Sep 24, 2013 | Globalism, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
With the Russians coming forth with a possible brokered agreement with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for him to give up his chemical weapons in exchange for America not attacking him, America’s military threat has dissipated for the moment. But issues still need discussed. Is an attack warranted under international law and, if not, would we not be viewed by the world as an aggressor nation? A giant irony is that we would have punished Syria for violating international law by our also violating international law. Who says two wrongs do not make a right?
Consider the following United Nations Charter violations of the United States had we attacked Syria: Article 2, Sec. 4, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state….” Even our threat of the use of force is a violation. The only exception to the use of force is self-defense as stipulated in Art. 51. “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
Obama has yet to make a case to the United Nations for wanting to attack the sovereign country of Syria. He has not, and will not, because he would have to justify such action on the basis that Syria had first shown actual aggression toward us necessitating our responding in self-defense. This he cannot do. Were U. S. citizens gassed we could respond in self-defense but we were not. Such acts of aggression justifying self defense must immediately be provided to the UN Security Council who then decide “such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
Other United Nation Charter rules also would have had to be satisfied. Article 39 stipulates that “the Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.” Even before this takes place Article 40 must be satisfied which reads: “In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.” So we see that in order for a state to use force in self-defense, it or some other state must have suffered an armed attack. Such has not been demonstrated.
There exists other complications; even had the UN ruled Syria an aggressor nation, which it has not, and sanctioned a coalition force against Syria, the President was unsuccessful in getting any other country to bomb with him. Nobody agrees with him enough to commit armed forces. The Syrian offense had already occurred so the mission was to punish the perpetrator, clearly not self-defense. Syria had signed only one of two treaties prohibiting the use of gas and it contained no enforcement provisions and no one made the United States the policeman of the world. Finally, although there is no doubt that chemical weapons were used on Syrians, the source of such, although presumed, has not been definitively proved. Everyone remembers the “proof” presented to the United Nations by Colin Powel, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when it did not. Assad maintains that his own men were gassed as well.
The Assad regime may well have gassed her own people, which Assad aggressively denies, but she has not attacked another country. We, on the other hand, would have done just that, had we bombed Syria. I think it likely that had the U.S. attacked, Russia, China or even Syria would have ask the United Nations to define the United States as the aggressor nation and Obama as a war criminal. That could have been followed by a “call upon the parities concerned,” the United States especially, “to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable,” which could include economic sanctions as has been used on other nations. Did we think when we signed the Charter, creating the “world government,” that the rules did not apply to us, that we could just bomb whomever, whenever, and wherever we wished as with our drone strikes. Unfortunately for President Obama, but fortunately for us, the U N Charter does not allow a military attack on a sovereign nation for punishment.
Apparently the Russians will be brokering, at least with Assad, the mess that we created for ourselves by not using the United Nations. The “slouch, looking kid in the back of the classroom,” as Obama recently referred to Vladimir Putin, has ironically saved the president from his own ignorance of international law.
Sep 17, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
This week commemorates Constitution day and week and as such it is well to remind our governments and elected officials, all of who have sworn under oath to abide by it, to reread and follow it. It is also well for our citizenry to do the same so that we can identify those who would take away our liberty and without regard to political party remove these dangerous people from their places of power.
Look around!! Our president spies on us through the NSA in complete disregard of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution and uses the IRS to intimidate and harass his political opposition, most notably conservative, religious and Tea Party groups. Moreover, he upends existing law as in 2012 when by executive order he refused to continue enforcing the deportation of a class of illegal emigrants. Or, in healthcare, some get a year to implement while others do not and Congress gets exempted. Today he no longer attempts to justify his numerous executive orders to any constitutional base and taken together his branch, including his over thirty unconstitutionally appointed czars, make far more rules on us than does our elected Congress. But he does want to take this nation into a totally unconstitutional war with Syria.
Look around!! Congress seems inept at best, unable or unwilling to investigate and bring to justice those in the government who deliberately allowed some 2,000 guns to go to the Mexican drug cartels who used these in some of the murders of over 70,000 Mexicans including our own border patrol Agent Brian Terry. They have shown themselves to be unwilling or unable to thoroughly investigate the four deaths of Americans in Benghazi, a scandal now a year old. Unwilling or unable to investigate, stop, and punish IRS agents using their positions to silence political opposition. Unwilling or unable to investigate, stop and punish NSA spying and storing indefinitely all electronic information on all Americans. Why? Because most who sit in Congress are party lap dogs justifying or condemning whatever on party lines instead of the Constitution.
