Barb and I saw this on the wall at Wade’s yesterday:
Under ObamaCare, private contracts have been dissolved through state intervention. And the very laws that Obama and the Democrats pass are as liquid as mercury. From day to day, just as Big Brother shifted the meanings of law and order, the Obama regime makes laws, revises and sometimes simply ignores the very same laws — all in the name of, ahem, social justice.
If a contract is not a contract, what is it?
If a law is not a law, what is it?
Answer: It is 1984.
Robert J. Avrech
December 16, 2013
Person Of The Year: George Orwell
[It’s usually spelled out as in Nineteen Eighty-Four, but other than that minor quibble I am in complete agreement with Avrech.
We live in scary times.—Joe]
This morning Barb and I did some errands together. One of these was for me to get a dress shirt for a party we are attending tonight. While out I got a call from a friend with a well deserved nickname of “Brazen E.” which went something like the following. It was a real “first” for me.
Joe: Hello E.
E: Hi! What are you doing? Are you with your family in Idaho?
J: No. I got back last night. I’m in a dressing room at J.C. Penney’s. What about you?
E: We had a nice Christmas. I’m in a room with my daughter and can’t say a whole lot but I’m feeling pretty hormonal. I got permission from my husband and you are the first person I thought of.
J: Ahhh… Oh! So you are looking for some “benefits” from a friend?
E: Exactly! So, are you available?
J: Uhhh… [How do you say, “No” to someone who has the courage to ask for, and gets, permission from their husband to come play with you for a few hours?]
I’ll talk to Barb about it but we are pretty busy today and we are going to a party tonight. Maybe you could find someone at the party tonight. Would you like to go with us?
E: No. I don’t think so. Let me know if you change your mind.
J: I’m pretty sure it’s not going to work out. If you have another opportunity you should take it rather than waiting for me to call back.
E: Yeah. I already tried one, but he said he would rather sleep.
J: That was your husband?
E: Yes.
J: I see. Okay. Well good luck finding someone!
As I expected Barb did not think it was a good use of my time this afternoon.
The Brady Campaign meeting is the CSGV meeting is the Moms Demand [something] meeting. Hand the microphone to the next person, and you’ve got the next meeting.
Archer
December 13, 2013
Comment to Small goals from small minds.
[There is a lot of truth to that.—Joe]
Barb spent soon time in Idaho with me this week. Dad wanted her to see how much better the room in basement was since she was there the last time. After Dad showed off the improvements I saw something in the gun cabinet I wanted to show her.
It was the old Winchester 32-20 that had hung on the wall of my bedroom for many years as I grew up. It had belonged to my grandfather and my Great Uncle Walt (Grandpa Huffman’s brother) had shot his first coyote with it when he was 10 years old.
Under some of the more repressive laws in this country it is banned as being an assault rifle because it has a capacity of greater 10 rounds. But as it was originally used it was a great gun for kids because of it’s light weight, relatively low cost to shoot, and light recoil.
@Rivers513 handguns kill more than the assault murder guns. I’m going after them all #GunSense
Unarmed Barista (@GunzAreBad)
Tweeted on December 16, 2013
[Yeah. Tell me again that, “No one wants to take your guns.”
This may be a troll account so this may not be as good as example as I thought it was.—Joe]
Nothing more disgusting than a female gun nut.
“Guest”
June 2013
Comment to Children and Guns: The Fear and the Reality
[You disgust them and they want to take your means of self defense away. It sounds to me like someone is channeling the KKK.—Joe]
I hope that CNN and Fox News and ABC and all of the news outlets broadcast live feeds from the destruction of the guns once they are criminalized. We’ll have trash compactors reducing the guns to pieces of unrecognizable metal. The death-worshipping guns nuts will be watching TV, tears streaming down their cheeks, shrieking “OUR GUNS! OUR GUNS!” Their children will ask them what time supper is, and they will backhand them across the face and shout “DON’T TALK BACK TO ME! THEY’RE DESTROYING OUR GUNS!”
Anonymous Reader
July 26, 2001
Comment to The Terrible Truth About Gun Owners
[This is what they think about people who exercise the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.
Merry Christmas.—Joe]
Interestingly, and not surprisingly coming from The Left, he is advocating capital punishment for possessing a philosophy rather than committing an act. Looking at history, that appears to be a constant.
That said philosophy is supported by, and adheres to, centuries of documented, established rights, which in turn is supported by the natural laws of this particular planet, is irrelevant to him; it is the philosophy he considers so dangerous.
