There is no doubt that were an American-born Jihadi stupid enough to perform an act of butchery in public, he would not have left the scene alive as Michael Adebolajo, the butcher from Woolwich, did. US police would have arrived on the scene quickly and that would be it.

As was observed in “Disarmed Brits Can Only Shoot Savage … With A Camera,” there is a lot to be said for “an armed citizenry and an unarmed police force.” Although permitted to bear arms, Americans are nevertheless severely limited in how vigorously they can defend their homes and lives without incurring the wrath of the law.

However, since the US police is not unarmed, as it is in the UK, our homegrown Jihadis are a little more circumspect about carving up a countryman in public, a la Adebolajo. They are still perfectly comfortable setting off remote-controlled explosions.

A day after “Disarmed Brits Can Only Shoot Savage … With A Camera” went up on WND, The Daily Caller asked, “Why did British bystanders watch a soldier get hacked to death?

The DC answered its rhetorical question with a list of regulations imposed in the UK which would prohibit any form of self-defense.

According to the United Kingdom government website, the online storehouse of British government regulations, it is illegal to:
sell a knife of any kind (including cutlery and kitchen knives) to anyone under 18
carry a knife in public without good reason – unless it’s a knife with a folding blade 3 inches long (7.62 cm) or less, eg a Swiss Army knife
carry, buy or sell any type of banned knife
use any knife in a threatening way (even a legal knife, such as a Swiss Army knife)
Folding knives, regardless of blade size, with a locking mechanism are illegal in the U.K. for carry in public and are referred to as “lock knives.” According to British law, “The maximum penalty for an adult carrying a knife is 4 years in prison and a fine of £5,000.”
Pepper spray is also illegal under section 5(1)(b) of the Firearms Act 1968, which prohibits “any weapon of whatever description designed or adapted for the discharge of any noxious liquid, gas or other thing.”
It is illegal to import pepper spray or a stun gun because British law expressly states that pepper spray and stun guns are classified as firearms. Blow guns are classified as “offensive weapons” and are prohibited to own, except for veterinarians or registered animal handlers.

The DC neglected to mention that the US also has “bewilderingly complex, startlingly severe” “State and local knife-control laws.”

There can be no doubt that an American is better off than a Brit in as much as he can defend himself in public if he abides by strict laws—rules which do not impede criminals (not that this fact would penetrate Piers Morgan’s skull).

An Englishman attempting the same is pretty much doomed. If the criminal does not get the better of the Brit, the long arm of the law surely will.

It is the habit on the Memorial Day weekend to thank uniformed men for their sacrifice. My sympathies go out to Americans who fight phantoms in far-flung destinations. I’m sorry they’ve been snookered into living, dying and killing for a lie. But I cannot honor that lie, or those who give their lives for it, and take the lives of others in America’s many recreational wars. I mourn for them, as I have from day one, but I can’t honor them.

I am sorry for those who’ve enlisted thinking they’d fight for their countrymen and were subjected to one backdoor draft after another in the cause of illegal, unjust wars and assorted informal attacks. My heart hurts for you, but I won’t worship at Moloch’s feet to make you feel better.

I honor those sad, sad draftees to Vietnam and to WW II. The first valiant batch had no option; the same goes for the last, which fought a just war. I grew up in Israel, so I honor those men who stopped Arab armies from overrunning our homes. In 1973, we came especially close to annihilation.

I can legitimately claim to know of flesh-and-blood heroes who fought so that I could emerge from the bomb shelter (in the wars of 67 and 73) and proceed with my kid life. I always stood in their honor and wept when the sirens wailed once a year. Every Israeli stops on that day, wherever he is, and stands still in remembrance. We would have died or been overrun by Arabs if not for those brave men who defended the homeland, and not some far-away imperial project.

But can we Americans, in 2013, make such a claim? Can we truly claim that someone killed an Iraqi or Afghani or a Libyan so that we can … do what? Remind me?

“What I learned growing up in a war-torn region is that a brave nation fights because it must; a cowardly one fights because it can.”

UPDATED (5/26): GIVE GOVERNMENT A LEG, RIDE WITH DUBYUH. Thomas DiLorenzo nails it:

That’s how emailer John D. describes the Marc Levin (“The Grate One”) radio show Friday night during which he “played nationalistic and patriotic music nonstop” during the third hour, motivating “a weeping veteran” to call in to say “thank you for all you do, Mark.” One envisions a “weeping veteran” who lost both legs or an arm or two in Iraq calling in to thank the neocon propagandist/shill for the military-industrial complex for making it all possible. It’s kind of like those old pictures of legless veterans with their new iron “legs” jogging with President Dub-Yuh and smiling away at the “honor”he bestowed on them.
Get ready for all the chubby chickenhawk neocons like Levin and Limbaugh, who never even tried on a military uniform, to produce an explosion of war propaganda tomorrow.

UPDATE II: “For The Love of A Brother-In-Arms, And ‘Big Brother’ Be Damned.” Robert Glisson was once asked by myself to write an op-ed for Barely A Blog about the “Patriot Guard Riders.” I prefaced his op-ed—which I entitled “For The Love of A Brother-In-Arms, And ‘Big Brother’ Be Damned”—with this comment: “I do not identify with the military mission, but who can fault the humanity of the effort?”