As the President absorbs more and more of Congress’ law making powers, making Congress more irrelevant each day, they pretend all is well. While not guarding their own powers from an encroaching executive branch, they trample the rights of the states where all power not listed in the Constitution belongs. They have mocked the 10th Amendment and have been complacent in the demise of the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth amendments as well. Indeed our liberties would have been better protected by the Boy Scouts of America who, in fact, may understand freedom better than they. There are a few members of Congress who do put the Constitution in front of party and career such as Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz but they are far too few.
Look around!!!! The Supreme Court no longer uses the Constitution, as understood by the Founding Fathers when written, as important. Past practice has replaced original intent and natural law as first consideration. Even international law has come to have more value then original intent in their rendered decisions. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, advised Egypt to not modal their new constitution after ours because ours was too dated. The Court makes new law, a constitutional function of Congress alone, by ruling on an issue in such a way as to give it new meaning, thus new law. It is called judicial legislation. The laws of the land have been changed by dozens of such rulings the last fifty years.
Healthcare comes to mind. Congress never passed it as a tax and the political party passing it, and their President, Barack Obama, emphatically resisted any description of it as such. Nevertheless Justice John Roberts ruled it to be a tax, then argued that Congress can tax, therefore it was constitutional. The Court omitted the fact that the word health (or anything remotely similar) is nowhere in the Constitution and is therefore entirely a state issue, as per Amendment 10, until an Amendment to the Constitution ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures moved health to the limited list in the Constitution. Healthcare by any previous combination of justices would have been 100 percent unconstitutional with or without the tax issue.
When the Supreme Court no longer protects the Constitution it falls upon the states to do so defending the 10th Amendment and using the Doctrine of Nullification (understood and endorsed by the Founders) and previously used in 1798, 1832, and 1852. But it is so poorly understood today that few can defend it, nevertheless it was and is the final check on an over reaching federal government.
When reading the Constitution this happy Constitution Day or Week, 226 years since its origin, please pay special attention to the list provided to each of these branches of the federal government. The concept of a list is so vital to our interpretation of the Constitution. If they were to do as they pleased no list would be needed.
Aug 27, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
Reuters reported last Saturday, August 17, 2013, “Nine men killed in Mexican drug war hotspot.” This is not new news. The day before, “eight people were found killed” and placed in a mass grave. Such happens frequently in a country where drug wars have resulted in the death of more than 70,000 people “between 2006 and 2012, and more than 6,000 have been killed since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office in December.
What is especially disturbing is that our government may have been involved with some of these murders. CBS News reported, August 14, of this month, “That three more weapons from Fast and Furious have turned up at violent crime scenes in Mexico.” Fast and Furious suspect Uriel Patino purchased two in “May and July of 2010. Sean Steward purchased a third,” all traced to “the Lone Wolf gun shop in Glendale, Arizona.” Just a few weeks ago, Luis Lucio Rosales Astorga, “a Mexican police chief and his bodyguard were killed by cartel members using Fast and Furious guns.”
Some may have forgotten the “Fast and Furious” scandal of 2010 in the flurry of new Barack Obama Administration scandals of late Spring, so a review might be necessary. Imagine being willing to do anything to destroy the Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Since Americans will not willingly do so, imagine someone in power plotting to create the rationale that would turn most reasonable people against these rights. Evidence of such surfaced two years ago in the form of an email from a Justice Department agent that strongly indicated that the government’s “Operation Fast and Furious” was designed to do just that. Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, charged with executing the “Operation Fast and Furious,” boasted to a colleague of the operation’s propaganda value, presumably to vilify gun shows. It read: “Some of these weapons bought by these clowns in Arizona have been directly traced to murders of elected officials in Mexico by the cartels, so Katie-bar-the-door when we unveil this baby” (“Will Holder’s Watergate Become Obama’s Waterloo?” Americas 1st Freedom, April 2012). They knew precisely what they could do with the propaganda value of their sales—destroy the gun shows.
Seemingly the intent was for the government, through the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Administration (ATF), to secretly sell illegal guns to the Mexican drug cartels, and then blame those sales on U.S. gun shows to discredit them. The administration, especially Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had argued that 90% of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels had come from gun shows in the United States. The ATF gun sales, if undetected, would provide the government rationale and support to close down the gun shows making it more difficult for citizens to obtain a firearm. The story appears to be full of government intrigue, lies, conspiracy, and the murder of hundreds of Mexican citizens and an American Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry.
The transfer of the illegal weapons was done without consulting U.S. law officers outside ATF or the Mexican authorities. The government would have succeeded with the scheme were not some of the illegal firearms found at the scene of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, one of which was actually the instrument of his death.
