The View From North Central Idaho

The more perfect civilization is, the less occasion has it for government, because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself... All the great laws of society are laws of nature.

Thomas Paine
The Rights of Man
[I find it very interesting that there is a strong trend in those that support the Democrat party toward preserving nature and discouraging human intervention. Yet in human affairs there is a very strong tendency toward intervention in the activities of people and a general insistent on not letting nature take its course. It's as if they have no coherent principles.

Yes, I've blogged about this before. And Kevin has a more recent post that is, in a slightly obscure way, on topic as well.--Joe]

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.

Otto von Bismarck
[Or in the case of things like the Slaughter Solution it would be better to fine and/or imprison the makers and condemn the slaughter house as a toxic waste site.--Joe]

In response to the QOTD here;

"How do you measure fairness/justice?"

It's not terribly complicated.  First, you determine whether someone's rights have been violated.  If so, you hold the perpetrator accountable, with restitution as a priority.

The statist will attempt to argue over what is and is not a right, and who possess the right (the individual or the collective, or some sub set of the collective).  Ayn Rand has a couple of quotes that nail it;

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." - Ayn Rand (copied from Kevin's site)

I'll paraphrase this next one from memory, because I don't have the book handy;

"Any proposed 'right' that demands the violation of another's rights is not and cannot be considered a right." - Ayn Rand.

Next the statist will declare these truths to be too simple, that you're being too simple-minded seeing the world in such black and white terms, and that only in navigating through complexity can we come to some semblance of economic and social justice, etc., etc.

Eventually it degrades into a contest of push verses shove, as the snarling, hate-filled statist is more than willing to start the pushing (or more likely to have someone else start the pushing for him, the typical statist being a coward as a rule).

There is no reconciling the two visions of society (statism, verses the property rights model on which this country was founded) and any attempt to do so will only delay the inevitable reckoning, prolonging and deepening the pain and destruction along the way (the traditional role of the Republican Party).  Our only sensible plan of action is to defeat the statists at every opportunity, relegating them to the woodwork of society where they belong (along with the cockroaches and spiders).

Our biggest problem is that the statist's goal is much simpler than ours.  They want destruction and decline of civilization.  The free man wants to create and build over time.  He might spend a lifetime carving out his niche, and building a life for himself and his family, while the statist can wipe the whole thing out in a moment.  Building is difficult and time consuming, and it takes planning and creativity, while destruction is simple and quick, and most any idiot/loser can do it.

With that in mind, a more specific and urgent course of action is presented.  The leftist/statist power infrastructure needs to be dismantled, and the individual statist power brokers (perpetrators) have to be held personally liable.  They have to pay a price or they will not stop.  There's your "Social Justice".  Anything less will prolong the problem and deepen the pain.  Investing our hopes and resources in the traditional Republican Party model of going along and trying to run the statist system more responsibly, is nothing but a recipe for disaster.

We've too often accepted the leftist premises or their claims to compassion and justice, when their goals are just the opposite.  We've reached a radical situation by sitting back for generations, allowing the leftist radicals to have their way.  Closing a few dozen federal departments, including education, and shutting down hundreds of programs might seem radical or extreme to the inattentive.  So what?  The level of government intervention we've reached is in itself extreme or radical, compared to the vision of the founders.  The status quo is what's extreme.  Getting back on track is not, even if means passing out a million pink slips to federal and state employees.

I just finished up participating in a Vicious Circle episode. The supposed topic was Boomershoot. In fact we basically started on Boomershoot and mostly ended up talking about Boomershoot but as it the case with all Vicious Circle podcasts there was a lot of topic drift. Also discussed were:

• The Jews In The Attic Test
• Nationalized health care
• The perfection of Lucy Lawless's nipples and how to view them
• Yet another way to blow up a plane that the TSA cannot stop
• Total world-wide economic collapse
• The Texas Navy
• Screwdrivers
• Windows Phone 7 Series
• Narcissistic personalties
• Caleb
• How many boxes of .22 ammo it will cost for a virgin after the total world-wide economic collapse

There was also a lot of giggling--particular when I told them that Barb asked me if Alan edited out the naughty words.

And that is just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head.

Update: It is available now.

In response to the QOTD;

Ah, but Mr. Coolidge, and the Republican Party leadership, apparently never understood the game.  The assertion that building up the weak is the Left's goal is one thing.  Taking that assertion at face value is another.  It's the Big Mistake of the 20th century, and has resulted in perpetual confusion (to say nothing of the stagnation, decay and destruction around the world).  The preponderance of the evidence regarding the Left’s goals points elsewhere.  Their objective is statism for its own sake, and the tactic, stated openly in some circles time after time, is to bring down "The System" so it can be remade-- "Redistributive Change" in Obama's own words, and it's been said in other ways throughout the generations.

Republicans, as they occupy themselves trying to understand and argue the details, the costs and so on, of the "healthcare" bills, are demonstrating their utter cluelessness (or is it their complicity?).  "Why, this could end up funding abortions with taxpayer dollars, and that would be bad, and I'm not so sure we can afford this other bit over here..."

That's not the point, Skippy.  The point is, the whole thing is a massive power grab.  What more do you need to know, for crying out loud?

Weigh down the economy with debt, entitlements and restrictions, then blame what remains of the private sector.  Take advantage of the chaos and the public demands for an altogether new approach that they hope will ensue.  They're telling us every day; "Never let a crisis go to waste" is only part of it.  The other part is their understanding that they can manufacture the crises.  Chip, chip, chip, chip, and sooner or later even the hardest stone will crumble, after which (they believe) they can swoop in and take it all.

So far as I can tell, the Republicans have been playing along for decades.  "Oh, but you're crazy, Lyle.  Look at the differences between Republicans and Democrats!  Are you willfully blind, or what?  Surely you must be mad!  Look!  Just look!  LOOOOOOOOOK, MAN!"

Uh huh, and there's a world of difference between that "good cop" and that "bad cop" too.  The bad cop is a real, dangerously scary, out-of-control sonofabitch, but that good cop-- why, he's a sweetheart!  Look at him!  Just look!  He brings you coffee and food and he talks nice.  He doesn't like that bad ol', meany mean bad cop at all, either.  No Sir, not at all.  Such a nice fellow, and he really cares.  He listens.  He understands.  He's my advocate in this time of uncertainty.  I want to work with him, by golly gosh oh gee.  Yessiree.  No doubt about it.  Without him, that bad cop would have beat the living shit out of me by now, for sure.  Man, am I lucky to have Good Cop!  Wow!  Thank God!  This must be an angel sent from Heaven to deliver me from despair!

Right.  Both cops are working to take you to the same place after they're finished with your sorry, dumb ass.

OK; got that out of the system.  Now I'm all ears.

Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.

Calvin Coolidge
[It seems simple and obvious but politicians frequently have problems with both simple and obvious when it runs contrary to their agenda.--Joe]

Alan Korwin was smart enough and fast enough to turn the tables on "an authorized journalist" during a recent encounter with a group of them:

The AP writer told of an assignment she got from the New York office, formerly the core of AP, and now restructured as one of four regional hubs. It seems the nation was bursting with hope and optimism right after Mr. Obama's inauguration, and now, one year later, everyone was disappointed and dejected.

"But wait," pointed out The Uninvited Ombudsman, the emcee for the evening event, "for half the nation's people, there was hopeless disappointment and dejection right after the election, and now, a year later, there is finally a ray of hope and light at the end of the tunnel. Doesn't your story neglect that half of the picture?"

All four AP staffers, who had nodded approvingly during the anecdote, stared like deer caught in headlights.

Nice.

The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood.

Alexander Haig
December 2, 1924 – February 20, 2010
[I should have posted this a few days ago but I forgot that I had it in my collection.--Joe]

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.

Sydney J. Harris
[And there is a whole lot of asking going on around here now.--Joe]

In case anyone has forgotten;

That in response to this story.

The very fact that there are anti gun rights weasels in Congress is in itself a crime. When will the time come that it isn't considered "balance" to include the bigoted comments of the anti gun rights activists in public discourse, and it is seen for what it is-- a lying, bigoted, anti American movement? The Enemy Within. Would we tolerate the KKK being invited to speak in public forums? Would we tolerate an anti women's suffrage coalition of Mayors?

One thing we should always keep in mind is what victory would look like. One feature of victory would be that any politician who, even under his breath, even caught in a private conversation, suggests an infringement on a constitutional right risks swift impeachment. What could be worse, after all, than someone charged with protecting our rights actually fighting against them? Would you tolerate your nanny abusing your kids? Would you tolerate your security guard stealing from you or attacking you? Would you tolerate your grounds-keeper tearing up your lawn and garden, demanding that you have no right to a nice lawn? Would you tolerate your accountant embezzling from you? Why in the hell should we as a society tolerate any politician who hates the very fact that we have rights? If the term, "enemy of the state" has or ever had any meaning, surely an anti-rights politician is a prime example.

Lyle @ UltiMAK
February 1, 2010
In the comments.
[Wow! I think we should start including the essence of that in our emails to our congress critters.--Joe]

Occasionally I have spent time on understanding those opposed to freedom. Other times I just said it doesn't matter why -- we just have to defeat them.

Kevin put a lot more effort and research into the understanding that I ever would have expended. It's basically a extended book report on A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles by Thomas Sowell with lots of supporting material from Adam Smith and Friedrich von Hayek to Markadelphia. I've put it in my "wish list" of books to buy from Audible.com and will probably start it within a week or so.

It took me an hour to read (it is a classic Kevin Baker post) but I found the enlightenment worth my time.

The main point is there is a fundamental first principle that differentiates advocates for freedom from those that oppose us. Sowell and Baker, in this post, refer to two different "social visions": the Constrained and the Unconstrained.

The Constrained Vision people advocate, among other things, setting up processes to limit the damage done by the extremes of individual human behaviors such as violent crime and group crimes such as enslavement and genocide. This limits political power for both good and evil. The Constrained Vision advocates view the limit of political power as a trade-off. Sure, it might be that you can create something closer to a utopia if more power is given to the government but the risks are not worth it.

The Unconstrained Vision people minimize or dismiss the possibility enhanced governmental powers becoming a hazard and focus on the possible benefits. When the enhanced governmental powers fail to deliver the anticipated benefits they advocate even more governmental powers and the silence and/or death of those that oppose them. Facts become irrelevant (as seen in my post made a few minutes before I started looking at Kevin's post).

Ultimately the two differences in first principle lead to conclusions that are diametrically opposed on fundamental issues. In this video where a liberal scumbag running for U.S. president gets rights and privileges absolutely backward you have to conclude that even though he is a lawyer that he cannot have read the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

I keep reading Kevin's post, hoping to find something that could be used as a tool to recover our freedom in this country. What can you say or do that lead us out of what to some appears to be a death spiral?

I didn't find the conclusion I was looking for. Instead it was in the first few paragraphs. As Sowell says (via Kevin):

Peter Robinson: If you had a sentence or two to say to the Cabinet assembled around President Obama, and this cabinet holds glittering degrees from one impressive institution after another, if you could beseech them to conduct themselves in one particular way between now and the time they leave office, what would you say?

Thomas Sowell: Actually, I would say only one word: Goodbye. Because I know there's no point talking to them.

Hence, understanding is not all that important. Only defeating them is important. I'll still be trying to understand but the more I understand the more I agree with son James here and here.

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or it becomes true.

John Lilly
[See also what Paul Simon said on essentially the same topic.

There are lots of examples of this. It helps explain why there are so many religions that have incompatible "immutable truths". It helps explain advocates of socialism even after the deaths of tens of millions and the misery of 100's of millions by those attempting to build a "workers paradise". And in my favorite example it helps explain why Chicago politicians put up such an irrational defense in the McDonald v. Chicago case (via Dave Hardy)--Joe]

What's happened is that, true to form, Democrats can't seem to get out of their own way. Unlike their counterparts on the right, the party leadership, from Obama on down the Congressional line, is comprised of a bunch of spineless, visionless, disorganized, pseudo-intellectual sailors sinking in a sea of their own delusion and denial.

Andy Ostroy (Democrat)
January 27, 2009
The Problem with Democrats
[Considering that nearly everything they attempt to legislatively do cannot be found in the enumerated powers granted them by the U.S. Constitution I don't have a problem with this.--Joe]

Writing to one's state or U.S. representatives is quite easy, thanks in part to Algore's internets/tubes, and it is often an important thing to do.  They need to know what we're thinking, whether or not they agree.  More importantly, they need to be reminded of their duties in upholding the state and/or U.S. constitution, as they are so prone to (eh-hem) forget.  Soon after writing my WA state senators, cc-ing the house, thusly;

-----Original Message-----
From: Lyle
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 4:29 PM
To: Schoesler, Sen. Mark
Cc: Fagan, Rep. Susan; Schmick, Rep. Joe
Subject: Stop This Nonsense

HOUSE INTERNET E-MAIL DELIVERY SERVICE
SENATE INTERNET E-MAIL DELIVERY SERVICE

TO:  Senator Mark Schoesler

CC:  Representative Susan Fagan
     Representative Joe Schmick

FROM: Lyle

BILL:  6396 (Against)

SUBJECT:  Stop This Nonsense

MESSAGE:

Senate Bill 6396, the "assault weapon" bill is not only an affront to the Washington state and federal constitutions, it cannot possibly do anything to "keep guns out of the hands of criminals".  Criminals by definition don't obey such laws, and if certain guns are outlawed, criminals will be the only ones using them.

Further, it is well known that the federal "assault weapon ban" of 1994 (expired in 2004) did nothing to reduce or prevent crimes.

This new state bill can only be described as gun owner harassment, and an attack on the very concepts of liberty and self defense.

I point out that the AR-15 style rifle has recently become the most popular rifle platform in the U.S., and it would be outlawed by SB6396.  Millions of handguns carried for defense would become illegal under this bill also.  Is this how we are to fight crime-- by disarming or harassing the potential victims?

I urge you and your colleagues to stop this in its tracks, by any means necessary.  Further, I expect you to take decisive action within both the House and Senate against any law-maker who so brazenly attacks our personal liberties.  We will be watching.

Thank You.

I received the following response;

From: Schmick, Rep. Joe [mailto:Schmick.Joe@leg.wa.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 4:22 PM
To: Lyle
Subject: RE: Stop This Nonsense

Thank you for your comments.  I have heard an overwhelming objection to this bill from others in the 9th legislative district.

I oppose any gun regulation.  I fully support your second amendment rights to bear and keep arms and rest assured, I will vote accordingly.

Sincerely,

Joe Schmick
State Representative

Good for Joe Schmick.  Just one little bone to pick; he makes no mention of going after law makers "who so brazenly attack our personal liberties".  No big surprise there.  This is a new concept.  Even pro-liberty politicians (or is that an oxymoron?) are accustomed to playing defensive holding actions 99 to 100% of the time.  We'll let that one go for now, though at some point this will have to change.  Your team will never make it to the SuperBowl with the greatest defense and no offense.  I replied;

Thank you very much for your response.  If it helps to convince others who may be on the fence, I invite you to recall that state initiative 676 back in the 1990s, which was a sweeping weapon restriction scheme, failed overall by a margin of about 69 to 31.  Washington citizens may be evenly split on some issues, but [this] is certainly not one of them.

Best Regards,

Lyle

No one else responded for about a week.  Then came this bit from state rep Susan Fagan (oh boy);

Lyle,

Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns and comments.  I appreciate your taking the time and effort to share your views with me.

I am humbled and honored to represent our constituents in the 9th District.  As legislators, we have hundreds of issues to consider.  We need to be fiscally responsible and work towards stimulating the economy.  We also need to help protect our most vulnerable citizens and maintain individual rights and freedoms.

Please know that I am working hard to make the best decisions possible towards responsive and efficient state government.  Your input alerts me to issues of major concern and helps me to effectively serve our district.

Best regards,

Susan Fagan
State Representative
9th Legislative District

439 John L. O'Brien Building
P.O. Box 40600
Olympia, WA  98504-0600
(360) 786-7942
Fagan.susan@leg.wa.gov

It's a form letter, designed as a blanket response, no matter the issue, no matter the position.  The only clue in there as to any sort of a position is that the term "individual rights and freedoms" appears.  A hard-core communist revolutionary probably wouldn't say that, but then again a hard-core communist revolutionary is also a chameleon, or a liar, by definition.  Not much to go on as part of a universal "I don't have the time to respond to you directly so here's some crap for you to chew on.  Now go away and don't bother me" letter.  A bit insulting.  She could have at least hired a junior high school delinquent to send a form letter addressing this particular issue as part of his public service requirement.  Such is life.  Very few politicians have the courage to actually say things.  No one else responded, but they did get my letter and that must count for something (so I tell myself).  If nothing else, the sheer volume can tell them a lot, and volume they have been getting.

Joe Waldron reported the following to the WA-CCW and WA-Guns email lists on the hearing in Olympia on Tuesday:

I just finished scanning the sign-in sheets on the bill.

313 signed in

14 signed "pro" (yes) on the bill
299 signed "con" (no) on the bill.

Actually, it was 11 "yes" and three blank, but they were in a bunch, all from Ceasefire, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Congratulations to Washington gun owners on a fine turnout! It doesn't quite beat the count for the gun show bill three years ago (SB 5197), but it was close!!!

21.4 to 1.

Typical. And probably the reason the MSM didn't mention numbers.

Also in the comments there was mention of people on our side that didn't sign in because they got there a little bit late (parking is hard to find near the capital) and who were directed to the overflow area away from the sign in table.

Good job guys.

Oh, there were some people that open carried. The cops helping with crowd control were just fine with it. They OC, so why should there be a problem if their bosses OC?

Canadians took another step closer to freedom last night:

A decision by MPs in Ottawa to repeal the federal long-gun registry was met with harsh criticism by the Quebec government, and law enforcement groups across the country.

MPs voted 164-137 last evening to repeal the federal long-gun registry, despite police assertions that it saves lives.

...

The proposed legislation now moves to an all-party committee for public hearings before it returns to the House of Commons for a final vote and then heads to the Senate.

If the bill makes it through Parliament, it would mean the dismantling of eight million firearms records, say police.

The article is very negative on the news. The only thing positive in the article about the proposed easing of the infringements on an inalienable right is the following:

Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, the president of the Association des familles de personnes assassinées ou disparues du Québec, said he hopes yesterday’s decision will allow lawmakers to focus on more pressing matters.

“There are fewer and fewer hunting guns being bought, because fewer people are hunting, not because the registry has been a success,” Boisvenu said. “The real problem is caused by knives and handguns. (The long-gun registry) has cost $1 billion, and it’s not up to date. About half the people on that registry have changed addresses by now.”

Boisvenu, whose daughter Julie was kidnapped, raped and strangled to death in June 2002, said the money would be better spent cracking down on the trade of handguns and knives, many of which are funnelled through Native reserves. He said the long-gun registry would not have prevented a tragedy like the Polytéchnique massacre.

“All the mass killers have done their crimes with illegal guns,” he said. “There is nothing in place to stop someone from getting a gun on the black market and going to kill someone.”

If our president was doing his job he would praise the legislations and encourage them to hurry it through to completion--other presidents were advocates of liberty why not all?

Maybe I'm lucky to be going so slowly, because I may be going in the wrong direction.

Ashleigh Brilliant
[If only President Obama were so smart.--Joe]

I was unable to attend but the reports coming in indicate we had a good turnout. The MSM didn't give us any clues (check here, here, and here--do you any hints at all?) as to the ratio but it appears it was fairly typical:

More than 300 Washington gun owners descended on the John A. Cherberg Building in Olympia Tuesday morning for a hearing on SB 6396, the so-called “assault weapons” ban legislation sponsored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Adam Kline.

Opponents of the bill vastly outnumbered its supporters, and for many in the audience who had traveled several hours to reach the capitol, it was disappointing that Kline allowed only 30 minutes for the hearing, and only a handful of speakers – evenly divided between pro and con – were allowed to speak. The crowd spilled out into the hallway, and at least a couple of auxiliary hearing rooms were jammed.

Also typical is the following type of stunt:

Several in the audience, including National Rifle Association lobbyist Brian Judy, were astonished when Pillo claimed to be “here today representing myself and my personal opinions,” yet she was in full uniform, complete with duty belt and sidearm.

This happens a lot at these type of events. It's very frustrating to have people who should be arresting and prosecuting people like the sponsors of these bills actually support them and openly admit they draw a government paycheck. They couldn't openly be a member of the KKK so why can they get away with openly supporting gun control laws? This has to change.

It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge. Malinformation is more hopeless than noninformation; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, from which we must first erase. Ignorance is content to stand still, with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the wrong direction. Ignorance has not light, but error follows a false one.

Charles Caleb Colton
[I was reminded of this by:

Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, sponsor of the bill and chairman of the Judiciary Committee that was hearing it, said the bill includes descriptions of features on firearms such as pistol grips on rifles and barrel shrouds that make a gun “more lethal than your average deer rifle.” That prompted laughter in the hearing room...

I also considered the following as QOTD in response but I had already used them. Anti-gun people suck up my supply of ignorance quotes at a prodigious rate:

• Quote of the day--Ben Franklin
• Quote of the day--Mark Philip Alger
• Quote of the day--Robert Burton
• Quote of the day--Lord Acton
• Quote of the day--Peter McArthur
• Quote of the day--James Huffman-Scott
• Quote of the day--Akhenaton

I have news for Mr. Kline. The days of ignorance by the people at large is over. It's not going to work this time.

The sponsors of this bill have, and spread, malinformation. It's sometimes tough to deal with. But public laughter is a far more effective cure than anger and is better for your blood pressure too.--Joe]

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.

Richard M. Nixon
[I am reminded of this by the Obama Report Card by the Brady Campaign. On that same day the candidate they endorsed and everyone initially expected would be a shoo-in for the open Massachusetts Senate seat was beaten by a (at least moderately) pro-gun candidate. Now they want to beat on Obama who was considered their savior just a year ago.

The Brady Campaign would do well to remember the conditions under which President Nixon left the political scene. Claiming "necessity" and acting on that without adhering to the universal principles of honesty and integrity can lead to ruin. But then honesty has never been a strong point of the Brady Campaign so my advice is probably going be totally ignored.--Joe]

From Joe Waldron's Washington State Gun Owner Action League post dated January 22, 2010:

A public hearing will be conducted on SB 6396, the so-called “assault weapon” ban bill on Tuesday, 26 January.  The hearing will take place at 10 a.m. in Senate Hearing Room “1” in the John A. Cherberg Senate Office Building on the Capitol Campus in Olympia. 
 
It is imperative that as many individuals as possible attend the hearing and sign in in opposition to the bill.  A sign-in sheet will be available at a side table just inside the hearing room (or if the crowd is large enough, the sign-in sheet may be outside the room in the corridor).  Sign in with your name, address and a position on the bill: “con.”  There is a place on the sign-in sheet to indicate whether or not you would like to testify.  Time is limited, so I anticipate only a few individuals will be called upon on both sides of the issue.  Who gets to testify and who does not is solely up to the committee chair (Senator Adam Kline, sponsor of the bill).
 
Hints on testimony:  public input is limited to three minutes or less.  Begin by stating your name and where you are from.  Personal attacks on the motives of bill supporters are not allowed.  If a point has already been made, do not repeat it.  As with a letter to the editor, short, concise points are best.  While reference to “cold, dead fingers” may be dramatic, this is NOT a drama.  Courtesy is a virtue!
 
Parking in and around the Capitol Campus is extremely limited.  Olympia parking enforcement makes a ton of money enforcing the one-hour limit in the residential areas just south of the Campus!  If the spaces on Campus or overflow parking lots to the east are taken, it’s best to park in the business area in the blocks to the north, using the parking meters.  Car-pooling is the way to go!
 
It is equally imperative that, whether you can attend the hearing or not, you contact your Senator, by e-mail (https://dlr.leg.wa.gov/MemberEmail/Default.aspx), direct telephone (http://apps.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/Default.aspx) or Legislative Hotline (1-800-562-6000) to indicate your opposition to the bill.
 
A committee vote on the bill will likely be taken a few days later in executive session.  The Judiciary Committee has eight members, five Democrats and three Republicans (matching the proportion of Democrats to Republicans in the Senate).  The three Republicans and one Democrat lean our way.

People are still saying the proposed AWB will be stillborn at best:

After 2009 ended in a hail of high-profile gun violence, Washington state's gun-control advocates are frustrated by an apparent lack of political support for an assault weapons ban, warning that the state will likely face more deadly shootings without it.

The bill comes just weeks after a spate of deadly police shootings, and proponents of the ban say those killings should force politicians to confront gun violence.

"There's more guns, a repressed economy and a lot of angry people," said Ralph Fascitelli, board chairman for state gun control group Washington Ceasefire. "You can't sweep this problem under a rug. Apparently the shooting of eight police isn't enough to confront gun violence in the state."

The bill was named in honor of 18-year-old Aaron Sullivan, who was shot and killed by a SKS 7.62-caliber rifle in Seattle in July. The legislation focuses on "military-style" assault weapons, which can fire rapidly and carry large magazines of ammunition.

Similar bans have not fared well in the state Legislature in the past, and in an election year, supporters face a battle to even get the bill out of committee.

They did manage to avoid Fascitelli embarrassing himself with more talk of "animal assassins".

See also my posts here, here, and here on the topic.

I know there's a perception that in Israel, by golly, practically everyone has guns and that makes for great security.  They may have an effective military.  I don't know.  When was the last time it was really tested?

From our friend in Israel, we get a more accurate picture of how the government treats private gun ownership there;

Friends:

Something new has been inserted into the firearms regulations here.

When your rifle (includes all .22 caliber rifles, even Olympic small bore .22s and air-guns) license comes up for renewal, if you are not an active member of the new Israeli Rifleman Association– a new branch of the Israeli Shooting Federation arisen out of the ashes of the Civil Guard Sharpshooters Association in 2009 – you must turn your rifle into the police or get a licensed firearms dealer to carry it on his “books” for you or sell it. 

1. Since no one can obtain a rifle license, you can’t find anyone entitled to buy your rifle. 

2. I know of almost no gun dealer who wants the headache, even for a fee, of having to deal with the Ministry of Interior inspectors about having “your” gun on his book.  Even though it is “kosher.”

3. Turning your rifle(s) into the police, because your license to possess (even exclusively in your home) your private and valuable property is not renewed because of an administrative decision not to renew it, is confiscation.

And they will send the anti-terror unit of the Border Police to knockdown your door and destroy your home in the process of taking your rifle and you will be arrested and carted away – the TV cameras will be rolling and the newspaper photographers will be snapping photos of the event – you can be sure that the police will invite the media.

If you are a member of the new Rifleman Association you must be “active.”  The Ministry of Interior regulations define active as you participating in a minimum of 5 national competitions per year.

GOD BLESS THE SECOND AMMENDMENT and the entire Bill Of Rights!  Things Israel lacks.

Enjoy the Shot Show.

Howard

This resembles the UK more than it does our popular ideas of what Israel is supposed to be.

Via IM from son James we have a philosophy professor explaining how environmentalism is a substitute for more traditional religions:

Feeling unworthy is still a large part of Western religious culture, but many people, especially in multicultural urban centers, are less religious. There are still those who believe that God is watching them and judging them, so their feelings of guilt and moral indignation are couched in the traditional theological furniture. But increasing numbers, in the middle and upper classes, identify themselves as being secular or perhaps "spiritual" rather than religious.

Now the secular world still has to make sense out of its own invisible, psychological drama—in particular, its feelings of guilt and indignation. Environmentalism, as a substitute for religion, has come to the rescue. Nietzsche's argument about an ideal God and guilt can be replicated in a new form: We need a belief in a pristine environment because we need to be cruel to ourselves as inferior beings, and we need that because we have these aggressive instincts that cannot be let out.

Instead of religious sins plaguing our conscience, we now have the transgressions of leaving the water running, leaving the lights on, failing to recycle, and using plastic grocery bags instead of paper. In addition, the righteous pleasures of being more orthodox than your neighbor (in this case being more green) can still be had—the new heresies include failure to compost, or refusal to go organic. Vitriol that used to be reserved for Satan can now be discharged against evil corporate chief executives and drivers of gas-guzzling vehicles. Apocalyptic fear-mongering previously took the shape of repent or burn in hell, but now it is recycle or burn in the ozone hole. In fact, it is interesting the way environmentalism takes on the apocalyptic aspects of the traditional religious narrative. The idea that the end is nigh is quite central to traditional Christianity—it is a jolting wake-up call to get on the righteous path. And we find many environmentalists in a similarly earnest panic about climate change and global warming. There are also high priests of the new religion, with Al Gore ("the Goracle") playing an especially prophetic role.

We even find parallels in environmentalism of the most extreme, self-flagellating forms of religious guilt. Nietzsche claims that religion has fostered guilt to such neurotic levels that some people feel culpable and apologetic about their very existence. Compare this with extreme conservationists who want to sacrifice themselves for trees and whales. And teachers, like myself, will attest to significant numbers of their students who feel that their cats or whatever are equal to human beings. And not only are members of the next generation egalitarian about all life, but they often feel positively awful about the way that their species has corrupted and defiled the whole beautiful symphony of nature. The planet, they feel, would be better off without us. We are not worthy. In this extreme form, one does not seek to reduce one's carbon footprint so much as eliminate one's very being.

It appears many people have a religious gene. They are, in essence, programmed to feel as they do toward "something greater than themselves". As science made the unknown more knowable and more under the control of man it reduced the domain of possibility and probability of god(s) controlling people's lives. And people had to have a substitute. This professor proposes environmentalism fulfills this need for many people.

I would like to suggest that an all powerful state fulfills that need for far too many other people--socialism can be thought of as a religion. It is a belief in the goodness of something without, or in spite of, evidence. Compare that to traditional religious faith.

This has serious implications for society and even the entire human race. If we are condemned to believe in things contrary to the facts how can we make the best decisions for ourselves let alone justify the forcing of others to adhere to the will of the majority?

The administration is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about international arms trade between nation states, but there's no doubt – as was the case back over a decade ago – that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control.

There's never been any doubt when these groups talk about saying they only want to prohibit illicit international trafficking in small arms and light weapons, it begs the whole question of what's legal and what's not legal. And many of the implications of these treaty negotiations are very much in their domestic application. So, whatever the appearance on the surface, there's no doubt that domestic firearm control is right at the top of their agenda.

After the treaty is approved and it comes into force, you will find out that it has this implication or that implication and it requires the Congress to adopt some measure that restricts ownership of firearms. The administration knows it cannot obtain this kind of legislation purely in a domestic context … They will use an international agreement as an excuse to get domestically what they couldn't otherwise.

John Bolton
Former Permanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations
Quoted by J.D. Longstreet January 15, 2009 in The UN To Take US Guns?
[I don't know if this is a real threat or not. My initial inclination is that the current Senate would refuse to ratify it. But I just don't know for certain.

