
Attempts to get Mike to understand his error via private correspondence have proven unavailing.
'Tis a pity.
As to the questions raised in the comments above, I fully get the concept of redemption following bad behavior. In fact, as a recovering
- alcoholic/drug addict,
- drug prosecutor, and
- lifelong Republican,
I have at least as much experience in both the hard work of recovery and the receipt of grace as most.
But let me ask you this:
A) If I was decrying the injustice of America's drug laws while still taking the pay and having the authority to incarcerate people in state prison for sale or possession of trivial amounts of narcotics, would those facts bear on my motives and credibility?
B) If Mike were still an operative of the Communist Party while speaking out for freedom and individual rights, would those facts bear on his motives and credibility?
C) If Saul of Tarses were still a member of the He-Man Christian Persecutin' and Killin' Klub while preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ, would those facts bear on his motives and credibility?
Agent Dodson, for all of his courage and character in speaking out in Gunwalker, is still a member of a patently-unconstitutional Federal agency that has an abysmal track record of murders, assaults, and other egregious conduct. The fact that he still is an agent directly bears on his motives and credibility, whether
or not certain patriot leaders care to admit same.
As for Mike, the fellow I knew was working on a novel which involved righteous resistance to BATFE and other government abuses.
Mike these days write paeans to BATFE agents while urging us to accept the ongoing existence of these thugs and their agency.
That change truly is a pity.
Good luck, friends.
We're gonna need it.
And now C.A. this post has given any ATF employee that may be ready to blow the whistle another reason to keep their yap shut.
Many employees of the BATFE got the job without any knowledge of what they were getting into.
Most gun owners will never even have contact with an ATF employee.
A non gun owner would have even less of a chance of knowing what they are getting into.
Many people would not realize the ATF commits these acts of treason until or after they had become involved. You could easily "go on unconstitutional gun raids as a Federal agent" and not find out about the unconstitutionality until long after.
The ATF does enforce some good old fashioned Malum in se law mostly related to stolen property.
So it would be easy to find yourself up to your neck in ATF misdeeds not prepared and not sure what to do.
A.P.'s ideological purity has now given them pause as to how they will be treated should they want to do the right thing.
This Ideological purity will cost us the ATF employee that risks it all and warns a potential victim of a raid. Just to bring up one small possible righteous act.
And how about an individual whom chooses to penetrate the ATF on his own to expose wrongdoing?
Well they can expect to be shot by the likes of A.P.
This just cost us some help we could have used.
A.P.'s ideological purity will unnecessarily cost someone their life.
Does anyone think the ATF is going away anytime soon?
I find it hard to counter some of the arguements put forth and maybe Mike V. did go to far with his Paens of praise.
The leviathan that is the FBI was a small organization in the late 20s? whose agents were not allowed to carry sidearms. Hoover and the Congress (Prohibition) and the Depression transformed them into what they are today. Does anyone think the FBI is just going to go away?
If the best we can do presently is to get better oversight into the ATF's activities is that not a good thing?
Man, we can bite and devour one another better than any other group on the planet. I do not have an answer for that.
Hopefully everyone will take a step back and settle down.
For the first time ever? we have the bastards back on their heels.
We need to keep pushing.
Happy D:
Here's the text at issue:
Amendment II
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.
Anyone who joins any Federal/state/local law enforcement agency should know the bedrock law of the land, ja?
If you can, show me where in the Constitution there is any authority for a Federal police agency, let alone one whose entire reason for being is to infringe on an enumerated right of the people.
I don't think you can.
ATF agents are coming forward so that they don't have to do things that trouble their consciences. That is a good thing, but it is nowhere near enough.
Agent Dodson did a good and brave thing. But he is still an agent in an agency whose existence is not Constitutionally authorized.
Under the system of government America purports to have, if the government is not empowered to do something, it cannot do it.
Period.
You either believe in Constitutionally-limited government or you do not.
If that is "ideological purity", so be it.
Thanks for your comment.
Anon at 1:36:
No one is saying that the Gunwalker investigative team should not keep pushing.
What I and others have said is:
1) Don't confuse an agent acting in self-interest with a truly good guy, and
2) Don't lose sight of the actual goal line when you are in the midst of a run.
You might just score for the other team if you're not careful.
Thanks for your comment.
"Anyone who joins any Federal/state/local law enforcement agency should know the bedrock law of the land, ja?"
So sorry even the modern BATFE is not wholly dedicated to only unconstitutional laws.
Remember what I posted "The ATF does enforce some good old fashioned Malum in se law mostly related to stolen property." Add to that some other types of property crime arson and so on.