Wayne La Pierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, best expressed the seriousness of this illegal operation, apart from defrauding Americans of their constitutional gun rights, when he wrote. “In that ‘gun-walking’ operation, Obama administration operatives encouraged, bankrolled, and oversaw repeated felonies at gun stores and at border crossings with criminals smuggling at least 1,700 firearms into Mexican drug-fueled criminal commerce.” Regular citizens, doing the same thing would be serving time.
The e-mail in question was a part of the 6,000 documents received from the 80,000 requested of the Justice Department by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform headed by Darrell Issa. The Justice Department yet refuses to honor a three-year request for the other 74,000 documents requested.
What has been released reportedly proves that U.S. gun shows were not the source of cartel firepower, as this administration had repeatedly contended, the ATF was, and that Holder intentionally lied when he told Congress he had heard about “Fast and Furious” from the media, as did other Americans. “One Justice Department official has claimed his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify,” elevating anticipation that, so far, we may have seen only the tip of the iceberg.
The Justice Department has acknowledged encouraging gun stores in the U.S. to sell weapons to purchasers who trafficked them to Mexican drug cartels but still refuses to release some 74,000 documents with respect to the scandal. Such refusal led to “a bipartisan vote in June 2012 to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. The House Oversight Committee is suing for release of the material” so there will be more to come on this story. Meanwhile there will be more killing in Mexico from the 1,400 to 1,700 guns given the drug cartels by our government.
Aug 23, 2013 | Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
I was not surprised last spring to hear a mother share with me her son’s fear that he did not wish to attended college because he did not wish to be politically indoctrinated. As the years go by I hear this more frequently. Two months ago, while purchasing an automobile, I had an all-to-frequent experience when the dealer asked my profession. I told him that I was a college political science professor. His look was, “Oh! Your one of those.” So, the assumption is that professors, especially those in political science, are socialists or worse.
Those who know me as a syndicated columnist or in my lectures realize that I seldom use the words liberal or conservative. I want my students to think for themselves and labels largely end that process, so, I won’t use labels here either. The principle is the same for either ideology or political party. No one should be afraid to go to college because either ideology has effectively placed the other on the endangered species list. College is supposed to be a big tent housing all types of thinking so that the student can gravitate to that which he thinks best. The liberal or conservative paradigm suggests that there is only one or the other. Why can’t you be a part of both, or a third, as for example a constitutionalists as am I?
Of course most colleges insist that they adhere to the idea of intellectual diversity, but the literature suggest otherwise, that too many colleges and universities, are vastly weighted in favor of one ideology and professors to one political party. This is not hidden. Virtually every political science textbook acknowledges that the vast majority of political science professors are of one political party and ideology.
There exists a consensus of what a good education consists. Students are immersed in race consciousness, feminism, multiculturalism, environmentalism, collectivism, political activism, class warfare, acceptance of sexual deviations as normal, and minimization of the importance of Christianity. The end product, the student, must come to accept the above script. It is also in virtually all textbooks. It’s not that any of these notions are bad in and of themselves but in the nearly universal absence of the opposing view that is most troubling the critics and they do not want the indoctrination. All this reminds me of a 1960’s tune. “Little boxes on the hillside. Little boxes made of ticky-tacky… And they all look just the same. And the people in the houses, all go to the university… And they all look just the same.”
It’s not fear of political science classes alone in most colleges and universities. Students can escape this indoctrination across the hall in a history or sociology class. Not so! Such bias permeates most academic areas. An English professor from a large Midwestern university, who did not wish to be identified because of possible retribution, spoke of English classes giving less emphasis on grammar, punctuation, or sentence structure and more on the political correctness. “Everything from Theater to Philosophy to History to English has, in effect, become sociology,” he wrote. “Teaching subject matter has become less important than teaching a very political perspective.” In the end, “They get taught the same thing over and over: a radical critique of the entire American social structure, an indictment of capitalism, anti-Christian propaganda, and collectivism over individuality.”
An extreme example of this was Professor Deandre Poole of Florida Atlantic University who, in his Intercultural Communications class instructed students to write the name “Jesus” on a piece of paper, place it on the floor, than stomp on it. Imagine his having done this to Mohammed. Another is the French Language and Culture class at Penn State University that required students to view the Michael Moore film, Sicko which focused on the inadequacies of the U.S. healthcare system and promoted Obamacare. In a French language class!?!
Of course, additional classes reinforce the “good education” and the result is that if students have not learned to think for themselves, or have some opposing information from home or church to think with, they graduate and carry the message (indoctrination) into every segment of society as gospel. New teachers from kindergarten to the universities will pipe the same, or similar, message.