Long term I do fear this sort of approach to gun control because it requires fewer people to agree to it. Just the President and 2/3s of the Senate. But how would that work if the treaty said "You must register and track all guns" but the House of Representatives refused to pass a law requiring that? How could a treaty be enforced against individual citizens without U.S. legal code defining the offenses and the punishments?

Would the U.N. send in troops to enforce it? If so I know some people who refer to this sort of situation as having unlimited license to hunt "blue helmeted elk".--Joe]

Voter frustration has a way of becoming voter fury when lawmakers stick one hand in their wallet and the other hand in their gun cabinet.

Dave Workman
January 13, 2009
Bill introduced to ban so-called ‘assault weapons’ in Washington State
[This bill defines certain pump action rifles and shotguns as "assault weapons" as well as ordinary semi-autos.

Vote the bums out!--Joe]

Dmitry Orlov
February 13, 2009
Social Collapse Best Practices
[I was reminded of this after reading Roberta post The Greater Depression. I snorted in laughter when I read the last line of her post but then it took me several minutes for me to give Barb the context so she could get the joke. She claims it was worth it.--Joe]

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

Thomas Jefferson
[This was going to be a response to some gun fearing wussy who had objections to my statement here. But no one took the bait and someone else brought up what Jefferson said in the comments before I did.--Joe]

I guess I'll call them "PRRs" or "RRPs" (Rifle Receiver Pistols).  A few of us made comments over at at Say Uncle about the use of such pistols.  There was the assertion that Blackwater personnel have been using AK pistols out of vehicles.  I don't get it.  Here's my last comment;

A cut down, folding stock carbine I can see (AKS-74U et al) but I have yet to understand the allure of the "pistol" version (no shoulder stock at all).

"They became very common with Blackwater in Iraq."

You're not referring to a folder rather than a pistol?

Stateside, I see the rifle receiver pistol as a political creation (if it has a shoulder stock it falls under the NFA [as a short barreled rifle, or SBR]) rather than something that arose for a particular application.  Otherwise we'd be seeing handguns more along the lines of an Automag with 30 round mags, and/or the Tech 9 or some iteration thereof would be popular, which it isn't.

There must be something I don't understand.  Is it all about suppressive fire?  But in that case what's wrong with having a folding stock on there just in case you want to, you know, aim, or something?

Can anyone fill me in on the particulars?  Why an AK pistol, AR pistol, etc., other than the fact that the stocked version comes with the NFA hassles and tax for civilians?  I mean; why are such pistols desired for defense and/or in combat?  Or are they?

How could he be in charge of Seattle's gun-prevention programs?

Peter Masundire
January 5, 2009
A Democratic activist in South Seattle.
Gun guy packs heat in message
Referring to Seattle mayor's gun adviser, Mark Pursley.
[It's nice for them to admit that is what the position is intended for. And it's also nice to know the guy in that position has at least some sympathy for our position.

H/T to Mike and Ry for the email pointer.--Joe]

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

Ben Franklin
[I was inspired to choose this quote because of Kevin's QOTD yesterday.

Assuming this is true then it would follow that those who wish to be masters might purposefully set about to encourage corruption and destroy virture.

Although I don't care to take the time to do this I believe a good case could be made that it has already happened.--Joe]

If you remember I talked to a co-worker who grew up in East Germany. One of the things I wrote about that was:

His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. "You tell them I lived that. You tell them to go visit this town. Yah!", and he showed me a town on a map of Germany. "Not one bomb was dropped on that town during the entire war", he said. "There was no fighting in that town. But if you go there that town looks like it was all bombed out. When people don't own their property they don't care. The roofs, they are all falling down. Yah! You tell him to go there and look for himself."

It turns out you don't have to go to Germany to validate that condemnation of leftists, their central planning, and their hatred of capitalism. You could just go to Detroit. Or check out this video I found at Kevin's place:

A bill being proposed in New Hampshire would make felons out of Federal Law enforcement officers that attempt to enforce certain Federal anti-gun laws:

II. Any official, agent, or employee of the government of the United States, or employee of a corporation providing services to the government of the United States that enforces or attempts to enforce a act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in New Hampshire and that remains within the State of New Hampshire shall be guilty of a class B felony.

See also here and here for more views on the topic.

There are two non-obvious points I find very interesting with this.

1. It has been found, in the ninth circuit anyway that a state may charge a Federal law enforcement officer, performing acts he believed to be valid, is subject to state prosecution for crimes associated with that act.
2. The states, in effect nullified the Real ID act by refusing to comply with the Federal law.

I'm not particularily hopeful that it will get passed and actually come to it but assuming the bill goes into law I wish I had the time, money, and opportunity to sit around taking pictures and eating popcorn when the first Federal LEO gets arrested and tried.

I expect that there will be fireworks elsewhere and the issue will be settled before it come to that in NH.

Of course the entire concept of the bill is unconstitutional. But it's going to be tough to find someone with standing and get any serious court attention that could scrap the entire thing. But the attorney generals of 13 states might slow things down some:

Republican attorneys general in 13 states say congressional leaders must remove Nebraska's political deal from the federal health care overhaul bill or face legal action, according to a letter provided to The Associated Press Wednesday.

"We believe this provision is constitutionally flawed," South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and the 12 other attorneys general wrote in the letter to be sent Wednesday night to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

"As chief legal officers of our states we are contemplating a legal challenge to this provision and we ask you to take action to render this challenge unnecessary by striking that provision," they wrote.

Those signing on are Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington state. I'm proud to say both of my states of Idaho and Washington are attempting to stop this abomination.

I just "love" how they point out they are all Republicans. Other sources make an even bigger deal out of that point:

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said the letter was a political ploy.

"This threat stinks of partisan politics," he said in a statement. "If Henry McMaster wants to write federal law he should run for Congress not governor."

Meanwhile, Nelson is taking his message on health care reform directly to his constituents. In a television ad beginning during Wednesday night's Nebraska-Arizona Holiday Bowl football game, the Democrat says he stuck by his principles throughout the debate and doesn't want Nebraskans to be confused on his position.

While it's not uncommon for states to challenge federal laws in court, one legal expert said political bluster was likely behind the letter.

"I do think that it is some combination of the losers just complaining about the officiating, or complaining about how the game was played, in combination with trying to make the bill look as seedy and inappropriate as possible, for political purposes," says Andy Siegel, a former University of South Carolina School of Law professor now teaching at Seattle University School of Law.

"It is smart politics to try to tarnish it and make it look less like an achievement and more like some sort of corrupted bargain," he said.

Principles? Democrats have principles? I didn't know Democrats had principles. Can anyone tell me any principles the Democrats will admit to? The Republicans claim some principles but treat them as guidelines or just half-hearted suggestions.

Not that it would surprise anyone who's been seeking facts, but murder is down while gun and ammo sales are way up.  NRA's ILA discusses the latest FBI crime report.  They link to this tidbit also.  Wow-- what happened in 2006?  See that little spike in the last quarter of 2001?  We felt that one, so we already knew about it.  We has recently started selling our ground breaking AK optic mount, and people started buying them up in droves after 9/11, along with high-end optics.  You attack the U.S. and we prepare to respond as individuals, should individual action become necessary.  That is as intended by our nation's founders.

I'd like to have seen some mention of the word "rights" or of the second amendment, and how a right is not contingent upon certain crime rate parameters, but the ILA article will have to do.  I can help them understand things a bit further;

At the expense of undercutting a future post I have planned, here's the danger in these types of arguments; crime will at some point rise.  For one reason or another, these things cycle up and down.  If you place too much stock in the assertion that gun rights should be protected because crime is dropping while gun ownership is rising, you'll eventually lose that argument and have to start over with a different one, in danger of looking like a hypocrite (Republicans? Are you listening?).  Crime will increase and gun buying will at some stage decrease, and they will probably at some other point happen both at the same time.

If violent crime were high and increasing, wouldn't access to the tools of self defense be that much more important?  Hmmm?  And again I ask; Hmmm?

Principles.  It can't be overstated.  Gun rights should be protected because a right is a right.  Violators of rights should be punished because they are criminals and we can’t afford to tolerate criminals.  Principles don’t change with the ebb and flow of statistics just as Rosie would have gotten fat with or without legal access to a spoon.

As I said a couple weeks ago they were going to lose on this one. It appears they are admitting defeat already:

You would think that if ever there was a political climate favorable for gun control legislation, it would be here. With the state reeling from the third police killing in two months, legislators surely feel the need to do something. A proposed assault weapons ban, to be introduced in the coming legislative session, would seem like a place to start.

Yet only one week after Washington CeaseFire held a press conference to announce the planned bill, its prospects look dim. "Frustrating, that would be the word," CeaseFire president Ralph Fascitelli says, speaking of the reaction he's getting from key politicians as he lobbies for the proposal.

"We don't have the votes," he recalls House Speaker Frank Chopp telling him recently. Fascitelli says the powerful Seattle Democrat alluded to a bloc of approximately 20 representatives in his party who are opposed to gun control legislation. In any case, Chopp told Fascitelli, he was preoccupied by the budget and upcoming elections.

...

Contrary to a report last week in the Seattle Times, the Seattle Police Department has not officially come out in favor of an assault weapons ban although it is "supportive of the work CeaseFire is doing," according to spokesperson Mark Jamieson. "We understand that discussion of gun rights legislation is polarizing," he says.

While the bill has yet to be introduced and debated, Fascitelli already sounds bitter. When it comes to gun control, he says, "there is no leadership in this state."

A frustrated, bitter bigot. Sounds like we are doing something right in this state.

Instead of identifying politicians by name or party, we ought to do so by ideology - which is uncomfortably akin to classifying strains of dysentery by patient I admit.

Will Brown
Comment to a post by Kevin Baker on November 26, 2008
[The take over of the health care industry by the Federal government reminded me of this.--Joe]

These are weapons of war. They can kill, shoot 200 bullets a minute. Anybody that uses a semi-automatic to hunt is an animal assassin. You know, that's someone who would take an M-80 and throw it in a pond of water to kill fish.

Ralph Fascitelli
Board President of Washington Ceasefire
["Weapons of war"? Almost none of the proposed firearms to ban have been used as military issue firearms let alone used in a war zone. They are sporting arms in common use and protected the Second Amendment.

If he can get 200 rounds a minute out of my Ruger P89 (considered an "assault weapon" by his definition) then he is a far, far better shooter than me or anyone I know.

Any firearm can be used to kill something. So how does that bit of information contribute to the discussion?

"Animal assassin"? I have a feeling that phrase is going to be used to mock Fascitelli for quite some time. And why bring up hunting? What has hunting got to do with the right to keep and bear arms?

A M-80 thrown into a pond to kill fish makes someone an "animal assassin"? No wonder their side is losing. They can't make a cogent argument. He just wanders all over the place with his thoughts.

Every single sentence this guy said is either completely false or nonsensical. It's another case of Crap for Brains.--Joe]

As reported by Say Uncle, Dave Hardy, and Sebastian President Obama actually signed a bill into law Wednesday that would require passengers who carry firearms aboard AMTRAK be locked in boxes for their journey.

They claim "no one quite knows the origin of the mistake".

I have absolutely no data to support my suspicion but I would like someone to explore the hypothesis that it was not a mistake. It seems to me that would be a very clever way to defeat legislation you didn't like. Swap a word or ten in a 1000 page bill and who is going to notice until you drive your truck through the loophole you created or your political enemy gets dragged off to the gulag?

Some ignorant lawmakers (I repeat myself) announced they are going to attempt banning "assault weapons" in Washington State:

In response to recent shooting deaths, three state lawmakers say they want to ban the sale of military-style semi-automatic weapons in Washington.

The lawmakers intend to propose the ban in the state legislative session that begins next month.

The legislation, called the Aaron Sullivan Public Safety and Police Protection Bill, would prohibit the sale of such weapons to private citizens and require current owners to pass background checks.

...

The ban would cover semiautomatics designed for military use that are capable of rapid-fire and can hold more than 10 rounds. Semiautomatics designed for sporting or hunting purposes wouldn't be banned

Sorry guys. That horse has already left the barn.

Do you remember that little phrase "in common use" phrased in the Heller decision?

Emphasis in the following is mine.

On page 2:

United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. Pp. 47–54.

...

The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56.

On page 52:

We think that Miller’s “ordinary military equipment” language must be read in tandem with what comes after: “[O]rdinarily when called for [militia] service [able-bodied] men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.” 307 U.S., at 179. The traditional militia was formed from a pool of men bringing arms “in common use at the time” for lawful purposes like self-defense. “In the colonial and revolutionary war era, [small-arms] weapons used by militiamen and weapons used in defense of person and home were one and the same.”

On page 55:

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179.

For the clueless bigots in Seattle what that means is that if you managed to get your proposed law passed the U.S. Supreme Court, if not the Washington State courts will overturn it. You know why? Because Obama was elected.

What? Yeah, you read that right.

When Obama won the election the U.S. population went on a gun buying spree the likes of which has never been seen before. The guns they bought were the very guns that those Seattle bigots want to ban. If they weren't already considered "in common use" before Obama's victory they sure are now.

And because of the delay from when a law is first proposed until the time it can become the law of the land anytime some lawmaker starts having the power to ban a particular type of gun the people will have put that gun into "common use" and thus render the law stillborn.

But if those knuckleheads want to waste their time on harassing activities I suppose that is better than some of the other things they might try.

[H/T to Chet at work and Ry for the pointer to the article.]

Update: Another article with video taken at the gun range where I go when in the Seattle area. And still another article which quotes Washington State AG Rob McKenna as saying, "If this bill is not even going to get a hearing, it is not worth a lot of energy".

That sounds like something Jim would say. Except he would give excruciating detail about the method of execution.

Sean Flynn
December 16, 2009
In response to my suggestion that the U.S. Constitution should require any government employee who votes for or enforces a law or regulation that is later found to be unconstitutional is to be charged with and convicted for the crime of treason.
[Sean and I both like Jim.--Joe]

Here is what I think they don't get…It was their irresponsible risk-taking in many cases that brought the economy to collapse.

...

And they don't get in some cases that they wouldn't be where they are today, and they certainly would not be paying the bonuses they are paying today, if their government hadn't taken extraordinary actions.

Larry Summers
December 13, 2009
White House economic adviser referring to the banking industry. He also chairs the National Economic Council.
White House Lashes Out at Bankers
[In the first sentence he hopes you won't get it was Federal regulations which required irresponsible risk-taking. In the second sentence he hints that he knows this is true and that the U.S. government rewarded that same behavior.

If you think the government knows what it is doing in terms of the economy then you need to do more reading or if pictures and minimal words are all you are up for then check this out (via Linoge and John Lott):

--Joe]

In testifying and speaking in public, I frequently exposed the misleading references Rachel Carson had cited in her book, presenting her statements from Silent Spring and then reading the truth from the actual publications she was purporting to characterize. This revealed to the audiences just how untruthful and misleading the allegations of Silent Spring really were.

Now, nearly 30 years later, the controversy is still boiling about how truthful Rachel Carson was. I recently learned that a movie honoring Rachel Carson and Silent Spring is being made for television. Because I believe such a movie would further misinform the public, the media, and our legislators, I decided to type up my original rough notes from 1962-1963 and make them available. Here they are, page by page, starting with her dedication.

Dr. J. Gordon Edwards
The Lies of Rachel Carson
[H/T to David for the link.

I remember reading Silent Spring in about 1970. It made quite an impression on me as it did millions of other people. I think the copy of the book I read is still on the bookshelf of my parents house.

Reading Edwards notes I realize her half-truths were the same type of propaganda that the anti-gun people propagate today. What she did was not carelessness, ignorance, or a series of honest mistakes. She pulled tidbits out of references that clearly did not support her conclusions or the impression her book portrayed. She had to be doing that deliberately. The same is true of many of the anti-gun writings. When you check their references you find the source concludes something completely different or (as in the case of Michael A. Bellesiles) does not even exist.

The global warming hoax (H/T to Phil for the link), the ecology hoaxes, the anti-gun material and many others all come from the political left. Why is that? Is their desire for control over people so great they will do nearly anything? Sure we have lots of examples of leftists (Stalin, Pol Pot, China, and Nazi Germany for example) where they will do horrible things to consolidate and keep power political power. But even on a much smaller scale it seems to result in the same sort of thing--total lack of ethics, morality, and respect for human life.

I sometimes can't help but think that "if it saves just one life" then people advocating leftists political beliefs should be imprisoned or exiled. But that would be using the very same warped ethical behavior as they do.--Joe]

This is addressed to Pete Sessions, but it serves as an open letter to the Party.  I don't for a minute expect it to go anywhere, or make a difference if it did, and I could think of several ways to make it better after the fact, but someone has to say it.

Pete,

"The Obama/Pelosi agenda has been proven to be a failure…"

That’s true, but what exactly is the Republican agenda?  Remember Bush’s prescription drug entitlement, TARP, and the fact that McCain supported TARP and the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hoax?  I sure do.

It is well and good to point out the Democrats' mental problems and their anti American mindset, but I’m looking for some distinction between Dems and Republicans other than the message I’m getting now, which is, "Give us money—we’re not as corrupt as those other guys."
 
In my lifetime the distinction has been, More Socialism Faster, verses More Socialism Slower.  No thanks.  I want to see your plan for;

A) Dismantling socialist programs in the U.S. (going back to the Wilson Administration and un-doing the damage).  This would involve the elimination of multiple government "departments" and laying off thousands of federal government workers (if they're worth something, they'll thrive in the private sector. If they're not, they shouldn't have been hired in the first place) so as to allow the markets to do what they do best—excel, by weeding out the poor performers and elevating the best performers.

B) Holding accountable those who have promoted or supported socialism (government intervention in the markets for the purpose of social engeneering, i.e. economic stagnation and the erosion of property rights) of any kind within the halls of government.  That would include, but not be limited to, charges of fraud and/or racketeering and/or misappropriation of public funds against the perpetrators of the AGW hoax.

C) Restoring compliance with, and faith in, the U.S. constitution.

D) Cutting tax rates across the board to a small fraction of their current levels, thereby moving boldly forward in restoring capitalism and the liberty and prosperity that comes along with it.
 
The socialist/Progressive movement has been gaining ground in this country for over 100 years, and all that time the Republican Party has been there, either in idleness, in complacency, or themselves actively leading us down this rat hole.  I have had enough.  Do not ask me to take you seriously until you’ve demonstrated some seriousness of your own, plus some clarity, specificity and bold action with regard to the above points.

Sincerely,

Lyle

I'm not supporting any squishy, cowardly Republicans and neither should you.  There is no time for playing games.

The phrase "we (I) (you) simply must -" designates something that need not be done. "That goes without saying" is a red warning. "Of course" means you had best check it yourself. These small-change clichés and others like them when read correctly, are reliable channel markers.

Lazarus Long
A character of Robert Heinlein in his book Time Enough For Love
[Challenging assumptions is sometimes surprisingly easy. It will make you stand out from others as being brilliant, crazy, or both. For practice apply it to global warming, health care "reform", and gun control. Then expand the application of these tests to other political imperatives and even everyday life.

The appropriateness of Heinlein's wisdom is probably endless.--Joe]

He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas.

Ben Franklin
[This could apply to many of the things going on politically these days or almost any day. But on this occasion I'm thinking of the global warming/climate change supporters.--Joe]

In Chicago, only criminals and aldermen are armed. Forgive me for being redundant.

Steve Chapman
November 22, 2009
Above the law--Armed pols: An unfortunate Chicago tradition
[It's worth reading the entire article.--Joe]

You would think that someone who can spend $200 million of his own money to get elected mayor of New York City three times could afford copies of the U.S. Code and the Constitution. Not only does federal law stipulate the specific grounds for denying a person the right to arms, the Fourteenth Amendment states that no one shall be deprived of liberty without due process of law.

And while he is at it, he could buy a copy of another well-known publication, Webster’s Dictionary, and look up the word “obsession.”

NRA-ILA
November 26, 2009
Bloomberg Uses Ft. Hood Murders To Push Gun Control
Referring to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his probably illegal acts discriminating against gun owners.
[One does have to wonder about his motivation for attacking gun owners. Surely he knows there is no evidence showing firearm restrictions makes people safer. So what is his real reason? Does it further his political career that much? Is it because he can use the issue to get more new coverage and feed some narcissistic tendency?--Joe]

I think I detect a hint of bigotry in this headline, "Second Amendment Brief Filed by Bellevue Gun Nuts".

What if the headline had been, "Bus Boycott started by Montgomery ni**ers"?

The reason families need two incomes today is not to support themselves but to support the government.

Dick Armey
[You will see this is particularly relevent if you look at our current national debt.--Joe]

We've had a very well-plotted-out legal strategy for years, leading up to this.

Alan Gottlieb
November 10, 2009
Barack & Load
Regarding the McDonald gun case out of Chicago that is being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
[I recently talked with Alan and he is 100% convinced we are going to win this one.--Joe]

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

William Penn
[Some people think our government is by the people and for the people. Recent events should dissuade you from this belief.--Joe]

Wow! It's almost surreal reading this:

I'll say the last refuge of cowards in the Tenth Amendment.

The Tenth has been invoked a lot lately. The Tenth has been mentioned as the reason health-care reform is unconstitutional. It's the way the Speaker of the Tennessee State House says his state can circumvent federal gun laws. It's the states' rights argument carried to the extreme.

The amendment reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

What that says, in other words, is that if a power is unclaimed by the federal government -- or if that power is not denied to the states -- then the states have it. The intent is to clarify the basic point that if the feds aren't in charge, the states are.

It's a truism, not a grant of power.

Soon after the framers wrote the original document, it was obvious states couldn't act independently. When the Constitution was written, there wasn't much interstate commerce at all. Going from one end of the country to the other end didn't take five hours -- it took five months. So the federal government claimed some powers to tie up loose ends.

If states acted on their own when it came to matters of interstate commerce, it would be to easy for states to grant monopolies to business, and too easy for large businesses to fix prices and destroy smaller competition.

...

Everyone learns at some point in life that there are three remedies to a negative situation: avoid, alter or accept it. Those against health-care legislation or gun-control laws don't need to accept what they see as bad policy. They should try alter the policy in all the accepted ways.

But reverting to the Tenth Amendment is avoidance. It's the equivalent of taking your ball and going home. And these issues are too important to do that.

After invoking the Tenth Amendment he goes on (there is more than just that above) to justify the Interstate Commerce clause without even mentioning it as if it were the Tenth Amendment.

And did you notice all the errors in the passages above?

• The first line says "...in the Tenth..." instead of "...is the Tenth..." but I figure that is just a typo and I give him a pass on that.
• "It's a truism, not a grant of power. "? It explicitly states that the Feds are not granted most powers and he turns it around to claim the states are not granted powers.
• It took five months to travel from one end of the 13 colonies to the other? It's only about 1500 miles so he is saying the average speed of travel was 10 miles per day. Even with a backpack on and walking on mountain trails I can do better than that.
• The Tenth Amendment is part of the U.S. Constitution and it's pretty clear the original intent is being violated. Many other Federal laws have been struck down by the courts as violating various parts of the constitution, including the Tenth Amendment, so it's entirely reasonable to quest whether this law is in violation.

 So it's the author that is the coward avoiding the issue. He gets it exactly backward and calls people invoking the Tenth Amendment cowards. It's called "projection" and it just goes to show he either has mental problems or has crap for brains.

Washington is a place where politicians don't know which way is up and taxes don't know which way is down.

Robert Orben
[I was reminded of this by the failure of I-1033 in Washington State. Andrew Garber at the Seattle times (previous link) described it this way, "Initiative 1033 would have limited revenue increases for state, city and county governments to the rate of inflation and population growth. Additional money collected above the limit would have been used to reduce property taxes."--Joe]

...We circle back around to one of the big problems in our society, which is the idea that line-memorizing clothes horses have anything more valid to say about politics, science, or current events than the hippie on the street corner with a guitar case. The Romans had the right position in society for actors: Above cesspit cleaners, but not as well-respected as a decent whore.

Tamara K.
November 3, 2009
Shame!
[This reminds me of a Robert Heinlein quote:

A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay--such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients?

It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors.

Lazarus Long
A character in several books by Robert Heinlein.

Getting back to Tamara's quote...

The problem is that people are still largely driven by some evolutionary advantageous urge to listen to and obey those whose faces are familiar rather than actually think for themselves. But of course that presumes said person is capable of and willing to think for themselves. I'm not convinced the majority of people are up to the task yet we protect them from their own stupidity almost as if they were children who would grow up someday. I sometimes see a future where the system collapses and Darwin collects on a massive debt we have been accumulating for the last 100 years. It would have been far, far better in so many ways to pay off Darwin in regular installments than to have the Grim Reaper swing his scythe in such a broad swath as I sometimes see as plausible.--Joe]

I've seen many politicians paralyzed in the legs as myself, but I've seen more of them who were paralyzed in the head.

George Wallace
[I'm not a fan of his politics but I can't help but wonder if Wallace wouldn't have more than one ax to grind with the current occupant of the White House. I'm not saying all of them would be valid but from the above quote I think at least one would be applicable.--Joe]

I know many books that have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.

Voltaire
[Voltaire was wrong. This is not to take issue with Voltaire's primary message of strong civil liberties in general or even free speech in particular.

Voltaire should have known of the tens or hundreds of thousands kill because some religious book said followers should kill, maim, or enslave non-believers. But he didn't live at a time to have seen the hundreds of millions dead due, in large part, to Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto. One can use the same arguments used in defense of the First Amendment in defense the Second Amendment. People that claim free speech doesn't harm people like guns do only have to shown the millions and millions of dead in the Soviet Union, China, and other "people's paradises". And the sad part is that private weapons ownership would have prevented most of those deaths.

--Joe]

Montana and Tennessee passed it. Ohio is now considering it:

Reps. Seth Morgan, R-Huber Heights, and Jarrod Martin, R-Beavercreek, have introduced legislation that would allow for firearms made and sold within Ohio to be exempt from federal firearms regulations.

Morgan said that House Bill 315 is mainly a preemptive effort to protect the state in the event President Barack Obama’s administration tries to push any new federal regulations.

My opinion is here.

Bob Barr says the U.N. is coming to take our guns:

The real agenda of these folks at the UN, and in London, Tokyo, Brasilia, and the other capitals around the world of nations pushing the US to “come on board,” is not international regulation, but limiting the freedom we enjoy within the United States to keep and bear arms.

Back in the mid-1990s the NRA sent out postcards for members to mail to the head of the U.N. saying what they had planned was illegal under the U.S. Bill of Rights. I added a note to the one I sent. I told him the guns wouldn't be voluntarily turned in even with monetary compensation. And if they sent people to take them by force to make sure anyone they sent brought their own body bags.

I still am of that opinion and I've had a lot more time to prepare and prepare others for such circumstances (see also here). And my neighbors have similar opinions.

Μολὼν λαβέ.

It's time to restate this.  I posted it last year, and I wonder if anyone really "got it".  It cannot be overstated.  Reading Joe's recent post about the open carry debate among the pro gun rights camp reminded me of it, once again.  That debate can be said to be between people with the same basic principles.  We'll see how Rand's "rules of engagement" as I call them, apply.  Last year I noted;

In the essay, Rand defines three rules "...about the working of principles in practice and about the relationship of principles to goals." 

Wait.  What?  "the working of principles in practice"?  What's that?  "The relationship of principles to goals"?  Sounds pretty juicy if there's anything to it.  Well, there is.

 Leaving out her extensive lead-in:

1. In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.

Open carry verses keeping it hidden so as not to scare or offend anyone.  Which position is more consistent with the basic principles of RKBA?

2. In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.

It applies to any situation, but the idea of government "taking care of" the American people, shared by Republicans and Democrats, comes to mind.  Democrats win here.  Every time.  Republicans will never understand this.  It's not in their DNA to understand this rule.  It's in their DNA to deny it.  The NRA had a similar problem about 15 years ago, but they seem to be getting over it, like getting over a very long-lasting flu.  You cannot collaborate with someone who holds different basic principles and expect a nice outcome.  It's better to do your own thing, unless you want to be the more evil and irrational one.

3. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side;

Gun control debate.  Practicing rule 3, without fully understanding it, is the one and only source of our recent successes.  Understand it, Little Grasshopper, and you will go far.  Some of us think that we've been trying to appear rational as a selling point, or trying to get the opposition to think that we aren't bad people after all, but it is by simply being rational, and by being rational in a public way, and sometimes in an in-your-face way, that we win.  There's a fine distinction here, but a very important one.  Selling ourselves as people is what Republicans do.  That argument says, "I'm a nice, decent person, so you should agree with me."  Blech.  Selling our ideas, on their own merits, and damn the torpedoes because we know we're right and we can prove it, we know our opposition is wrong, disastrously wrong, and we can prove that, is what rational people do.

when they (principles) are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side.

Taking RKBA in light of that last bit; hiding your (our) position (that guns in public are a good thing) or evading it, tends to work in favor of the irrational side (gun restrictions).  We're trying to coddle those who are wrong, trying to sell ourselves in a way tailored so as to appeal to their stupidity and bad behavior.  In so doing we lend them an appearance of credibility or legitimacy that they do not deserve.  Like it or not, that's how it works.  We have to understand that there are some people who have no credibility, have no legitimacy and deserve no accommodation (anti gunners in this case, or people who are offended or "scared" by visible guns [I think most or all of the "fear" is a cheap act perpetrated for maximum drama]) and we have to be ready to point out why.

I believe there are enough examples in most people's day-to-day lives that these basic axioms, Rand's rules of engagement, will be seen as not only valid but very useful once you look at things with them in mind.  Working with institutions installing and troublshooting PA systems (I have an appointment tomorrow) I've run into all these situations.  They're political events as much as anything else.

From the WA-CCW email list:

Mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan will be walking North Beacon Hill Sunday. I plan on a walk, open carry at that same time in that area. Info follows:

On Sunday, October 25th, mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan will do a walking tour of N. Beacon Hill, beginning at 1:00 at the Lite Rail Station. Please note that the North Beacon Hill Council does not endorse candidates, however it is worthwhile for our community to express our dreams/hopes/concerns/issues, etc. to each candidate who contacts us. Mr. Mallahan will be at Kusina Filipina from 2:30-3:00 to hear from community members. Please join him there.

Anyone interested?????

Mike C---Seattle

I'm 300 miles away this weekend and I'm a little too cowardly to do that anyway. I'd be afraid of being forced into a "pavement tasting party". But I think it would be rather cool to follow him around with pro-gun signs and shirts protesting his support of the illegal acts of the current mayor.