This is certainly a real stretch – for the moment, anyway – but at what level does such a threat constitute basis for justifiable defensive action? For now it’s just talk; I suspect as political power waxes and wanes it may not always be.
Predator
December 19, 2013
Referring to This is what they think of you
[To answer the question, it depends upon what your definition of “justifiable defensive action” is.
I consider defensive training, stocking up on ammo, and keeping my home location difficult to find “defensive action” and more than justified by the current enumerable threats to my philosophy, person, and family. If you are talking about using deadly force as the “justifiable defensive action” then the answer is when the threat is eminent and of a nature that it would result in death or permanent injury to an innocent person.
Other than that I have nothing to add.—Joe]
@UnitedLiberals It’s what Ben Franklin would of wanted. #NRAdicklesswonders
rich roberts @boris3324
Tweeted on May 16, 2013
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday via a Tweet from Linoge!—Joe]
I’ve been hanging out with my great-nephew Jared (nicknamed Jar Head) who has recently mastered the word, “No!”.
I am tempted to believe that if the word meaning “no” were three symbols long the parenting of children would be dramatically different.
Watching Aborn’s attempt to define fear of gun bans as paranoid while arguing in favor of gun bans makes me disinclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the leaders.
Clayton Cramer
December 17, 2013
Not Trying to Ban Guns – Except When We Are
[H/T to Say Uncle.
The problem is they have mental problems. They literally cannot see they contributed to the situation.
I have a lot of experience dealing with this sort of “thinking”. Stacy, my counselor for dealing with this sort of thing, explained this was one of the symptoms of personality disorders. The essence of the explanation applicable in this context is as follows:
If you tell a normal person their actions contributed to a particular situation or result and suggest changing their behavior might result in a better outcome they will respond with something like, “I think I understand, I will try your suggestion next time.” The person with a personality disorder cannot see they contributed to the situation in any way. They never did anything wrong and will refuse to change their behavior.
There is no point in trying to have a logical discussion with these type of people. Your only productive recourse is to “set boundaries”, tell them you will not tolerate their irrational behavior, and then enforce those boundaries. As difficult as this is in interpersonal relationships it’s even more difficult when these people have political power, the power of government force, over you. This is why we have the 2nd Amendment. It is the last ditch resort to enforcing boundaries.
Further complicating the issue is that when you enforce those boundaries “the crazy” may get far, far worse. They can and will do extremely destructive things. In interpersonal relationships this is one the paths by which people get murdered by their abusive spouse.
Gun owners have a lot in common with abused spouses and should be aware things can very rapidly get much much worse.—Joe]
The worse apples now being pushed by Obama don’t provide much money to offset the risks, and that’s even if insurers are able to keep pace with the ever-changing Obama position on what is good and what is bad for American insurance consumers. The possibility of systemic collapse in the New Year looks increasingly real.
Chris Stirewalt
December 20, 2013
How about them apples: ObamaCare rewritten again
[Yesterday my friendly neighborhood health insurance expert read part of King Obama new Obamacare decree to me. There was “a tone of voice” in the reading that made me think carefully about my response. I thought about it for a couple seconds and said, “What does that even mean?”
The response was sharp, “Exactly! I don’t even know. How can this possibly work?” I told them insurance companies should just forget about people actually enrolling and paying premiums. What they need to do is just have healthcare providers send the bills to them and they should just pay them. That will cut down on all the confusion, excess paperwork, and reduce costs just like Obamacare was originally intended.
I’m fortunate their sarcasm detector was fully operational and the exasperation was vented in a direction other than toward me.—Joe]
Like ever other civilized first world nation civilian ownership of guns needs to be banned in this country so we can enjoy the freedom from gun violence as they do.
Italian Rose
December 11, 2013
Comment to How gun control is losing, badly (in charts)
[You don’t have to squint very hard to imagine this is sarcasm. But given the context (the Washington Post) I don’t think it is.
And I would imagine our Rose also advocates banning recreational drugs, including alcohol, so we an be free from drug abuse. That worked out so well the last few times it was last tried.*—Joe]
*That last line is sarcasm.
Yet no good cop would assume that criminals register guns. Now we know that D.C. police don’t check the gun registry when on the way to a crime scene, and the reason for registration collapses.
Stephen Halbrook
December 11, 2013
Attorney for Dick Heller in “Heller II”.
MILLER: Dick Heller challenges D.C.’s gun registration scheme, files for quick ruling in Heller II
[H/T to Sebastian.
