Monthly Archives: November 2008

Quote of the day–Dr. Lyle Rossiter

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The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind. When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious.


Dr. Lyle Rossiter
The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. 2006
[H/T to Jeff.


While looking around for an Zune compatible format for my consumption I ran across this:



Rossiter’s dream is to construct a grand, idealized libertarian, nightmarish, dystopia that creates hardships and inflicts wounds. This is dangerous, tragic, and sick.


So both sides accuse the other of being mentally ill.


Interesting.


So one then has to ask, “Which world view has resulted in the worst outcome for the affected populations?” I would presume the United States has best approximated (and poorly at that) the Libertarian viewpoint. But I’m not sure which of the following best represents the centrally planning government of the Liberal viewpoint: Communist China, USSR, Nazi Germany, or the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. But then I decided that it really didn’t matter.–Joe]

“Intellectuals”

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Prolific writer, economist and historian, Thomas Sowell, gives us some frank talk about our self-appointed intellectuals.  I post it here for some who have felt it necessary to tell us that they are smart, or that those from whom they get their ideas are smart.  Seriously, if I haven’t noticed it already, your telling me won’t help either of us, one way or the other.  Here’s a small sample of Sowell’s piece on the subject;



What is more telling, form [rather than substance] was enough to impress the intellectuals, not only then but even now, years after the facts have been revealed…


That is one of many reasons why intellectuals are not taken as seriously by others as they take themselves.


How right you are, Mr. Sowell (I mean, yeee haaww, Baby!)  He continues;



The intellectual levels of politicians are just one of the many things that intellectuals have grossly misjudged for years on end.


During the 1930s, some of the leading intellectuals in America condemned our economic system and pointed to the centrally planned Soviet economy as a model— all this at a time when literally millions of people were starving to death in the Soviet Union, from a famine in a country with some of the richest farmland in Europe and historically a large exporter of food.


New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for telling the intelligentsia what they wanted to hear— that claims of starvation in the Ukraine were false.


Things never seem to change, do they?


As an aside, when I use the word “socialist” to describe people who express anti-capitalist ideas, I mean it.  I know what the word means and I know where the ideas came from even if socialists don’t.  I’ll use it when it fits, even if the socialists protest, scream, hold their breath, or try to brow-beat me into silence.  If you disagree, get a bloody dictionary, or better yet, a history book.  A very old one.  If you consider yourself a progressive intellectual, never mind.  It won’t help (see above quotes).


But that’s not the main subject of Sowell’s piece.  I’ll summarize it with a simple thought; logically, if you had some horrific defect in your ability to perceive reality, surely you’d be the last to know.  Wouldn’t you?  Keeping that in mind, go ahead and read the whole piece.  It won’t make you comfortable but it will certainly interest you, personally, one way or the other.

Quote of the day–Fred LeBrun

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I have absolutely no use for protecting those trafficking in illegal guns. Even those who would do so on principle. Street guns, slithering from state to state, do too much harm.

 

Fred Lebrun
November 12, 2008
Lock, load and try taking aim at the illegal handguns
[This is from a guy that claims to support gun ownership. This was the first instance I had heard of guns slithering. I would have thought they sort of hopped when the slide release was disengaged. But maybe this “street gun” he talks about is some new type that I’m not familiar with.

 

Regardless of their mode of locomotion Lebrun has a very naive viewpoint of the world. He thinks the following would somehow be a good idea and wouldn’t be a problem for gun owners:

 

…a national identification system for handguns. A computerized system that would be accessible to all law enforcement agencies, and that would standardize the requirements for handgun ownership coast to coast.

 

What he apparently doesn’t understand is there is already a Federal standard requirement for handgun ownership coast to coast. It’s called the Second Amendment. And even with that there are people who been chipping away at that with waiting periods (the original Brady Act), restrictions on who can purchase (age, prior felony convictions, prior domestic violence convictions and accusations), storage requirements, and types of handguns (“junk guns”, “Saturday Night Specials”, “armor piercing”, too powerful, too concealable, too many rounds). This incremental approach is what the people of the UK bought into which ultimately resulted in their complete loss of handguns.

 

It appears he is suggesting universal registration of handguns. He is hopelessly naive if he believes this will fly. He need look no further than Canada to see their gun registration failure. Then he should try to answer Just One Question.–Joe]

 

Update: Jeff and Sebastian both have posts up about the same article.

For This Veteran’s Day

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I have some quotes from a fellow, Joe Argenzio, interviewed by the History Channel.  He fought in Europe with the 1st Infantry Division (“The Big Red One”) 16th Infantry Regiment.  His unit was clearing socialists (SS in this case) out of the Falkenau death camp;



“I know some of them that I encountered committed suicide– they jumped in front of my M1.”


Suicide.  OK.  That’s what the man said.



“As far as I know we got ’em all.. and they deserved what they got.”