The proven fact is that judges will move heaven and earth to uphold assault weapon bans. They will accept fallacious arguments that will justify not only those bans but bans against other guns which might be struck down except for the false precedent of assault weapon cases. Until assault weapon cases were brought, Colorado, Connecticut and Ohio had state constitutional right to keep and bear arms provisions. Now those provisions have been construed into nullities by courts determined to uphold assault weapon bans.

Don B. Kates
November 2009 issue of Handguns
The Power of Patience
[This article is very important advice on building upon the Heller decision from the ground up rather than jumping ahead to "assault weapons" or machine guns. Read it and remember it. When Kates talks about gun laws I listen.

See also other posts I have referring to Don Kates. Although it was Alan Gottlieb that first introduced me to the concept of anti-gun bigotry Don Kates used that meme before I heard it from Gottlieb.--Joe]

I recently had a birthday and although I haven't collected all my loot yet (the family party will be this weekend) I do have some of it.

From son James I received this awesome card and coin:

Front. Click to see the inside.

From wife Barbara I received (in part) this card and a scrapbook:

Front. Click to see the inside.

Here are a couple pages from the scrapbook:

First page.

Next to the last page.

Daughters Kim and Xenia called me up on my birthday and sang Happy Birthday to me over the phone and asked what I wanted for my birthday dinner this weekend. They asked what James gave me then they complained that James needs to give me his presents after them from now on because they can't match him. I'm not so sure on that. I think my kids could give me lumps of coal and I'd still be just as proud and pleased.

Update: Due to popular request via email: The coin (and others) can be purchased here. The scrapbook and wife are not for sale.

Via the encyclopedic gun law brain of Joe Waldron on the Washington CCW email list last Monday:

From 1968 to 1986, all purchasers of handgun ammunition nationwide had to sign a book and provide identification data. It was discontinued because it proved useless as a crime fighting tool.

Not that anyone in the California legislature cares.

Again, the anti-gun bigots not being able to answer Just One Question is no impediment to them infringing on the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

After getting their hands slapped for shoddy research with predetermined anti-gun outcomes 13 years ago the NIH is again doing research on gun control topics:

More than a decade after Congress cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), another federal health agency has been spending millions of dollars to study such topics as whether teenagers who carry firearms run a different risk of getting shot compared with suffering other sorts of injuries.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) also has been financing research to investigate whether having many liquor stores in a neighborhood puts people at greater risk of getting shot.

Such studies are coming under sharp scrutiny by Republican lawmakers who question whether the money could be better spent on biomedical research at a time of increasing competition for NIH funding. They're also leery of NIH research relating to firearms in general, recalling how 13 years ago the House voted to cut CDC funding when critics complained that the agency was trying to win public support for gun control.

"It's almost as if someone's been looking for a way to get this study done ever since the Centers for Disease Control was banned from doing it 10 years ago," Rep. Joe L. Barton, Texas Republican, said of one of the NIH studies. "But it doesn't make any more sense now than it did then."

"Gun related violence is a public health problem - it diverts considerable health care resources away from other problems and, therefore, is of interest to NIH," Don Ralbovsky, NIH spokesman, wrote in an e-mail responding to questions about the grants.

"These particular grants do not address gun control; rather they deal with the surrounding web of circumstances involved in many violent crimes, especially how alcohol policy may reduce the public health burden from gun-related injury and death," he said.

It's not guaranteed to be a bad thing. But it should be watched just as closely as if they were studying violence initiated by Jews/blacks/homosexuals with an eye to create public policy which restricts those groups more than others.

So even though I don't pay much attention to them it was hard to avoid hearing about "the criminals in the White house" and all the "criminal acts" and the charges of treason against the Bush administration. But what I don't get is why I don't hear anything about Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels when he does stuff like this:

A new city of Seattle gun ban takes effect this week - prohibiting firearms in places like city parks and community centers.

But the law is already generating controversy with many asking is this new rule truly enforceable? Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna and some community gun advocates say, no.

"What this does is put Seattle on a collision course with state law," says Dan Sytman, the Attorney General's office spokesperson.

The questionable deeds that Bush administration did at least had prior approval from the U.S. Attorney General's office. Nickels is doing something that all legal advisers, except the city lawyer who found a contorted rational, say is illegal.

So where is the outcry from the left?

Apparently they don't really care about politicians engaged in illegal acts. They just wanted to remove their political opponents by whatever means possible. Having their own politicians commit illegal acts on their behalf is just fine.

See also what Ry has to say on the topic.

I often find that true wisdom comes from simple stories, and one of the great story tellers was the one called Jesus of Nazareth.

According to the writer known as Luke, Jesus was traveling through the borderlands of Samaria and Galilee on a journey to Jerusalem. He stopped in a village and told his listeners a story about a widow and an unjust judge.

He said that in a certain town there was once a judge who cared nothing for God or man. There was a widow in that same town who constantly came before the judge demanding justice against her opponent.

For a long time the judge refused to grant the widow justice. But in the end he said to himself, “True, I don't fear God or care about men, but this widow is so great a nuisance that I will see her righted before she wears me out with her persistence.”

In this simple story there is a great political lesson that is often easy to overlook. The persistent widow is a reminder to those who seek justice that we should never lose heart. We must continue to press on, and will be rewarded if we do so.

Michael Beard
October 12, 2009
Wear Them Out
[Good advice. The anti-gun bigots have nothing but hate and fear to sustain them. That is very draining. It saps their energy. It is depressing. It is lonely. It is a very anti-social mindset. They are very unhappy people.

Freedom loving people have a myriad of social outlets and rejoice in competitions. They acquire new skills. They learn about the mechanics and physics of simple but incredibly clever and precise machines that can propel small pieces of metal at Mach 3+ across distances that take you 10 minutes to walk and hit objects that are impossible to see at that distance with the naked eye. They hunt and bring food home to their families. Guns are part of the Olympics. What do the anti-gun people have to show to compete with the thousands of competitive events each year and the Gold, Silver, and Bronze metals that are recorded in the permanent history of mankind? Nothing but news releases that dance in the blood of innocents killed and maimed by criminals.

The People of the Gun know history is made with guns and love to learn that history. They know it is guns in the hands of everyday people that keep the would be tyrant from attempting to gain power and brutalize them, their family, and their neighbors because they happen to have the wrong skin color, the wrong religious beliefs, wear glasses, or own property. They know the gun is civilization and although it can and has been used for evil it is far more often used for the protection of innocent life and property against those that do not respect life or the property of others.

Because gun ownership is a positive thing it makes it easier for us to be persistent over the long haul. The Million Mom March was founded in August 1999, reached their peak in May of 2000 with, according to their own (probably inflated) numbers consisted of nearly one million people. Now they don't even have a website of their own -- http://www.millionmommarch.org/ redirects to the Brady Campaign. They were a flash in the pan because it's hard to hold onto hate for very long. The Brady Campaign is 35 years old but even after merging with the MMM have so few adherents they don't even bother to have a way to join their organization. They have nothing to offer prospective members except hate and fear. The NRA is 138 years old and has thousand of instructors, millions of members, a history of competitions, they helped blacks protect their communities in the darkest days of the KKK, they teach hunter safety, and helped Great Britain prepare for the expected invasion from Germany in WW II.

Make the most of that persistence. The other side frequently has an unfair advantage with the assistance of a duplicitous press and their own willingness to twist the truth and ignore the facts but our numbers, our love of people and freedom, and our righteousness give us the long term advantage. They made a big play for the win during the Clinton years and many or even most gun owner rights activists thought the bigots had won. But they ran out of steam and we are now winning.

Let's keep doing what we do best. For some people that will be a great gun blog, mocking those that hate freedom, playing the political game, teaching new shooters, teaching experienced shooters to be better than they ever thought was humanly possible, getting good press for gun owners, or it might be just being a proud and responsible gun owner who takes a new shooter to the range every once in a while.

Michael Beard is right that persistent is important and that characteristic will enable our eventual win. But I suspect it was some sort of Freudian slip that resulted in that recognition of his. Michael Beard is on the losing side of this epic struggle for freedom. He recognized the persistence of his opposition and envies it.--Joe]

We’d like to retire that word [redistribute] from the political vocabulary because you can’t redistribute something that is already highly socialized, and wealth and income in the “era of knowledge-based growth” (whoever ends up “owning” it) is indeed highly socialized. Most importantly (and more to the point), individual productivity is increasingly dependent on what can only be described as a collective good, a common inheritance of knowledge. No one deserves to benefit from this common inheritance more than anyone else, by moral definition, because it’s not created by any individual. So, to the extent that inherited knowledge (“technical progress in the broadest sense,” as Solow termed it) is increasingly driving economic growth, the fruits of knowledge—the wealth being generated by knowledge—should be more equally shared. Wealth that is commonly created should be equally, or at least more equally, shared.

Lew Daly
Via AmericanMercenary in the post What the hell is "Social Justice"?
[This is very scary stuff. Strip away just a little bit of the fluff and it's, From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

Just reading the praise for the book you realize these people not only have zero respect for the right to own property but they don't believe you even have a right to your own thoughts. This is what inspires thoughts of Atlas Shrugged. In this book the people of the mind went on strike. Those that contributed through the power of their creative minds declared those that demanded the product of their minds through the force of government had received their last handout. You can force someone to work but you can't force them to think.

After reading of people like Daly I don't just long for a John Galt but a Ragnar Danneskjöld as well.--Joe]

Just so we're all clear;

Such is the state of today's most critical issues: political rights versus "economic rights".  It's either or.  One destroys the other.  But there are, in fact, no "economic rights," no "collective rights," no "public-interest rights".  The term "individual rights" is a redundancy: there is no other kind of rights and no one else to possess them.

Those who advocate laissez-faire capitalism are the only advocates of man's rights.

Ayn Rand - from the appendix "Man's Rights" in her book "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"

If you don't have a copy, get one.  The first copy I saw had every other sentence or paragraph highlighted by the owner.  It's that kind of book.  It was written back in the 1960s, though it seems to be directly addressing our current crop of idiots, moonbats, loons, thugs, bounders, cads, hucksters and charlatans in Washington (to say nothing of the Democrats).

The FTC has declared they are the ethics police for bloggers:

Certainly, it seems like this is an update that’s time has come. While most well-run social media programs already include appropriate disclosure, there’s still no shortage of unscrupulous marketers using deceptive practices to sell products. Now, with the threat of serious fines, those who look to push the boundaries of ethical blogging will be doing so at their own risk.

I wonder if those advocating more government regulation are required to disclose their voting history, tax filings, and political donations.

The Supreme Court prefers to work in "baby steps," changing the law slowly. The Heller case was a very carefully and cautiously crafted to open the door to further Second Amendment jurisprudence. Had they attempted to overturn 20,000 gun laws all at once, all nine Justices would have run out of the courtroom with their robes pulled up over their heads, screaming. Step one was Heller, to get the SCOTUS to acknowledge that the Second Amendment was written to reaffirm and protect the right of the INDIVIDUAL citizen to keep (not necessarily bear) arms for personal defense, inside the federal enclave known as the District of Columbia, where there is no state constitution, just the US Constitution..

Step two (McDonald) is to extend that acknowledgment to the states. Why McDonald?" Because the Chicago handgun ban is a duplicate of the DC ban. If the DC ban is unconstitutional, so must the Chicago ban be. But Chicago is part of a state, not a federal enclave.

Once that occurs, we start knocking down the "house" of gun control laws, one brick at a time.

Heller is the alpha. not the omega. We're decades away from that. But we're working on it. We didn't get to the point of 20,000 gun control laws all at once, and we're not going to get free of them all at once. It ain't a "once and for all" system, much as we might like to see it that way.

Joe Waldron
October 1, 2009
Re: Supreme Court to hear Second Amendment Foundation challenge to Chicago gun ban
wa-ccw: Washington State Concealed Weapons Discussion
[People who are pessimistic (see also here) about the status our gun laws have forgotten or weren't of an age to be aware of how things were in the mid 1990s (see here, here, here, and here for some clues). Those were very, very dark days. The turning point may have been the 1994 congressional elections with the anger over the 1994 "assault weapon ban" playing a big role (I find it very interesting that the Wikipedia articles on this and Tom Foley don't mention this) or perhaps here.--Joe]

In an email alert today the Second Amendment Foundation announced:

GUN GROUPS FILE LAWSUIT TO VALIDATE MONTANA FIREARMS FREEDOM ACT

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today joined with the Montana Shooting Sports Association in a federal lawsuit filed in Missoula to validate the principles and terms of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act (MFFA), which takes effect today, Oct. 1, 2009.

Lead attorney for the plaintiffs’ litigation team is Quentin Rhoades of the Missoula firm of Sullivan, Tabaracci & Rhoades, PC. The MFFA litigation team also includes other attorneys located in Montana, New York, Florida, Arizona and Washington.

“We’re happy to join this lawsuit,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “because we believe this issue should be decided by the courts.”

“We feel very strongly that the federal government has gone way too far in attempting to regulate a lot of activity that occurs only in-state,” added MSSA President Gary Marbut. “The Montana Legislature and governor agreed with us by enacting the MFFA. We welcome the support of many other states that are stepping up to the plate with their own firearms freedom acts.”

The MFFA declares that any firearms made and retained in Montana are not subject to any federal authority under the power given to Congress in the U.S. Constitution to regulate “commerce … among the several states.” It relies on the Tenth Amendment and other principles to exempt Montana-made and retained firearms, accessories and ammunition from federal regulation. Marbut’s group advises Montana citizens not to manufacture an MFFA-covered item until MSSA is upheld in court.

Earlier this year, Tennessee passed similar legislation and lawmakers in 20 other states have indicated that they will introduce MSSA clone legislation, Marbut said. Information about the Firearms Freedom Act movement is being accumulated and made publicly available at firearmsfreedomact.com.

MSSA is the primary political advocate for Montana gun owners. It can be found at mtssa.org.

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

See also the article in the Missoulian.

I wish them well and figure it will be at least worth buying some popcorn and cold drinks for watching the comedy.

Dave Workman explains:

That the local press has once again erroneously given the impression that the store has lost its FFL, when in actuality it is Borgelt’s license revocation that has been upheld, is one more reason for gun owners, and one frustrated firearms retailer, not to trust the news media.

This is one time the press has it coming.

The basic story is the previous owner of the Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply (the store from which Beltway Snipers stole the rifle they used) had his FFL revoked but the new owner is up and running just fine. The press is reporting the store lost it's FFL and implies it has been shut down.

Half-truth, full-truth, who cares? Not the mainstream media with their "professional" journalists.

While the president hasn’t proposed any specific gun control legislation, it’s also true that if every statement he’s ever made, every bill he’s ever supported and every position he’s ever taken during his entire political career were taken as a whole and proposed as legislation — which is not being done — then the gun owners would have something to fear.

But that’s not happening, for a couple of reasons. The Democrats have focused their attention on the economy. Also, Obama has moderated his views on these issues over the years. As a lawyer by training, he appears to understand the Second Amendment’s place in law, not as something to pay lip service to, but as one of the fundamental rights all Americans enjoy.

Danville Editorial Board
September 28, 2009
Worst kind of economic stimulus
[I agree President Obama has not been on the offense against gun owners since he took office. But before believing he has moderated his views on these issues I'm going to need some proof. Directing the DOJ to arrest and prosecute Federal, State, and local officials for violation of 18 USC 242 in regards to infringement of the 2nd Amendment would be a good start. Instead his cabinet is filled with people opposed to allowing citizens to exercise a specific enumerated right. I keep expecting him to "turn the dogs loose" on us.--Joe]

Every part. Every last little bit of it, from its inception, from the thinking behind its inception, to all of its variants, to every attempt to implement it in any form, any time and anywhere it's been foisted upon anyone. I consider socialism to be more offensive, more disgusting, more sickening, more dangerous, more deadly and more virulent than any disease-- more destructive than any force known on Earth. Sold to the unwary as the warm-hearted answer to the suffering and problems we all face in life, it is the poison pill, cleverly slipped into all our forms of sustenance: our very food and drink, our homes, our schools and our institutions by the sick, the envious, the jealous and the hateful, who would be our masters and we their playthings.

Lyle @ UltiMAK
September 2, 2009
In response to the question, "What part of socialism do you disagree with?"
[One friend was a bit more succinct but only for those that understood the fundamentals, when he told me it was like a sugar pill that caused cancer twenty years later. "Here, try it! It's sweet. Just a little bit..."--Joe]

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt...If the game runs sometime against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

Thomas Jefferson
[President Obama and supporters, please meet my hero, Thomas Jefferson.--Joe]

Sometimes it boggles my mind just how stupid some people can be and still be able to write complete sentences and breathe--and apparently at the same time. Case in point:

Free marketers don’t care much for bank bailouts so long as they’ve gotten their money out the bank before it fails.

But when it’s health care? I think you will find that teabaggers everywhere will have a very different perspective when they find themselves out there alone with no way to pay for their family’s medical costs.

Who will need the save the day when this happens? The government will – and that means a single-payer system.

Whether the result fits your ideology or not, the numbers would seem to make clear that it is only a matter of time before private health insurance prices itself out of the market, leaving only the government with the capability to insure the nation’s health.

"Leaving only the government with the capability"? And just where does he think the government will get the money that private health insurance companies and individuals couldn't?

When I used to play chess a lot (high school and college) it was very rare that someone couldn't see pretty clearly two and usually three moves in advance. And the better players would have a pretty fair view out six or seven moves on some critical branches. But this guy apparently can't see even one move in advance. What would you call someone like this? In my chess playing days we would call those people losers.

Update: He makes an "interesting" comment in response to another commenter to his article:

I rarely watch CNBC and, anyone who reads this post knows I wouldn’t be caught dead watching Fox.

He admits he studiously ignores data considered to be fair and accurate by millions of people? This isn't someone concerned with knowing the truth. This is someone who has a deep and profound commitment to some sort of cult.

You know, I turn back to your ancient prophets, in the Old Testament and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if we're the generation that is going to see it come about.

Ronald Reagan
[I'm reminded of this by the articled titled Iran reportedly able to make nuclear bomb and the fact that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he wants Israel wiped off the map.--Joe]

The Brady Campaign Blog has a post up about a gun rights activist and concealed carry permit holder. Basically it outlines what a slimy guy he is.

This is new territory for the Brady Campaign.

With so many of us and so few of them simply by the sheer number of people in the "tails of the bell curve" that we don't to be our "poster children" this could be somewhat painful for us. It turns out they have a few "skeletons in the closet" as well but there isn't going to be nearly as many of them.

I don't think that is an appropriate way to play the game. The political battle should be fought over ideas and data rather than the criminal convictions and/or drinking problems of the messengers. But politics is almost never a clean fight.

For us the lesson to be learned is to make sure people that are going to be getting the attention of the press and/or police are people that can stand up to public scrutiny because the Brady people may now have a policy of making sure our activists get more attention than they expected in manner that is less than endearing to the public.

The headline reads, "Sen. Murray`s Anti-Gun Bigotry Shows in Amtrak Debate, Says CCRKBA." The news release goes on to say:

Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) is once again demonstrating her disdain for gun
owners and their rights by opposing an amendment to her Amtrak funding
legislation that would allow firearms to be carried in baggage aboard trains,
the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

"Patty Murray evidently has a short memory span," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan
Gottlieb. "Has she already forgotten what happened to her friend, Seattle Mayor
Greg Nickels, in the primary because of his extremist anti-gun philosophy?
Surely she knows about Tuesday`s primary election results in New York City,
where anti-gunner Richard Aborn came in last in a three-way race for Manhattan
prosecutor by running on his gun control record."

Murray is opposing an amendment, added to her Amtrak bill by Sen. Roger Wicker
(R-MS), that would allow train travelers to transport firearms in their luggage,
provided the guns are declared at check-in and they are locked up for transport.
This is no different than flying with firearms, Gottlieb noted, "and people do
that every day."

"The amendment passed 68-30," Gottlieb noted, "and Murray`s opposition shows she
is way out of the mainstream on this issue. Even Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid supports the measure. People used to take firearms on trains all the time.
Someone should tell the senator that constitutional rights don`t end at the
Amtrak boarding platform."

Murray argues that the amendment would be too costly and time-consuming, because
Amtrak would have to create a process for checking and tracking guns.

"That`s a bogus argument," Gottlieb countered, "and she knows it. The
Transportation Security Administration already has that process down pat. There
is no need to reinvent the wheel. That option has apparently not occurred to
her, or maybe it has and she just can`t get beyond her narrow gun prohibitionist
viewpoint.

"Amtrak has been losing money for years," Gottlieb concluded. "Maybe it`s
because American gun owners won`t travel with a carrier that treats them like
outcasts. Maybe gun owners will return that sentiment when Murray runs for
re-election next year."

Although she is considered the one of the "dullest knives in the drawer" (see also here for possible euphemisms) she hasn't had much trouble getting relected and this vote against gun owners probably won't be all that detrimental either. But it's nice to remind her and others that we are not happy with her and if someone else were to be a little more tolerant of diversity we would probably give them our support.

I like listening to Michael Medved's radio program whenever I get the chance.  For one thing, he's good at getting leftists to call in, and then toying with them like a cat playing with a captured mouse.  Once in a while though, I have a major beef.  Discussing Obama's address to Congress last week, Medved commended Obama for saying all the right things (the speech could have been delivered by Ronald Reagan).  Medved was being critical of conservatives who were in turn being critical of Obama's speech.

Sure; Obama said all the right things, in much the same way that Ted Bundy said the right things as he was coaxing his victims into his van.  I'm not going to commend him for it though.

The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.

Thomas Paine
The Rights of Man
[I recently finished "reading" (listening to it) this book. I was familiar with most of the material in it but what struck me was the debate between him and Edward Burke. Burke was defending a monarchical type of government and Paine argued people had "natural rights" that no government had authority to infringe. It was then that I realized just how revolutionary Paine's ideas were and how important to Western society many of them are.

As the product description on Amazon says:

The Rights of Man written by legendary author Thomas Paine is widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest books of all time. This great classic will surely attract a whole new generation of readers. For many, The Rights of Man is required reading for various courses and curriculums. And for others who simply enjoy reading timeless pieces of classic literature, this gem by Thomas Paine is highly recommended. Published by Classic House Books and beautifully produced, The Rights of Man would make an ideal gift and it should be a part of everyone's personal library.

It's not a particularly long book but it is a very important book.--Joe]

I've mostly ignored the "Prags" v. "Threepers" divide in the gun rights activists community. But then after making this post the comments lead to one thing, another, then another. Sebastian got more than a little sarcastic. So now I think it is time for me to say something.

It maybe true that I don't have much chance of breaking new ground but I'm going to try.

First let me attempt to define the position staked out by the "combatants". Because I have been mostly ignoring the "battle" I may not have this quite right so please feel free to correct me if I misrepresent someone.

The position of the "Threepers" is that the line has been drawn in the sand here and now. Not one further inch (or millimeter) of infringement will be allowed. If further restrictions are made then it will be resisted. That resistance may be passive such as refusing to comply with registration or licensing. That resistance may be subversive as in smuggling or participation in a black market. Or in the face of forced compliance they will actively resist using armed force if necessary. Quoting the primary advocate for this position:

We will not disarm.

You cannot convince us.

You cannot intimidate us.

You can try to kill us, if you think you can.

But remember, we'll shoot back.

And we are not going away.

Your move.

The origin of the name "Threeper" is also of potential interest and comes from the same site as linked to above:

During the American Revolution, the active forces in the field against the King's tyranny never amounted to more than 3% of the colonists. They were in turn actively supported by perhaps 10% of the population. In addition to these revolutionaries were perhaps another 20% who favored their cause but did little or nothing to support it. Another one-third of the population sided with the King (by the end of the war there were actually more Americans fighting FOR the King than there were in the field against him) and the final third took no side, blew with the wind and took what came.

Three Percenters today do not claim that we represent 3% of the American people, although we might. That theory has not yet been tested. We DO claim that we represent at least 3% of American gun owners, which is still a healthy number somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million people. History, for good or ill, is made by determined minorities. We are one such minority. So too are the current enemies of the Founders' Republic. What remains, then, is the test of will and skill to determine who shall shape the future of our nation.

The Three Percent today are gun owners who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act. Three Percenters say quite explicitly that we will not obey any futher circumscription of our traditional liberties and will defend ourselves if attacked. We intend to maintain our God-given natural rights to liberty and property, and that means most especially the right to keep and bear arms. Thus, we are committed to the restoration of the Founders' Republic, and are willing to fight, die and, if forced by any would-be oppressor, to kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution that we all took an oath to uphold against enemies foreign and domestic.

We are the people that the collectivists who now control the government should leave alone if they wish to continue unfettered oxygen consumption. We are the Three Percent. Attempt to further oppress us at your peril. To put it bluntly, leave us the hell alone. Or, if you feel froggy, go ahead AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS.

The pragmatists or "Prags" are those that take essentially the default position of political activists for defenders of the 2^nd Amendment and liberty in general. The term "Prag" is used primarily as a derogatory term by the "Threepers" and hence are mostly defined and identified by them rather than the "Prags" self-identifying as such.

The position of the "Prags" is now is not the time to take up arms to regain or defend our lost rights. Even publically discussing such action is "scaring the white people" and as such is counter productive. "Threepers" might claim the "Prags" will never take up arms and will be do nothing more than grumble no matter how oppressive government becomes. Some defenders of the "Prag" position might claim that the threshold for using force exists but we just aren't there yet. If nothing else when they are "loading up the box cars headed for the camps" or they start going door to door to collect arms they will start shooting.

I am of the opinion that both sides have valid claims advantages for their positions and both have valid criticisms of the other side. I am also of the opinion the effort spent squabbling with each other would be better spent on other endeavors and perhaps the best of both sides can be synthesized into something better than either.

Neither psychology nor politics are my specialty but I am of the opinion the "Threepers" are overlooking something in the psyche of the U.S. population and are making a tactical error.

They have some things right, such as a lot of anger and resentment which exists at the excessive government and the massive infringement of liberty. The thing I think they are overlooking, or at least excessively discounting, is that people in the U.S. have by history and principle, perhaps unarticulated and even subconsciously, have near zero tolerance for bullies and hypocrits. I know they believe of themselves and advocate from a position of standing up to government bullies but I fear it will be far too easy for the media and the government to spin the "Threepers" position as the bullies and hypocrites. They can be spun as bullies because they are willing to use force to get their way.

They can be spun as hypocrites because they insist the government adhere to the constitutional restriction on government powers but reject legal restrictions on them even though those restrictions have passed through legislative debate and vote, executive signing, and judicial review.

The bully aspect brings up another concern. The people in power will take exceptional offense because they self selected to acquire those positions of power and are very jealous of it--they have at least a little and in many cases a lot of bully in them. To challenge them, to make them look impotent will cause them to expend far more resources than if it were some ordinary person that was injured or had their property damaged. Think of the laws that punish those that injury or kill law enforcement and government officials compared to those that punish people that don't draw a government paycheck. The resourced devoted to "bring the perpetrators to justice" will be far, far, more than those devoted to catching and punishing someone that committed the same injury against a private citizen. There may be claims of "equal protection under the law" but there are different laws that apply and a much different attitude is there to back it up. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

The tactical error I think they are making is publically identifying themselves. Even if they use aliases and handles unless they take some rather extreme OPSEC precautions they can be easily tracked down. If there is an "incident" in a particular geographical area that has anything close to a flavor resembling something from a "Threeper" website or email there is going to be a relatively short list of "people of interest". With the disproportionate resources devoted to "the problem" the chances of getting away with it are much lower and will discourage others from attempting something similar. This last claim may be a bit weak because depending on the circumstances and type of coverage the "incident" gets it is possible martyrs will gain sympathy for the movement. But I think it is extremely risky to count on this. Law enforcement and politicians in particular will be able to sense the risk of sympathetic martyrs and do their best to avoid that scenario. Drug dealers get near zero public sympathy even though a case could be made that they are exercising an infringed upon liberty. I claim "gun dealers" are a very short distance from "drug dealers" in the hands of skilled propagandists manipulating public opinion.

The "Prags" are correct that progress is being made via political and judicial processes. D.C. v. Heller over throwing the D.C. ban on handgun possession is the crown jewel of this. It was a political process that watered down the '94 "assault weapon" ban to have an expiration date and the requirement that effectiveness studies be done. It was political processes that prevented the AWB from being renewed. It was political processes that restored our right to carry self-defense tools in National Parks.

As successful as the "Prags" have been in the last decade that could all be wiped out in another decade or two. Think of the widespread drug use in the 1960s which was essentially ignored by police and politicians. By 1980 we had much harsher laws and SWAT teams were breaking down doors with no-knock warrants (at least at the Federal level created because of the risk of drug evidence being destroyed see also here). Do you think it couldn't happen? How many drug users were there in the 1960s compared to gun owners today? With the wrong people on the Supreme Court and/or the wrong poster children challenging the laws the "reasonable regulation" language of the Heller decision could result in Federal laws that mirror the gun laws of New Jersey where "When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril."

The questions that have to be asked of the "Prags" are, 1) "What is your threshold at which you will tolerate no more infringements and take up arms to defend them?" And 2) "If you are fully committed to only the defined political and judicial processes then how can you say you are not condemning our children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren to a life of perpetual servitude?" Remember the words of Winston Churchill.

Reader Rob recently asked me in email, "Has there been any time in history where a government once having usurped human rights, has returned them without blood shed to regain them?" He proposed this as a "cousin" to my Just One Question. I managed to poke some minor holes in his implied assertion but I think the point is mostly valid. Infringed rights extinguished for a generation are probably going to go extinct. Think of machine guns in this country and handguns in the U.K. the odds are very slim that those will be regained via political and/or judicial processes. If the "Prags" say they will take up arms "if the conditions are right" then there really isn't that much difference between the "Prags" and the "Threepers". It's only a matter of where they each draw the line and how publically they do it.

As a self-defense firearms instructor one of the most important lessons I try to teach my students is to draw a line in advance of actually needing to use deadly force. As John Clifford once convinced me of in a private conversation is that "When you draw your gun is far more important than how fast you draw it." If you don't know when to draw it the "game" will be over without you drawing. You must "draw a line in the sand" and stick to it or you might as well not have a gun at all. I think this probably applies on the larger scale of government tyranny. What went through the minds of the Jews in Germany during the 1930s or the gun owners in the U.K. as they suffered one infringement after another? Wasn't their surrender without a fight a failure to "draw a line in the sand" and stick to it?