It’s abundantly clear the only reason for registration is to cast a chilling effect on the exercise of specific enumerated right and to aid in later confiscation. These people don’t just need to have their laws slapped down in the courts.These people should be prosecuted.—Joe]
Via email from Col. Milquetoast who says, “Phillip Adams is an old Australian lefty with a newspaper column and a radio show. And apparently a bit of a totalitarian streak”.
Adams’ Twitter profile says, “Broadcaster, columnist, presenter of Late Night Live on ABC RN.”
Adams wrote this column on September 10, 2011:
It was widely accepted that her attempted assassination was triggered, no pun intended, by the verbal violence of US politics – such as the “lock ’n’ load” rhetoric of gun-totin’ Sarah Palin, whose campaign literature literally targeted political opponents, depicting them in the crosshairs of telescopic sights.
While sticks and stones break bones, words can never hurt? Manifestly untrue.
…
The massacre in Arizona that almost killed Giffords killed six others – and the appalled reaction almost killed off Palin’s campaign. Let this and Norway remind us to turn down our political volume and venom. It’s not enough for Abbott to tell us he “doesn’t entirely agree” with vile placards being waved at right-wing rallies. He must denounce them. And when an Alan Jones suggests that Gillard should be drowned in a hessian sack? With memories of his role in the Cronulla riots, he should he sacked.
…
Today, words. Tomorrow, sticks and stones. And the day after that?
It might have been “widely accepted” by those who do not require evidence to form their beliefs but it wasn’t accepted by most people. But that is mostly beside the point.
The main point is that he then demonstrated his total lack of an irony co-processor, or perhaps an overactive hypocritical gland, by tweeting the following:
Tweeted December 14, 2013 3:53 PM:
Biggest US death toll?Not Iraq or A’stan but the war waged within the US by the Invincible NRMA.Seems to gain strength with every massacre
Tweeted December 14, 2013, 3:58 PM:
The target of the US war on terror should be those NRMA nutters-who outgun and outmaneuver every challenger from POTUS down.And always have
Tweeted December 14, 2013, 3:59 PM:
The charnel house of Charlton Heston
Tweeted December 14, 2013, 4:05 PM:
Oops. NRA. Brain dulled by medication
Tweeted December 14, 2013, 4:07 PM:
National Ratbags. National Racists
This is a broadcaster with ABC who thinks “The target of the US war on terror should be those NRA nutters”. You, as a NRA member and gun owner, are to be give special treatment. This is not the special treatment afforded to others exercising a specific enumerated right but the special treatment of military assaults, detention without trial, and drone strikes.
How would ABC handle it if he were to say something similar about blacks, Jews, feminists, or gays?
We need a ban on assault weapons. We need to stop the flow of high magazine clips, like the ones used in Aurora and Newtown.
Sen. Ed Markey
December 16, 2013
Markey calls for assault weapons ban
[H/T to NRA News for the Tweet.
If it weren’t so common I would say it is ironic that someone so ignorant of firearms that they say something like “stop the flow of high magazine clips” thinks he knows enough about them to make firearm law. But I suspect ignorance of the subject matter and the desire to use force to impose your will on those that are not ignorant are highly correlated. Think of school bullies versus the nerds, the KKK versus people of color, and Anti-Semitists versus Jews.
Philosophically, Senator Markey has a lot of close and dangerous company throughout all known history. And this is why we need to protect our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. It is a last ditch safeguard to protect innocent people from ignorant bigots with power like Senator Markey.—Joe]
In Bloomberg’s Business Week, of all places, Paul Barrett suggests:
As for the BATFE, drastic reform seems warranted. Why not take the agency’s better agents and fold them into the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under new leadership, and then just get rid of the bumblers who continue to make a mockery of federal law enforcement?
From a purest standpoint I would prefer that all the functions currently “performed” by the ATF be handled at the state level, if at all, and the ATF (pseudo) functionality be completely eliminated at the national level but I understand the political reality of smaller steps.
Politically the situation may be even more nuanced. At one point, many years ago, certain Second Amendment lobbyists actively worked to save the ATF because they could be more easily controlled because of their “F-Troop” reputation. As repulsive as it may be that may still be the case.
That a mainstream media outlet is advocating for the elimination of the ATF is significant. That alone is a good first step.
From a comment to Steadily stay on course to end gun deaths:
It is YOU and your NRA thug friends who continue to make America an uncivilized place to live. A place where any idiot can pick up an assault weapon at Walmart, hee-haw.
Congrats on all that. Remember, guns don’t kill people, the NRA kills people.
And what do you suppose this person thinks should be done with people and their “NRA thug friends” who kill people?
