Art of Conservatism---Apple Vs. the Federal Government: Weighing In

All right, already! Enough on the Apple vs. the Federal Government! C'mon, kids---this is not rocket science!

First, let's get the prelims out of the way. I am a geek. I've known tech stuff all my life. And, not only am I the proud owner of both an iPhone and an iPad, I was able to gift my lovely Kathy with an iPhone 5S to match mine, and she is a happy camper for it. So, we as a couple are solid Apple customers. However, back when we purchased the iPhones and iPad last year, our choice didn't revolve around the product security. Sure, it played a role, but it with the incredible plethora of apps available for both these products which sold me on the product. Well, mostly. The iPad was a gift from said lovely Kathy, and she is as impressed with the iPhone and iPad as am I. 

 

But, as I said, at least at the outset, the security features of the Apple products were of lesser importance at the time. I'm sure the same was true for most other iPhone/iPad owners as well. I'll bet that that's not so true anymore. Given this brew-ha-ha going on today with Apple and the DOJ, I have even more of a reason to love my iThings than before.

Having said all that, let's cut to the chase. We all know the story: The FBI has an iPhone which was seized from the effects of a dead terrorist, Sayed What's-His-Name. W-H-N didn't own that phone; it belonged, and still belongs to, his now-former employer, the County of San Bernadino, California. The FBI wants to know what information is in that iPhone. They need it for intelligence-gathering. To do that, they need to get past the iPhone 5C's security setup, so they can learn from the phone what the evil ones are/were up to. I get that. I'm in favor of them getting that intelligence, from that phone.

As to Apple, the phone is of their design, obviously. The thing is a computer that thinks it's a phone. It's totally software dependent. And the Rule of Software is, you can do anything as long as you do it in software. That includes bypassing the iPhone's meticulously-developed security system.

The problem is that Apple wants to do it in-house---their house. They want to install an alternate operating system (in the version 9.0 iOS area) which allows the phone to be unlocked by software which will try each four- or six-digit code combination, one at a time, but very fast. 10,000 of those codes for a 4-digit code. That way, that phone and only that phone will be accessible to the Feds. Apple would simply dig out the right security code to unlock the phone, revert it back to the current iOS, hand the phone back to the FBI and say, “Here, go play”.

For their part, the FBI wants to do it on their own, in their house. They are demanding that Apple hand to them the software to unlock the phone, and keep it in their house. They're now in Federal court seeking for force Apple to comply.

Now, which entity would you trust to have the keys to every iPhone ever made?? Well???? Why, Apple, of course!! The Cupertino Crew prides itself on keeping its products ultimately secure. In normal circumstances, they can't unlock your phone or pad to get at the informational goodies inside, either. They have to invent this key from the ground up. And this is not software that should get into the wrong hands..... any hands! Would you trust the government with this sort of power (and that's exactly what it is!) over your personal lives or information?? Apple prides itself on maintaining its customers privacy rights (which its competitors also are, or should be doing). The incident has become a legal, but not a public relations, nightmare for them. I believe that their stand on this issue is the proper one, and (obviously) I side with them.

The government, for its part, is treating this situation as if they were a bunch of petulant, tantrum-throwing three-year-olds, which, in my view, they are. Their demand for the private property of Apple (which their security system is--intellectual properly) when there is an alternate solution to their problem, one which works for all concerned—Apple, the government, and Apple's customers---and should be implemented in the Apple has offered, not the way the government demands. By now, it should be clear to anyone who cares that the government has no clue as to what the safeguarding of secrets, or that matter, information of any kind, is about. One more point: This is the living epitome of the saying, “I love my Country: I fear my government.” With the government that's in power at the time I write this, I can't help but hope that the it gets a good smack-down from the Federal judge who hears this case.

As I've said before, if it's not the way to bet, it certainly is the way to pray.

Before we leave the subject, there is one thing to add regarding Apple. As I mentioned earlier, the iPhone which was in the hand of the terrorist, who likely used it, at least in part, for evil purposes. But it was owned by his employer, San Bernardino Country, California. The iPhone's iOS is a vast thing, and for industrial owners who buy them for use by employees on business, there are safeguards built-in, available to the phone owner, which will allow the implementing a number of restrictions to the user as well as access 'doors' for the owner. For one thing, the owner has the ability to make sure that the password for the phone or pad cannot be changed, no matter what. The ability to change the access code by the user would be deleted.

