Standing Guard Against Tyranny


Ted Cruz, who once described gun-control efforts as "a manifestation of an unabashed agenda to deprive law abiding citizens of our rights to keep and bear arms," was not impressed with Gabby Giffords' brief testimony yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  During the hearing, the freshman Texas senator contended gun safety measures would "restrain the liberties of law-abiding citizens" rather than those of criminals.

Chuck Grassley, the ranking member of the committee, was more colorful, maintaining (on page 5 of transcript)

The framers believed that these structures would adequately control the government so as to protect individual liberty. But the American people disagreed. They feared that the Constitution gave the federal government so much power that it could be tyrannical and violate individual rights. So the Bill of Rights was added.

Grassley went on to characterize Barack Obama as "the same president who exceeded his power under the Constitution to appoint recess appointments. So, no wonder millions of Americans fear that the president might take executive action and Congress may enact legislation that could lead to tyrannical federal government."

This man is hysterical, as he probably would be labeled if he were a woman.   Yet, today, Grassley's warning that "millions of Americans fear" the emergence of a "tyrannical federal government" may have been accurate as Fox News reports

The Alabama man police say shot and killed a school bus driver Tuesday in an attempt to kidnap a 5-year-old boy has been hunkered down for over 24 hours with the child in an underground bunker on his remote property, The Dothan Eagle, a local newspaper, reported.

An Alabama legislator says the boy has been able to receive medicine and watch TV.
State Rep. Steve Clouse said Wednesday he met with authorities and visited the family of the boy.
Clouse described the standoff as a "static situation" and "a waiting game."

Alabama State Trooper Charles Dysart told news media gathered near the site of the standoff late Wednesday that nothing in the situation has changed. He said no additional information would be released until Thursday morning.

The paper reported that neighbors in Midland City, which is in south Alabama, identified the suspect as Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65. Police have not officially released the suspect's identity.

Ted Cruz's "law-abiding citizen," who apparently has killed one person and taken another hostage, has been arrested three times: once in 1995 for a weapons charge, in 2000 for possession of a small amount of marijuana, and for a misdemeanor charge involving a gun, for which he was due to face trial yesterday.

Although the Fox description excluded the suspect's anti-government paranoia, Byrd seems to personify the individual whose rights Grassley believes the Second Amendment was designed to protect.  TPM notes

“His friends and his neighbors stated that he did not trust the government, that he was a Vietnam vet, and that he had PTSD,” Tim Byrd, chief investigator with the Dale County Sheriff’s Department, told The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch blog on Wednesday. “He was standoffish, didn’t socialize or have any contact with anybody. He was a survivalist type.”

You gotta love those law-abiding guys who "fear that the president might take executive action and Congress may enact legislation that could lead to tyrannical federal government."  Just standing up for their rights, apparently.



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