Talkin’ Liberty is the segment of Liberty Nation Radio where Tim Donner and Scott D. Cosenza focus on a few of the week’s stories affecting our liberty that deserve a little more attention or may have been overlooked in part or whole. This is from latest episode where we discuss John Paul Stevens pushing repeal of the Second Amendment, Stormy Daniels, and a big win for free-range kids. You can listen to the show here.
Tim: Justice John Paul Stevens ignited quite the firestorm. We've talked about it on the show already-
Scott: Let me, let me just stop you there and say blessedly, Tim, former Justice John Paul Stevens. He's no longer-
Tim: But he still holds the title, he's still called Mr. Justice-
Scott: I just want to make the point, thankfully.
Tim: Right okay, yes. He's not sitting on the court now but he has shockingly called for the outright repeal of the Second Amendment, going further than any Leftist had been willing to admit they want to go. This happened earlier in the week so some of the fallout from it is interesting, Scott.
There was a piece in the Washington Post by Aaron Blake entitled, "John Paul Steven's Supremely Unhelpful Call to Repeal the Second Amendment" in which he points out that 40% of Democrats want to repeal the Second Amendment. But what he writes is, "This will confirm plenty of pre-existing beliefs about what Democrats actually want." Sort of like he's saying, "No, no, no, don't, don't tell them we want this! Because then they'll know what our true aim is." But what I want you to focus on is in this teachable moment is, suppose there was a legitimate move to repeal the Second Amendment. How would it be done?
Scott: Well this presumably is legitimate so let's say that and I too share the joy of others in the pro gun-rights area that find it so refreshing that Stevens and so many of these young people haven't bought into the lie that they need to conceal their true goals and are happy to come out and say “We want to take all the guns, give us an inch we'll take a mile.” And, I think it's a great thing for the gun right's movement that we can see ... You know, I'm happy to have the mask pulled back on those and this is something that we've been saying forever which is that this is their goal. They want to eliminate civilian firearms ownership. So, that said, here's how they would do it, okay?
Repealing an Amendment is the same as passing an Amendment. It's the identical thing. We did it once before. It was the 21st that revoked the 18th or the 20th-
Tim: For prohibition.
Scott: The only Amendment to the Constitution that restricted Americans’ rights is the one where Americans rose up and said, "Pull it from the Constitution," right? We had an Amendment that said the government could restrict our rights to alcohol and then Americans wizened up and said, "What did we do to ourselves? Let's get it out." So, hopefully they don't do the opposite here, which is amend the Constitution again to make it less restrictive or rather-
Tim: More restrictive.
Scott: Yes, yes. To make our liberty reduced. And increase government power. That's what it would be. You have to have a Supermajority vote in both Houses of Congress, 66% of each chamber and then get 38 state's legislatures to ratify the amendment and that's how it would become an amendment. Now that's the standard process, the only process that's ever been used. There's another process authorized in the Constitution, which is that 34 states would have to convene a Constitutional Convention and then they could pass ratification. Again 38 states would then have to pass it. So, that one has never been used, so we think that, that's probably not even likely to be a factor here.
Tim: The process could go either way. It could start at the Federal level and then go to the states or it could start at the state level-
Scott: Yes.
Tim: ... And then it would go to the Federal government.
Scott: And starting in the Congress is the typical, most likely path. So, starting in the Congress just like a bill, but a bill that requires the supermajority of both Houses. And if there were, for instance, a single word difference well then you'd have a conference committee to rectify that difference and then again a 66% vote in both Houses. So, no small matter just to get out of the Congress not to mention that all those states then have to pass the identical legislation as an amendment. So that's how it would become law.
Tim: In the last segment, I asked the question and you get to answer it if you have one, when else in the history of the world has a people risen up and demanded the renunciation of their own rights rather than demanding their own rights? They want to give back the rights that were fought for in the First and Second Amendment, which it seems to me are pretty important since they're the First and Second Amendments of the Bill of Rights.
Scott: Yes.
Tim: Has it ever happened before?
Scott: I… nothing springs to mind. I would say to you Tim and to everyone else out there that this is what happens when you have government schools that are able to take kids from the time they're just becoming fully formed humans and indoctrinate them into the supremacy of the state and a contempt for their own liberty. It's… these are the wages of that effort.
Tim: It's almost as if they're teaching self-loathing. Loathing of who they are, what their culture is, where they come from, their own history. But let's not go off into a larger metaphysical discussion. Instead, let's move on to and I say this reluctantly, Stormy Daniels.
Scott: Yes.