The thing is, it is highly unlikely that the customer, in this case a local governmental entity, even knew that such controls and safeguards existed. The IT department at San Bernadino County certainly didn't. My point is that, to prevent this situation from happening in the future, every customer who orders and distributes multiple phones to their employees should know about those features and controls which are available to them. If necessary, any industrial/governmental mass user of phones should be brought in to the Mother Ship for such courses in phone security features and tips. Had this happened with San Bernardino County, nobody would be having this horrendous conversation now. Just sayin'....

 For Art of Conservatism, I'm Art Reis.

Art of Conservatism--The Presidential Race 2016--On the Dem side

Art of Conservatism---On the Democrat side......

My, what a difference eight years makes.

In 2008, no Republican stood out as Presidential material, and The GOP had to cobble up a really poor candidate named McCain to even get a candidate at all---while on the Democrat side, a candidate who had only charisma going for him swept to the White House in a breeze, and thus began the downward slide of These United States on the World Stage. The abominations since that time are legion. Many books (like unto the length and breadth of the “Left Behind” series, even) will be written in future years, about these last eight.

So, as this is being written, it is the last year of that eight-year nightmare (at least, for most of us, hopefully it is) and oh, how events have turned 180°! It is the Democrat party that is having trouble fielding a truly viable candidate. Do you really think they have, with Hillary and Bernie? Oh, come, now!

My lovely wife Kathy was raised as a Chicago Machine Democrat and is proud of it, but even she is having serious reservations herself about Hillary. In her own words, “She has an incredible amount of political baggage”.

Indeed. Most of Hillary's issues are by now well-known: that private server thing, with the resulting damage to our nation's security, just for starters. Then there are the FBI investigations which, to hear tell of that, are so overwhelmingly conclusive that, if an indictment, or more factually, a series of indictments, are not forthcoming, there will be leaks to the press (which, in case nobody's noticing, have already started; check out Katherine Herridge at Fox News). Then there's all the other 'stuff': The Clinton Foundation, Bill and his, uh, improprieties, which, far as most of us are concerned, need no further enumeration, and now, increasingly, questions surrounding Hillary's health. This is not robust Presidential material here. Add to that the possible scandal, just emerging, about Hillary 'rigging' the Dem Convention with all those 'super delegates' already in her hip pocket? Sounds like a serious problem with We The People, just looking at it. Think that Hillary is into it just for the power and her greed for cash? Well, maybe.

Anecdote: An long-ago friend of mine, who shall remain anonymous, once told me about working in the State Department back in the 90's. This person mentioned to me about how Hillary would come down to the files section and, by 'pulling rank', if you will, demand to go through the dossiers of folks she considered to be 'political enemies'. I didn't know that the DOS even had such a 'files unit', but there, allegedly, was Hillary, rummaging through them, apparently looking for 'ammunition'. The description I got of the Clintons back then from those who knew them was succinct: “Bill's a bubba and Hillary's a bitch”. Oooooooooh.....?

And then, I give you Bernie Sanders....please. Do you want to see an American Flag with its field of stars replaced by a hammer and sickle? (or some such which?) Would you like to have a President who spent his honeymoon with his second wife in the Soviet Union, and Cuba? A President who never had a paying job until he was almost 40, and then it was a government job? A president who would nationalize (i.e., steal) many of our major industries, as he has promised he would do? A President who would mandate free college education (of the indoctrinational type) for anyone who'd want it, without caring who gets to foot the bill? Then there you go, Bernie's your guy. 

 

In short, either candidate now running for to the job of Democrat Standard Bearer would continue this country's slow descent in to the abyss. Just what we need.

I have a question: Are you all better off now than you were eight years ago? I doubt it, unless you're a crony capitalist. You know, the ones who give capitalism a bad name. Oh, I shouldn't have said that. Right.

But wait, there's more: Joe Biden. The one who could save the Democrat Party this time around, and chose not to. Well, Joe, it's getting to be pretty late to get into the game now. Most of the states have Presidential candidate filing windows, the closing of which are coming up pretty fast, and a couple of which have already passed. Joe, if you're not in the game by, say, end of March, it ain't gonna happen for you, and the Democrat Party will be left with.... uh, them.

Then what? Let's say Hillary is indicted before the Dem Convention, virtually eliminating her as a candidate for the highest office in the Land, the most power position on the planet. That leaves just Bernie as your candidate. If that happens, expect a withering campaign from the Republican nominee and an energized party, and possibly a Republican victory in the fall.