Assuming these observations and conjectures are true what conclusions can be reached? I claim the following:

• As long as the "Prags" are making progress there is little or nothing to be gained by a pure "Threeper" philosophy
• The "Threeper" mindset of preparation and training if expressed in terms of firearms sports (USPSA, IPDA, Steel Challenge, and even Boomershoot) and disaster preparedness can be almost as useful in preparing for an armed conflict
• Firearm sports as training exercises will give plausible deniability and enable the recruitment of far more people than an open declaration of hostility to government infringements backed up with threats of violence
• The mindset of a gun enthusiast is nearly incompatible with that of statist determined to infringe the rights of others--the more gun enthusiasts we can recruit the more liberty lovers we will have recruited
• All people should "draw their line in the sand" but such lines should be kept, for the most part, private
• If people take action after their line has been crossed it should be in such a way that it maximizes the chances of getting away with it

But the most important claim I make is probably not obvious and is the opposite tactic of that by all other groups that I know of in this country that have used violence to further their aims. If illegal action is taken it should be in such a manner that the political goals are hidden to the greatest extent practical. Earth First taking credit for property destruction does not further their cause. People in the U.S. do not respond well to threats. I believe the same applies to "Threepers".

If you decide it is time to take action it will be better for the action to appear as an accident, motivated by personal (is that judge who is hostile to gun rights sleeping with someone's wife?) rather than political reasons or even the action of your enemy. Even if the action were to be the destruction of multiple parking lots filled with ATF vehicles it is better to let the motivation for the action to be ambiguous (was it politically motived by the laws restricting alcohol, or tobacco, or firearms, or explosives, or rocketry, or one of any other number of special interest groups?) than for credit to be taken. Politically it will be much easier for both friends and enemies in government to change government behavior to comply with your wishes if they can believe it wasn't because of the illegal activities of activists they are conforming with. How will they know what needs to be done to stop the pain? They'll know. They aren't stupid. They can connect the dots and form reasonable hypothesizes to act on from just two and certainly three hostile events (two points define a line, three confirm it). But the mindset of the U.S. people will not allow them to act on those hypothesizes if they are fully confirmed by someone taking credit or getting caught and their affiliation revealed. And even if they don't move the government in a friendly direction if the action reduces the resources available for infringement of liberties it is still a net win.

Michael Moore has a new movie out. Capitalism: A Love Story. The LA Times says this about it:

"Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil," the two-hour movie concludes. "You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy."

What sort of economic system is he proposing? "Democracy"? That isn't an economic system. And democracies (we are supposed to have a Republic) seldom last more than a few decades.

And the irony is that Moore's wealth and ability to make whatever movie he wants comes from the opportunities afforded him by capitalism. If it weren't for capitalism Moore would be making probably be required by the state to be making exercise videos (if such a thing as videos and fat people even existed) which no one would take seriously. Instead he is making "documentaries" which demonstrate he is totally clueless about any topic he cares about but yet enough people want to believe him that he is able to be a wealthy man. In that sense I suppose capitalism has allowed an evil to exist and prosper but that is hardly sufficient reason abandon an economic system that has improved the status of people more than any in the history of man--even though it has never really been fully implemented.

We've all had it happen.  You mention the "S" word (socialism) in a political discussion and the one(s) on the Left act all indignant, denying that the socialism they're advocating has anything to do with socialism; "Why, I'm shocked, I tell you!  Shocked!"

To accuse anyone of advocating communism is to guarantee that you'll be flagged as a nutbag (as if there's no such thing as communism anymore, even if there ever was).  Do not let that dissuade you.

This recording was circulating quite a bit last week, but it needs more attention.  It's a Democrat Congresswoman from LA.  Suck on this, Leftists and Progressives.  If you're not socialists or communists, then you'll no doubt get this loyal Obama supporter kicked out of your party.  Furthermore, you'd no doubt be in support of a law banning all forms of socialism.  Right?  Since you're not communist or socialist at all, in any way?  Right?

Meanwhile; the Republican Party remains AWOL, or in a drunken stupor, or they're out chasing pink elephants with a bad case of the DTs.  They're actually polling us right now about what we think of ObamaCare (looks at floor, shakes head and sighs).  I was dumb enough to actually take the poll, before I realized the full vastness of the stupidity of it.  A momentary lapse into Condition White, I guess.

Someone in the U.S. Senate is looking for information on a particular Federal Judge:

Domain Name		senate.gov ? (U.S. Government)
IP Address		156.33.142.# (U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms)
ISP		U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  District of Columbia City  :  Washington Lat/Long  :  38.9097, -77.0231 (Map) Distance  :  2,071 miles
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinNT
Browser		Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.13) Gecko/2009073022 Firefox/3.0.13 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Javascript		version 1.5
Monitor		Resolution  :  1680 x 1050 Color Depth  :  32 bits
Time of Visit		Sep 2 2009 12:51:43 pm
Last Page View		Sep 2 2009 12:51:43 pm
Visit Length		0 seconds
Page Views		1
Referring URL		http://www.google.co...nnlain&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
Search Engine		google.com
Search Words		judge oscannlain
Visit Entry Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/2009/04/21/QuoteOfTheDayJudgeOScannlain.aspx
Visit Exit Page		http://blog.joehuffman.org/2009/04/21/QuoteOfTheDayJudgeOScannlain.aspx
Out Click
Time Zone		UTC-5:00
Visitor's Time		Sep 2 2009 3:51:43 pm
Visit Number		585,616

That could mean a number of different things. I really have to wonder on the specific meaning of it on this instance. And did my blog post about Judge O’Scannlain make things better or worse for him?

And it's a sobering reminder that we sometimes may have a greater influence than we realize.

Remember, sheep have two speeds – Grazing and stampede.

Robb Allen
September 1, 2009
Having one's cake and eating it too
[Grass eaters. We are surrounded by them so we have to be careful not to excessively frighten them and cause us to get run over in the stampede. That doesn't mean we can't use a little bit of fear to herd them in the proper direction though. In our society the tricky part is coordinating the herding and even finding a suitable direction to herd them.--Joe]

Most of their money comes from a single source, like Soros, the Joyce Foundation or the Tides Foundation (Maria Theresa Simoes Ferrara Heinz Kerry). Their "membership" is a joke.

Sad as the pro-gun lobby is in terms of membership -- maybe six million nationwide out of 70-80 MILLION gun owners (and that double-counts many of us who belong to multiple organizations), we're way more committed, individually, than the other side. That's why the Brady Bunch "captured" (actually, co-opted) the name "and the Million Mom March" to give the impression of numbers that don't exist.

Ditto Seattle's "crime gun person," whose huge salary is paid for by a grant from the anti-gun lobby.

Just more elitist SOBs who know better than you do how to run your life. You're too stupid, so just shut up and do what you're told, it's for your own good. You see a lot of that mentality in the current health care debate, as well. The nanny-state crowd.

Joe Waldron
August 30, 2009
Washington CCW email list Subversive Gun Groups Question (membership required)
[How many members does the Brady Campaign have? Oh, that's right. There isn't even a way to become a member on their website.

This is reflected in the number of gun blogs as well. I only know of one active anti-gun blog that isn't a paid position. There are 127 pro gun blogs listed at GunBloggers and that is just a partial listing as I know of some gun blogs that aren't on that list (although I know there are some inactive blogs on that list as well).

I've attended numerous public hearings (such as this one) and public demonstrations. We outnumbered them at least 10 to one each time. Sometimes 100 to one. The rallies for I-676 a while back--we outnumbered them 1000 to one.

If the big money of the special interest anti-gun groups with the cooperation of the mainstream media wasn't in play it would be game over for them.--Joe]

I guess that the Democrats will try to pass the healthcare bill in Kennedy's name. Of course, if you want an accurate descriptor, they would call it the Mary Jo Kopechne Memorial health service, and patients would spend their lives getting taken for a ride by an elected official who will try their best to screw them, and then die while they wait for someone in the government to do the right thing.

'Doc' Russia
August 26, 2009
More gallows humor
[Via an email from Scott K.

I cannot think of a single thing to add to this.--Joe]

Senator Ted Kennedy died yesterday.

Posts from gun bloggers on this topic:

• Mary Jo Kopechne's killer finally called to account.
• Ted Kennedy Est Mortuus
• Not Going to Have Ted Kennedy to Kick Around Anymore
• No loss
• Ted Kennedy is dead
• Sic Semper Tyrannis
• Ted Kennedy Dead
• I’m not going to say anything
• Breda (no titles on her posts)

Kennedy was a vehement foe of gun owners. I gave him a little slack because two of his brothers were murdered by people with guns. But he used that all up, and more, with his treatment of women in general and Kopechne in particular.

Update: More gun bloggers have something to say:

• MAY HE BURN IN HELL FOREVER....
• Sileo In Abyssus
• Am I a bad person?
• Teddy K passes away
• Quote of the day:
• another dead criminal
• My only thoughts on Ted Kennedy
• Big, fat hairy deal.
• Teddy, RIP

Alan Korwin has a really good post about the guy with the AR-15 in Arizona. As Alan lives in the area he knows a little more about the guy than the rest of us.

I just love the media interactions Alan had after the event:

Chicago’s WGN couldn’t believe we have the right to keep and bear arms out here. I had to tell them most places have RKBA, a surprise to them in their little cloister. “Do people shoot each other on the streets a lot?” They actually asked that. These folks aren’t in a bubble, they’re in a vacuum, they get nothing. “With your new guns-in-bars law, which has created quite a commotion here in Chicago, are there shootouts in bars?” I'm not making this up.

...

A Chicago caller to the show asks, “Well do you carry your golf clubs or exercise equipment into a restaurant?” This imbecile actually thinks he’s making sense. Gun ignorance has so blinded him, this is how he uses his 30 seconds of fame. I tell him of course I don’t. So he concludes, “See, you’re full of baloney,” and hangs up. He’s not even thinking rationally, and is convinced he’s right. Does he even know what the shooting sports are? I don't think so.

WGN mentions that in Chicago, NYC, and DC, where the major news orgs are based, this black-man-with-a-black-gun thing strikes them as stunning. Coincidentally these three cities are among the most repressive civil rights deniers in the nation -- and they have the gun-crime records to show for it. Guns are virtually banned for the innocent, yet armed criminals run around at will. But they cannot connect the dots.

So let me ask them. “Why aren’t the people who stole your rights arrested?”

Seattle Mayor Nickels is not only one of Bloomberg's mayors against guns but is very active on his own. He believes he is above the state preemption law on firearms. He even hinted he believe his city should be considered as a state it in the meeting with him at work that I attended. After he answered my question he went on to say the population of Seattle was just as large as entire states were at the time the colonies became a nation and as such justification to be able to make laws just as freely as a state made sense. And beyond that he said he would ban guns from city property, including parks and other public areas, by executive order. When gun rights groups referred to him as wanting to be a king they were right.

His Majesty got a taste of reality in the primary election last week with some help from Seattle gun owners:

Seattle gun owners can take much credit for the ouster of anti-gun Mayor Greg Nickels in this week’s primary election, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said this morning following what amounted to a concession speech at his press conference.

Nickels came in third in the city’s “Top Two” primary, signaling that voters in Seattle were fed up with his bully pulpit style, and perhaps more than anything, his arrogance, said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. No single episode has better underscored that haughtiness than the mayor’s open defiance of Washington State law that denied him the authority to set up the city’s own restrictive gun laws.

“When the mayor announced last year that he would ban legally-carried firearms from city property when he knew it would be contrary to the state’s preemption statute,” Gottlieb recalled, “it made tens of thousands of Seattle gun owners furious. Nickels insulted their intelligence by promising to ban guns by executive order, which is the height of municipal contempt for the rights of citizens under the state Constitution. He literally threw away their votes.”

CCRKBA Projects Director Thomas McKiddie, a West Seattle resident, said he and his gun-owning fellow Seattleites had simply had enough of the mayor’s condescension toward their rights to be safe on city streets, in parks and on other public property.

“I don’t know a single gun owner in Seattle who voted for Nickels,” McKiddie said. “After he threatened an executive order, he lost the nerve to actually issue one because he knew he would lose that fight in court. Instead, he included gun prohibitions in use contracts for the Seattle Center and other venues. He knew a citywide ban would be unenforceable, and his ouster demonstrates that Seattle gun owners were having none of it.”

“We hope this sends a signal to Nickels’ successor,” Gottlieb observed, “that stirring the wrath of gun owners is a mistake. This week’s primary result in Seattle should stand as a warning to other mayors who signed on with New York’s Michael Bloomberg to trample the firearms rights of their constituents.

“Mayors are not monarchs,” Gottlieb concluded. “They are not above the law. Greg Nickels is going to have a long time to think about that, as he watches this election season from the sidelines.”

As near as I can tell from the other candidates websites here and here guns weren't an issue in the campaign. My guess is they don't want them to be an issue either. If they say nothing more about them that would be fine with me.

They used to say that the difference between conservatives and liberals were that conservatives thought liberals were stupid, and liberals thought conservatives were evil. Now it would seem they think conservatives are terrorists.

Sebastian
August 24, 2009
The Media’s Shallow Understanding
[I suspect it isn't really "shallow understanding". It's about attempting to demonize in any way possible those who oppose their agenda. People believe what they want to believe and anything that supports their belief system will be latched onto with far less fact checking than if it contradicted their belief system. I've been guilty of this too. But there have also been times when I thought (borrowing a literary tool from Say Uncle), "Self, this is too good to be true. You better check this out." And nearly every time it was too good to be true.

In the case of the present day "militia movement" I can't help but remember in the mid-90s I knew the names of several different militias both in the Pacific Northwest and other parts of the country. I read about them, by name, in the paper and heard about them in the social circles I communicated with. I saw their displays at gun shows. I occasionally even talked to member of militias. This time? The only "militia movement" I have heard about all traces back to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I think it's too good to be true for the left and they latched onto it without checking into it. Someone should check it out and, if my hunch is correct, slap them down. With appropriate timing and proper location it could be a good political tool.--Joe]

Carrying a gun to a political meeting is an obscenity. Anyone who does it, even if they are within their legal rights, should be ashamed. Our founders fought a revolution (and, yes, took up arms) to build a society where political disputes are not settled through force or intimidation--and that's the only purpose of bringing a weapon to a political discussion: to intimidate.

It is utterly unacceptable, and every politician should have the guts to say so.

Rick Perlstein
August 18, 2009
Outlook: In America, Crazy Is a Pre-existing Condition
' ... the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy ...'
[Just so you know what they think of you.

I wonder what he thinks of the White House response--that open carry at political events is no big deal. Does he think President Obama has no guts?

I think he may have just had the wind sucked out of his sails.--Joe]

We've known for several years (see posts here, here, here, and here) that we were winning on the gun control battlefield. The expiration of the "assault weapon" ban and the Heller decision were just the two best known battles. There were thousands, perhaps millions if you count the wins of the hearts and minds of neighbors, friends, relatives, and co-workers.

I recognize open carry is on the path to victory but I figured it would be in the form of open carry at picnics, highway litter cleanup, and maybe as an organization at parades. People need to be desensitized to gun ownership. And concealed carry just doesn't help that much. When and how we do that desensitization can matter a great deal.

I've been open carrying in a few circumstances for a couple months now (here and here). There has been no obvious notice taken and certainly no adverse effects have occurred. Yet, had anyone asked my advice about open carry at a political protest about the nationalization of health care I would have told them I didn't see any good could come out of it. Obviously these people didn't ask for my advice or take similar advice from someone else.

In my opinion these people took a huge risk. They were throwing the dice in a game that affected tens of millions of people in this country. I'm not exactly risk adverse, after all I play with explosives for the fun of it and even have my children help make the explosives. But I wouldn't have taken the risk they did.

And what happened? It's as if we had been slowly advancing against the enemy. We were a little surprised to win the battle on carry in National Parks and we almost won a battle for nationwide reciprocity we couldn't have imagined even coming up for a vote had we thought about it after the election last November. But the enemy was still putting up resistance and we thought they were still formidable opponents. Then they collapsed. The White House (or Red Shed as a commenter recently called it) said it was no big deal to open carry. Public opinion is affected by statements from the White House. Having the most anti-gun administration in U.S. history say it's no big deal to open carry is huge.

We knew recent poll results showed us winning. But I thought that would take time to translate into our enemies fleeing before us. But it appears now that the brave actions of a few open carry advocates broke through the empty shell of the anti-gun organizations and there are going to be a lot of Sad Pandas tonight and people looking at their bottles of cheap rum.

Now, more than ever, we have a chance to push these bigots into political extinction. When they are on the run they have their backs to us and cannot organize and put up effective resistance. We need to acquire the proper state of mind and pound them as hard as we can as fast as we can. There are still pockets of resistance in New Jersey, Chicago, California, etc. but we may have just won the war.

Update: This post just got linked to by Glenn Reynolds. I would like to suggest my new visitors also look at some of my other posts:

• What TSA really stands for
• Just One Question
• My Jews In the Attic Test

Thanks visiting.

This surprised me:

He added that the Orange County couple's ultimate goal is an initiative to divide California into two states - one of which would recognize the fundamental right of gays and lesbians to marry.

I've heard, many times, that most of California, geographically, is pro-gun. If they could just get rid of the big population centers the place would be politically tolerable. It seems both sides (I acknowledge not all gays are anti-gun, but there is a strong correlation) want a divorce.

California having such a huge population has a large influence on great number of things nationwide. Presidential elections might be the most obvious but there are thousands of other things as well. The contents of school books, safety standards, air pollution standards, and even gun laws that first show up in California have a nasty habit of spreading to other states. If there were two states where their used to be only one that influence would diminish.

I wonder what we can do to encourage such a separation.

I normally probably wouldn't have posted this. But after completing New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America it's particularly relevant. The work programs of the 1930s were used as political tools to not only get votes but to punish those that weren't "good Democrats" (I'm increasingly of the opinion that is an oxymoronic phrase).

In some cases when you called the phone number to get a Federal job the call went to the local Democratic headquarters. To get the job you had to be interviewed by them and demonstrate your party loyalty. In some cases up to 3% of your pay had to be given to the party.

Take your blood pressure meds then read the book.

Via email from Joe D.

When the Feds delivered the stimulus package they probably didn't think that "package" would be interpreted in this manner.

I'll bet you thought you lived in the United States of the Framer's dreams, didn't you? ...As long as you bear in mind that "nightmares" is a subset of "dreams," you're right, too.

There's not a current or former Congresscritter, except maybe Ron Paul, who ought not be brought up on charges of treason and/or offenses against persons, be given a perfectly fair trial and be imprisoned for life at the very least. The Executive branch is equally culpable. Not gonna happen but hey, a gal can still dream, right? They haven't made that a Thoughtcrime yet, have they? Have they?

Roberta X.
August 12, 2009
James Madison Calling
[Read the Madison quote in her post for context.

I don't know if Roberta independently arrived at the same conclusion but I've suggested the treason idea before too. Great minds think alike, we share the same delusion, or something.--Joe]

In my continuing frustration with Republicans, I decided to go directly to Sarah Palin's official website.  We've all heard (or rather witnessed-- no one seems to have actually heard anything real to back it up) the enthusiastic support for Palin.

I have yet to hear anything of substance from Palin, so where better to go than directly to the source?  Surely if there's anything there it will be in her very own web site, in her very own words;

What is SarahPac?

SarahPac is a federally registered political action committee that supports Gov. Sarah Palin's plans to build a better, stronger, and safer America in the 21st century.

Great!  How?  No answer.  "Safer America"?  Safer from what-- corporate greed, or socialist greed?  Asteroids?  Jihadists?  Anti-Americanism in our own ranks?  No answer.  "...in the 21st Century"?  Cool.  So maybe that undefined "better" America will materialize before my great grandkids die of old age then.

How will contributions be spent?

Your support of SarahPac will make it possible for Gov. Palin to continue to be a strong voice for energy independence and reform.

By supporting SarahPac, you will allow Gov. Palin to help find and create solutions for America's most pressing problems;

...priority number one is building a strong and prosperous economy that recognizes hard work, innovation and integrity by rewarding small businesses and hard working American families.

SarahPac will support local and national candidates who share Gov. Palin's ideas and goals for our country.

And those ideas are..?  Or haven't you "found" them yet?

Who is behind SarahPac?

Gov. Sarah Palin believes all Americans must work together for the future, regardless of their party affiliation.

Again; could have been said by any run-of-the-mill Democrat/Progressive, including Marx or Lenin.  "Must work together"?  Toward what?  Or else what?  "For the future"?  What sort of future?  Since when has "the future" been a goal we "must work" for?  The future is coming no matter what it holds.  What, Sarah, do you want for the future?  Say it loud and proud!  Say something!  Anything!

Gov. Palin is the honorary chair of SarahPac, and its supporters are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and those unaffiliated with any political party.

So I'm sure the Democrat "Borking" machine is now going to shower you with love and adoration then, right?  Now that you're all unaffiliated and stuff?

Why now?

No; it's what now?  Tell us What you want to do.

As a new president takes office and begins to lead our country..

The president's job is to lead Congress and command the military, not the country.  How many of you want to be lead, verses, say, left the hell alone?

...Gov. Palin believes that every one of us has a duty and responsibility in this time of economic crisis and international challenge.

We have a duty and a responsibility to do what, exactly?  Would that be to roll over and play nicey nice in the face of encroaching socialism that threatens to tear apart the republic, or stand up and fight it tooth and nail?  Which?  Can't decide?  Still looking for ideas?  Still haven't found them?  Oh look!  A pony!

Each one of us must step up to the plate, get involved in the spirit of renaissance and renewal that is critical to America's success.

Again; all politicians, from the best to the very worst, talk just like that.  There's nothing there.  Thousand points of light.  Great Society.  Bridge to the 21st Century, Thousand Year Reich, Renaissance and Renewal, Hope and Change, blah, blah, blah, (gag) (puke).  How about Puppies and Unicorns?  Hey, yeah.  Everybody likes puppies and unicorns.  Lets use that.  The ignorant masses will love it.  Yes We Can!

Make your voice heard by joining SarahPac today!

Some will say she's crazy like a fox-- that she has this super-duper, duper...duper plan (that no one's ever heard-- ever) and that once she gets a goin'  by golly gee whizz, Katy bar the door!  I'm not holding my breath.  I say she's a Republican.

Sorry; it's just that, assuming words mean things, it's amazing how little meaning can exist in so many words.  Yes I'm being very hard on her, but we've seen this vacuous crap all too often.

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

Ambrose Bierce
The Devil's Dictionary
[I was reminded of this by what our Speaker of the House recently said:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned the health care debate up a notch Monday, penning a column along with her top deputy that questioned the patriotism of those disrupting town hall meetings to air their complaints. 

--Joe]

Via Dave Hardy.

The government is not allowed to:

5 US Code §552a(e)(7) commands that any Federal agency

"(7) maintain no record describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual about whom the record is maintained or unless pertinent to and within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity;"

This wouldn't protect some blogger making viable threats against a politician (and rightly so). But it could be used to punish someone in the Federal Government (and rightly so) for keeping records of your peaceful opposition to proposed legislation (if that link goes dead here is a saved version of the page from Whitehouse.gov as of August 8, 2009 at 2315 PDT).

Apparently Paul Hemke is saying the defeat of the Thune Amendment helped prevent the Pittsburg shooting from being even worse:

Two weeks ago, gun violence prevention organizations helped defeat a bill in Congress that would have allowed this killer to carry his loaded weapon almost anywhere in the country.

Sooo... this killer was prevented from carrying his loaded weapon in other states because concealed carry license aren't universally recognized, but he wasn't prevented from murdering and wounding the women in Pittsburg by the laws against murder and assault?

Got it. I'm so glad Helmke told us that because I would have never been able to come to that conclusion on my own.

Washington Ceasefire is endorsing Dow Constantine for King County Executive (Seattle area). This means you should vote for anyone but Constantine.

Constantine doesn't have Washington Ceasefire on the list of organizations endorsing him. This could be because the endorsement is new and/or he doesn't know about the endorsement. Or it could be that he doesn't want to advertise that fact. I can't find any mention of firearms on his website so it could be he realizes the KC Executive doesn't really have any authority to do anything regarding guns with the state Preemption and he will say whatever he thinks will get votes knowing he can't really be held responsible if he doesn't accomplish anything. Sort of like getting an endorsement from the KKK--the politician is probably happy to have the votes but doesn't really want get caught wearing a pillow case on his head.

...in mixed company.  So here goes.  If you value your faith, please do not read any of this.  Say Uncle mentions some atheist ceremony (ehem).

Some say that atheism is a religion because, like any other religion it requires faith in something that cannot be proven-- the non-existence of god.  I don't know if I have that much faith.

Then there are those who have faith in something that has been proven wrong over and over-- socialism.

In my observation, most organized religions are control cults.  Many are death cults, socialism included.  It seems that humans have a built-in want or need for religion.

Homo Sapiens is an interesting species, to be sure.  Our innate creativity and our tendency to form paranoia cults would appear to go hand-in-hand.  Darwin wrote about such things in his famous book that no one ever read before condemning it, and that only a handful of people have ever read.  They don't have to read it, I guess, because they've already been told what's in it.  By people who never read it.  He called it something like "correlation", but I forget the actual term.  It refers to features that come in seemingly inseparable pairs.  Black skin and a higher incidence of sickle cell anemia in humans for example.  He points to many others in different species.  I make the correlation between creativity and paranoia through my own observations.

If God gave his only son to save us from our sins, and yet we're all the children of God and we all die from this Earth...  What?

If God gave his only son in the ultimate sacrifice, and they're now together in heaven forever, where's the sacrifice?  If the crucifixion of Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, and yet we are to regard our life on Earth as a petty thing compared to eternity, how is the crucifixion any sacrifice at all?

Why didn't Jesus ask Mary, or one of his diciples, to nail him to the cross?  Hey; it's for the good of Mankind.  Why wait for a trial and all the hoopla?

If Jesus gave his life for us, then Pontius Pilot and the others did a service to all of Mankind, no?

Many other people suffered, and do suffer, as much or more than Jesus did, but they have the added disadvantage of not knowing for sure their place in the afterlife, or even whether there is an afterlife.  What about them?  Seems to me, practically speaking, that Jesus had it easier than a whole lot of other people.

If God created everything, including Satan, then God created hell, and he surely must still love his son-- Satan.  I wonder of Satan ever writes, or if this father/son relationship has any hope for reconciliation. (I dreamed I met Satan and his chief minion a couple months ago.  They looked a little silly and seemed a but surprised.  I told them; "I was just checking in to see how you were getting along.")

If God and Satan ever make up, who will be charged with torturing us for all of eternity for not embracing Jesus as our savior?

If everyone who accepts Jesus as their savior will go to heaven, no matter what, and even the best people who don't, won't, that seems rather unfair, doesn't it?

If the reason we believe that Jesus is the son of God (and again; aren't we all?) is that he performed magic tricks, and if faith is everything, why did Jesus have to perform magic tricks to prove himself?  I mean, couldn't his message have stood on its own merits?  And if the magic tricks are our proof, why not give us one that would last through the millennia, like, say, hand over the periodic table of the elements, or the universal law of gravity, or something equally awesome?  As it is, all we have is the second and third hand hearsay of a few individuals, who ostensibly got their proof and yet demand pure faith from us.  Seems rather unfair, no?

If Jesus had the Most Important Message Of All Time, the message that alone could lead us to eternal life, then why does he seem to have never put any of it into writing in his own hand?  Seems a cruel trick to send your one and only son (but aren't we all the sons and daughters of God?) to deliver The Most Important Message Ever and never teach the kid to write, or have him travel the world, or set up a radio station or something.

I think these are all perfectly reasonable, fair questions and observations.  Anyone trying to sell me religion (and there have been many) will have to answer them.  I've asked them before and gotten the response; "This proves the folly of casting pearls before swine"  which, I must say, just happens to be the same sort of response (though in more eloquent form) that I get when I ask socialists to demonstrate the validity of their assertions.  I add that in both cases I am being asked to deny that one that makes us human-- the thinking, reasoning ability of our brains.  Some people really, really hate that, believing that we should live much more like the other animals.  'Cause we deserve to suffer.  Because we suck.

I'm all for freedom of religion, certainly.  As I said; I believe it is inherent in the species, but since the Constitution proscribes the formation of a religious government, or much more accurately, a government religion, how is it that we have anything resembling socialism in our government?

Update: The science fiction (Arthur C. Clarke being a good example) dealing with alien races who either placed humans on Earth or gave us our intelligence, seems to be an alternate form of religion.  While it doesn't directly assert the existence of a God, it does the same thing.  It asserts a Higher Power far beyond our ability to understand, it denies, discredits or downplays the Long March of the development of our species, and shows disbelief (a lack of faith?) that something as complex as a human (or do we merely flatter ourselves?) could arise all on its own with nothing but the seemingly mundane forces of nature.  One thing the alien super race genesis theory does that religions typically don't do is; it leaves open the possibility that we may, millions of years down the road, at some point reach that intergalactic traveling, intelligence giving, god-like state ourselves.

...a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles...is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty and keep a government free.

Ben Franklin
[It seems to me that the frequency of recurrence has been more than a little bit low. Even if we went to our fundamental principles right now it would be approximately 140 pico-Hertz and I'm thinking it should be more on the order of 12 micro-Hertz.--Joe]

Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.

George Bernard Shaw
See also here, for further background on this phrase. The original was not "The road to hell is paved..." but Hell itself that was paved.
[I'm thinking gun control, TSA, socialized medicine, "affordable housing", "hate speech" laws, rent control, the list is, for all practical purposes endless. See also New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America.

I just bought Bat Out Of Hell so I could play it while posting this and doing my dry-fire practice.--Joe]

Your source for information on states giving "a symbolic middle finger to Washington" is the Firearms Freedom Act website.

Via David.

Via an email from the Apex of the Triangle of Death:

For more info go to TriggerTheVote.org.

There are multiple reasons that I fear the thought of government controlled health care.

1. Your choices will be taken away from you. The government programs does not take into consideration individual needs, they make decisions only as a general rules that apply to each person despite what is best for the specific person--except for themselves. I am sure they will always be able to get around the rules they make for other people. They are already making decisions for you, not the health care person who knows what the situation is.
2. I have worked with nurses and doctors from Canada. Each nurse at our hospital takes care of 4-5 people at a time plus they have aides. Nurses are your first line of defense in the hospital, they are the ones that are there to make important decisions for you--call the MD, send you to the critical care unit, etc. The Canadian nurses said that they may have more than 10 patients and not enough aides. One nurse said that she is sure that people died because they didn't have time to assess the situation for the patients in critical need. Plus the ER was flooded with patients with sore throats and ear aches so that the ER Staff didn't have time to assess who had the critical needs. After all, health care is free so why not just go to ER and not wait until the next day?
3. It appears to me that people who have free health care take advantage of it. The big example is welfare/Medicaid patients. They have poor health habits, little carry through on instructions. In home health we disliked getting Medicaid patients, not because they were poor, but because of their "give me attitude". Give me the best of care because "I" am just as good as you and I want everything but I don't want to take care of myself. These patients are often "frequent fliers" who come in to get their COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), diabetes or drug and alcohol dependencies under control. We clean them up, "save" them, send them home, and they are back in a few months. These people burn up so much money for health care but, hey, its "free" so no problem for them. In contrast, people on Medicare, they earned it by working all their lives--no it's not a great system either but people did earn it--just want to get better and get out of the hospital or out of home health because they have a life they want to go back to. They generally follow instructions better and don't return to the hospital over and over again. In general they are a pleasure to care for because they appreciate their health care.
4. The government screws up so many things. They hire more and more layers of administration and they still can't get it right. Plus there will always be people who learn how take advantage of the system so they will have to hire more and more non-medical people to police the system but they usually only hurt the people who are trying to follow the rules. You can't imagine how much paperwork we have to fill out to see Medicare and Medicaid patients plus the charting that is required on all patients.
5. Good MDs and health care workers are the frogs that are starting to boil. You don't know the early and late hours these rural MDs are working or the piles of paperwork sitting on their desks. They are not making big money but they work the "big" hours. Government will not run this system efficiently. There will not be incentives for the really bright people to go into medicine--nope they are not that stupid. Seriously I think that will we will have an even greater shortage of MDs and other medical staff. But don't worry they are accepting people--minorities--into medical programs who actually need remedial help passing tests. Now that makes me feel better about our health care.