It’s a shame Robert failed to remember the distinction when engaging with boorish warmongers on my Facebook Timeline.

UPDATE III: DITTOHEAD DAY. The military is still a government job; a career path with huge risks. How fast the so-called small government types forget this immutable truth. From the appropriately titled “Your Government’s Jihadi Protection Program” (which the military has become):

“When Republicans and conservatives cavil about the gargantuan growth of government, they target the state’s welfare apparatus and spare its war machine. Unbeknown to these factions, the military is government. The military works like government; is financed like government, and sports many of the same inherent malignancies of government. Like government, it must be kept small. Conservative can’t coherently preach against the evils of big government, while excluding the military mammoth.”—ILANA (“Your Government’s Jihadi Protection Program.”)

UPDATE IV: IF YOU DON’T GET THIS; YOU’RE FOR THE MILITARY, BUT NOT FOR LIBERTY. From “Classical Liberalism And State Schemes”:

We have a solemn [negative] duty not to violate the rights of foreigners everywhere to life, liberty, and property. But we have no duty to uphold their rights. Why? Because (supposedly) upholding the negative rights of the world’s citizens involves compromising the negative liberties of Americans—their lives, liberties, and livelihoods. The classical liberal government’s duty is to its own citizens, first.
“philanthropic” wars are transfer programs—the quintessential big-government projects, if you will. The warfare state, like the welfare state, is thus inimical to the classical liberal creed. Therefore, government’s duties in the classical liberal tradition are negative, not positive; to protect freedoms, not to plan projects. As I’ve written, “In a free society, the ‘vision thing’ is left to private individuals; civil servants are kept on a tight leash, because free people understand that a ‘visionary’ bureaucrat is a voracious one and that the grander the government (‘great purposes’ in Bush Babble), the poorer and less free the people.”

The British traitor class is every bit as good at betraying the public’s trust as its American equivalent. Thanks to the traitor class, British taxpayers came close to funding and facilitating the murder of butchered soldier Drummer Lee Rigby.

Spy agencies have come under scrutiny after uncorroborated allegations by a friend of Adebolajo on Friday that intelligence officers tried to recruit him six months ago.
Asked whether the security services had contacted the men, Home Secretary (interior minister) Theresa May told the BBC: “Their job is about gathering intelligence. They do that from a variety of sources and they will do that in a variety of ways. And yes, they will approach individuals from time to time.”
A source close to the investigation told Reuters this week that both suspects were known to the MI5 domestic security service. However, neither was thought to pose a serious threat.

Adebolajo “was arrested with a group of five others trying to travel to Somalia to join militant group al Shabaab.”

Also via Reuters comes the news that “Kenya’s anti-terrorism police” had arrested Michael Adebolajo, the butcher from Woolwich, in November 2010, and deported him to Britain (his home, after all, because, although Dr. Putnam has confirmed that diversity immiserates—utterly—it is nevertheless to be enforced as a strength. Or so claims the traitor class).

Thanks to the same traitors were Americans, likewise, indirectly forced to fund and facilitate the bombing of the Boston Marathon, on April 15, a fact that demonstrated yet again that, “Uncle Sam’s stool pigeons … move swiftly and ruthlessly against law-abiding, patriotic nationals and newcomers (a mission the TSA takes very seriously), but not against the people’s natural enemies. … To no avail did Russian state security twice practically beg the FBI and then the CIA, in 2011, to place Tamerlan Tsarnaev on counterterrorism watch lists. It was pointless. The FBI turned the Russians down (as the Transportation Security Administration intensified its assaults on grandpa and grandma from the prairie).”

“Most people would define treason as a betrayal of one’s country or sovereign. In my book, the book of natural law, treason is properly defined as a betrayal of one’s countrymen—and, in particular, the betrayal of the individual’s right to life, liberty and property (to your question, yes, this renders almost all politicians traitors by definition).”

(From “The Peerless Malevolence of Redcoat Piers Morgan.”)

CNN, as you know, often veers into the business of shaping the news, rather than simply reporting it. It does so both by commission and by omission.

Thus has CNN steered clear of the scandals that have enveloped The Beloved, Barack Hussein Obama.

Over the past few days you were able to relive the manhunt for Bin Laden and the Boston bombers; watch the neurotic network doctor hype his latest health scare, hear about the collapse of a bridge in Skagit County, in my neck of the woods, learn of a baby born during the tornado; cry to “Emotional Stories of Survival,” “Examine Sexual Assault in the Military,” marvel at the audacity of Jodi Arias, hackers, but never BHO.

Look at the “CNN Transcripts for the entire day of May 24, 2013” (a service I appreciate). Buried in the links is a small notice, “IRS Non-Profit Chief Placed On Leave.” I was unable to find a fleshed-out report.

The “CNN Transcripts for May 23, 2013” are not much better.

Finally today, May 25, the network editorial board must have determined that it was time to mentions that “the Justice Department’s decision to seek a warrant to search a FOX News reporter’s private e-mail went all the way to the top. A Justice official tells CNN that Attorney General Eric Holder vetted the application himself and then the application was approved by a federal magistrate.”

CNN was likely shamed into news reportage by MSNBC, which is generally the worst offender, but seemed to have decided that indicting a journalist for doing his job was where passing the buck for Obama would stop, at least for a now.

Never know when the guy will sic his zealots on me.