Even worse: Let's say that Hillary is nominated at the Dem Convention, and then she's indicted. Then what? The only saving grace for the Dems at that point, would be if she would choose Joe Biden as a running mate. That would do it. But that's only if he's chosen to be Veep. Does the Constitution prohibit a Vice President from running for a third term? If so, than it's anyone's guess as to what would happen. 

The bottom line is, that with the Democrat Party in such disarray, and the Republicans energized, and gathering support nationwide, things aren't looking good for the party of Jefferson, Jackson, or Barack Obama this time around. Or, if I may be so bold to say, for those politicos on the Republican side who've been into office for themselves all these years. If that's not the way to bet, it's certainly the way to pray.

What a difference eight years makes, indeed.

For Art of Conservatism, I'm Art Reis

Art of Conservatism--Trump Revisited

Art of Conservatism--Trump Re-visited

It's been a long time since I've heard this saying, but maybe it's time to dust it off: “Time heals all wounds, and wounds all heels.” And, as I think about it, time has not dulled the veracity of that saying one bit.

Which brings me again to Donald Trump. The political pundits are watching, some with wonder, some aghast, that no matter what Trump says, no matter what he threatens to do to his rivals in the Republican side of the contest for President, nothing seems to turn off the voters who are so enamored with him. It's the darnedest thing, they say. In the face of that, what can we do to trip him up? 

 

My response is, you may not have to.

Mr. Trump has been making a lot of noises, not just noise, lately, about suing to get Ted Cruz thrown off the Republican ballot(s) because he was born outside of the United States to an American Citizen and a Naturalized American Citizen. Many of us are already aware that this issue was settled, in the courts, quite a number of years ago, that Ted Cruz is a bona fide Native-born Citizen of the United States, his physical birth in Canada notwithstanding. End of story, except to Trump. Trump continues to threaten that lawsuit, and now legal scholar after legal authority after legal expert has come on the record stating that any such lawsuit against Cruz has no merit, to the point where it descends to the level of frivolity.

It matters not whether The Donald gets the message. That won't stop him from doing it. As a matter of fact, he's stated his conditions for not filing said suit---that Ted Cruz must be 'nice' to him, and stop 'lying' about him. In other words, “Capitulate to my will, or I'll sue to get you thrown out of the race”. Oh, really.

One of my opinion leaders when it comes to the law is the national talk show host, Mark Levin. Mark was very succinct on this point: “Go ahead, Mr. Trump. Bring your damned lawsuit. Don't threaten to do it anymore, just do it.” Mr. Levin knows exactly what will happen if he does. If the judge hearing the case doesn't laugh it out of the courtroom, he'll yell it out of the courtroom. Heck, just for good measure, he may compel that Mr. Trump has to pay for the costs of Mr. Cruz' defense against that lawsuit. On top of that, he may also have a reprimand in store for Mr. Trumps lawyers as well. Who knows? But I wouldn't bet against that.

The spectacle of that court case may just be the straw that breaks the camel's back with the public, and may provoke the public to take a second look at Mr. Trumps bombastic ways and temperament. While indeed that may not be the way to bet, for a lot of us, it just may be the way to pray. And, if that example doesn't make folks sit up and take notice, some other incident or Trumpism, down the road, just may.

The American people are waking up to a lot of realities which they had ignored in a kind of mass stupor across the few decades. A lot has been taken for granted, and now more and more people are realizing that the country is at stake here. The mistrust of the news media has been gaining more and more credence, for one thing, but now the realization that the two major political parties are more into government for themselves than they are for We The People is also taking hold. People are more skeptical now than they've been in years, and while they see Donald Trump as a breath of the fresh air of candor on the one hand, they are now becoming more nervous with the notion that maybe he, too, is into it more for himself than for the country. Conservatism is starting to become more in vogue, and The Donald is smelling less and less like one. Meantime, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are becoming more and more attractive, and I suspect that one of them, not The Donald, will be the Republican Standard Bearer this fall. What chance would any of them have against the likes of the two candidates on the Democrat side? That will be the subject of a forthcoming Art of Conservatism.

For Art of Conservatism, I'm Art Reis

Art of Conservatism---Antonin Scalia: The aftermath (updated)

I was having lunch with my lovely wife Kathy in a local restaurant that Saturday afternoon, when my phone erupted with the Fox News App sounder. There it was: “Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Dead at 79.” Now, that was an OMG moment!

