Saturday, January 18, 2014

Naming ATF Headquarters After Eliot Ness Might Actually Be Appropriate

To summarize, Ness didn't get his man, he had questionable morals, he probably was an alcoholic, he covered up a crime, he couldn't manage his money, and he was prone to wild exaggeration about his accomplishments. When you look at that summary of Ness' life and career, who better to represent the modern day ATF?

4 comments:

SWIFT said...

John Richardson got one thing right; attorneys, scientists and investigators at ATF don't want any recognition, but not for the reasons he thinks. The fewer paper trails to them, is career enhancing. After all, what serial liar and known hair ball, wants to stand up to be acknowledged?

Anonymous said...

I prefer to call it "the thing that should not be".

The 18th amendment was an OPEN ADMISSION that the government of republican form simply didn't have the authority over spirit imbibing, production or possession (sales / purchase included). The repeal of this authority delegated in the 18th is also an OPEN ADMISSION that said authority was expressly withheld from government.
Alcohol? It's a individual liberty - period.

Tobacco? Well, aside from the fact government was never authorized to own that product everywhere and thus "allow" or "disallow" it's possession, there is that little "FDA" move that's already been made. So it's out of the hands of "ATF" from more than one direction.

Firearms?
Hmmmm.
The vast majority of gun control is based on two fallacies. First, 99% of that legislation was passed and implemented under the guise that keeping and bearing were NOT individual fundamental RIGHTS protected by constitutional limitation and that it was then not enforceable against federal local and state governments. IOW, it was all crafted prior to the Heller McDonald combination. Simply put - that 99% WILL NOT AND CAN NOT stand up to testing its muster (even with the problematic Doctrine of Selective Incorporation as the "guideline").

So no, it should not be renamed.
It should - and must- be dissolved. This because it is indeed "the thing that should not be".

FedUp said...

Anon: drugs and alcohol aren't civil rights, they are simply beyond the federal authority (absent a change in the Constitution like the 18A).

You're mostly right. The 18th was an open admission that nothing in the rest of the Constitution gave fedgov the authority to ban ethanol.

Anonymous said...

Fed up - aren't civil rights? Interesting statement in need of clarification. While not enumerated specifically like arms, I point to the plain words of the ninth amendment and their intention that just because of a lack of specific enumeration- rights exist regardless. This produces a situation where government must then provide the authority it has - as in demonstrate what authority it's exercising- in banning a substance.

Let's admit, together, that, as declared,the purpose of government is to protect individual exercise of individual liberty rather than micro manage exercise via prohibition and mandate.

I submit to you that the word "civil" in relation to "rights" has been bastardized to now mean government allowed permission (to jive with the bastardization of the word privilege).

I agree with what you said but I'm confused as to what you portend makes me mistaken to some degree. It seems you leave open the authority to "regulate" something or anything beyond production. Maybe I misread you and that's not your intent but rather you sliced it down to more direct. I'm unsure about which but would lean toward the latter in my understanding of other comments you've made here.

That leads me back to the "civil rights " thing. On that note, I'll submit that this country simply MUST have a serious discussion about what "civil" ACTUALLY means. For if it means "government allowed" we don't have any "rights" at all ( from the perspective of government).

Ask yourself why debt, immigration and even the doctrine of selective incorporation are seemingly unsolvable and uber complicated problems. Heck, throw in the usurpers eligibility too. All of it - our discussion about "civil" included, comes down to 14 th amendment admission. The solutions to all of them rest in admitting that "allowance" and "permission" (civil) cannot possibly be reality but that rights have to exist no matter what gubmint and it's operators want.

For when admissions are made of this caliber the "commerce" canard falls asunder. With economic freedom restored, the ATF USDA DEA heck the majority of the alphabet agencies are exposed as things that should not be.

I really do think the political class knows this and that's why everything is "racist" today. That's used as a shield to avoid admitting any of it. All held under the cloak of "civil rights" as if blacks can only be "free" if the "allowance " crap continues.

I guess I'll ask you this to see which way to go from here.
What exactly do you mean when you say "civil rights"?