Quote of the day—Dustin Pardue

Nobody is coming to take your guns and weapons. The National Rifle Association, which lays its roots as an off-shoot of a faction of the Ku Klux Klan, wanted you to think so, didn’t they? … In fact, no piece of federal legislation was ever presented in regards to gun restriction in Washington, DC under President Obama that limited gun ownership.

Dustin Pardue
March 10, 2014
Editorial: A pragmatic look at gun control
[Wow! Nearly every sentence in this guys editorial is opposed to the known facts in my universe. I have always discounted the possibility of those sci-fi plots with everything being the opposite of our universe. I always figured that as soon as a few major things are different the universes would radically diverge. In a short period of time, like in a decade or ten, there would be little resemblance between the two universes. But here we appear to have evidence to the contrary.

In Pardue’s universe the NRA was apparently formed by Confederate veterans instead of Union vets and helped supplied arms to the KKK instead of the victims of the KKK such as Robert Williams.

And in his universe Senator Feinstein never introduced the Assault Weapon Ban of 2013.

The divergence from our universe just goes on and on in this guys post. Another example is where he quotes the what in our universe is the 1875 Cruikshank decision but in his occurred in 1876:

The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.

In our universe there is more to the quoted sentence which changes the meaning:

The right there specified is that of ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose.’ This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress.

So, I wonder if this is sufficient evidence to confirm the existence of alternate universes. I almost wish it were true. I could use the money from a Nobel Prize in physics. But I suspect the truth is this guy is just another passenger on an overloaded crazy train and there isn’t any money to be had from identifying the existence of something as common as crap for brains.—Joe]

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10 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Dustin Pardue

    • Well, I was only going to quote the last line, but as it turns out there’s more to the colloquy that seems relevant to Mr. Pardue’s word salad.

      “There’s glory for you!’
      ‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
      Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘
      ‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
      ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
      ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
      ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ ”
      — Alice through the Looking Glass, and What She Saw There.

      An alternative universe indeed! “Union Vets forming the NRA to combat the Ku Klux Klan” is code for “Confederate Vets forming the KKK and concealed weapons laws to persecute and murder blacks”

  1. When someone “lives” in an alternate reality, where they hear and see different things than a normal person, isn’t that called “phsycosis” ( sorry if the spelling is off I’m not a doctor). Also, is there a medical term to describe the phenomenon of a large group of people sharing a similar hallucination.

  2. “Hypnotic States of Americans”. Look it up.

    We all walk around, breathing, thinking and acting, in one form of hypnotic state or another. Are you irritated? Are you shocked or angry or afraid? Do feelings of guilt interfere with your relationships or daily life? Do you fuss over the past or worry about future events, even ones that may never come to pass? Do you seek diversions? Do you spend too much time commenting on blogs? Do you smoke, do you drink too much, or eat for pleasure? Do you look up to some people and down on others, or build and maintain a public persona so that others will think better of you (i.e. live some kind of double life)?

    Then you’re in a hypnotic state, a separate reality, which is a disconnect from the one reality, and the difference between you and a communist is only a matter of the degree of that disconnect. You are not yourself.

    “Speak for yourself, Lyle, you preaching son of a bitch” you may say. Fair enough, and I do.

    The religions of the world have, each in their own way, attempted to address the problem, but becoming stuck in various pitfalls, one of which is to adopt their analogies as realities and another becoming obsessed with structure and process, scriptures and stories, they’ve all but totally discredited themselves. Some of them are fully on the wrong side in that regard. What they’ve all but lost is their sight of the simple question of how to get a person onto the path toward full objectivity. They’re too caught up in the dogma and the metaphors, and the rest of us are too caught up in seeing the stupidity of the dogma and the metaphors (and the corruption) and so we angrily reject the baby along with the bath water so to speak.

    And so we have a morbidly corrupted interpretation of the word “faith” (it makes me uncomfortable just saying the word, see) which could be defined simply as the absence of doubt, condemnation, fear, irritation, impatience, anger, and anxiety, i.e. “objectivity”.

  3. The first President of the NRA was Ambrose Burnside. He may not have been the best general in the world but he was a major supporter of the African American troops in his command.

  4. Having read down to the last line of Mr. Pardue’s article, I speculate that this is a work of satire. Not long ago I’d have laughed aloud, alas, such is the world that I’m no longer so sure. Still, on the amusing side, I guess.

    • I considered that. But I looked as some of his other work and decided the chance of it being satire was low.

  5. This brings up a question I’ve had for a long time: is it ethical, OK, and/or right for a newspaper to print falsehoods, even on the opinion page? One could write a Letter to the Editor with purposely made up ‘facts’ supporting ones views. Does the paper have any duty to investigate these claims if they plan to publish the opinion?

    You know someone will quote this Pardue piece as truth.

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