Over 21 thousand members of the U.S. First Infantry Division were killed or wounded fighting the socialists and the Imperial Japs in W.W. II.  Our only job is to remember them all.  We have it easy.  The socialists have it easy now too– all they have to do is stay out from in front of our M1s, so to speak.  Today, there thousands more American and coalition GIs in the middle east and elsewhere fighting the latest socialist/statist menace– the Jihaddists.  As in previous wars, their job is often thankless, but they know what they’re doing.  Thanks, people.

How Terrorist Groups End

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I haven’t finished it yet but I found this fascinating. It is a study on terrorist groups from 1968 until now. It gives data on how often terrorist groups were successfully (not very often) and why they were successful (goals were somewhat narrow). What brought about their downfall (police, and negoitations with the government) and what indicators there are for a groups longevity (religion is strongly associated with longevity) and chances of success (religion is negatively associated with success).


Al-Qaeda doesn’t have a good future if history is any indicator.

Ominous

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Remember that when Obama announced his Vice-President candidate Joe Biden he bragged that Biden was instrumental in getting the “assault weapon” ban of ’94:



Fifteen years ago, too many American communities were plagued by violence and insecurity. So Joe Biden brought Democrats and Republicans together to pass the 1994 Crime Bill, putting 100,000 cops on the streets, and starting an eight year drop in crime across the country.


CCRKBA reports:



CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said gun owners are legitimately alarmed that president-elect Barack Obama has selected virulent anti-gun-rights Democrat Rahm Emanuel as his White House chief of staff. Emanuel was “point man” on gun ban efforts for the Clinton Administration.

“Scores of Democrats, including Senator Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, assured voters over the past several months that they ‘support’ the Second Amendment,” Gottlieb stated. “Well, America’s gun owners do not merely ‘support’ the Second Amendment, we live by it every day. We value the right to keep and bear arms, and will zealously protect and defend that right, as much as we value the rest of our fundamental individual civil rights, and that is something Democrats need to understand. To think otherwise is a monumental mistake.

“Mr. Obama, whose history on gun rights is abysmal, appears to be considering his party’s most extremist gun control advocates for key positions in his administration,” Gottlieb continued. “That is not a sign of goodwill toward gun owners or their rights. It’s a red flare warning of high winds and rough weather looming on the political horizon.


David Hardy reports:



Supporting it is an insider DC tip that his people are seriously considering a federal ban or restriction on “right to carry” laws.


Countertop reports (see also this post):



Looks like the fix is in and Henry Waxman and Nancy Pelosi are going to toss John Dingell aside…


This was an easy decision for Pelosi who has long clashed with Dingell and ran Lynn Rivers against him in a primary attempt to defeat him.


The Lynne Rivers campaign was all about gun control.


President-Elect Barrack Obama is exceedingly anti-gun. His VP is exceedingly anti-gun. His Chief of Staff is exceedingly anti-gun. The pro-gun John Dingell, Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, who blocked anti-gun legislation from reaching the floor of the House is being booted and replaced with the anti-gun Henry Waxman.


It seems to me that things are shaping up to be “a Perfect Storm”.


I’ll announce my latest software project by sometime next weekend. It may come in useful if things get really ugly.

Quote of the day–Hal Herring

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For two decades, many liberals have thrived on despising the NRA and its members. Those who believe in gun control often hold enormous prejudice against those who don’t. But there are already reams of laws pertaining to the use, abuse, purchase and sale of firearms. What new regulations would the gun-controllers create, and how would they work to address the problem of gun violence? Do they want to prohibit private ownership of firearms altogether? Many would like to ban handguns, without considering just what this would entail, what inequities of power would result, and what new, potentially dangerous, powers would have to be awarded to government to accomplish it. Like activists who want to ban pit bulls, the gun-control advocates remain relentlessly unspecific about what they hope to achieve. It has become clear, too, that these advocates hold a double standard regarding the U.S. Constitution: The First Amendment is vital to the health of a free nation, as is the Fourth, but the Second is respected only by the un-evolved and the violent. Only the parts of the Constitution that their side respects are valid, in this view.


Hal Herring
October 27, 2008
Why we all need the Democrats to abandon gun control
[H/T to Jeff who has a still better quote from the comments to this same article.–Joe]

Ten Percent Increase in Gun Sales?

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Maybe.  But that 10% figure alone doesn’t account for the buying shift away from bolt actions and revolvers and into semi automatics and EBRs*.  Anyone selling semi automatic pistols and EBRs is seeing more like a 100% or greater increase in sales of those items.  Mere accessories for EBRs, I can tell you first-hand, are up 100% in sales from two months ago.  Ammo sales are up substantially too, in this “get it while you still can” market environment.


Manufacturers; If you’re making ARs, AKs, auto pistols, other self-loading carbines, or magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, you would do well to put on another shift if you haven’t done it already.