Instantly crossing my mind was a word my mother used that I've never heard anywhere else: Thunderation! No need to guess at the meaning of that. Within a few minutes my reagan.com E-mail in-box had two messages in it, both from Conservative friends, both saying roughly the same thing: “The country is lost. It's a sad day.”

Antonin Scalia was one of the two staunchest Conservatives on the Supreme Court. He was the point/counterpoint to the other Conservative Justice, Clarence Thomas. Scalia was far and away the more loquacious of the two, always with his rapier wit at the ready, his disdain for those who exuded any disrespect for The Constitution always on display. He was in striking contrast to Justice Clarence Thomas, the Silent Conservative on The Bench. President Obama, on hearing the news, commented that Scalia was “a larger than life presence on the bench” and a deeply influential “brilliant legal mind” with an “incisive wit.” True as his words were (for once), Mr. Obama just has to be licking his lips at this turn of events, for now he has the chance to make permanent the change that he has struggled to make in this country, from a bastian of self-reliance to a third-world entity. For him, this is a true legacy moment.

The Liberal/'progressive'/statist wing of politics in this country believes in the Constitution as a 'living, breathing, changeable document'. It is their way of transforming it from the bulwork for We The People against a rapacious, over-bearing and over-reaching government that it is becoming, to a mere footnote of 'a piece of paper', as Mr. Obama calls it. For his part, Antonin Scalia had nothing but scorn for that concept. “If that is what they want, a 'living, breathing Constitution'”, he once stated, “then I much prefer the dead one.”

We The People, whom that Constitution was and is supposed to protect, are going to miss Justice Scalia a lot. Too many of us just don't know it.... yet.

But, can anything be done to make up for this loss? Is a Supreme Court that won't aid and abet the driving of America straight into the ground even possible? Well, it is, but I don't have to tell you that achieving it isn't going to be easy. Bottom line is that, now, We The People are going to have to get directly involved, to give a damn about whether we really want to keep this country as it should be, or to throw it all away.

Yes, I mean the Senate. That's it---the bulwark, the firewall, the last bastion. Now think of the all those RINO's in there. Is there a chance for us at all? Now, since the first edition of this AOC essay was written (this is the second), many of the Republicans in leadership of the Senate are saying that there is no way that any of B. Hussein O's nominees (any of them, they say) will see as much as a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, let alone see the light of the Senate floor. Umm, sure, we've all heard this before, haven't we?

Look, anyone who believes that Barack Obama is going to nominate a really ethnically attractive someone to the Supreme Court who also believes in the Second Amendment, the First Amendment, or any other safeguards of liberties or the rights of the Individual to be free of Government Intrusion into our lives, has another thing coming. Read that, temptation. Obama will have a whole host of these surface-attractive Statists ready to parade before the Senate. One of them of my knowledge believes that the establishment of property rights constitutes racism. And that's just one! Given such a lineup of suspects, there's little or no reason to believe that any of His nominees should ever be allowed to be fitted for a black robe. That means that the Senate is going to have to be persuaded, or shall we say super-encouraged, and in a loud voice, from We The People, to stick to their promise, and to their guns (figuratively, of course) and refuse to act on any and all of Mr. Obama's recommendations, right up to next January 21. Keep the Senate in session to avoid recess appointments. Use all the tricks that the Left uses. Hey, this is politics—war by other means!

Thus, the effort to ignore all of Mr. Obama's nominees has to start now, and must continue without letup until the beginning of the next Congress. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. We The People, for our part, need to have the ammunition, the facts on all these SCOTUS nominees, to reinforce our opposition. That means that every candidate must be vetted by us, as soon as they are announced, or before if possible. And we must to be ready to do this over and over again. We must maintain the energy we need to keep on keeping on, until the next Inaugural Day, when, if prayerfully a Republican/Conservative is elected President, we can get the kind of Supreme Court Justice, indeed, the kind of Supreme Court that this country needs. That's a lot of energy, but this is the future of the country we're talking about here.

Now, you non-believers who are reading this can go read something else, since what I'm going to say is antithetical to your sensitivities, but here's my take on this: God has just thrown us the ultimate challenge, in the form of a question: “How much do you care to keep the country that the Founders, with my help, gave you?” We The People must rise up, not in revolution, but in solidarity with the Founders, to make sure that the Supreme Court, which has the most lasting influence on where America is going, to re-establish the concept which is in line with the Freedom which God has given us, and to reverse some of the anti-Freedom laws, regulations and rulings which have come down on our heads across the last 100+ years.

Are we up for the battle?? For Art of Conservatism, I'm Art Reis