When the government takes over we can look forward to poor health care for everyone.

Part I was here. You really should read all the comments if this topic interests you even a little bit.

I got a response back from Benjamin who gave me permission to use his name:

I think I'm picking up what you're putting down, and it all makes sense. I do have some counter questions though.

First question.
If the cost of healthcare is too high to provide adequate healthcare to all through a government run system, is there a way to encourage healthcare to cost less?

When I got what was left of my appendix out, it cost me roughly $12,000 (This was 1999 and so I just don't remember exactly) but included an overnight stay, and extensive surgery to get the poison out of my belly. Five years later I broke my arm and had outpatient surgery to have two screws put in my elbow so I would regain full range of movement, which I never got back. That surgery cost me $6,000, and both times the anesthesiologist cost around 60% of the total cost.

While I understand that medical costs are high because the penalty for failure is high. If I lose and arm because it gets infected, the surgeon doesn't get all the poison out of my belly and I die, or the anesthesia isn't administered properly I might die. But it seems like the amount that it costs to get basic or complex medical procedures done is disproportionate to their difficulty or cost in materials. My $12k and $3k bills, as well as lesser bills over the years have made me believe there is a lot of waste involved purely by the number of people I have to pay. Burning through 14 checks to pay for a single outpatient surgery is not reasonable.

Second question.
You state that immortality or close to it will be achievable soon.
First by the rich and then later by the middle class. But what mechanism (Similar to supply and demand or some-such) is in place to drive the prices down and make it achievable?

It seems to me that in the small window of time I have been an alert adult, medical costs have only seemed to go up and not down. I've been paying for my own medical care for 11 years. The cost of stitches, X-rays, and CT scans has gone up, and not down. While I know that the medical field stretches far beyond emergency and trauma related care, my view point is not showing a drop in cost.

Discrimination
I want to try and say that race, socioeconomic status, what gender you choose to love, how much of an asshole you are, or church you attend (or don't), won't have any impact on the quality or duration of healthcare you receive. But it really hurts me to say that I know that I would be full of shit and wrong with every single syllable I strung together, no matter how beautifully I managed to do so. America rocks. I fucking love this place. But americans are ignorant, self centered, asshole cowards, on the whole. Fearful of what they don't or choose not to understand.

Benjamin

P.S. Thanks for being informed and opinionated. I really like knowing that there are people out there who have an opinion for a reason, know how to share it, and do. I spend some time nearly every day listening to the two local conservative and an one liberal AM radio talk stations. Glenn Beck, Rush Vicodin, Randi Rhodes, Lars Larson, and whoever else sort of scare me.

My response:

Barb says she will write up something for me to post on my blog soon as well. She has a lot of experience with government run health care.

First Answer:
Basically, I don't have any knock-out good answers.

Getting the government out of the health care business will help some. The price of drugs is probably 20 to 100 X what it would be without the FDA being involved. Just like anti-gun people only citing the costs of guns in society and not mentioning the benefits the FDA costs are seldom mentioned. Not only in the incredible expense to get a new drug to market but the number of lives lost because of the delays.

Requiring hospitals to give free health care to those that can't pay raises the prices for everyone. All the paperwork required raises the price a bunch as well. This isn't just the governments though. Insurance fraud has contributed a great deal as well. Insurance also raises the cost not just because of the extra documentation required but because they put a lot of pressure on providers to reduce the price and providers give them discounts of something like 40% over what an individual would pay.

A looser pays court system would help but I'm not entirely comfortable with that concept either.

Another thing that makes the comparison from 10 or 20 years ago to now difficult is that the quality isn't the same. MRI's weren't available. Many of the drugs available now did not exist then. Lots of people that would have died or been permanently disabled a decade or two ago now go home and have many more healthful years left.

Second answer:

There will be lots of research, engineering, and failures going into the first efforts. Think of Microsoft Office--the first copy costs many millions, the second copy costs pennies. It won't be that dramatic but drugs really aren't that much different. The costs are weighted very, very heavily on the front end.

I hope Barb will be able contribute more.

I occasionally post about the adverse results of socialized medicine but probably haven't said much about what I think about it. A friend asked the following via email:

I have been meaning to ask you for a more detailed explaination of your stance on universal government run health care as it is being proposed right now. I understand you oppose it, but as someone who is poor and hasn't had healthcare for 11 years and has used the emergency room for most of my healthcare needs, why it is bad.

I know there is no free lunch.
I know that someone is paying for it.
I want to know why YOU are opposed to it and why.

My response (except for a few personal things that were deleted to protect privacy):

Health care... Big, big topic.

I understand the no insurance situation. [details deleted]

I have tried to express this in a "Just One Question" format but haven't quite been able to do it. Here's my best attempt:

If it were possible to keep someone alive and robust essentially forever (baring catastrophic injury) but it cost $1M/year per person should the "government" supply it for everyone?

Of course the answer is "we can't afford that".

The thing is we are rapidly approaching the point where immortality may be achievable for some people. I suspect age-wise I am just above the cutoff line where it will be technically feasible. My kids (and probably you) have a good chance at that.

All government health care plans equalize (for the most part--people in power typically are more equal than others even if the law says otherwise) the care. There simply isn't budget for everyone to get "the best". Care will be rationed or it will be substandard. Look into what happened in the UK. The waiting lists cause people to die. Too old, too fat, or smoke? You don't get the knee replacement or other care because that money would be "better spent" on someone younger or healthier.

Government bureaucrats will make the rules and/or review cases deciding who gets care and who dies. It WILL be abused. It might be on racial or religious lines or it might be on the basis of who you know. Whatever the case it won't be on the basis of what you and/or friends and family think you are worth or can afford. When someone pulls the plug on me I want it to be because I and/or my family decided it was time or couldn't afford the cost rather than some government official that decided they didn't like my skin color or I had been just a little too uppity with some of my blog postings.

If Bill Gates and other extremely wealthy people are allowed to pay for whatever the free market can come up with immortality will probably be achieved soon. It will be extremely expensive and only a few will be able to afford it. But the price will come down and someday it will be affordable by the middle class. If equality of care is enforced we may never have that available to us.

See also what Alan Korwin has to say about it:

http://pagenine.typepad.com/page_nine/2009/07/dangerous-health-care-insanity-spreads.html

[I]f you're in favor of welfare programs, for example (allowing some people to live at the expense of others, by threat of force, i.e. to acquire value without having earned it) then what moral or intellectual tenet is going to stop you from saying those same people should never be arrested? If they can receive goods and services they didn't earn by work or productivity, why then, exactly, shouldn't they have freedom they didn't earn through respecting other people's rights? If you favor forced redistribution, you've thrown out the concept of rights at that point, so what basis do you have for punishing property crimes that would be intellectually or morally consistent with forced redistribution? Is there some huge difference between the government robbing you to support a layabout, and said layabout robbing you directly? Seems to me the latter would accomplish the same thing far more efficiently, leaving out the middle man as it does.

Lyle @ UltiMAK
July 31, 2009
Comment to Fearsome firearms or crap for brains?
[But the "man in the middle" is the main beneficiary and may, in fact, be the entire point of the theft.--Joe]

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

Will Rogers
[Well, I certainly feel that way. But apparently it's not a universal feeling because we still have a Congress that has sessions.--Joe]

We shouldn't worry about the Thune Amendment failing last week. Soon there will be something better than Thune's Amendment and more likely to get passed.

Tell your Brady Campaign friends (do they have friends?) it's their turn to stock up. Gun owners have been emptying the shelves of guns and ammo and now it's their turn to empty the shelves--of Depends.

All gun control seeks to obfuscate your authority over violence against you or another. All gun control seeks to obfuscate the legal authority of a whole community. All gun control challenges our supreme authority over our servants.

John Longenecker
July 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW: Lethal Logic by Henigan, Part II.
[What kind of person allows their servants to tell them only servants are allowed to own guns? Such servants need to be dismissed.--Joe]

A few days ago I reported I might have a chance to ask Mike Lux a a question or two. I got my chance last week and reported via Twitter here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The Twitter posts are below, indented, and in italics:

At the meeting room to hear Mike Lux speak. He should show up in a few minutes. Wearing my Rearden Steel t-shirt. World War Z on my Zune.

Rearden Steel is a little obscure. But it has a very significant meaning. I chose that shirt very deliberately. I'm pretty sure it was lost on everyone at the meeting but it made me smile.

World War Z just happened to be what was next in my queue for listening material but I thought it appropriate listening when about to subject myself to such a "progressive".

Lux says, "I believe the economy is fundamentally broken." "We are on the verge of a great change if we embrace it."

He talked of great moments in history such as the 1930s with the "New Deal" and the 1960s with the "Great Society" and civil rights legislation. He was disappointed with the Clinton administration that they didn't seem to have an real direction or make any progress. Now we have a chance to make some progress if we can just get our act together.

I still get a chill going through me when I think about this. Could it be our financial crisis was very deliberately brought on to make it more likely that socialism will be accepted by U.S. citizens? I had sort of half thought that this might be the last straw and people would have their complete fill of socialism and embrace the free market and our constitution as a result of our current situation. Can't people see that the Obama administration is only making things worse? Or will they be convinced that only he and socialism can save them?

Brrrrr... the chills that gives me.

He talked for quite a while about all the Bill of Rights violations by the Bush administration and expressed some concern President Obama wasn't moving fast enough to correct them.

I asked him to address his concerns over BOR violations by conservatives versus progressives ignoring the 2A and 10th.

I was the last person called upon. There were to be no more questions after mine.

His response was, "We just have a different interpretation of the BOR."

He also said the the government has the "right" to "invest" in the economy and "reform" health care via regulating of interstate commerce.

I corrected him on rights versus powers and he said he didn't know the difference.

Wow, just wow. He thinks mandated health care falls under the regulation of interstate commerce? I think that justification was lost on nearly everyone in the room. After this and my little email exchange with Senator Patty Murray how can a "progressive" claim to have any concern for the BOR or the constitution? How can they claim to have any principles?

I have two reasons for making this post.

1) He's wrong. Robb is a smart guy and almost always comes up with the correct answer after a few milliseconds of deep thought. I've seen him in action and was impressed. But this time he is wrong. And we all know that if someone on the Internet is wrong you have to do something about it.

Sure, I am pretty proud of my letter and post to Senator Murray, but it was simple and easy for me. My brain takes everything literally. It takes effort for me to translate what people say into what they mean. For example; If someone were to say "It's a piece of cake", "Drier than a popcorn fart", or "Finer than frog hair" I have do a little mental translation. I have to think about the image given and try to fit it into the context, find out it fails, then search for alternate meanings before I know what they meant. When Senator Murray wrote, "Legislation to regulate the use of firearms is and should remain primarily a state issue." I took that literally and applied it to her known position on gun control and it was like she had written she had walked home from Mars last night or a T-Rex had eaten her brain shortly after she was born. It just didn't make any sense and it was blindingly obvious she didn't mean what she wrote.

She had just came up with a justification for doing what she wanted to do. She apparently gives no thought to principals, philosophy, or the Constitution. She just votes the way she feels. Pointing that out to her was fun but it took nearly no effort on my part. I do that sort of thing all the time.

You should see what I do when I'm given a specification to review at work. My co-workers laugh at me when I point things out to them but they also thank me and keep sending me specifications to review. Barb says they shouldn't encourage me because she has to live with me. Apparently having someone point out all their errors and contradictions starts to get tiresome after a few decades. I can't imagine why. I figure it is just the price she has to pay to approach perfection. But somehow she doesn't see it that way.

Robb said it was, "Snark that even Tam should find inspiring". I'm sorry, but I can't even come within ranging distance to Tamara. She puts together disparate ideas together in incredibly novel ways. She connects things that I couldn't imagine connecting and makes the joining totally seamless and completely appropriate. I couldn't do the stuff she does if my life depended on it. What sort of brain can do that? I can imagine writing a computer program to do what I do. But what sort of algorithm would do things like the following?

When I design my dream home, it's not going to be visitable by a SEAL team with air support, much less a lone individual in a wheelchair; I'm thinking barbed wire and tiger pits, not ramps and braille on the doorbell. It's not that I have a problem with visitors gimpier than myself; it's visitors in general that make me want to release the hounds.

"Avon lady in the wire! Blow your claymores!"

Visita-what?

Or:

In his article, Westen proudly displays his passport from Bizarroland, a place superficially similar to planet Earth, but where drooling idiots with hearts full of hate run amok absent guidance from their spiritual and intellectual betters in politics and academe.

 ...

I was waiting for the lizardoids to show up around paragraph seven or so and symbolically rape Gaia while carrying off Al Gore to be a slave on their homeworld, Karlrovia.

*sniff* It's a thing of beauty.

That just can't be the result of a mere mortal.

I am not worthy to be in the same plane of existence as Tam let alone be an inspiration for her.

2) I'll bet you forgot there were two reasons. I didn't. My brain wouldn't let me.

There aren't many things I fear, but being a snark target for Tam is one of those. I rank it worse than a 0300 SWAT team visit but not as bad as being burned alive or The Wrath of Barb.

I just want Tam to know that she doesn't need to take me down a notch or two just because Sharp as a Marble Robb made a mistake.

At least I had fun. I wonder if she and her staff will enjoy reading my response as much as I did writing it:

From: Senator Murray
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 9:30 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Response from Senator Murray

Dear Mr. Huffman:
 
Thank you for writing to me regarding S. Amdt. 1618, Senator Thune (R-SD)'s amendment to provide for uniform reciprocity for concealed weapon possession across the country.  It is good to hear from you.
 
Senator Thune's amendment would allow gun owner with a right to carry concealed weapon in one state the right to carry a concealed weapon across the United States.  Like you, I am concerned about the level of violence in this country, and its effect on our families and communities.  Legislation to regulate the use of firearms is and should remain primarily a state issue.  I believe that our national crime-fighting strategy should include reasonable measures to control firearms that strike a balance between reducing street crime and maintaining individuals' rights. 
 
As a U.S. Senator, I have supported common-sense measures to reduce or restrict gun violence while posing the least possible inconvenience to law-abiding gun owners.  Please know that as the Senate considers this and other firearms legislation, I will keep your concerns regarding this important issue in mind.  If you would like to know more about my work in the Senate, please feel free to sign up for my updates at http://murray.senate.gov/updates.  Thank you again for writing, and please keep in touch.
 
I hope all is well in Kirkland.

 

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 9:58 PM
To: Senator Murray
Subject: RE: Response from Senator Murray

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this important issue.

Since you are of the opinion that legislation to regulate the use of firearms is, and should remain, primarily a state issue I presume I can count on your support of efforts to remove firearm regulations at the Federal level. I would like to suggest you introduce legislation to undo the continuing infringement of our rights inflicted by the following Federal firearms laws:

• National Firearms Act of 1934
• Gun Control Act of 1968
• The Hughes Amendment
• The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act

Once those are infringements have been successfully resolved I will be glad to provide you with a list of other Federal firearms laws that need to be eliminated as well.

Since you are opposed to Federal regulation of firearms I cannot help but conclude you are also opposed to any new Federal firearm regulations. I was concerned that you might be considered a supporter of a new ban on “assault weapons” or think there was some utility in restricting both the First and Second Amendments by some law that claims to “close the gun show loophole”. As I’m sure you know there is no such thing as a “gun show loophole”. All Federal laws that are applicable at a gun shop are also applicable at gun shows.

Thank you for your support. I will be sharing your email and my response on my blog and with my friends at NRA-ILA. This will allow other Washington State gun owners know what a good friend they have in you and for the NRA-ILA people to start a dialog with you to begin getting some relief from the stifling and bewildering array of Federal gun laws.

If you meet any resistance in your efforts to roll back the infringements on the Second Amendment I would like to suggest you ask them Just One Question:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

I’ve been asking that question of gun-control supports for several years now without once getting a defendable answer.

Regards,

Joe Huffman
-----
http://blog.joehuffman.org/
http://www.boomershoot.org/
http://www.modernballistics.com/

For those of you that don't know the Honorable Senator Patty Murray, I don't think there has ever been a piece of gun control legislation that she didn't support.

And just as an FYI, I Bcc'd my contact at NRA-ILA.

I saw another piece of email she sent someone else on the same topic that is even more hilarious. I'm working to get permission to blog about it as well.

I'm a little surprised by the stiff resistence put up by the bigots on the Thune Amendment. Here and here are just two of many, many examples of PSH.

I'm also a little surprised our side hasn't been defending a little stronger or that the bigots don't realize what they are setting themselves up for.

How is this any different than states having different criteria for marriage and divorce. Some states allow people to marry as young as 14. Others don't. Some states require blood tests or waiting periods. Others don't. Yet each state must recognized the marriage licenses of all the other states.

How is this any different than states having different criteria for drivers license?

And don't both sides realize that nearly the same arguements can be used by the other side if the discussion was about homosexual marriage?

If the anti-gun Democrats were smart they would agree to vote for it if homosexual marriage licenses were recognized nationwide as well. Sort of a poison pill for the more conservative types.

I think that would make the fights far more interesting. Popcorn anyone? I think Roberta has some.

Nationalizing our health care system doesn't just fail my Jews in the Attic Test, it's bad for your health as well.

See also:

• Half-Assed Utilitarian Morris (via a link from Tamara)
• It's Not An Option (via another link from Tamara)
• Whatever happened to "my body, my choice"?

Barb works in the medical profession and I would tell you what she thinks of government involvement in health care but I try to keep the language here acceptable for polite society.

I'll be soon be attending an meeting where Mike Lux will be speaking. I probably will get a chance to ask a question or maybe two. Do you have any questions for him?

His bio:

Mike Lux is the co-founder and CEO of Progressive Strategies. Since starting the company, Mike has launched a number of important projects, including American Family Voices, an issue advocacy group working on pocketbook issues for American families; and the Progressive Donor Network, which works to coordinate a network of individual donors, issue advocacy groups, and top flight political consultants and strategists.

Mike's recent projects have garnered a considerable amount of media coverage in The Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, National Journal, The New Republic and Miami Herald, and have provoked numerous attacks by Rush Limbaugh and other right wing media figures, as well as an "expose" by William Buckley's National Review Magazine.

In addition to those projects, Mike serves on the boards of several important organizations, including the Arca Foundation. In addition to serving on the board, Mike was also a co-founder of Americans United for Change, Center for Progressive Leadership, Grassroots Democrats, Progressive Majority, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, and Women's Voices/Women Vote. He also played a role in helping launch the Center for American Progress and Air America.

In the late 1990's, Mike was Senior Vice President for Political Action at People For the American Way (PFAW), and the PFAW Foundation. He oversaw lobbying and legal advocacy, field operations, state and regional offices, voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts. He helped launch the PFAW PAC and the PFAW Voters Alliance in 1997. He was also responsible for coalition building with other organizations and interest groups.

Before joining People For the American Way, from January 1993 to mid-1995, Mike served as Special Assistant to President Clinton for Public Liaison in the White House, where his role on health care and budget issues involved working closely with a wide range of constituency groups including labor, seniors, churches, disability groups, businesses, health care providers, trial lawyers, consumer groups and farm groups. He organized the first clergy breakfast, the first state opinion leader's days, and the first bill signing ceremony of the Clinton presidency. Lux served in the 1992 campaign war room, the 1993 budget war room and the 1994 health care war room (being one of only two people to serve in all three); and was the person who organized the coalition to fight the school lunch cuts the Republicans were pushing in 1995, the first issue they were soundly defeated on after taking control of Congress.

Prior to his service at the White House, Mike served as Constituency Director on both the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign and the presidential transition team. In the 1988 cycle, Mike was a member of the senior staff for the Biden and Simon presidential campaigns. In the 1984 cycle, he played a major volunteer role in the Iowa Mondale campaign.

With a diverse breadth of experience, Mike has an extensive background in the consulting, labor and consumer advocacy worlds. He was a partner and cofounder of the Chicago-based political consulting firm, The Strategy Group; served as Executive Vice President, PAC director and chief lobbyist for the Iowa AFL-CIO in the early 1990s; and worked as Executive Director of the Iowa Citizen Action Network.

In July of 2007, Mike Lux launched OpenLeft.com with prominent bloggers Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers. OpenLeft.com is a news, analysis and action website dedicated toward building a progressive governing majority in America. OpenLeft.com connects establishment progressive groups with outsider activists in conversations and a variety of projects to build a progressive governing majority and furthering progressive policy.

In November of 2008, Mike was named to the Obama-Biden Transition Team. In that role, he served as an advisor to the Public Liaison on dealings with the progressive community and has helped shape the office of Public Liaison based on his past experience working on the Clinton-Gore Transition, as well as in the White House.

On January 14, 2009, Lux released his first book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be. Lux's book was published by Wiley Publishing.

Some people so treasure the truth that they use it with great economy.

H. Ray Golenor
[I got this from someone else I traded quote databases with and I don't know if this guy even exists. There are numerous references to this same quote by the same guy, but nothing else that I could see in a quick web search. One has to wonder if politicians made him "disappear" or something.--Joe]

This is for J H.  He and Joe were discussing statistics related to gun restriction in comments here.

This line of argument, taken by itself, is to say nothing of human rights, the right to live being most fundamental and the right to self defense going hand in hand with the right to live.

If we are to leave out any discussion of rights, and focus purely on how people get injured or how they die in accidents and crimes as a means of determining and justifying laws, then we'd start by banning the wheel.  Swimming pools, access to rivers and lakes, etc., and stairs would be ahead of guns in private hands as a focus of legislative restriction.  Somewhere in between would be legal restrictions on unprotected sex and leaving the home while ill.  But that would be government thinking of the people in the same way that a farmer thinks of his cattle.

It is when we look at guns in the hands of governments that we find mass death, numbering in the tens of millions, and there you find the primary purpose of our second amendment-- defense or deterrence against tyranny, or more to the point it should be seen as defense of human rights by those who hold those rights (we the people).  Who then should look at whom as property?  Keeping our servants in government (our cattle) properly de-horned is, historically, the more important concern if we are to have any sort of owner/property relationships with one another.

Once we've accepted the Nanny State as the ideal form of government, all bets are off anyway, and arguing figures and statistics alone is to fight the battle on your enemy's chosen ground.  Even being wrong in their figures, your enemy has won by deciding the terms of battle.  People are in fact injured and killed through the use of or involvement with guns in private hands.  That is a fact.  Hence the Nanny State will find an excuse to restrict them if that's what they want and if they feel safe in doing it.

The true winning argument is that the state has no legitimate jurisdiction over any behavior or possession that in itself does not violate the rights of other people.  If I have a gun in my pocket I haven't violated any other person's rights by that fact alone.  If I haul off and smack someone at random in the head with a baseball bat, it is not the fault of the state for allowing free, un-restricted access to baseball bats.  It is I who would have committed a crime by violating the rights of another person, for which I would rightly be held accountable.  In attempting to restrict generally the access to baseball bats as a result of my crime, the state would be perpetrating tyranny by way of making victims out of innocent persons.  We call that sort of behavior "prior restraint"-- restraining someone in some way prior to them having threatened or done anything wrong to anyone.

It is well and good to point out the stupidity of arms restrictions, and how their effects are virtually always counter to the stated goal of making people safer, but those issues are a distant secondary to the issues of human rights.  Otherwise we’d be confiscating automobiles, banning certain sports, et al.  Without human rights as the fundamental principle guiding our policies, the totalitarian state is an inevitability.

...that a movie was made, paralleling "Reefer Madness" exactly, scene for scene, gesture for gesture, line for line including the dramatic introduction, merely substituting "marihuana" for guns?  Yes, I believe it is.  An NRA agent arrives in town, starts promoting guns, and all hell breaks loose.  "Gun Madness".

If you haven't seen the 1930s movie "Reefer Madness", by all means do watch.  It's not only illustrative of what the totalitarians have been up to for generations, it's a real hoot, especially considering that those who made it were trying very hard to appear serious.  I can picture Di Fi standing before the concerned parents at the school meeting, eyes glaring, finger pointing at the camera...

Hmm..you don't suppose the VPC or other anti-gun groups could be talked into providing some of the funding?

Sometime in the mid '90s Alan Gottlieb spoke to the Microsoft Gun Club (now called the Gun Club @ Microsoft) and I asked him, "From the evasive words they use it's clear the anti-gun politicians know gun control doesn't make people safer. So what is the real reason they advocate more gun control?" He answered, "It depends on the politician. Some want to change the culture to one of dependence on government. Others just hate guns. And we have sometimes joked that because of the high number of criminals in his district Chuck Schumer was just voting to protect his constituents."

Perhaps it wasn't really that much of a joke. Apparently the intent of the Sullivan Act was to protect the criminals:

New York state Sen. Timothy Sullivan, a corrupt Tammany Hall politician, represented New York's Red Hook district. Commercial travelers passing through the district would be relieved of their valuables by armed robbers. In order to protect themselves and their property, travelers armed themselves. This raised the risk of, and reduced the profit from, robbery. Sullivan's outlaw constituents demanded that Sullivan introduce a law that would prohibit concealed carry of pistols, blackjacks and daggers, thus reducing the risk to robbers from armed victims.

The criminals, of course, were already breaking the law and had no intention of being deterred by the Sullivan Act from their business activity of armed robbery. Thus, the effect of the Sullivan Act was precisely what the criminals intended. It made their life of crime easier.
As the first successful gun-control advocates were criminals, I have often wondered what agenda lies behind the well-organized and propagandistic gun-control organizations and their donors and sponsors in the United States today. The propaganda issued by these organizations consists of transparent lies.

By advocating more gun control Chuck Schumer and Carolyn McCarthy are just continuing the fine tradition of New York politics.

So distant is America today from it's founding principles that it is difficult to precisely describe the nature of American government. It is not strictly a constitutional republic, because the Constitution has been and continues to be easily altered by a judicial oligarchy that mostly enforces, if not expands, the Statist's agenda. It is not strictly a representative republic, because so many edits are produced by a maze of administrative departments that are unknown to the public and detached from its sentiment. It is not strictly a Federal republic, because the states that gave the central government life no live at its behest. What, then, is it? It is a society steadily transitioning toward statism.

Mark R. Levin
Page 192, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto
[H/T to Kevin who inspired me with this quote to get the book.--Joe]

I was talking with a pro-gun lobbyist recently and he suggested a possible solution to a weakness the bigots are trying to exploit:

Under the proposed legislation, to carry concealed weapons people need only meet the minimum requirements of federal law to possess a gun, be permitted in their home state to carry a concealed weapon, and abide by a state’s concealed carry location restrictions. For example, Alaska allows adult residents to carry a concealed weapon without a license, background check, or training as long as they are allowed to possess a gun under weak Alaska gun laws - even if they have committed repeated violent misdemeanors or have committed misdemeanor sex offenses against minors.  This legislation would force the other 47 states that allow concealed carrying to allow many Alaskan violent misdemeanants to carry concealed guns in their state, even if a state completely bans gun possession by such persons.

This same sort of thing is why Nevada stopped recognizing Utah carry permits.

His proposed solution would be for states to create a two tier concealed carry license system. Tier 1 would be whatever the State thought was appropriate for their need. If that was a lifetime permit, no training requirement, and you had a detectable pulse, then fine. Tier 2 would have a set of requirements which was the union of the most stringent requirements of all the other states. Hence if Nevada required four hours of training, and Texas required eight hours (pulling numbers out of the air) then the training requirement for a tier 2 CWP from State X would be eight hours. Similar things for other requirements on license duration, age restrictions, etc.

This could be a win for both people that want to carry and the state that issues the tier 2 permit. You would have to get just one permit to carry in all the states that recognize out of state permits. And the state would be in a position to have a decent revenue stream because they were "selling a valuable product".

Is there a downside to this scheme? Sure, the 2^nd Amendment should be my carry permit. But we aren't there yet. But this would be one step closer to being able to carry nationwide with far less effort. When you can and do carry in all states we can then more easily demonstrate the bigots are just blowing smoke and we can work on reducing the most onerous restrictions in the unfriendly states and making "tier 1" in the friendly states be "Vermont Carry".

Is there some unintended consequence that might come out of this and come back to bite us?

Yesterday I came across a letter from a supposed Idaho gun owner that really has me wondering. Is this some sort of Brady revenge for Mary McFate? Are they having people send out fake letters? Or is just some old guy with the early signs of Alzheimer's?

July 8, 2009

The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy                  The honorable Jeff Sessions
Chairman                                                        Ranking Member
U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary   U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary
224 Dirksen Senate Office Building           152 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510                              Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Sessions:

I am writing to express strong disagreement with the National Rifle Associations' (NRA) views on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States. NRA concerns were sent to you in a letter from Executive Director Chris Cox dated July 7, 2009.

I am a veteran, a manufacturing firm executive and a gun owner. I own three pistols, two riles and a shotgun. I enjoy hunting, target shooting, and the feeling of safety that guns provide.

I have lost respect and trust in NRA to deal with gun matters in America and encourage you to ignore their advice about Judge Sotomayor's confirmation.

NRA characterizes the firearms issue through the narrow toilet-paper tubes of fear that 'liberals' with an anti-gun agenda will take away our guns. The reality is that illegal and improper use, storage, or transfer of guns is a significant problem in America. I strongly support gun ownership but come down on the side of organizational and personal responsibility and competence with respect to guns. Guns are dangerous.

When I was a youth and through my 30s I was an NRA member, looked forward to my American Rifleman magazine, and counted on NRA to help keep 'gun control' a private, not government matter. NRA provided hunter and sportsman skills, safety, property rights, and firearm maintenance training for many years; however, NRA's emphasis has become political, not around firearm competence and responsibility. When I was a Boy Scout assistant scoutmaster, NRA was not there for my sons and other boys in the troop so I was forced to arrange gun safety and skills training through off-duty police. Here in Idaho where I live there are no NRA basic firearm training programs even though this is a great outdoor sports state.