Age and experience may alter the indoctrination but the twig is already bent in a prescribed direction and the student, like the twig, will give first consideration to returning to the indoctrination when confronted with anything in opposition. Colleges have so much power over “right” thinking.
The indoctrination begins, critics say, with “incoming freshmen in nearly 100 colleges with orientation where students begin by learning about the evils of ‘white privilege’ in a program called the ‘tunnel of oppression’ and sit through lectures informing them that they are part of a ‘rape culture’.” University of Delaware forced incoming freshmen to participate in a “treatment” program a part of which informed them that the word racism applies only to “all white people.” It also “blamed whites for having created the term racism” in the first place “to deny responsibility for systemic racism.” At Hamilton College in New York, fall 2010, male students were required “to attend a ‘She Fears You’ presentation to make them aware of the ‘rape culture’ of which they were allegedly a part and of the need to change their ‘rape supportive’ beliefs and attitudes” (New American, Aug. 5, 2013, pp. 23-27).
No wonder the young man did not wish to be subjected to what he saw as indoctrination. Because he knows that there exist other views there is hope for him, more especially if he selects professors who attempt to give alternative views of which there are still many, he will be fine. This is especially true at the community college level. It is the students who have no idea that there exists alternative views that are most endangered.
Aug 12, 2013 | Constitution, Liberty Articles
By Harold Pease
Fifty-five of 64 Colorado county elected sheriffs, together with a sizable coalition of grassroots groups, are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state of Colorado and until resolved by the courts will not participate in the enforcement of what they consider a violation of the Bill of Rights, notably the Second Amendment, which they have sworn under oath to preserve. The elected sheriffs, consisting of both democrats and republicans, not only believe the laws to be unconstitutional but also unenforceable.
Wordage in the suit cited public safety and the 2nd and 14th Amendments of the Constitution of the United States as major concerns. Sheriffs were especially angered by a tweet from the Colorado Senate Democrats referring to them as criminals, which read: “2day co sheriffs stood in opposition of co’s new gun laws, but not w/law-abiding citizens, but with criminals.” A sheriff of each county is the only elected law enforcement agent in the nation and as such has more constitutional authority than the FBI or ATF. Their election to stand by their oath to protect and defend the Constitution is serious and a big deal. Unfortunately the national media is largely silent on this story.
The same situation exists in the state of New York where 52 of 58 elected county sheriffs signed a letter asking for changes to the New York gun control laws, known as the SAFE Act, shoved through the legislature “just hours after the text became public.” The sheriffs were invited to a meeting where they expected to be able to share their reasons for opposition but instead were threatened by Governor Andrew Cuomo with removal from office. Who would he use to enforce removal, the six sheriffs of the 58 who had not signed? Numerous New York counties have passed non-binding resolutions to these laws in open support for the Second Amendment and those defending it. Schoharie County even going so far as to deny funding for enforcement.
Opponents claim that the SAFE Act is also unenforceable and criminalizes law-abiding citizens. This law is headed for the courts as well. New York sheriffs argue in their friend of the court brief. “Law enforcement’s work is made more difficult attempting to enforce unclear laws that harm, rather than promote, public safety. The laws appear willfully blind to legitimate safety interests, and instead are tailored to impact, and negatively impact, law-abiding firearm owners…. The Supreme Court has confirmed that the Second Amendment protects arms typically possessed by law-abiding citizens, and identified that the right of self-defense is ‘core’ protected conduct that is at its zenith in the home.”
Similar opposition by elected county sheriffs is rising in Maryland to a new law scheduled to go into effect this October 1st. Ten such have already voiced opposition to enforcing it. Other sheriffs “won’t use county resources to enforce the laws’ restrictions” (“Battleground Colorado: Sheriffs Resist,” by Frank Miniter, America’s 1st Freedom, Aug. 2013).
Fortunately such strong support of the Constitution by the law enforcement community is nothing new although the establishment press has been slow to cover these stories. In January and February 2013, angry sheriffs rose up putting the federal government on notice vowing to defend their citizens from the federal government if federal agents began enforcing gun laws outside the limits of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. Those states refusing to comply were, as they came on board: Utah, Florida, Georgia, Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, Wyoming, Indiana, and Illinois.
With respect to the Second Amendment, Utah’s Sheriffs’ Association went as far as to say, “We are prepared to trade our lives for the preservation of its traditional interpretation.” Wyoming’s new “Firearm Protection Act,” threatens federal officials with up to five years in prison and $5,000 in fines if convicted of attempting to enforce unconstitutional statutes or decrees infringing on the gun rights of Wyoming citizens. Reportedly, Missouri and Texas have similar legislation pending.