Citizens; This is a great time to learn just how much fun it can be to learn some shooting skills and to get your first gun.


One wonders if the anti second amendment rights movers and shakers understand how great they’ve been as gun salesmen, or how great they’ve been at recruiting new shooters.  Gun and gun related sales haven’t been this good since the Bubba years.  Gun ranges in populated areas are running at full capacity.  Maybe we’ll have to start renting booths at gun shows again.


*EBR = “Evil Black Rifle”.  In case you were recently revived from a years-long coma; the term applies to anything that might be included in the next “Assault Weapons” ban under ObamACORN (I just added “ObamACORN” to my MS Word spell checker dictionary.  Odd that it wasn’t there already, but I suppose this is an older version of Word. If you work for Microsoft, you might put in a memo reminding those in charge of spell checkers to make sure it’s there) and the Pelosi/Reed Congress, even if (or maybe especially if) they’re tan in color, or green, a nice pink with rainbows, dolphins, unicorns and shiny red hearts on them, etc..  We also speak of “Evil Features” like pistol grips on rifles (oh…”shudder”) or bayonet lugs, or standard capacity magazines (as opposed to the puny five or ten round capacity mags).

A job for the Queen of Snark

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Via Bruce Schneier:



New Contest: Can You Out-Lame the TSA?


Last week, in response to my article about the idiocy of airport security, the head of the Transportation Security Administration, Kip Hawley, essentially conceded the main argument of my article, which was that America’s aviation security system is not designed to catch smart terrorists, but stupid terrorists. Here’s what Hawley wrote last week:


“Clever terrorists can use innovative ways to exploit vulnerabilities. But don’t forget that most bombers are not, in fact, clever. Living bomb-makers are usually clever, but the person agreeing to carry it may not be super smart. Even if “all” we do is stop dumb terrorists, we are reducing risk.”

Not quite believable. And yet he really said it.

And so, a contest: How would the Hawley Principle of Federally-Endorsed Mediocrity apply to other government endeavors?


…


So, go to it. E-mail your entries to Goldberg.Atlantic@gmail.com.  The Goldblog reader who comes up with the funniest application of the Hawley Principle wins a subscription to the Atlantic.


Here are my entries. They are probably too close to the truth to be funny but still I figure it’s worthwhile to mock politicians in public anytime you get the chance:




  1. Gun “buy-backs”, restrictions on the type of guns, and carrying of guns don’t slow down a violent criminal any. But getting guns out of the hands of small stature women, the elderly, and the infirm will at least prevent those people from being able to go out and commit violent crimes.


  2. Hundreds of millions of meals are prepared each day in the U.S. by unlicensed food preparation people. These people prepare food for small children, the elderly, trusting family members, and unsuspecting friends. Food borne illness and accidental poisoning are exceedingly rare given the vast numbers of meals prepared without inspection by the health officials. Licensing and inspecting the professionals who prepare only a small portion of the total meals won’t stop anyone but a minority of incompetent capitalists but at least it raising the cost of doing business will encourage more people to obtain their meals from those who are unlicensed and less tainted by capitalistic inclinations.

If Tamara enters I will concede–sight unseen.

Quote of the day–Mike Baker

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This gun control effort is part of an overall government takeover by the radical left who now control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The next part of the Obama-ACORN plan is a new military force separate from the US Armed Forces.


Obama has called for a ‘civilian national security force’ (http://www.newswithviews.com/NWV-News/www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2yGzHfy7s) as powerful as the US military, comments that were ignored by the vast majority of the corporate media but compared by conservatives to the Nazi Hitler Youth.


Mike Baker
November 8, 2008
OBAMA AND ACORN OFFICIALS SET SIGHTS ON GUNOWNERS
[It’s interesting to me that the left compared Bush to Hitler so often when it seems to me that there are much closer ties to Hitler from several directions such as:



  • A philosophical basis (socialism)

  • Ignoring the constitution and human rights (hostility to private gun ownership)

  • Adoration of a charismatic leader

  • Organization of a “civilian” security force

  • Mandatory “volunteer” service to the state

We’ll just have to wait and see. It doesn’t appear that Bush is going to start loading people into the cattle cars anytime soon and Obama hasn’t announced plans for any “work camps” yet. So comparisons for either of them to Hitler seem to be a bit weak still.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Jim Purdy

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Why do we need so many dang guns? Wouldn’t the world be a better place with fewer weapons? I haven’t had a gun since the one I had in the U.S. Army in the 1960s.


Jim Purdy
Tulsa (11/9/2008 3:52:49 AM)
Comment to Obama win spurs gun purchases
[Try selling the idea that fewer guns would make the world a better place to these people:



Oh yeah. That’s right. You can’t convinced them of that because they are dead. They are dead because their own government murdered them. With only a few thousand thugs actually involved in the murdering of 10 million people the victims would only had needed a kill ratio of 1:100 to have completely stopped the butchery. But guess what–their government took their guns away from them with Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons. They had no effective weapons to defend themselves and you, Mr. Purdy and President-Elect Obama, want to recreate the same conditions here.