I have high respect for Judge Sotomayor. If I were able to question at her confirmation hearing, here are some I would like to ask:

• Do you believe that gun ownership in America carries responsibility by the owner to be competent in the storage, handling, maintenance, and use of the owned firearms?
• Do you think that the 'well regulated militia' language in the second amendment implies that private gun owners should be trained and certified perhaps as automobile drivers are tested for knowledge, skill, and abilities?
• Should gun ownership carry insurance requirements for liability and health damages caused by the gun owner?

Thank you for considering my views.

[Signed]

Laurence P. Gebhardt
1200 Aspen Drive
Pocatello, ID 83204

From reading what I can about this guy (samples are here [in the comments], here, here, here, and here) he has significant liberal tendencies. So this may just be an issue of supporting whatever the Democrats support. I assure you, what he says about the NRA and gun ownership does not represent any of the gun owners I know in Idaho. I know a fair number of gun owners that are unhappy with the NRA but what their problem with the NRA is that they feel the NRA should compromise less and take a stronger stand against unconstitutional and ineffective laws. Just the opposite of this guy. And he has basic facts wrong. Example:

• He claims "the NRA's emphasis has become political, not around firearm competence and responsibility". I'm sure that comes as quite a surprise to:
  • The many thousands of NRA certified instructors
  • The thousands of people that shoot in NRA matches each year
  • The recipients of NRA range grants
  • Thousand and thousands of other people who have personally benefited from the many NRA programs
• He claims "Here in Idaho where I live there are no NRA basic firearm training programs." But probably 10% to 20% of the shooters I know in Idaho are NRA certified firearms instructors and regularly put on classes. It's possible that isn't true in Pocatello, but I have a tough time believing he even looked for someone that teaches NRA classes in Idaho.

He then goes on to suggest Judge Sotomayor should be asked questions that are totally inappropriate for a judge. They are appropriate for a legislator or someone in the executive branch, but a judge? And the content of the questions are of a type I would expect to be asked by some intern at the Brady Campaign.

This isn't like any Idaho gun owner I know.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The economic stimulus plan has created or saved 150,000 jobs since its inception in February, a senior White House Budget Office official said Wednesday.

Rob Nabors, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, told a congressional panel that the jobs figure is based on an economic model used by the Obama administration.

I wonder if that was using the same economic model that generated this graph (from Kevin):

At Microsoft when our tools yield results that even a little bit erratic we investigate and fix them. I would suggest the Obama administration examine their tools but I am suspicious the tools involved are producing the results desired by the administration and they see no need to even investigate--let alone fix them.

Some people call them vultures. I call them capitalists providing a much needed service. It's no surprise the people calling them vultures are in San Francisco:

The California IOU has become the prey of so-called vulture investors who hope to profit by buying them on the cheap and redeeming them later.

The idea is that "distressed asset investors" (their nicer name) will pay less than face value to mom-and-pop businesses that receive IOUs but need cash immediately to meet payroll or other expenses. Once the IOUs mature on Oct. 2, the investors will cash them in for their full value plus the 3.75 percent interest the state is offering.

They call the IOU "the prey"? What does that make the state of California? Bambi's mother? The parents of baby seals? In reality the state is the predator. The state contracted for services and/or goods (or taken excess money in taxes then failed to return the excess as promised) and is now failing to live up to the contract. Had they given IOUs to those that had not provided goods and/or services, such as welfare recipients, I would be less harsh in condemning the state. But to receive something of value and then fail to compensate them as agreed is really unacceptable.

But these people see the state fail to live up to its obligations creating countless victims, the capitalists provide relief to the victims, and then they condemn those providing the relief--that is some sort of insanity. Sometimes I have to conclude that Michael Savage is right on at least one point--Liberalism is a Mental Disorder.

The sad part is that the IOUs are, in essence, a new form of currency. I'm certain the state will soon realize this and start offering to pay in IOUs instead of money. The people, knowing they can sell them for 85% (whatever) of face value will ask for IOUs with face value of $118 for every $100 (85% of 118 is ~100) of goods and/or services. The state will, in a sick, perverted, rationalized sort of way, figure their money mostly problems are solved and not cut back on spending. This will drive the state faster and harder into the financial abyss.

Expect that result to be blamed on "vultures" as well.

You can pick a socialist out of large crowd in about 3.5 to 3.85 seconds.  He's the one angrily protesting the use of the word "socialist" while simultaneously advocating socialism, while simultaneously trying to sound educated.  That's quite a trick.  You have to give socialists that much; they can be fairly good at multi tasking and they have been known to work hard.  Loudly advocating stagnation and decay, while strenuously denying it at the same time, all while taking and disposing of other people's property and money, while compiling massive lists of massive lists of massive sub lists of dos and don'ts for all of us to follow, all under various threats, isn't easy.  Fighting the revolution and getting the constitution written and ratified was a minor task by comparison.

In comments here, Endif, running full speed and damn the torpedoes into my nets, referred to the federal takeover of banks and automakers (and presumably everything else the government has taken over in whole or in part, from education to agriculture to energy and transportation industries, to drugs, alcohol and gambling, etc., etc., etc., etc.) as "Investment".

Socialists get all agitated and defensive at the mention of the "S" word.  What is to be done about it?  What term designating state sponsored coercion would they accept as properly defining their belief system?  We know they quit liking the term "Liberal" and they never understood that "Fascist"  applied to them.  You call one of them a Fascist and they'll take offense, thinking you're calling them a conservative.  It's great fun but it doesn't lead to even a rudimentaqry level of understanding when two people are using the same words but speaking entirely different languages.  They seem to be using "Progressive" less and less too, now that more people know where and when that political term originated.

What's happening in the U.S. is more akin to Fascism.  It's all the same to me, or to put it another way; the subtle distinctions between different versions of state sponsored coercion don't interest me, nor do the distinctions between the Crips and the Bloods.  Nor do I much care what the advocates and practitioners of socialism prefer to be called-- I just know what they don't like being called, and that in itself is interesting.

Tell us which you prefer, Socialists, the word "socialism" or the word "Fascism".  If you dislike being called a socialist, surely you have some specific preference.  We know you don't like "Nazi" mainly because you think it too means conservative.  "Moderate" works for me, since moderates are people who have accepted the premises of socialism but aren't willing to admit it.  "Socialist in denial" is pretty descriptive too, if redundant.  Ooh; how about "Investment Coordinator"?  Hey, I like that.  We can henceforth refer to socialists as Investment Coordinators.  They'll like that, I bet.  But wait; what would we call real investment coordinators?

On second thought, I'll keep calling socialists socialists.  We all know what it means, even if socialists try to act like they don't.

It is a mark of modern ignorance to think that we have become progressively smarter.... Who is to say whether the task of tackling a problem without the benefit of a well-developed body of methods and information may not have required far greater intellectual vigor and originality than is needed [today] for proceeding from problem to problem within the safely established disciplines? Prehistoric, early historic, as well as medieval science have faced such a task.

Thomas Goldstein
The historian of science, not the other one.
[I would extend Goldstein's observation to politics. Compare the results of the U.S. Constitution to those advocated by Marx a few decades later and implemented a century or two later.

Modern ignorance. Yes, that describes what I see in politics today.--Joe]

A guy on our team speaks with a very noticeable German accent. I never thought much of it. Another guy is from South Vietnam, another from China, the new person on our team (just today) and my officemate are both from India. If there is anything unusual about the foreigners around the office is that they work harder than the U.S. born people. This guy is no exception. I see emails sent by him from late at night and all weekend.

But he stopped by to talk about stuff last Thursday and we ended up talking about where he grew up. He was born in East Germany. I hadn't realized that. For some reason I always thought of West Germany whenever I might have considered his origins. He hates the communists. "Communism makes people lazy. Yah!"

I said it always amazes me that experiment has been run so many times and resulted in 10s of millions dead and still people keep wanting to try it again. I told him of someone I know who told me they didn't think people should own their own houses. The government should own them and allocated them on the basis of need. This person told me, "You and Barb don't need such a big house. Some other family with a larger family needs it more than you do."

His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. "You tell them I lived that. You tell them to go visit this town. Yah!", and he showed me a town on a map of Germany. "Not one bomb was dropped on that town during the entire war", he said. "There was no fighting in that town. But if you go there that town looks like it was all bombed out. When people don't own their property they don't care. The roofs, they are all falling down. Yah! You tell him to go there and look for himself."

After he got married they applied to the housing allocation board for a place to live. There was "nothing available". But other people who applied after him got really nice places. But they were the children of the people on the board, and the people who had connections to people on the board. After two years the housing board told him that his parents had permission to make some changes to their place (I understood this to be partitions, plumbing, etc.) and then he and his wife could live there.

He told me he graduated, "The best in my class." But he couldn't get into college because his family weren't "good communists". He got a job in a picture tube factory (television sets I presume) and he did so well the company used its pull to get him a position in school. He got a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering. Then he got a PhD in Computer Science.

After the Germany's were reunited his father obtained his secret police file. Every letter to or from West Germany, where some of their family lived, was read and a summary was put in his file. He found out who had spied on him and who said things about him that put his loyalty to the communist party in doubt and stopped his career.

"Joe", he said, "People complain about how unequal things are with the rich executives in a capitalist society. But it's just the same under communism--it's the politically connected that have the money and the people that aren't connected don't have anything. I know. I lived it. Communism, it's very bad."

I need to ask what he thinks of the plans for health care and the take over of the banking industry, etc. in this country. That should be interesting.

I've wondered for some time what that New Hampshire slogan really meant.  On the surface it seemed to have the wrong people dying.  "Leave me alone or die", I thought, would make more sense, or "live free or kill", but the meaning of the slogan is something different, as Walter Williams reports.  He goes through some development before getting to the New Hampshire bit;

[Mark] Steyn points how it might seem bizarre to find the progressive left making common cause with radical Islam. One half of that alliance is pro-gay, pro-feminist secularists and the other half is homophobic, misogynist theocrats. Steyn argues what they have in common overrides their differences, namely, "Both the secular Big Government progressives and the political Islam recoil from the concept of the citizen, of the free individual entrusted to operate within his own societal space, assume his responsibilities, and exploit his potential."

I never thought it bizarre at all.  I've referred to Progressives and radical Islam as somewhat kindred spirits for years.  They both hate capitalism, both hate liberty in general, both want to control the individual, both hate the very fact that the U.S. and Israel exist, and both thrive on chaos and hate prosperity.  I could go on for quite a while, but you get the point.

"Live Free or Die," which graces New Hampshire's license plate, are the words of John Stark, New Hampshire's Revolutionary War hero. He uttered those words decades after the War when he was 81 years old, the complete sentence being: "Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils." Steyn says these words should not be interpreted "as a battle cry: We'll win this thing or die trying, die an honorable death. But in fact it's something far less dramatic: It's a bald statement of the reality of our lives in the prosperous West. You can live as free men, but, if you choose not to, your society will die."

This weekend as we celebrate the Declaration of Independence and the successful revolution that resulted, lets keep that in mind.  To pledge one's life, fortune, and sacred honor to the overthrow of an over-reaching government that possesses the most powerful military in the world is as serious as it gets, and many of those who did so faired rather badly during the war.  We owe them a lot of respect, and only way to do that is to keep from throwing away that which they have given us.

How many Americans could even describe this country's founding principles without getting sarcastic, to say nothing of being able to defend them?  Try asking some of the people you meet this weekend and report back.  I'm curious.  Something like this; "Can you define this country's founding principles?" and then, "What would you say to defend them if someone told you that those were outdated, inflexible, and dreamed up by some radical, violent, old, paternal, dead, white slave owners?" (use your own words)

Via an email from Mike:

Shooters:

The following pro-gun bills which were drafted by IdahoSSA go into effect today (July 1st):

• House bill 65 which clarified that Idaho residents can buy long guns from dealers in non-contiguous states and vice versa. 
• House bill 137 which grants State parks the power to regulate discharge of firearms in campgrounds etc. but makes it  clear that they have no authority to ban lawful carry. IdahoSSA is working closely with Parks and Recreation to make sure that their final rule specifically recognizes the right to carry in State Parks. 
• House bill 194 which grants immunity from liability to shooting ranges, firearms instructors, and match officials.  
• House bill 287 which grants immunity to employers who allow their employees to store personal firearms in their cars on company property.  Employers in Idaho now have NO LEGITIMATE REASON to ban the storage of firearms in their parking lots. If you or someone you know is affected by this kind of  anti-gun policy at work please send me a copy of the pertinent policy. IdahoSSA will be working to educate employers on this law.

If anyone has any questions about the effect of these bills please feel free to contact me.

 

IdahoSSA is your pro-gun voice. Our mission is to:

RESEARCH the current law and DRAFT proposed improvements.

LOBBY  the legislature and state officials on behalf of gun rights and the shooting sports.  

EDUCATE the public about the responsible use of firearms and RESPOND to media attacks on gun rights.

PROMOTE the shooting sports and ENCOURAGE the development of shooting ranges.

LITIGATE if neccessary on behalf of firearm rights.

 

As always: Thanks for your support!

 

 

Michael C. "Mike" Brown

Executive Director/General Counsel

Idaho Sport Shooters Alliance

208 835-3737

208 835-3744 Fax

www.idahossa.org

According to some new research those unsure of own ideas more resistant to views of others:

We swim in a sea of information, but filter out most of what we see and hear. A new analysis of data from dozens of studies sheds new light on how we choose what we do and do not hear. The study found that while people tend to avoid information that contradicts what they already think or believe, certain factors can cause them to seek out, or at least consider, other points of view.

Yes, of course. No surprises there.

The analysis, reported this month in Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association, was led by researchers at the University of Illinois and the University of Florida, and included data from 91 studies involving nearly 8,000 participants. It puts to rest a longstanding debate over whether people actively avoid information that contradicts what they believe, or whether they are simply exposed more often to ideas that conform to their own because they tend to be surrounded by like-minded people.

Very cool! Excellent hypotheses to explore.

Perhaps more surprisingly, people who have little confidence in their own beliefs are less likely to expose themselves to contrary views than people who are very confident in their own ideas, Albarracín said.

Now that explains a lot of anti-gun bigotry (actually all forms of bigotry).

Certain factors can also induce people to seek out opposing points of view, she said. Those who may have to publicly defend their ideas, such as politicians, for example, are more motivated to learn about the views of those who oppose them. In the process, she said, they sometimes find that their own ideas evolve.

I suspect this is part of why there is more support in the general population for gun control than in politicians. As they get ready to act on their original beliefs they become educated on the topic and change their ideas. That applies to those who believed gun control would increase public safety. Those politicians that push for gun control because they view guns in private hands a threat to their personal ambitions are likely to become even more set in their beliefs.

I'm just wondering aloud here.  When will we decide that women are regular citizens, instead of treating female shooters as though they are a separate class of citizen?  I understand that there is a perception that women need their own, separate training classes and all that, so they feel comfortable.  Is that condescending to women or am I missing something?  At what point, or under what circumstances, will we be treating female shooters the same as we treat male shooters (within the sport I mean)?

Maybe it's a dumb question.  Maybe men can't help but see a woman as something special and maybe that attitude is bound to find its way into our chosen sport.  Maybe some women are so accustomed to being treated differently that they expect it without a lot of thought.

Maybe the question is simply premature.  Any female shooters want to comment on that?  Do you believe you need separate training or separate categories in a competition, and if so, why?  Should there be guns made for girls, and others for the boys and if so, why"  Marketing strategies are beyond the scope of the question.  Hell, maybe it's all about marketing, in which case, never mind.

I could understand if shooting involved some heavy lifting, but even then we've all seen some women who can out-lift some men.  So you want different weight classes, like in wrestling?

Here's another.  How long is it going to be before the various races of humans are treated the same in general, in the media, and in the courts?  I understand personal preferences, but that's quite different.  I'm talking socially, politically and legally.  When will I be able to tell a black guy he's being a fool without being accused of racism, or tell a Mexican woman she's wrong without her getting in my face on some racial or sex-related tangent?  When will we be able to disagree without changing the subject as a form of crutch?  I really am getting sick and damned tired of this, so I am herein putting my foot down.  Knock off the race and sex defenses.  Some people are using it as a tool and I'm not buying it.  Not at all, and I'm getting right back in your face if you try it with me so don't even start.

When, or under what exact specified circumstances, will the gun-restriction advocates declare their work done, pack up their tents, and get jobs?  Any time you hear one of them guffaw over the assertion that they won't quit until all guns are banned, your immediate response must be, "OK, then tell me precisely when or under what circumstances you will stop, declare victory, and find something else to do, 'cause what I see is that any time you get a win, you're right on to calling for another restriction.  This has been happening for over 70 years, so, you know, we have a pretty undeniable track record here.  Go ahead.  Lay out the circumstances.  I have all day."

Staying on the title subject;
A problem with saying, "this far and no farther" is you've already established that a) you're willing to give ground, and/or that b) you've accepted or granted your opponent's basic premise(s).  Some things are properly subject to compromise (such as where to go for lunch, assuming you want the company) and others are not (such as basic rights).  When it comes to basic rights, the response it not, "this far and no farther".  Properly, the response is zero tolerance, same as it would be for a robber or a rapist.  If someone violates your basic rights, they are criminal and it is not incumbent upon you to prove your magnanimity by compromising with them.  You fight to win, then you fight for compensation and restitution, then you fight for justice, assuming your opponent is still breathing.  Few if any in Congress, for example, seem to have a clue how that might happen with regard to their violations of our basic rights.

On this one-year anniversary of the landmark Heller ruling, it is sadly clear that gun prohibitionists are as determined as ever to re-write history and live in denial. Of course, what they really want is to deny gun owners their civil rights.

To paraphrase Barack Obama, these gun prohibitionists have become bitter, clinging to their gun control agenda as if it were a religion.

Dave Workman
June 25, 2009
The Heller ruling one year later; antis still in denial
[Just as many whites clung to their bigoted beliefs about blacks for 100 year after the 13^th Amendment was passed it's going to take a long, long time before the anti-gun bigots are driven into the fringe politics along with the KKK. It should not be a surprise that the bigots of today overwhelmingly are Democrats, just as they were in the heydays of the KKK. Apparently they just can't help it and have to hate someone.--Joe]

After the long nightmare of Microsoft health insurance, to finally be delivered into the arms of the kind and loving bureaucrats who give their all to ensure America's veterans never want for care...

Sean Flynn
2:59 PM PDT, June 25, 2008
Microsoft employee commenting on the Obama administration's efforts to "reform" (nationalize) health care.

Via a Bitter Twitter (or should that be Bitter Tweet?) I found this:

The federal government is spending $423,500 to find out why men don't like to wear condoms, a project government watchdogs say is a nearly-half-a-million-dollar waste of taxpayer money.

...

But the $423,500 grant for the study is just a crumb in the NIH pie. The NIH spends $29 billion each year to help fund thousands of health studies at home and abroad.

But some questionable queries have come under close scrutiny, including a $400,000 study being conducted in bars in Buenos Aires to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk; a $2.6 million study dedicated to teaching prostitutes in China to drink less while having sex on the job; and a $178,000 study to better understand why drug-abusing prostitutes in Thailand are at greater risk for HIV infection.

I presume this is part of Obama's stimulus package. If you were to ask me I would say we should stop stimulating him.

I can see that our politicians haven't cornered the market on stupidity and insanity. I think after a liberal/progressive person gets to a certain age, they should have a net thrown over them and hauled away somewhere. The longer they are liberal, the crazier they get.

L. Hope
Baldwinsville, USA
June 15, 2009
In the comments to First 'anti-stab' knife to go on sale in Britain
Via Jeff.
[In a sense I think L. Hope is right. They are, in a sense, crazy. What I think is going on is that they do not or cannot understand the complexities of the real world. They believe central planning/control by "the right people" will result in a better result than letting people make their own decisions and being responsible for their own wellbeing. When unintended consequences happen they think they need to exercise more control rather than understanding there are people just as smart, if not smarter, working to defeat their controls and even take advantage of those controls to their advantage. Hence criminals take advantage of disarmed people by nearly risk free home invasions. The disarming of the population made the home invasions possible with only a knife as a weapon. This sort of thing is repeated on a massive scale in the black market, taxes, prostitution, gambling, etc. Government controls, implemented with the best of intentions, almost always create more problems than they fix. The person that believes government can solve everything keeps thinking "just one more law" when a new problem shows up that was caused by the previous law. Eventually, such as in this case with the "anti-stab" knife, outsiders realize the proponent of government control is in some sense insane. But unless one or more of the five conditions are broken the people on the inside will not only fail to realize their insanity but will proselytize even more. This happens even when the proponents are facing near certain death. Read up on Joseph Stalin and his supporters sometime.

The only real solution that I know of is to remove the social support for their delusions. Point out their insanity. Rub their noses in it. People that have do not have the commitment to the "cause" need to be made aware and then join in on the public humiliation of the proponents of the insanity.

If we fail to stop the insanity early enough we run the risk the next Joseph Stalin will take over the reins of power of a system intended for use only by "the right people" with predictable and catastrophic results. And even after tens of millions have died there will still be people saying Stalin was a great leader. I believe there are some forms of insanity which are not completely curable and liberalism/communism/progressivism/socialism/statism may be one of those. The best we can do is to remove them from power and ignore them as they spout their mad ravings in public.--Joe]

The gun rights people in the U.S. Congress have been giving their anti-gun bigot co-workers some interesting dilemmas recently. There was the elimination of D.C.'s gun laws amendment attached to the bill giving D.C. residents a voting member in the house (on hold). Then there was the removal of guns restrictions in National Parks attached to the "credit card reform" legislation (passed!). And now there is this (via email from Wesley D.):

The Pink Pistols and GOProud are supporting Senator John Thune (R-SD) on an amendment to recently-introduced Federal “so-called hate crime” legislation, Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

...

Conceptually, the amendment would allow citizens with concealed carry permits to carry handguns across state lines with reciprocity, while following local concealed carry laws. That makes sense to me. If the original legislation is intended to reactively punish thuggish citizens for “so-called hate crimes,” it only makes sense to also proactively make it easier for all citizens to defend themselves and prevent the “so-called hate crimes” in the first place.

Although I agree with Linoge on a philosophical basis I also am of the opinion that once our enemies violated that principle (Hughes Amendment, Lautenberg Amendment, etc.) it would be unethical for us to defend our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms on an unequal playing field. We are only playing by their rules. So when they start whining just tell them something like, "Karma is a bitch ain't it?"

See also posts by Phil and Ride Fast.

This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.

Ben Franklin
[I can't say that I disagree. The problem is that people have not been taught to know and prize their rights. Ignorance has been a big part of our country's downfall. People vote for politicians promising perceived benefits without glimmer of recognition there might be unintended consequences.--Joe]

The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary.

Wilhelm Reich
[I'm thinking of dominate political ideologies of Democrats and Republicans. Extraordinarily powerful social realities with the utility of the bubonic plague. That sounds about right.

The major political parties appear to have no principles or underlying philosophy. As near as I can tell they are merely coalitions of people in desire of fame/power/money. Political ideologies based on consistent philosophies such as the Constitution Party or the Libertarian Party are for the most part unable to achieve power. This is in part because they are consistent philosophies which makes them less willing to compromise.

I sometimes fantasize of creating a political system that makes such coalitions of zero or negative value but have been unsuccessful of anything approaching something feasible. I keep coming back to enumerated powers such that the coalitions can't exceed certain boundaries. We tried that once and look at what we have now. There needs to be a "Fourth Branch of Government" or something that does nothing but permanently nullify laws and remove politicians who voted for them from government if something like 10% of the members think the law violates the constitution.--Joe]

I don't know how many times I've heard from an anti-rights activist; "There are 'Reasonable Restrictions' on all rights..." as an attempt to convince us that gun restrictions, in and of themselves, are not necessarily a bad thing, but it's been a lot.  As often as not, the pro-rights advocate falls for it, too.

The main argument the anti uses is the old, "You can't yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" meme as an example of a Reasonable Restriction on a constitutionally protected right (you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, therefore your second amendment rights are null and void.  QED).

Oh please!  Seriously; when has fraud been a candidate for the title "free speech"? 

Anyone?

It is a malicious fraud to yell "Fire!" if there is no fire.

The first amendment does not protect fraud, libel, slander, or incitement to illegal violence as "free speech" any more than the second amendment protects armed robbery and murder as an integral part of the right to keep and bear arms.  It says, "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed".  It doesn't say, "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms and to threaten, to rob or to kill anyone they wish, shall not be infringed".

We can readily accept laws against robbery, aggravated assault, and murder without our second amendment rights being threatened in the least.  "Keeping and bearing" arms has nothing to do with committing crimes using said arms.  Keeping and Bearing is absolutely protected, and, well, crime is crime.  Can you say, "Duh"?  Everyone together now;  "Derrrrrr!"

Can we please not, ever, allow the old (says in a snotty tone) "Well, there are plenty of Reasonable Restrictions on other rights, and I don't see YOU opposing with THOSE" argument to get any traction whatsoever?

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

Thomas Jefferson
[One might reasonably conclude that the bailout of the automobile and banking industries is evidence that this principle has been forgotten in the years since Jefferson help found this nations government. But then what do I know? I'm not the constitutional law professor who actually respects the constitution like President Obama.--Joe]

I received this just today which is too late for attending their hearing or sending in comments but via an email from Mike B. we have this:

Category A (Library Specific Violation)

...

Possession, except by law enforcement officers, of a firearm on Library property (with a valid permit),

...

Category E (Serious Violation Toward Person(s) or Property)

...

Possession, except by law enforcement officers, of a firearm on Library property (no valid permit).

So what they are saying is that even though the State has said local governments may not regulate firearm possession the city library is going to do it anyway. They recognize the existence of carry permits but will not honor them.

It sounds to me like it is time for a lawsuit. Email to appropriate people is in the works.

If human beings are fundamentally good, no government is necessary; if they are fundamentally bad, any government, being composed of human beings, would be bad also.

Fred Woodworth
[I think Woodworth overlooks some fundamental issues with things like his opposition to profit in economic relationships and ownership to raw land but I think he makes some valid points about the non-utility of government.--Joe]

We in the pro-freedom camp (Americans) spend too much time arguing about safety.  Or rather, we argue safety far too often in the terms laid down by our enemies-- the enemies of liberty.  Though the statistics are often on our side, we're granting the basis for the argument (that government exists to promote the physical safety of the individual) to the enemy.

Wrong premise.

Too many police departments, for example, call themselves Departments of Public Safety and the like.  That's not their function, per se.  Their proper function is to enforce the law and the primary purpose of law, in the uniquely American sense at least, is to promote and protect your rights.  That this function has been corrupted over the years does not change the original intent.

The American Revolution was indeed fought for safety, but the safety so dearly bought therein was a rather different kind of safety from that promoted by the neo-Fascists.  It wasn't the kind of safety taught at your local public school.  It wasn't the kind of safety we're training for in a fire drill or in a drivers' education class.  That kind of safety is properly the responsibility of the individual or of private interests.

The kind of safety for which the Revolution was fought and for which the constitution was written is safety from government interference-- safety from the enemies of liberty both foreign and domestic.

Historically, out-of-control governments have presented a danger to public safety far greater than all common criminal activity and standard physical danger combined.  Some government or left-wing hack asserting that we need more government intrusion as a means of promoting "safety" is a bit like advocating mass sex orgies for the promotion of abstinence.

When we're arguing safety and public policy then, we need to make it clear beforehand which particular kind of safety we're discussing-- the safety of subjects owned by the government (the safety of tyrants and sycophants) or the safety of a free people.  They are near polar opposites.

The credit card bill with the amendment for restoring our rights to keep and bear arms in national parks passed the Senate a few minutes ago:

_ Includes unrelated provision that would allow people to carry loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.

It's not a sure thing it will get passed into law yet but the chances aren't too bad:

The 90-5 vote, following a 357-to-70 vote in the House on April 30, made it likely that President Obama will have a measure on his desk before the Memorial Day recess. The differences between the House and Senate versions will have to be worked out, but given the political atmosphere it seems likely that the House-Senate negotiations will move quickly.

Amazing. And this bill is much better for us than the ruling change the Brady Campaign shot down with the bogus "no environmental assessment study was done" lawsuit.

The Brady Campaign may have not only wasted their money but they may get a worse result for their efforts.

Be on the lookout for more Sad Pandas.

In the U.K. the Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament has several duties. Some of these have been hazardous to their health:

The Speaker sets the agenda for debate in parliament, calls on members of parliament to speak, can limit question time and decide whether amendments should be voted on.

They also traditionally serve as a liaison with the monarch, acting as a buffer between the Commons and the sovereign.

In the past, when relations between the two were not always so good, Speakers had a deadly job. In fact, nine Speakers, all prior to 1560, died a violent death, one murdered, one killed in battle and seven beheaded, two on the same day.

I'm all for our Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi resigning because of her scandal (as the U.K. speaker is) but being beheaded seems a little over the top (as well was being a little off the top).

The citizen disarmament advocates may indeed eventually get their "terrorist" incident.  The question is this: are they trying to forestall that, or to provoke it?  At some point, some concerned patriot is going to wonder if it's time to paraphrase Patrick Henry (one of the original "right-wing extremists"): "If this be terrorism, make the most of it."

Kurt Hofmann
May 15, 3:56 AM
How to disarm the citizenry in 3 easy steps
[Patrick Henry may not have actually said this, but Hofmann does ask a good question.--Joe]

Sebastian, Kevin, and others were quoted in the Christian Science Monitor today after being interviewed last night in Phoenix.

Bitter pulled The Josh Sugarmann Endorsement out of that article.

Great job guys! It makes me wish, even more, that I was there.

Canada said they wanted all the guns in the country registered. The gun owners said, "Μολὼν λαβέ". Canada said, "Okay, how about we waive the license fee and you get another year to register them?" The gun owners said, "Μολὼν λαβέ". The registration law was passed in 1995. It's now 14 years later and what is the story? See for yourself:

The Honourable Vic Toews, President of the Treasury Board, on behalf of the Honourable Peter Van Loan, Minister of Public Safety, today announced the re-extension of an amnesty and other measures that helps firearms owners comply with the law.

"This Government has, once again, extended the amnesty to continue to bring law-abiding citizens into our licensing system," said Minister Toews. "We are preventing the pointless criminalization of non-restricted gun owners, who are working to come into compliance with our firearms laws."

"Make no mistake. This amnesty actually serves to enhance public safety. When previously extended, the amnesty encouraged an increase of gun owners registering as licensed firearms owners, as did the other measures we are renewing today," said Minister Van Loan.