"show me where in the Constitution there is any authority for a Federal police agency,"
ARTICLE I SECTION 8
"let alone one whose entire reason for being is to infringe on an enumerated right of the people."
I guess I was mistaken when I first wandered onto this page a couple years back in the notion that one of the points here at WRSA was to get rid of that agency not help it hang on.
Make no mistake in this. AP and your own ideological purity in these posts have helped the internal security of the BATFE. (No place for a good, repentant or converted ATF employee to go.)
I would let every ATF traitor go free and unharmed to get rid of that organization, the so called laws it enforces, and free their victims.
If you want to pursue an L. Neil Smith type revenge agenda instead of achieve the eradication of the BATFE and the anti-constitutional laws and regulations it enforces then do not be surprised if you fail to be rid of that agency.
My goal is liberty and restoration of Constitutional government in that order.
What is yours?
Anonymous at:March 9, 2011 1:36 PM said. "Does anyone think the ATF is going away anytime soon?"
Yes! And it could happen faster than you would believe is possible.
The BATFE loses in lower courts all the time. They do not pursue these cases into higher courts because.
Some of these losses had they happened in a higher court would have been game over for the BATFE over vast regions of the country.
Some of these cases would have done damage to the BATFE if the party involved had not taken a plea deal. Or if the gun part of the case had been the main crime instead of the murder, tax evasion or whatever.
Or if the lawyer had been aware of other case law or competent in the National Firearms Act.
A judge that is not a liberal/progressive judicial activist or just follows judicial precedent and/or case law can and has done damage to the ATF.
Even the liberal/progressive judicial activists occasionally will not let the ATF get away with it.
That is why they are so careful about where the court they charge NFA cases is, and who the judge is.
The case that does in the ATF doesn't even have to involve guns.
It could just be a small technological innovation that does them in. (I am aware of four that have the potential to do this.)
Betting on the ATF's long or short term survival would be a risky bet indeed.
A great number of people alive today will see the end of the BATFE. Even omitting the possibility of a civil war.
Happy D:
Where specifically in Art I Sec 8?
As to the malum in se crimes, are you saying that an unconstitutional second-amendment-infringing federal law enforcement agency is required to enforce those laws?
As to your final comment, from your lips to God's ears...
I would never have thought that I would have to explain to you how to understand the constitution like I am dealing with a member of the Brady campaign.
If we read the constitution like you are trying to then we can’t have any arms without the kind of “well regulated” male Bovine biologically reduced alfalfa the Brady bunch wants.
For someone who claims “20 years ago when I started to work informant cases both as a trial prosecutor and an investigative prosecutor,” your law education seems to have skipped more than a little law and a lot of history, legal and common.
So first obtain a dictionary from about 1787 to understand common use of the language at the time. Second obtain a Black's Law Dictionary older would be better. You might be able to find electronic versions of these online free.
Remember grammar and spelling has changed chuse may mean chose or choose for example.
Article 1 Section 8 The general powers of congress under which the Revenue Cutter Service, was founded on August 4, 1790 later to become the U.S. Coast Guard.
The U.S. Marshals Service the oldest law enforcement agency of the federal government in the United States created by the first U.S. Congress in the Judiciary Act of 1789 though technically the Marshal service has origins older than the Constitution. Was organized and administered under Article 1 Section 8 by some of the people who had participated in the writing of the constitution. (I guess they had no idea how the government they had made the constitution of was to function.)
So Article 1 Section 8 is the specific answer to your question! Read all of it.
So sorry the BATFE is not in and of itself unconstitutional. Some of the laws and regulations it enforces are. The enforcement of the Malum in se law in question could be and is often done by many organizations. In federal law it is done primarily by the BATFE. There is a reason in law for that though the FBI, Marshals, or so on could be empowered by congress to do it instead.
Were the unconstitutional laws and regulations all struck down tonight, the bad agents imprisoned the agency would still exist with very little to do and fewer people to do it.
All of it within the powers granted to the federal government by the constitution.
The agency would still have been formed in good faith with the Constitution its subsequent operation is another matter. A matter that is not wholly in violation of the Constitution or laws of these United States.
If we were to take your “ideological purity” to its inevitable logical conclusion U.S. law would be enforced by the Army or the Militia, as it was. The Posse Comitatus Act is not in the constitution. Or by your apparent “ideological purity” standards allowed to be law.
The kind of “police brutality” that is endlessly complained about on this and related blogs was standard operating procedure against all races until about sixty years ago those of the wrong race receiving the worst of it most and more often but not exclusively.
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