No thanks. Keep the change.–Joe]

What my neighbor said

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Laurel lives close by and recently had this to say about the Obama “transition plan” in regards to firearms:



Hey, at least you really can’t accuse me of unfoundedly predicting impending doom at this point, considering the arrogant bastard is openly flaunting his intention to wage war on my rights.


Fine. If Obama wants to see our rifles on a battlefield, we’ll give him a battlefield. Μολὼν λαβέ.


I’m done blogging for today. I have software for the battlefield to finish.

Like that will happen

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Sebastian said,



Hope/Change is soliciting feedback. Be sure to give them some.


So I went to the website and said:



The Second Amendment guarantees a specific enumerated right which is being violated by numerous state and local officials. Prohibitions against certain types of firearms such as so called “assault weapons”, prohibitions against carrying of handguns for self defense, and prohibitions against buying and selling of firearms without approval of the government are just a few of the many violations of this essential civil right. I would like for the Justice Department to enforce 18 USC 242 and prosecute the government officials involved in these violations.

Quote of the day–Alan Gottlieb

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This is still the United States, not a socialist gulag. Public money should not be given to private organizations which then turn around and utilize that funding to usurp the electoral process and erode constitutionally-guaranteed civil rights.


Alan Gottlieb
October 28, 2008
‘ACORN USES PUBLIC FUNDS TO STEAL ELECTIONS, NOW YOUR GUN RIGHTS,’ SAYS SAF
[H/T to Jeff for putting me on the trail for this one.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Lyle @ UltiMAK

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Sure; the terrorists are just lonely, misunderstood, and a little insecure. They’ll probably settle down, get jobs and start raising families as soon as we start being nicer and more understanding (and quit being productive, ban alcohol, eliminate our credit banking system, pull all military forces from everywhere, keep our females out of school and force them to stay out of sight, adopt their form of Islam, ban all other religions, banish the Jews, allow them to wipe Israel off the map and finish Hitler’s Final Solution, execute all homosexuals, et al).

But if we get unicorns in the bargain, that should make up for it all. Flying unicorns, too, damn it. None of that Earthbound species. Then I won’t mind not having oil or electricity, ’cause I can get around on my flying unicorn, what feeds on grass (and so I won’t need gas for the lawnmower) left-over bean sprouts and old tofu. Make that four flying unicorns. I need four ’cause I have a family. Either that or the big sport utility flying unicorn (SUFU) that can haul as much as my gigantic, American, 4 x 4, eight-foot bed, super cab, air-conditioned pickup. At least a half-ton SUFU, with the towing package and a big antenna for my ham radio. Oh, and a gun rack. And it can’t mind having my 17 ft. Grumman canoe strapped on top either. It had better be one big damned unicorn or I’m going to be pissed.

Lyle @ UltiMAK
November 5, 2008
In the comments.
[In the same comments Tony says, “I want my unicorn to come with rainbows.” I’m not sure but I think I’m detecting an entire symphony of sarcasm here.–Joe]

Bigot meme in public usage

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I’ve been pushing the anti-gun people as bigots meme for quite a while now (since nearly day one on my blog). Here that concept gets mentioned in a more public venue:

Sigler described Massachusetts as a tolerant state, in terms of race and sexual orientation, but criticized the state’s intolerance towards handguns, saying lawmakers are “[promoting] bigotry against gun owners.” He even proposed that because of these laws, citizens are forced to hide their guns as if they were obscene or wrong, and are ultimately treated as second-class citizens.

Good. It’s one of the few defenses we have against the next administration in the White House.

We hear from our friend in Israel

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…almost daily;



Friends:
 
Obama may not get the 6 months Biden said the new president would have before he was “tested.”   President Bush may be the one.
 
While everyone was looking elsewhere, Syria has enveloped Lebanon and moved the Syrian 3rd Army to Israel’s border.  In the meantime the cease-fire farce with Hamas is a shooting war.  In the last 36 hours we had rockets fired into Israel.  Last evening we raided into the Strip, Hamas responded with 20 Mortar bombs. What followed this morning the Jerusalem Post calls “Massive” Kassam rocket fire into Israel.
 
This is all being fueled by the Israeli and American elections.
 
I mourn the Republic.
 
Howard


Surely this sort of thing will be nothing but an uncomfortable memory after the world is “united” by Obama.  The oceans will recede, the clouds of suspicion between cultures will part, earthquakes, storms, pain and hunger will be a thing of the past, the Angels of Peace, Love and Tranquility will sing forever more above all the skies of the world.  Yea, and there will be much rejoicing, amen.