The following three measures, which will encourage compliance and reduce the administrative burden on lawful firearms owners, are now in effect until May 16, 2010:

- Extending by one year an amnesty which allows individuals in possession of unregistered non-restricted firearms to take steps to bring themselves into compliance;

- Extending by one year the current fee waiver for firearms licence renewals or upgrades; and,

- Allowing eligible holders of expired Possession-Only Licences to apply for a new one within a year.

"Our effort to combat criminal gun crimes remains strong. We have introduced mandatory prison sentences for those who commit gun crimes and tougher bail rules for serious weapon-related offences," added Minister Van Loan.

All together now, everyone!  Μολὼν λαβέ

H. R. 2159 would allow the U.S. Attorney General deny people an ATF license for firearms or explosives without due process:

The Attorney General may deny a license application if the Attorney General determines that the applicant (including any responsible person) is known (or appropriately suspected) to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism, or providing material support thereof, and the Attorney General has a reasonable belief that the applicant may use a firearm in connection with terrorism.’.

"Appropriately suspected"? Yeah, right. Like I donated money to his bosses opponent in the last election? Or he read Why Boomershoot?

Surely it there must be some sort of hearing and you are given a chance to see or respond to the evidence they used to arrive at the decision, right?

by striking ‘The Attorney General may, after notice and opportunity for hearing, revoke’ and insert ‘(2)’;

...

(1) in the 1st sentence of paragraph (1), by inserting ‘, except that if the denial or revocation is pursuant to subsection (d)(1)(H) or (e)(3), then any information on which the Attorney General relied for this determination may be withheld from the petitioner if the Attorney General determines that disclosure of the information would likely compromise national security’ before the period;

...

‘(b) In any case in which the Attorney General has denied the transfer of a firearm to a prospective transferee pursuant to section 922A or has made a determination regarding a firearm permit applicant pursuant to section 922B, an action challenging the determination may be brought against the United States. The petition must be filed not later than 60 days after the petitioner has received actual notice of the Attorney General’s determination made pursuant to section 922A or 922B. The court shall sustain the Attorney General’s determination on a showing by the United States by a preponderance of evidence that the Attorney General’s determination satisfied the requirements of section 922A or 922B. To make this showing, the United States may submit, and the court may rely on, summaries or redacted versions of documents containing information the disclosure of which the Attorney General has determined would likely compromise national security. On request of the petitioner or the court’s own motion, the court may review the full, undisclosed documents ex parte and in camera. The court shall determine whether the summaries or redacted versions, as the case may be, are fair and accurate representations of the underlying documents. The court shall not consider the full, undisclosed documents in deciding whether the Attorney General’s determination satisfies the requirements of section 922A or 922B.’.

No crime need be committed. The AG just has to have a bad feeling about you and you don't get to see or respond to the evidence being used against you.

What Henry Kissinger said comes to mind.

God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: This is my country.

Ben Franklin
[Unfortunately just the opposite has happened. Anywhere I may set my foot on this planet is oppressed and there is no place that I can say I want to live with this system of government. Now that Cheerios are being considered a drug (and here) will the fields in which we raise the oats for them be treated like fields of opium poppies?--Joe]

This afternoon I watched with fascination on my cell phone as I got Twitter updates from bitterb on the amendment to a Senate bill that would allow guns in National Parks. It was debated and passed 67-29.

Can it pass in the House? Will Obama veto it if it reaches his desk?

Last November I could not have imagined any pro-gun bill passing by a 2/3s majority in either house at the Federal level.

Socialism. It's made of FAIL:

The state budget deficit has nearly doubled in the past two months, climbing past $15 billion, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger disclosed Monday.

The sober news comes a week before a May 19 statewide vote on a set of ballot budget-related measures that, if defeated, would push the deficit past $21 billion, Schwarzenegger warned in a letter to legislative leaders.

It was Socialism that brought about the collapse of the U.S.S.R. It will be socialism that brings about the collapse of the California government. And I'll not be surprised if it brings down the U.S. government as well.

And as painful as it will be to most people I'll still laugh because I'm not above saying "I told you so." And I'll have all the food, clean water, and the guns and ammo to defend it while the socialist "intellectuals" are unable to find a way to dispose of their own waste in a sanitary manner let alone find water or food fit for consumption. They can tell me, again, how important, how right, how justified they are in their cities as they cry themselves to sleep with an empty stomach, in their own filth, in the dark.

As the “Right Wing” is now being singled out by the Janet Nepolitano’s DHS as “extremists” and taxation is inevitably being prepared to bankrupt generations to come, perhaps we should realize that War has already been declared on American Values, Heritage, Birthright and Prosperity.

I say we prepare to designate households, then neighborhoods, towns, cities, counties, States, Regions and eventually the whole country as “Hell No” zones.  Starting with the refusal to pay ANY TAXES, and showing up en masse to prevent the lawyers from enforcing any individual seizure of private property in a self-proclaimed “Hell No“ zone.

Rolling back every law enacted since the Constitution was ratified would be a good start, too.

I hereby declare ALL Taxes are against my consent.  And pledge to defend any other household to declare itself a “Hell No” zone. 

Beginning with mine.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!

Traction Control
May 2, 2009
Democracy Overrun in Pakistan. In the US? Hell No!
[I admit to getting a warm pleasant feeling from the thought. But most of my taxes are paid without my control via payroll deductions and as part of the purchase price as in sales and gas taxes. It will take people "unplugging from the grid" to even to begin to accomplish this on a wide scale. That doesn't mean I might not support others that can establish a "Hell No" zone but I'm not sure how much that would help.--Joe]

From the New York Times:

Two weeks ago, Mr. Schumer, a prominent gun control advocate, invited Ms. Gillibrand to a news conference in Manhattan to unveil a gun control plan.

When it was her turn to speak, Ms. Gillibrand faced skepticism, given her past support for gun owners’ rights. “How much of this is political expediency?” one reporter asked.

Eventually, Mr. Schumer, stepped in, saying he, too, made adjustments when he went from a House seat to the Senate. “When you start representing a new area, you learn, you meet other people and you grow,” he explained.

Then the news conference came to an end and the two senators strolled off to lunch.

Would you call it "growth" if a defender of equal rights for blacks started praising George Wallace's segregation policies? For Gillibrand to support a gun control plan and "stroll off to lunch" with Schumer is like a NAACP supporter going to lunch with David Duke. Gillibrand is just another politician without principles.

Keep in mind that laws aren't written or enforced which punish inanimate objects or violent crime. Laws only punish people who possess those objects or commit those crimes. Hence what District Attorney candidate Richard M. Aborn says he plans to do is actually attack people who own guns--people exercising a specific enumerated right:

He has received endorsements from a former police commissioner, William J. Bratton, and from several elected officials, and on Monday, he released his first detailed policy paper, a five-point plan for combating gun violence in Manhattan.

The plan calls for a regional interdiction approach to gun trafficking; more gun buyback programs and a program in which parents could give the police permission to search homes for guns; a requirement that pistols sold in New York include micro-stamping technology; a five-year renewal process for handgun permits; and support for a national gun-control strategy.

What would be the public response if he announced his "five-point plan" for combating Jewish vermin in Manhattan? Or putting uppity blacks in their place? And what of the people that endorsed such a person? They would, and rightly so, have a tough time getting a job as a janitor in Manhattan. A job as an elected official? The only thing they could get elected to would be a prison cell by a jury.

But this isn't the way things are supposed to be. This is New York and an article in the New York Times. Where such bigotry is the norm and bigots such as Aborn are not only tolerated but praised. Just like some deep south sheriff who roughs up blacks for entertainment on Saturday nights Aborn is praised and endorsed by many. He should be prosecuted under 18 USC 241 and/or 242.

Senator Crapo via Joe Durnbaugh on the Lewiston Pistol Club email list. Emphasis in the letter body is mine:

From: senator_crapo@crapo.senate.gov
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 2:37 PM
Subject: Correspondence from Senator Crapo

April 27, 2009

Mr. Joe Durnbaugh
Lewiston, Idaho 83501

Dear Joe:

Thank you for contacting me regarding your opposition to the Inter-American Convention Against Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials (referred to by its Spanish acronym CIFTA). I agree with you and welcome the opportunity to respond.

On November 14, 1997, the Organization of American States (OAS) adopted the CIFTA treaty, which among other things, aimed to curtail the small arms trading of deadly weapons often used during the traffic of illegal drugs. Although President Clinton signed the CIFTA treaty, it received less than the requisite two-thirds majority vote in the U.S. Senate. As a result, it was never ratified.

As you may know, President Barack Obama is now urging its ratification in order to combat the Mexican drug cartel. The CIFTA treaty would ban any firearm that falls under a misleading classification of "illicit" manufacturing. For example, the treaty would make illegal the assimilation of a lawful firearm from a kit. Further, it would criminalize any modifications made to a firearm. Additionally, this treaty would prohibit pro-gun organizations. Most alarming is that a broad interpretation of this treaty would call for the extradition of U.S. gun dealers.

The Second Amendment reads: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." I firmly believe this provision prohibits the federal government from denying citizens this right.
Let me reassure you that I do not support gun control. We must protect and preserve our constitutional right to bear arms. I will not support any legislation that requires a waiting period for the purchase of a firearm, bans the ownership of firearms, promotes or requires the rationing or taxation of firearms, or the taxation of ammunition.

As you may know, gun control advocates continue to seek creative methods of advancing their agenda, both through legislation and litigation. You may be assured that I will continue to oppose all efforts to weaken Second Amendment rights.

Again, thank you for contacting me. Please feel free to contact me in the future on this or other matters of interest to you. For more information about the issues before the U.S. Senate as well as news releases, photos, and other items of interest, please visit my Senate website, http://crapo.senate.gov.

Sincerely,     
   
Mike Crapo
United States Senator

MDC:js

If U.S. Senators are saying this does that mean I'm not really paranoid after all?

There are many recurring themes among the left.  Then there are mantras for every leftist, but one that gets passed around, modified, recycled and reused a lot is the "America is evil for having actually used the A-bomb" meme.  The jihadists have been using that one, as have socialist and communist governments around the world, for years.  At least someone agrees with John Stewart besides a few pimple-faced high school students watching Comedy Central on their parents' TVs. 

Whittle does a wonderful job of refuting this blatant ignorance.  "Ooh! Ouch!"

Watch the whole thing.  Whittle didn't even have to mention what the Japanese did in China.

I almost feel sorry for Stewart.  Almost, but then I have to think that surely he knew all this stuff beforehand, and was just playing out a shtick on his show.  That would be giving him the benefit of the doubt I suppose.  Maybe he really is that vacuous.

The left however will be clinging to this worn-out meme for generations to come, no matter how many times it's proven wrong.  As they say; there's sucker born every minute.

The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.

Milton Friedman
[The socialist would disagree of course. But that is because they always imagine that "good people" will be in government. But that kind of concentration of money and power inevitably attracts "the worst people" with the predictable results of Stalin, Castro, etc. with them and their cronies satisfying their greedy desires not to mention the substandard lifestyle of their subjects and all the torture and executions of their political enemies. As in most cases the socialists only see the possible good in their world view and not the costs.

Once I demanded that an admitted communist give me the measurement of "fair" that he used just so we could be clear on what he was talking about. He refused. It boiled down to "he knew it when he saw it". Apparently he wanted to be the ultimate judge of "fairness" because what he thought was "fair" was completely different than mine. That is how they gain power. They say vague things that most people can agree with such as "fairness", "justice", etc. I think it is fair that I keep my results of my work but they think it is fair that I share half of my income with them.

Ask them how they measure "fairness" or "justice", if they can't express it in numbers then it's just unsubstantiated opinion.--Joe]

This is an open letter to all the talk show hosts, pundits, party hacks, cheaters, scumbags, sick twisted freaks (you know who you are) and pro-freedom bloggers.  We could spend the rest of our lives cataloging the outrageous behavior of nasty, America-hating, ignorant, self-loathing, cultist, freedom-hating, anti-human, leftist politicians including Progressive Republicans.  We know they're bad, OK?  If there are three or four people who still don't get it, that's all right.

I'd rather try to figure out how we're going to get some principled Americans nominated so we're not always forced to choose between bad and worse-- between more socialism slower, and more socialism faster.  This last national election was a real puker.  The Republican Party is, at the moment, just as lost, dumbfounded, selfish and clueless as ever.  They're a herd of does, staring blankly into the headlights of an on-coming truck, and the worst part of it is; they don't even suspect that they're clueless.  They in the Republican leadership think they have some really clever answers, which amount to more of what got us into this mess.  I recently heard it described as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  That fits very well.  The Republicans have some really super great, super ultra smart ideas for rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  No really, listen...  (all the while we have this simple, proven model for success, and it's being ignored.)

We need to change that.  You need to change it.  I need to change it.  There isn't anyone else.  I suppose, since it's up to us, it will have to be on the local level for most of us, being as we're not billionaires.  That's OK.  We can still do what we can do.  A lot of people are jazzed up right now.  They just need somewhere to start.  Well, pick a place, a local issue or a local politician that needs a hand (or a very public spanking) and get to it!

That there are clueless people is not the issue.  There will always be the clueless.  They'll sit on the sidelines, worrying about who likes them and who doesn't, trying to figure out where the "center" is so they can position themselves in it and claim superiority for having done so, while someone else does the lifting.  Are you a sitter or a lifter?

I have a bad feeling that things could come to blows before this government is brought under control, and I really don't want that to happen.  Do you?  This country is far too important in the grand scheme of things.

And with that; I don't have much more to say on here, other than to repeat myself or talk about the weather and what I did last weekend, unless it's to tell you what I'm doing on the local level to influence politics.  Now I think I have some calls to make.

(Note that I placed this in nearly every one of Joe's categories. It's relevant to everything we do and every opportunity we want for our kids in the future)

To be completely transparent about the Homeland Security Assessment titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment" which I first saw at Kevin's place. I didn't see what the big deal was about it. The left has been saying I was a threat to humanity since I purchased my first gun, a SKS, back in December '93 right after President Clinton (and her husband) were elected. I live in Idaho, so of course I'm considered a sexist, racist, bigot who would get violent now that we have a president who is of (one quarter) African descent. Never mind I would have cheered until I was hoarse if were Condoleezza Rice who had been elected President.

The "assessment" looked perfectly reasonable to me. What's the big deal? It's politics as usual. I've read enough garbage DHS reports and draft reports and given feedback on reports that never made it to the public that I don't have any illusions about their ability to think their way out of a paper bag let alone be able to connect with reality.

But some people figured it was a forged document. I looked at it and didn't see anything which indicate forged to me. Sure, the best lie is one that you want to believe. But the left wants to believe that too. They could just be lying to themselves. [shrug] Whatever. It's kind of amusing. The irony is a bit funny.

I haven't been paying all that much attention to what people have been saying about it. I've been very busy working on domination of the galaxy and planning to make a couple thousand pounds of explosives and gathering up a couple hundred people with guns for next weekend. Why should I care about what DHS says? It doesn't really apply to me doesn't? Surely they couldn't have been thinking of me when they wrote it.

I did get an email from CCRKBA on the topic which I think is worth sharing. The came out with a news release with a line that made me smile:

“It’s ironic,” Gottlieb concluded, “that President Obama’s friend, William Ayers, is a leftwing terrorist bomber, but nothing in this report suggests monitoring his activities.”

The world is kinda messed up right now. Economic conditions are scary. We have a socialist government in D.C. that is apparently working toward the destruction of the capitalism and our freedom. It's hard to understand what is really going on. Barb and I have spent a lot of time on the issues and this weekend she got me a card, "Just because it is so appropriate."

The front.

The inside.

The good guys made progress on two bills in Idaho. First H194, the Idaho Sport Shooting Activities Immunity Act is going to the governor for signature. And second, H287 (employer immunity for allowing parking lot gun storage) passed the House 50-19.

Yeah Mike!

From their first blog posting since February 19th we find the anti-gun organization known as Washington Ceasefire crowing about the first progress they have made with the Washington State Legislature in decades:

Today the Washington State Senate passed the first piece of gun violence prevention legislation in over two decades by a vote of 39-1. The bill, HB 1498, which passed in the House unanimously last month, will bring WA state law into conformity with federal law by prohibiting firearm possession if an individual is involuntarily committed by a court for a period of up to 14 days. The new law will ensure that the approximately 4,000 Washington residents who are found by a court to be at risk of self-harm or to harm others will be unable to possess a firearm until they have successfully managed their condition.

Additionally, the legislation will reform the records reporting system to ensure that all individual records are flagged in the background check databases within three days of the commitment. Washington CeaseFire staff worked for the last two years to help bring the legislation to fruition. CeaseFire worked cooperatively with both sides of the aisle, the Seattle Mayor’s office and other groups to achieve the historic victory. The legislation was a led by a strong bi-partisan effort in the House spearheaded by Representative Ross Hunter (D-48).

The bill would not have succeeded without the support of our members – thank you for all of the contributions you make every day. Please thank your legislators – the ONLY legislator to vote against the bill is Senator Dale Brandland (R-42). This is truly an unprecedented victory for our fight to save lives.

Yes, I'm sure it was all their work for the last two years and the support of their members that made the difference. I can't image that the pro-gun group Gun Owners Action League of WA (email, no mention on the website) that also supported it made any difference.

False, dangerous, misguided . . . and justified. Liberalism in a nutshell.

Fitzroy
October 6, 2008
False But Justified
[Others, and rightly so, quoted this when it first came out. I've been saving it for "the proper occasion". Today is that day. My next post will explain.--Joe]

I guess Mixon also raped that 12-year-old girl in "self-defense." Clearly, the pimping industry has lost a good man. I wish I'd known him. I tip my green velvet fedora with the dollar signs all over it to him. Why do the good ones always die young? Pimps, I mean.

Ann Coulter
April 8, 2009
Let's all surrender our weapons – you first!
[Like I said. Amazing snark.--Joe]

Jim: If Barney Frank could reach into my pocket he would take everything in my wallet and...
Sean: If Barney Frank could reach into your pocket that isn't all he would grab.

Sean Flynn
March 26, 2009
During a conversation about economics and politics.
[I had lunch with Jim, Sean, and Steve yesterday. It was great. Jim and Sean, always fantastic with their wit and insight, were in top form.--Joe]

Now that we are all socialists now our legislators have dropped all pretenses of being something other than the Central Committee. Via reader Rob I discovered the Senate reviewing how college football picks No. 1.

Enumerated powers? What's that?

Abandon all hopes of utopia - there are people involved.

Clayton Cramer
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/clayton_cramer/
[Dystopia, on the other hand, is well within our grasp and I fear we are approaching it at warp speed.--Joe]

The bigger the appropriations bill, the shorter the debate.

Senator James Abourezk
[The Senator left office over 30 years ago but it appears to me his observation has withstood the test of time.--Joe]

So that’s what we have now. The ship is on the rocks, water is rising, and the captain is shouting "Full steam ahead! We are sailing to Afghanistan!" Do you listen to Ahab up on the bridge, or do you desert your post in the engine room and go help deploy the lifeboats? If you thought that the previous episode of uncontrolled debt expansion, globalized Ponzi schemes, and economic hollowing-out was silly, then I predict that you will find this next episode of feckless grasping at macroeconomic straws even sillier. Except that it won’t be funny: what is crashing now is our life support system: all the systems and institutions that are keeping us alive. And so I don’t recommend passively standing around and watching the show - unless you happen to have a death wish.

Dmitry Orlov
February 13, 2009
Social Collapse Best Practices
[I don't know whether to believe we are really in a life or death situation but I suppose it is possible. What I am fairly confident of is that the current administration doesn't have a clue as to what to do. They may think they have a clue but it's all "hope and change" and almost zero knowledge.--Joe]

Posit; We know our government is out of control.  We know the U.S. and many of the state constitutions are being willfully violated.  We know that more people need to be made aware of the scope of the problem.  What then?  What do we actually do about it?  I've been talking to you all here, I attended one of the "We Surround Them" meetings, plus I've talked with friends and acquaintances for years about it.  It's not a partisan issue-- it's pandemic.  We tried the Republican Party.  We handed them both houses of Congress and the Whitehouse at the same time, but clearly they are not, and have not been, at all serious about reducing the size and scope of government and restoring lost liberties.

If we were to try the (barely) successful model of the 1770s, we'd be storming government offices right now, tarring and feathering politicians, etc.  I don't think that's necessary at this stage, however.  Not just yet.  We have tools that were not available to the American colonists.  We have the legal process at our immediate disposal on our own soil.  Here is one example;

Former State Sen. Vincent Fumo was convicted of all 137 counts against him today as his marathon federal corruption trial ended in a stunning victory for prosecutors.

We can talk to our neighbors, local business owners, law enforcement, legal scholars and prosecutors.  Nearly every locale in America has a target rich environment for criminal prosecutions of politicians who are blatantly over-stepping their authority, intimidating innocent people, and attempting to pass laws in violation of our constitution.  Cases and jurisdictions need to be carefully examined, but there are rich pickings all across America right now.

If there is an epidemic of such cases, some of those in office will start to get the point.  If they don't get the point after that or if the courts fail in their duty, we'll have to start buying tar.

The following started as my comment at Say Uncle, but I decided it needed its own post.  It's in response to the now age-old maneuver of calling for more enforcement of existing anti-gun laws rather than passing more, and considering ourselves clever negotiators.  It doesn't matter who said it recently.  It's been said for many years;

"...should enforce existing laws rather than propose additional laws they said could infringe on Second Amendment rights."

Additional laws "could" infringe?  What; existing laws couldn't infringe on Second Amendment rights?  Not a single one of them?  Next time someone's house is busted into, guns are confiscated and destroyed, lives are turned upside down over a technical violation when no one has harmed or threatened any other person, you'll be perfectly OK with that?  It'd be great, so long as no one bothers you with more laws?  You thought Ruby Ridge was cool, and you want more of the same, so long as it's convenient for you?  You want to keep innocent people in jail over paper-work errors, or over an inch of barrel length or a quarter inch of buttstock?  Would that make you a proud supporter of the second amendment or a sadistic and immoral jackass with anti American tendencies?  You decide.

Lets put this into perspective; "The Justice Department should enforce existing laws against negroes rather than propose additional laws that could infringe on Civil Rights."

That sounds stupid as all hell, doesn't it?  How many people would take that as a pro Civil Rights stance and call for more of it?  Yet we have been conditioned over the years to think that's perfectly acceptable language when discussing second amendment rights.  Any politician says something stupid like that and we think, "Yeah, Baby!  You tell 'em!  That guy's on OUR side, Man!"

Oh, how far we have fallen.

Would we sit idly by and accept a federal department of alcohol, tobacco, negroes and explosives (BATNE)?  Do you like the juxtaposition there?  Lovely, isn't it?  Should anyone sit by and accept such a thing as an inevitability, and proudly claim that as a clever, politically "reasonable" stance?

If you reject the idea that gun restrictions equal crime control, and instead believe (as do I) that gun laws are not only counterproductive to their stated goals and an attack on liberty, but unconstitutional, you don't call for more enforcement of them.  What would be the point in that, unless it's an unprincipled attempt to appear "reasonable" to people who know nothing of the issue and nothing of the constitution's history?  For that matter, what law enforcement officer who has taken an oath to the constitution could in good conscience enforce any gun laws against peaceable citizens?

Are we trying to appeal to the sensibilities of idiots at the expense of our credibility, at the expense of the constitution, at the expense of reason, at the expense of public harmony, and at the expense of liberty?  Yeah; that makes us look like geniuses.  Sure it does.  Or cowards.

It's hypocritical.  It's McCainian (to perhaps coin a new term).  It's relying on ignorance for public support.  It's what Republicans do when they listen to their super-smart advisors.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to clean my guns.  And to "fondle" them.  You know, 'cause I have a small penis or something.

In pre-revolutionary times, the British government (some say the King, but England has had a Parliament since after the civil war in the middle 1600s) was trying to control religion and the press.  The practice, in some form or another, was ancient by the time of the American Revolution, as we see the Bishop next to the king and queen on a chessboard.  When the U.S. was formed it was therefore fresh in the minds of the Founders that there should be some strict protection of both religious freedom and freedom of speech.

Why?  Why is it so important that government not be in control of religious practices or of the press?  It's because as we all know, governments invariably grab more and more power for themselves at the expense of liberty.  What better way to help that process along than to control the thinking and the beliefs of the people, and what better way to control the thinking and beliefs of the people than to control religion and the press?

But there is something missing.  If you can't have control of religion and the press, there is something just as powerful as a means of controlling the minds and beliefs of the people.

Education. (I'll also include science, which would be seen as a sub set within education until we see the vast amounts of money poured into government research grants and the like)

It's a pity the Britts weren't trying to establish political and social indoctrination centers disguised as schools, circa 1770.  In that case our first amendment would have been slightly different;

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or respecting the establishment of education, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

As it is, your kids are being taught what to believe, not in a Church Of America and not by a U.S. version of Pravda, but in government schools.

(If the kingdoms of Medieval times had used education as it is being used today, maybe we'd see a "College President" or maybe a "Head of Education", or perhaps a "Head of the Teachers' Union" in the same line with the king and queen, the knights, and the rooks on a chessboard)

Alan Gottlieb via CCRKBA says:

“Once again,” he said, “Democrats are revealing themselves as the party of restrictive gun control. If the citizens of Washington, D.C. have a right to full congressional representation, they also have a right to own the firearm of their choice. For Democrats to argue that one right is more important than another – especially after last year’s Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment – they are engaging in world-class hypocrisy.”

...

“Democrats argue that the right to representation is not related to the right to keep and bear arms,” Gottlieb said, “but that’s nonsense. This country was born because our founders were being taxed without representation, and because British troops tried to disarm the citizens. Those issues are just as equal today as they were 230 years ago, and Democrats on Capitol Hill need to understand that.”

I keep wondering how close we are to the taxes and disarmament thresholds of another country being born. The Democrats may also be the party that creates a revolution.

Via my Sitemeter I discover that the city of Virginia Beach is looking for a minority supplier of ammunition:

Domain Name		vbgov.com ? (Commercial)
IP Address		198.252.245.# (City of Virginia Beach, Virginia)
ISP		City of Virginia Beach, Virginia
Location		Continent  :  North America Country  :  United States  (Facts) State  :  Virginia City  :  Virginia Beach Lat/Long  :  36.8061, -76.0612 (Map) Distance  :  2,189 miles
Language		English (U.S.) en-us
Operating System		Microsoft WinXP
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There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Milton Friedman
[One would think that those people who advocated for the "stimulus package" would have heard of this bit of wisdom before. Some will say overlooking Friedman can be blamed on deficiencies in our public school system. Others will claim many of those pushing the stimulus package know exactly what they are doing -- creating a socialist America. I think it is likely they are both correct in their claims.--Joe]

Because the Senate told them they are going to have to abide by the Second Amendment the D.C. City Council now wants the district to become a state. Do they think that will change things? Just because Alabama and Mississippi are states doesn't mean they can disregard the 13^th Amendment.

"That was uplifting." That was what Barb said after I read this to her:

President Barack Obama has set his course for battle with America's powerful interest groups over his ambitious, some say radical, spending blueprint that aims to remodel American society.

Even as he has rammed through emergency economic spending that easily could top $1 trillion, Obama has asked Congress to adopt a budget that is ripe with programs to improve the lot of lower- and middle-income Americans at the expense of the wealthy and the farming and industrial complexes under their control.

...

On the budget plan Obama presented on Thursday, the president said it would help millions of people but only if Congress overcomes stiff resistance from well-financed lobbies.

"I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they're gearing up for a fight," Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and video address. "My message to them is this: So am I."

Under the president's proposal, America's wealthiest 5 percent would pay a whopping $1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade, while most others would get tax cuts. Industries would buy and trade permits to emit heat-trapping gases. Higher-income older people would pay more for government health insurance benefits. Drug companies would receive smaller profits from the government. Banks would play a much smaller role in student loans.

We are living in interesting times.

Sleep well and have a nice day.

Mike Brown is the Idaho Sport Shooting Alliance lobbyist in Boise and he announced, as did the Apex of The Triangle of Death (info on the Triangle of Death), the good guys advanced another few yards in the battle for gun owner rights.

If that passes and is signed by the Governor it will ease some of my Boomershoot worries.

I think contraception is disgusting -- people using each other for pleasure.

Joseph Scheidler
Director, Pro-Life Action League
August 11, 1985
Chicago Tribune,
[See also other "interesting" quotes that give credence to The Handmaid's Tale view of politics.--Joe]

You can't underestimate the power of fear.

Trica Nixon
[I was inspired to post this one after reading Jeff's post and this line in particular, "If hoplophobe describes a fear of guns, what’s the Latin word for fear of pro-gun voters?"--Joe]

How would you deal with someone that got everything exactly backward? When they want the car to stop they step on the accelerator and when they want to go they step on the brake. Instead of washing their hands before meals they soil them in the most foul manner possible. They put water on the campfire that is keeping them warm and they put gasoline on the Christmas tree fire in their living room.

I would have to conclude they are insane. And unless there are some sort of drugs or therapy available for their condition they should be locked up for the protection of themselves and others.

But that's doesn't appear to be an option in this case where the political leaders of D.C. are demanding Congress commit an unconstitutional law and object to the a law that brings them in line with the constitution on another matter:

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and D.C. Council members disagree with that conclusion. They furiously protested the firearms amendment.

"The District of Columbia leadership is fully united in its opposition to unwarranted amendments that would dramatically damage the District's carefully revised gun law and expose the District to great harm through the undoing of its laws," D.C. Council President Vincent C. Gray and Council Member Phil Mendelson, chairman of the council's public-safety commission, said in a letter to Congress released yesterday.

In a statement after the Senate's vote, Ilir Zherka, executive director of D.C. Vote, a lobbying group, said the city has passed a "significant hurdle in our fight for full democracy for DC residents."

But he added of the gun amendment: "If anything, this amendment has strengthened our resolve to continue to fight for the rights of Washingtonians. Congress repeatedly treats the District as a testing ground for flawed, dangerous legislation. This has to stop - and we'll keep fighting to ensure that the bill signed into law is not tainted by this amendment."

Earlier this month I asked if anyone had questions for Patrick Leahy when he came to speak to people at Microsoft. I then live blogged about his appearance.

Early next month Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will be speaking to a group I plan to be a part of.

Any questions you want asked? This is assuming I'm aggressive enough to get my question(s) presented.