Even the California State Sheriffs’ Association’s letter to Vice President Joe Biden, signed by seventeen elected county sheriffs, was stronger than had been expected, putting him, and the federal government, on notice. “It is the position of CSSA, in accordance with the Constitution of the United States and the statutes of the State of California, that law-abiding persons who meet the established requirements have the right to acquire, own, possess, use, keep and bear firearms. This right shall not be infringed.”
What makes the efforts of Colorado, New York, and Maryland different this time from earlier this year is that previous resistance was aimed at the federal government taking their 2nd Amendment rights from them. This time it is their own state governments attempting to do the same thing in clear violation of the 2nd and 14th Amendments. The sheriff’s, and the populace that keeps them in power, says no when it violates their Constitution that they have sworn to uphold. Those who understand history and freedom know that an armed populace is critical to liberty. Thank goodness our sheriffs understand this and honor their sacred oath. If only our legislators and governors would as well.
Jul 22, 2013 | Liberty Articles
By Dr. Harold Pease
I am disturbed by a news report this week that shows one out of every three persons in the United States is fed by the other two. This means that in the grocery line before I get to the checkout I pick up the bill of either the person in front of me or the one behind. Since I live in California where we are told a third of all welfare recipients in the nation reside, and assuming that the vast majority receive food stamps, it is more likely that I pay for the one in front and the one behind. The vast majority of whom look to be more able bodied than I.
This news brings to mind a script “Take Down the Bird Feeder,” source unknown, that I read some time ago. Most have shared this same experience sometime in their life. It goes like this: “I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it was, as I filled it, lovingly with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table… Everywhere! Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And others birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food. After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio. Soon, the back yard was like it used to be… quiet, serene…. And no one demands rights to a free meal.
Our free enterprise system, vastly stimulated by our Constitution, which limited the government’s power over us so enterprise could blossom, has made it possible to eradicated poverty from this nation for anyone who really wanted to work. I know because I was once poor. I have 14 brothers and sisters and my father, the only breadwinner in the family had severe heart problems from which he died leaving most under 18. About not having enough, I experienced more than I wished; a snack was a raw potato. I watched those who had some measure of wealth (I knew no one wealthy) and I learned early that education and industry could save anyone who wished to use them. Others took the course that led to dependency. Every person in America has the same choice. It has always been so. How, like the birds depicted above, have so many of our people become.
One of the poorest men I ever knew refused the dole and worked till the day he died. His legs were virtually useless. Vastly overweight he could only get off the couch or a chair by first rocking until he had momentum to shift the weight to his legs. A fall drastically limited any meaningful use of his arms. He made no excuses for his situation. He found a job with a moving company answering the telephone where he scheduled help for the “real” disadvantaged, those broken down on the highway.
I tell my students of the folk tale of the old man who came to the Florida everglades to catch some wild hogs reputed to be uncatchable. No one took him seriously, only chuckled, when he inquired where they might be. You see no one had ever been successful in capturing these hogs and those would be catchers were much stronger and faster then he. “Never mind, just point me in the right direction,” he responded. They did. He placed in his old-battered pickup truck a few ears of corn, found a clearing, and left them before driving away. Day after day he did the same thing. No hog ever came forth to partake. They were way too smart. Nor did the younger hogs for they revered the wisdom of the old sages who were quick to remind them that humans were to be avoided at all costs. Day after day the old man did the same thing.
Ultimately the younger hogs began to question the wasteful practice of not partaking of the free corn and in time began to nibble, ever so watchful. There were no negatives, no consequences, only fools would reject this heaven sent meal. The old hogs would still occasionally remind them that there is no free lunch. “If it is free to you someone else is always picking up the tab,” they said. But, obviously, the old hogs were wrong. The little nibbles turned in to feasts and the old man left even more corn. With time, and feeling foolish, the older hogs joined in one by one. The old man did not go so far away. In fact, eventually he did not leave at all and enjoyed watching all feast without concern. After several months of this they, not even the wiser hogs, noticed the old man dig a hole and insert a single pole; eventually another, than another, and the chicken wire in between. Nor did they notice when he attached the only gate. He had captured them all.
So what happens to the “birds” and the “hogs?” If the practice goes on long enough they no longer know how to do things necessary to preserve themselves. They vote for the politicians that continue the practice and begin to believe that the freebies—food stamps, subsidized housing, socialized medicine, and etc., were actually owed them. They eventually lose their freedom—all of it. When the economy collapses, because the freebies cannot be sustained, the new rulers end all welfare practices as happened in every communist county in the 1900’s and starvation followed. For those who are healthy enough to take care of themselves let’s take down the bird feeder before it comes down on its own.