Tim: A judge has paused her request to depose Trump and Mr. Cohen who made the payment of $130,000 to keep her quiet I guess. And most people now Scott, think that she's suing Trump for having sex with her, but that's not exactly the case now is it.
Scott: No. No. Much to everybody's chagrin, you can't sue Donald Trump for having sex with you apparently. Now-
Tim: They may find some women-
Scott: Many of the headlines I thought were misleading and sort of teased the notion that there may have been some allegation of nonconsensual contact or something like that. Nothing of the case has been presented by Ms. Daniels. She's suing Donald Trump ... Well it's interesting. The last time we spoke about this I guess it was on the podcast, The Uprising, I was reluctant to kind of indict her attorney Michael Avenatti, but since that time my further investigation into their claims leads me to believe that Mr. Avenatti's sole purpose in bringing this action was to get Donald Trump into a deposition that he could then use to either frustrate or embarrass him. Or the bonus round is get him to commit an act of perjury.
Tim: Perjury trap.
Scott: Exactly. So that's what I think this is about. But in any case, how they get to that perjury trap is that they have alleged that the agreement that Ms. Daniels signed, that was a confidentiality agreement for which she received $130,000, that she wouldn't talk about or disclose any of the facts regarding her relationship with Donald Trump and anything that she learned about during that relationship, and destroy all records pertaining to that relationship. Because he never signed that agreement, because they don't have a signed copy of that agreement from him, that the agreement itself could be made void and her obligations then under the agreement to keep quiet for instance, would not be in place.
This is from her perspective, Tim. It seems quite clearl she got $130,000 and now she realizes that with the current state of things, she could make many, many multiples of that $130,000. So for her it's just a financial decision. If she can get out of this agreement, she could make a ton of dough. I think for Mr. Avenatti it is, "I can be a hero" and maybe get the President thrown out of office if I can get him in a lie under oath.
Tim: And the free gift is she gets the publicity and she gets to try and take down Trump. Which of course, she's been open with, she's been welcomed with open arms in a way that ... We earlier in the show I played a sound clip of Paula Jones talking about how she was treated with contempt and made fun of and ridiculed by the mainstream media. James Carville talking about waving a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park and coming up with Paula Jones.
Scott: Sure.
Tim: And in this case, it's actually the reverse isn't it? That they're ridiculing Trump and they're projecting Stormy Daniels as somehow being a legitimate figure.
Scott: And just so we're clear on the history for everybody to remember. Hillary was in charge of that campaign to denigrate and besmirch the victims of Bill Clinton's sexual assaults through the Arkansas employees. And let's recall, just in case you didn't mention it, Paula Jones was a state of Arkansas employee. She was not an adult film actress in a late night hotel room with him, right?
Tim: And Hillary's, I mean Hillary's performance in beating down and discrediting these people who came forward against her husband might be the thing that she did best of all her time in Washington, D.C.
Scott: She was ruthless certainly. Ruthless efficiency at cutting down these women victims, yeah. These survivors of Bill Clinton's sexual assaults.
Tim: Perhaps a hint of what she would have been like had she become the President of the United States. But let's not go there.
Scott: We weren't scared for her lack of competency in her chosen endeavor, right?
Tim: That was not really one of the critiques against her.
Scott: Right. Certainly not.
Tim: Not one of the many critiques. Alright. Utah passing a law to let free range kids play. Utah's kids now free to do what many people associate with childhood play at a park, or walk or bike to school. Scott, how is the fact that they're allowed to do this even a story?
Scott: Okay. This time I think is a great story. We talk a lot about events and things impacting liberty that effect maybe a minority of people with car searches and things like that all the time. They're vitally important and that's why I do bring them to the table and want to talk about them. But, sort of not an everyday situation for most people. This is, for lots of people and it involves these places that try to prosecute parents when they let their kids go walk to the park by themselves. That kind of a thing which is happening more and more in America because we have these kids who are never outside of adult's custody and supervision.
Lenore Skenazy is the name of a woman who lives in Manhattan. She made headlines years ago in 2008 when she wrote an essay talking about letting her kid take the train home from an event. He'd been on that train a million times, the subway train, a million times with her and she knew he was fine doing it, but it was like this big hurdle to get over to do it. And all these people were talking about how irresponsible it was. Well, Utah legislator decided that we're not going to leave it to the hands of the bureaucracy to decide whether or not a parent who knows what they're doing, who's a competent person can let their kids walk to the park or not. They passed a law. It's now legal in Utah, under the law, that this is not neglect. And hopefully we'll see more states follow suit and let freedom ring.
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