Background on Governor Jindal:

• Bobby Jindal was sworn in as Governor of Louisiana on January 14, 2008.
• He was elected Governor of Louisiana on October 20, 2007, with 54 percent of the vote in the primary, winning 60 of 64 parishes. Shortly after taking office, Governor Jindal called a Special Session to address comprehensive ethics reform, the cornerstone of his election platform. Since the conclusion of the session, the Better Government Association and the Center for Public Integrity announced that Louisiana’s new ethics laws are among the best in the nation.
• Additionally, the Governor's second Special Session eliminated burdensome taxes that deterred investment in Louisiana and limited the growth of existing Louisiana businesses.
• Governor Jindal has put forth detailed plans for reforming our state's health care, education, and transportation systems, as well as for encouraging workforce development and continuing recovery efforts in areas devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as well as Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
• Governor Jindal led the historic response to Hurricane Gustav by successfully moving 1.9 million people out of harms’ way, the largest evacuation of citizens in the history of the United States, including the largest medical evacuation in history moving more than 10,400 people from hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical facilities out of the path of the storm.
• Governor Jindal has worked tirelessly to eliminate the bureaucratic red-tape that has slowed the recovery process in the past, allowing recovery from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike to progress quickly. Louisiana's oil and gas, agriculture, fisheries, and transportation industries were all affected by the storms and Governor Jindal continues to work with local, state, and federal entities to ensure that all individuals and industries affected are provided with the necessary assistance.
• Jindal was born in Baton Rouge on June 10, 1971. He graduated from Baton Rouge High School in 1988 and went on to attend Brown University where he graduated with honors in biology and public policy. Following his graduation from Brown he attended Oxford University in England as a Rhodes Scholar, having turned down admissions to medical and law schools at both Harvard and Yale.
• In 1994, Jindal went to work for McKinsey and Company as a consultant for Fortune 500 companies before entering public service. In 1996, he was appointed Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH). There were many issues that needed resolving during his tenure, not the least of which was the growing deficit in Louisiana's Medicaid program. During Jindal's tenure as DHH Secretary, he rescued Louisiana's Medicaid program from bankruptcy, childhood immunizations increased, Louisiana ranked third best nationally in health care screenings for children, and new and expanded services for elderly and disabled persons were offered.
• In 1998, Jindal was appointed Executive Director of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. As Executive Director, he was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Commission, whose work continue to be the driving force behind much of the ongoing debate on how to strengthen and improve Medicare.
• At the conclusion of the Commission's work, Jindal was appointed President of the University of Louisiana System, the 16th largest higher education system in the country. While serving as President, Jindal worked to establish areas of excellence at each individual institution. President George W. Bush appointed Jindal to serve as Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2001. In that position, he served as the principal policy advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He later resigned from the position in 2003 to return to Louisiana and run for elected office for the first time. In that race, Jindal went from being a relatively unknown candidate for Governor, to receiving the most votes in the primary election and eventually 48 percent of the vote in runoff.
• In 2004 he was elected to the 109th United States Congress representing the First District of Louisiana. In Congress he was elected Freshman Class President and served on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the House Committee on Homeland Security, and the House Committee on Resources. Bobby also served as Assistant Majority Whip. In his first term he passed a number of notable pieces of legislation and played an instrumental role in Louisiana's recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. His noteworthy accomplishments include the passage of legislation to bring significant offshore energy revenues to Louisiana for the first time and legislation that keeps Federal Emergency Management Agency from taxing certain recovery grants as income.
• Jindal was re-elected to Congress in 2006 with 88 percent of the vote majority.
• Jindal and his wife Supriya have three young children.

See also Say Uncle's comments about him as well as Tam's.

Update: After thinking about it while I was taking a shower if I were fairly certain he would get the reference to both books I would be inclined to ask Tam's question:

Why does the GOP insist on offering me The Handmaid's Tale as its cheery alternative to the Democrat's promise of 1984?

Update2: This post is being attacked via spammers every few minutes. I'm turning off comments for now. Send me an email if you want to make a comment and I'll post it for you.

Update3: The meeting has been canceled for now:

We received word this weekend that President Obama is travelling to Louisiana on March 5^th - to meet with Gov. Jindal and tour Katrina recovery efforts.  This unfortunately means that he will not be able to travel to the NW for meetings this week.  Governor Jindal is very sorry to make this last-minute cancellation, but we look forward to working with his staff to find a new date for his visit in the future.

Idaho has this reputation for being a bunch of anti-federal government crazies, but I don't think that's particularly deserved. I mentioned last February that Montana officials had warned the Supreme Court that Montana joined the Union on the understanding that the Second Amendment protected an individual right, and they might have to rethink that situation if the Court ruled wrongly on D.C. v. Heller (2008). Fortunately, the Court got it right, so there was no need for Montana to seize the Air Force missile silos there, and become the world's lowest population and density nuclear power.

Anyway, it appears that the Montana legislature is preparing for the Obamination of restrictive federal gun control laws.

...

Adding to the amusement of this is that those who were upset about the Raich decision (and they were right to be upset, even if it was for a very stupid cause: marijuana) will have to admit that if California has the right to legalize marijuana that doesn't move across state lines, free of federal intervention, then Montana has a similar right to tell the federal government that guns made in Montana are exempt from federal rules.

Clayton Cramer
February 25, 2009
Those Pesky Montanans
[Although I probably am as amused about this as Clayton people don't "have to admit" anything. I literally know a person that will insist to your face that "the fence line is over there and has always been over there" even though you could break a leg stepping into the ancient fence post hole in front of you and get tangled in the rusty barbed wire as you fell. This same person also convinced a judge that it was legitimate self-defense after a neighbor caught him sitting on his ex-wife pounding on her face who was flat on her back on the sidewalk (had it been me that caught him the judge would not have been required to make a decision). Some people are just reality impaired and/or have an infinite capacity to lie.--Joe]

As you all know the downturn we are operating in is more severe and global than anything we have seen before.

We are in the midst of a phase of history in which nations will be redefined and their futures fundamentally altered. Many people will be under extreme pressure and many companies mortally wounded.

Rupert Murdoch
February 24, 2009
Peter Chernin's little shocker
[Risk and opportunity abound. Keep your eyes open for both. I'm listening to The Black Swan which appears to be applicable to the times as well.--Joe]

From our friend Howard in Israel.  Saturday, Feb. 21;

Friends:

 

Winter wind and rain have returned, but so far not as harsh as predicted.  And, knock-on-wood, no electric power outages.

 

John Kerry is here. He lied about getting a letter from Hamas to deliver to President Obama.  Senator Kerry lied?  Go figure!

 

Under cover of bad weather (fog up north) two Katusha rockets were fired at northern Israel from within southern Lebanon.  One hit an Israeli target and three civilians were wounded.  The UN forces and Lebanese (now spelled Hezbollah) army are at a loss to find the terrorists who launched the attack.  True to form the EU quickly condemned Israel for violating Lebanon's sovereignty by firing several artillery rounds at the location from which the Katushas were launched.  Hezbollah said, "Katushas?  What Katushas, we no nut-in about no Katushas."

 

I would tell you that Kassam missiles and mortar bombs continue to fall in the Negev, but saying so would simply be redundant and repeating the obvious.  Last week a Kassam took out three cars by my younger daughter's (going to college in Sderot) apartment.  Hope she brings me some pieces of the Kassam next time she comes home.

 

Tomorrow Bibi starts trying to really form the next Israeli government.  When you hear that Liberman's party wants the Ministry of Police and that they also want the present Minister of Justice (an Olmert appointee) to be reappointed and the anti-Lieberman forces say he is trying to gain control over the ministries pursuing the criminal investigations about him remember two things.  Being "under investigation" is about as close to a condition precedent to being an Israeli politician as there is.  Second, the investigations in Lieberman have been ongoing for 10 years...and counting.

 

Enjoy your weekend.

 

Howard

Sure there are dishonest men in local government.  But there are dishonest men in national government too.

Richard M. Nixon
[Nixon was right--examples abound from Chicago to the Whitehouse (have you paid your taxes recently?). And as a country that celebrates diversity we elect them to office to represent us.--Joe]

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

Edward Abbey
(1927 - 1989)
[For some reason this struck me as perhaps describing our political and economic future. Dangerous but yet full of opportunity.

But then on a physical front I'm suspicious that our universe is actually a black hole with an event horizon several billion light years across and we are rushing toward the singularity at the speed of light on the time axis. So, in the long run, it doesn't matter even if we do get off this planet and out of the solar system everything we know will be ripped apart down to the sub atomic particle level eventually anyway.

Have a nice day.--Joe]

Via the Triangle of Death:

Today, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in support of allowing employees to store legally owned firearms in locked, private motor vehicles while parked in employer parking lots. This decision upholds NRA-backed legislation passed in 2004.

“This is a victory for the millions of American workers who have been denied the right to protect themselves while commuting between their homes and their workplace,” said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. “This effort was aimed at skirting the will of the American people, and the intent of legislatures across this country while eviscerating Right-to-Carry laws. This ruling is a slap at the corporate elitists who have no regard for the constitutional rights of law abiding American workers.”

Keep in mind this only applies to states that have passed such laws. Currently that is only a handful of states.

I have mixed feelings on this. It's a balancing act between property rights and gun owner rights. Generally I just remain silent rather than cheer for either side. But I have to admit it makes it more publicly acceptable to be a gun owner. Just as requiring a license to carry wouldn't be necessary in a Utopian world it did make it more acceptable to the general public.

Right now the Washington economic stimulus team is putting on their Scuba gear and diving down to the engine room to try to invent a way to get a diesel engine to run on seawater. They spoke of change, but in reality they are terrified of change and want to cling with all their might to the status quo. But this game will soon be over, and they don’t have any idea what to do next.

Dmitry Orlov
February 13, 2009
Social Collapse Best Practices
[I found eight quotes for my database so far and I'm only about half way through his post.--Joe]

Mike reports:

• Allowing residents to purchase long guns in non-contiguous states
• Preemption in state parks (and hence National Parks) for concealed carry
• Federal excise tax paperwork relief (see also your homework assignment)

If this and this (both via Say Uncle) pass and the Feds don't bring in their lawyers and thugs I hope they soon start selling variants built on this:

Picture also from Say Uncle.

California, Kansas (another H/T to Say Uncle), Washington State and many other government entities are in or near economic crisis mode. If the Feds think it is politically unacceptable to allow banks and automakers to go bankrupt what are they going to think about states going bankrupt? Bailouts for local governments must be in discussion behind closed doors if not openly.

But the Feds are broke too. It just doesn't show up quite a readily because they own the money printing presses. President Obama says he "will pivot quickly to address a budget deficit that could now approach $2 trillion this year" (H/T to Tam and pdb). That can mean little more than increased taxes. If history from other countries in similar situations is any guide when things get bad enough you can expect direct confiscation of your retirement funds and savings as well as nationalization of various industries who remain profitable. The rational used will be something along the lines of "the government must not fall so anything we do to prevent it is justifiable". They have guns and they won't be afraid to use them to take whatever they think they "must" have. The U.S. Constitution was written with enumerated powers granted to the government but court rulings early in the last century shattered those walls. The Federal government will attempt to get more and more "control of the situation". More planning and "guidance" from the "central committee" such as the "car czar" and more regulations for the banks (which helped bring them down to begin with) will fail in a big way. Many of the politicians and "intellectuals" have no industry (real world) experience. They have been living off of the public dole where money is obtained via the point of a gun (taxes) and they don't have a clue (see also this comment clues, lack thereof) as to how reality really works. Obama is believed to be the savior of the world (see the I Love You Obama Woman, the response from France, as well as all the other adoration such that we have never in our lifetime seen for a U.S. president--only dictators in other countries). To the best of my knowledge he is the most inexperienced president our country has ever known, he is facing the biggest crisis our country has seen in 80 years, he is a socialist, and his advisers are socialists. His solutions are all going to involve more power and control for the Feds. More power and control in the hands of those that have only the flimsiest of connections to the real world and no experience. It's a recipe for disaster.

The only bright spots I see are some states, such as Montana, Tennessee (see the first two links in this post), Arizona, Washington, Oklahoma (via Sebastian), and New Hampshire (via Sebastian and email from hunter006) are thinking about going all Ninth and 10^th Amendment on us. There could be some serious cracks appearing in the creeping Federal tyranny we have been experiencing. Within a few years we could be (almost for certain?) looking at some new form of government. What will it be? The Orwellian vision of a a boot stamping on a human face ... for ever? Or something else as certain states and people take a successful stand against the socialists?

I've been thinking for a long time that the world is due a new form of government. Tribal leaders, witch doctors, kings, dictators, democracies, republics, and others have all had their day (and dark nights) in the limelight. But instantaneous communication and near instantaneous travel makes for some interesting thought experiments. I'm not sure The Probability Broach type world is practical but there may be something else that is. This crisis may be the impetus to figure it out.

For the economy in general, doing nothing is vastly preferable to doing the stimulus package, but doing nothing is not a political option; indeed, it would be political suicide. Given the dominant ideology and the political institutions that now exist, economically rational public policy is incompatible with political viability.... Having hit bottom, the politicians can only do one thing: keep digging. If Hell is down there, they’ll reach it, sooner or later.

Robert Higgs
Senior Fellow at Independent Institute
The Lighthouse Volume 11, Issue 7: February 16, 2009
[I was tempted to just use "rational public policy is incompatible with political viability" as the QOTD, but the mention of politicians attempting reach Hell was just too appealing.--Joe]

11:08 AM. The senator is late. He had another meeting in the building and it went over.

11:15 AM. Still no senator. Supposedly he was "on his way" five minutes ago. It's not that big of a building. I'm close enough to the podium that he could easily read my Barrett Firearms shirt. I wonder if he will notice.

11:20 AM. I'm beginning to think the senator stiffed us. But what do you expect from a politician?

11:22 AM. He is being introduced now. He is in the room.

11:23 AM. He says the sound system here is better than in the Senate.

11:25 AM. He is telling stories about the wonders of the Internet.

11:27 AM. The changes going on in America are unique.

11:28 AM. He is telling us how wonderful it is that France likes the changes.

11:30 AM. There is an opening, an opportunity, to reintroduce America to the world.

11:31 AM. Opening the floor to questions. First question is from someone from Vermont who asks, "What is in the stimulas package for Vermonters?"

11:32 AM. Answer is bridge maintance, Internet access in rural areas.

11:33 AM. Someone else is asking if he is going to go forward with the Truth Commission.

11:34 AM. Telling us about previous attorney general being forced out of office. Options for now are 1) Ignore it. 2) Prosecution which could take 15 years. 3) He proposes a middle ground which is offer immunity to those that come forward and tell the truth. He compares it to the Church committee of the 70s.

11:38 AM. I don't jump in quickly enough. Other people start asking the next question before I even realize there is an opening coming up.

11:43 AM. He says Secretary Clinton is good at building bipartisan support. Context was "truth commission".

11:44 AM. Question and answer about judical pay raise. Probably not going to happen in this economic situation.

11:47 AM. Q: What is the exit strategy for getting out of the "business" of nationalizing banks, insurance companies, etc.?

11:49 AM. A: Make them pay back the loans as soon as they are on their feet. Hope we don't nationalize our industries.

11:50 AM. Suggestion for a "postmortum" on what went wrong with some legislation or other government activity. Senator says they do that frequentl but it doesn't get any press coverage.

11:52 AM. Q: What do you think of the anti-trust action against Microsoft by the European Union? A: I hope they get those Microsoft guys! THAT WAS A JOKE! I don't know if there is press in the audience, but that was a joke.

11:55 AM. Continuing on EU answer. He says protectionism benefits never last.

11:56 AM. They ended the meeting early.

Rest assured, there will be a great majority who will not stand against tyranny. Those who have "gone along to get along" and those who have continually voted for the "lesser of two evils" will capitulate and surrender their weapons, as cowards normally do. They will rue the day they failed to support those who stood for liberty such as Ron Paul. Remember, they were offered liberty, but chose instead to support the status quo, because, in their eyes, liberty could not be elected.

Michael Gaddy
Buy, Buy, Buy
January 5, 2008

This is entirely separate from Joe's "Quote of the Day" system, which is so good that I wouldn't touch it.

One of the great (and therefore feared) minds of our time, Thomas Sowell is prolific in his generation of highly quotable phrases;

Democrats could sell refrigerators to Eskimos before Republicans could sell them blankets.

Ah, but the Republicans are only doing what the super smart people are telling them; trying to sell blankets with built-in cooling systems, to Eskimos, on the notion that both blankets and refrigerators are too extreme in their single-minded, fundamental design goals.  Who needs a blanket that keeps you warm, when you could have an ingenious blanket that does what the Democrats' refrigerators are doing, but does it more slowly and in a less efficient manner?

I know that there are still voices of sanity around because I have counted them — on one hand.

Take heart, Mr. Sowell.  There are at least a dozen.  Actually I jest.  It's just that you have to look far from DC, and far from the Old Media, to find them.  There are millions.  Lets not assume that just because the American press wants us to feel isolated and hopeless, that we are isolated and hopeless.

Our economic problems worry me much less than our political solutions, which have a far worse track record.

and;

One of the wonders of our times is how much more attention is paid to the living conditions of a bunch of cut-throats locked up in Guantanamo than to the leading international sponsor of terrorism getting nuclear weapons.

Well, when you put the two together (concern for cutthroats while ignoring Iran's nuclear ambitions) along with much of the leftist dogma, it's consistent in its opposition to American principles and its support for the enemies of Liberty worldwide.  It becomes a "wonder" only if you ascribe a shred of patriotism to the American Left.

All quotes from one short piece entitled, "Random Thoughts".

Via Limbaugh's web site, we have a transcript of a PBS broadcast in which Obama is being compared to Fidel Castro.  It's a favorable piece.  If you're a 24/7 subscriber you can get the PBS audio.  I heard it this morning on the radio.

And that is, one, this notion of feeling that now we have a guy named Obama in the White House, we have President Obama now, there are many young people who are as ecstatic and as excited and as enthused about President Obama as you were about your new president, Fidel Castro.

They're "ecstatic and excited".  Now they have what they believe is the American version of the Cuban revolution, poised and ready to roll.  I would have thought they'd have been a little less overt about it, but I guess they think they can take off the masks now.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) will be visiting my work next week to speak and it's possible I might get a chance to ask him some questions. If I do get such a chance what questions/comments would be appropriate?

Background data on Leahy to help evaluate this opportunity:

• Leahy is the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and is a senior member of the Agriculture and Appropriations Committees. He ranks seventh in seniority in the Senate.
• Patrick Leahy was elected to the United States Senate in 1974 and remains the only Democrat elected to this office from Vermont. At 34, he was the youngest U.S. Senator ever to be elected from the Green Mountain State. Leahy was born in Montpelier and grew up across from the Statehouse. A graduate of Saint Michael's College in Colchester (1961), he received his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center (1964). He served for eight years as State's Attorney in Chittenden County. He gained a national reputation for his law enforcement activities and was selected (1974) as one of three outstanding prosecutors in the United States
• As a leading member of the Appropriations Committee, Leahy is the Chairman of the Committee’s Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations and also sits on its Defense, Interior, Commerce-Justice-Science, Transportation-Treasury-Judiciary-Housing and Urban Development, and Homeland Security subcommittees.
• Active on human rights issues, Leahy also has been the leading U.S. officeholder in the international campaign against the production, export and use of anti-personnel landmines. In 1992 Leahy wrote the first law by any government to ban the export of these weapons. He led efforts in Congress to aid mine victims by creating a special fund in the foreign aid budget, and the Leahy War Victims Fund now provides up to $14 million of relief to these victims each year. He was instrumental in establishing programs to support humanitarian demining and played a key role in pushing for an international treaty banning anti-personnel mines. He also wrote and enacted civilian war victims relief programs that are underway in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Suppose my family was deeply in debt, income was trending down, and some members of my family were unemployed. Would it improve matters if we borrowed a bunch of money and spent it on things like painting the house, new clothes, and a new car?

I don't think so.

Suppose it was my little North Central Idaho town of 20K people that was deeply in debt, income was trending down, and unemployment was trending up. Would it improve matters if the town borrowed a bunch of money and spent it on random stuff?

I don't think so.

Repeat at the large city level.

Repeat at the county level.

Repeat at the state level (California for example).

Is it going to make things better in any of those cases?

If not, then why would it make sense to do it at the national level?

Imagine a tax on blacks with the proceeds going to the KKK. Or a tax on homosexuals with the requirement that the money be given via grants to organizations purporting to find a cure for homosexuality. Do you think maybe that might upset some people?

Well, yes. I think it's pretty clear that would upset a lot of people. And so it is with someone who claims Hunting taxes better spent on gun control:

The Reynolds Game Farm and the Department of Environmental Conservation cater to the most violent members of society - those who derive pleasure from killing helpless birds. Meanwhile, public tax dollars from the state's general fund are used to subsidize this atrocity.

The DEC and its animal-killing arm, known as the Bureau of Wildlife, should not be given what amounts to welfare payments just so the violent sport of recreational hunting can continue. Instead, the excise taxes affixed to the cost of weapons and ammunition should be spent on programs to fight gun violence, similar to the way a portion of the taxes on tobacco are used to promote anti-smoking campaigns.

Maybe it's not fair to compare it to taxes on blacks or homosexuals. Maybe a better analogy would be a tax on printing presses, radio and television stations, with the money going to censorship boards. Or taxes on churches with the money spent on evangelical atheist groups. Specific enumerated rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms are justifiably worthy of more protection than things like being a homosexual or black which doesn't affect as many people.

Hence, take all the perfectly valid outrage you have over the suggestion that blacks and homosexuals should be taxed to fund those that would see them exterminated and multiple it by about a factor of two to approximate my outrage at taxes on guns be used to restriction the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

I say "medicine" but it applies to anything socialism touches. It's just that with medicine we have more vivid and frequent examples to chose from.

Via an email from friend Kris an escapee from Australia here in the U.S., Full hospitals turning patients away in Brisbane:

emergency rooms went into meltdown yesterday as major hospitals turned away patients because they were full.

Six hospitals around the city issued capacity alerts as a flood of high priority patients threatened to overwhelm services stretched to the limits, The Courier-Mail reports.

The chaos left stressed ambulance officers trying to care for people in their vans.

...

"Today is out of control, our departments are in complete meltdown," the nurse said. "What is scary is that there is no good reason for it - it isn't a terribly hot day, it isn't flu season, there is no outbreak of disease, we just don't have enough resources."

Ambulance union spokesman Kroy Day said the lack of hospital resources meant it was "only a matter of time before someone dies in a van".

He warned that having multiple hospitals on capacity alerts meant paramedics could be left caring for patients in their vans for up to four hours.

"If this is what we are seeing on a mild summer's day, I hate to imagine the trouble we'll be in when flu season rolls around," he said.

When asked about the RBWH being on bypass, Health Minister Stephen Robertson blamed a record amount of elective surgery patients.

Kris reports, "Regular occurrence in Perth at certain times of the week, or whenever it gets too hot (it never gets too cold in Perth)."

In Britain this has been a complaint for many years. People wait in the emergency room for many hours before being seen by a doctor. The politicians then required the hospitals to report on how many hours people had to wait.  The hospitals then started refusing to let the ambulances bring the patients into the hospitals until they were ready for them. This improved the numbers because the clock didn't start ticking until the patient entered the door. The ambulances sometimes wait in the parking lot for hours with the engines running to provide temperature control. This not only threatens the life of the patient waiting for a doctor it also ties up the ambulance such that it can't transport another patient in need of immediate care.

The basics of the problem is that when the central committee (politicians) allocate resources rather than the free market they do a much poorer job. They are further from the problem that needs to be solved and cannot respond as quickly. In a free market someone realizes they can make a profit whenever the demand starts to exceed the supply and the most successful will meet the demand quickly and for the least total cost.

Via friend Jim, who spent some time in eastern block countries during the mid 80s, I heard reports of lines for bread, shoes, toothpaste, toilet paper,  and almost every common commodity you can think of. Another friend reported to me that light bulbs were rationed out to government offices and critical businesses. Hence people would bring in their burned out bulbs from their homes and swap them with the new ones in public buildings and businesses.

And the above doesn't even address the frosty stares I get from my physical therapist wife when I bring up more U.S. government involvement in health care. We already have too much government involvement in health care. Don't let the Obama administration give us ambulances waiting in the parking lot too.

Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign wants newly appointed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) demonstrate she has "evolved" beyond being a NRA A-rated politician. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy is supporting him in this:

“She’s saying she realizes that she represents a statewide constituency,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “One way she could prove she has evolved is to push this issue.”

Helmke said his group is seeking a meeting with Gillibrand to ask her to support legislation to require background checks on gun sales at gun shows, commonly referred to by activists as “closing the gun-show loophole.” A message left with Gillibrand’s office was not returned Tuesday afternoon.

I don't see Helmke or McCarthy calling on Senator Schumer to "evolve" to represent upstate New York gun owners. I guess "shared values" don't extend in the direction of supporting the U.S. Constitution.

Since "evolution" only goes in one direction in their minds just what is it they think of NRA members and politicians that support the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms? Do they think we are chimpanzees or something?

Why doesn't don't they just come out and say it? Paul Helmke and the politicians who support him think gun owners are just a bunch of n***ers. If we can't be exterminated then we need to be regulated and kept in our place.

It's time for these bigots to arrested and charged with violation of 18 USC 241 and/or 242.

Again, I will say this, it's not that the country has moved way left. That is not what has happened…. It's not a leftward movement. It's a forward, communitarian movement. Shared opportunities. Shared responsibilities. Shared values, including the most important of all: "Our differences are really interesting, and they make life in America much more interesting, but our common humanity matters more."

Bill Clinton
January 2008
Bill Clinton On Pragmatism (And Guns) In The Obama Era
["Communitarian, shared opportunities, shared responsibilities, shared values" isn't leftward? I'll tell you what my values are and let's see if these people can share them with me. I value individual rights. I value the right to purchase whatever arms I want, whenever I want, and from whoever I want. I value the right to be left alone to do whatever I want as long as I don't hurt anyone else or I do it with consenting adults. I value the right to privacy in my communication with others which includes all of my financial transactions (which makes a tax on income impossible to enforce). I value the right to chose my own health care providers (including the null set). I value the right to travel freely and anonymously. And that's just the start.

Now tell me what "shared values" we have. Mr. Clinton and his groupies just don't get it. Nearly everything they work toward, claiming "shared values" and "shared responsibilities" are diametrically opposed to my values, the principles this country was founded upon, and the constitution which he swore to defend. Why is this impeached, disbarred, lying piece of crap still given any credence in American life?--Joe]

Schumer and others are complaining that the new Senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, doesn't represent all her constituents and her Gun Control Stance Upsets Many and predict they will be able to twist her arm into violating the Second Amendment:

"Now, as she begins representing the whole state, I look forward to working with her to help her gain a broader understanding of the problems affecting New York City so she can be an effective advocate for all New Yorkers."

...

During the press conference yesterday, Senator Schumer said he was sure Gillibrand's stance would "evolve" once she got to know downstate issues.

When I read that I read it as "down south" issues. Further translation comes out like the following.

Sure, we have a 13^th Amendment that prohibits slavery but that doesn't mean we can't have common-sense regulation of those n***ers. Just because up north they let them run around like they are just as good as anyone else doesn't mean that we have to let them walk around in public like they belong in polite society. Once Gillibrand gets a "broader understanding" of the situation I'm sure she be able to be an effective advocate for both the bigots and the n***ers.

From our friend in Israel;

Friends:

 

Considering the number of Kassam and Grad rockets and the increasing number of mortar rounds being fired into Israel by Hamas in Gaza, I'll keep the "Gaza War" group designation for a while longer.  As a practical matter Israel gained nothing but the world's condemnation for its recent attempt to stop the terrorist fire.

 

The election rhetoric here is twilight-zone material.  The folks in power speechify as if they were the party in opposition.  They cry about how much change there needs to be.  Hell you are the government.  You should have done long ago what you attack (who?) for not having done.  How dumb do you think the voters are?  Obviously you think they are even dumber than I think they are. 

 

GO STEELERS!

 

This happened some time ago. But the Washington Post has a very detailed story on what happened. If you like dogs bring lots of tissues to soak up some of the tears.

After all the emotion (I'm not saying this is a bad thing) is filtered out here are the nuggets I found interesting:

After the detective left, Cheye studied the document. There was nothing anywhere to indicate that Scarlata had asked the judge who signed it for permission to break his door down for a no-knock search. He hadn't presented the judge with evidence that anyone in the household was armed and dangerous. He'd basically said that police had intercepted a box of drugs addressed to Trinity, delivered the box and watched as it was taken inside.

...

Americans have defended their right to privacy and the sanctity of their homes since Revolutionaries denounced British soldiers entering homes and businesses with impunity to search for contraband rum and tea and generate taxes for the British Crown. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits unreasonable government searches and seizures. But civil libertarians argue that this constitutional protection has been seriously eroded in recent decades, largely as an unintended consequence of the nation's war on drugs.

...

He's read the court's decision in one 2006 case, Hudson v. Michigan, more than once. In Hudson, the court found that even when police make a clearly illegal no-knock raid, the evidence they seize can still be used against a defendant at trial.

"In other words, police can do what they did to us with impunity" Cheye concluded. "There are no consequences, not for them."

Thanks to reader Chet for the email pointing to this. He also asks:

Question to ponder: What is the proper defense against this sort of thing (other than getting rid of the war on drugs and the swat teams)?

I expect that if you grab a gun, you will likely be shot by overwhelming force. And you will be presumed guilty especially if they find cash, ammo, or other weapons on your property.

The gun trainers I know give the advice to say nothing, physically cooperate, and ease your anger thinking about what you are going to do with all the money you get from the lawsuit.

There are some people being pro-active by setting up sting operations where they have a house set up with lots of cameras and then turn on lots of lights to generate a abnormally high electric bill. When the cops show up with flash-bangs and guns blazing the cameras are rolling and they find nothing but public humiliation and a lawsuit waiting for them. The only thing I would add to that is that I would make sure the video was streaming to servers in other states and, where jurisdictions allowed it, I might be inclined to add a few of those "bad-guy" paper targets and some flash-bangs of my own to the mix.

This summer, I talked to security experts on both sides of the political spectrum, and had several conversations with Chertoff, in an effort to answer the following question: Is DHS achieving its mission of making us safer? My reluctant conclusion is that, although Chertoff has performed impressively in an impossible job, the department is hard to justify with any rational analysis of costs and benefits. On the contrary, it's arguably one of the most expensive marketing ventures in political history--an enterprise that seeks to make us feel safer instead of actually making us safer. The best argument for DHS is that the illusion of safety may itself provide tangible psychological and economic benefits: If people feel less afraid, they may be more likely to fly on planes. But even if conceived on these terms--as a more-than-$40-billion-dollar-a-year pacifier--the department is hard to defend, since there's no good evidence that it has, in fact, calmed Americans down rather than making us more nervous.

Jeffery Rosen
December 24, 2008
Man-Made Disaster--Six years on, the Department of Homeland Security is still a catastrophe.
[$40 Billion a year pacifer? Yup. That sounds about right for government work.

H/T to Bruce Schneier.--Joe]