Category Archives: Crap For Brains

People and especially governments do some incredibly stupid stuff. This is about those stupid actions.

Good thing nationwide concealed carry failed

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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.

Quote of the day–Robert V. Thompson

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According to the research, gun violence is most likely to occur in those places where guns are more accessible—small towns and rural areas. Given the stats, I can’t help but be grateful that I live in an urban rather rural location. Gun violence is a huge problem in some cities, notably Chicago. But to argue more guns equals more security makes no sense. Taken as a whole, however, gun violence is a greater threat in rural settings.

Robert V. Thompson
August 3, 2009
Guns and the dark side–Gail Collins gets it right
[“No sense”? How about that paragraph? He says gun violence (note that he talks about GUN violence, not violence as a whole) is more likely to occur where guns are more accessible but gun violence is a huge problem in Chicago (unmentioned is Washington D.C.) where guns are banned. He can’t remain coherent for three consecutive sentences.

I’d love to see the research showing violence (not just “gun violence”) is a greater threat in rural settings that in urban settings. I doubt that it is a oversight that he doesn’t mention it. I don’t think it exists.

And even in the article he links to (registration required) Thompson apparently overlooked this sentence or read it completely backward, “In general, homicide gun deaths in the United States are more of an urban than a rural problem.”

As for claiming there is no sense in guns enhancing security perhaps he can convince our police and military to turn in their guns. Would he, or anyone else sharing our reality, think that would make the U.S. a more secure place to live?

Thompson is either living in an alternate reality or has some strange version of dyslexia where facts are reversed by the time they are registered in his brain.–Joe]

Quote of the day–thinkagain2

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“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

I think that’s a good argument for keeping people away from guns. The two just do not mix well.

thinkagain2
July 31, 2009
Comment to Taking Gun Laws Seriously.
[I’m of the opinion “thinkagain2” is unable of thinking or making a good argument.

His, or her, thesis overlooks the possibility that some people need to be killed. Those men herding the naked women and children to the trenches prior to being shot… they needed to be killed. Right then and there. Keeping guns away from the people that needed them enabled evil.

It also overlooks that guns are used to stop violent attacks on innocent people–most of the time without anyone getting killed.

And just who is going to keep people away from guns? I’m betting it will be other people with guns.

No thanks. In addition to having a serious logic flaw that would violate my Jews in the Attic Test.–Joe]

Fearsome firearms or crap for brains?

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I don’t really know where to begin on this mess. They messed their pants so badly even hip waders couldn’t hold it all. This is not reporting. This isn’t even editorializing. They don’t check their facts and I have doubts if they even know how to recognize a fact. It’s the rantings of people with severe mental problems. It starts with the title “Brazen weapon fire chills police“. It doesn’t let up for an instant:

The gang shoot-out that rained gunfire and smoke on a quiet Dorchester street this week disturbed police on many levels: the seemingly new height in disregard for neighborhood safety, the fact that a 12-year-old girl watching TV inside a nearby house was shot through the leg.

Since when do gangs have any regard for “neighborhood safety”? Do they expect them to meet at a gun range to have their shoot-out? Gangs, in the common usage of the word, are criminals. Do they think criminals care about memorizing and following the gun safety rules that the rest of us do?

But even more alarming: At least one of the weapons used in the gunfire was an AK-47 assault rifle, the fourth time in three weeks that one had been found or used in Boston and the seventh time since last July, when a 32-year-old man was shot dead with one.

Police say they are noticing more of the fearsome firearms on Boston streets than last year and, in particular, are concerned that there have been so many in the past three weeks. Tomorrow afternoon, Mayor Thomas M. Menino will meet with ministers in Roxbury to discuss crime in the city and the sudden proliferation of the rifles.

But more alarming than there are criminals among us is that there are “fearsome firearms on Boston streets”. Well then, why doesn’t someone go out there and pick them up and take them home? Oh, that’s right. That’s not what they meant. They meant criminals are using the firearms on the streets. And, I say this having not lost a single bet in the last 35 years, I’m willing to bet than none of those rifles were actually assault rifles. They are intentionally using words to inflame emotions.

“This [weapon] can lay down a lot of fire in an urban area where there is basically no cover from it,’’ Commissioner Edward F. Davis said yesterday. “You can conceal yourself from these weapons, but they’ll rip through a car. They’ll rip through a telephone pole. They can rip through just about anything in an urban environment.’’

What he doesn’t say is that common hunting rifles such as a 30.06 have far greater penetration than these rifles.

“Everybody understands when they read the morning paper that you have to push as much as you can to get these guns off the street,’’ he said.

Only those that believe the morning paper. And this article is a very illustrative example of why more and more people don’t believe the “morning paper”.

Nine assault rifles have been confiscated so far this year, compared with four seized in 2008. Eighteen assault rifles were found in 2007.

Want to bet?

But police worry about the attractiveness of assault rifles to gangs. AK-47s are much more powerful than handguns, capable of firing at least 100 yards, and can be easily converted into automatic weapons.

The range of the AK-47 on human sized targets is much greater than 100 yards. With common ammo it’s about a 4 MOA gun. This makes it capable of first round hits, with a skilled marksman, at about 300 yards. So what? Common hunting rifles chambered .308 Winchester, 30.06, or .300 Win Mag, in skilled hands, can reach out and touch someone at 600 yards and beyond. They can’t be “easily converted into automatic weapons” for two reasons; 1) Assault rifles ARE automatic weapons and these, almost for certain, are not assault rifles; and 2) Firearms that are “easily converted” into automatic weapons are not allowed on the market and haven’t been for decades.

The guns have surfaced as Boston police have pushed to provide more of their own officers with M16s, high powered semiautomatic rifles.

In May, the Globe reported that police had ordered about 200 M16s free of charge from the US military and made plans to train dozens of officers and arm them with the rifles.

M-16s obtained from the military are NOT semi-automatic. They are fully automatic. Facts? What do facts matter to these mentally deranged writers? That’s right, they don’t. (Update: As pointed out in the comments the M16s were converted to semi-auto by the Boston Police Department. The article was written by the same writer. She was careless with the facts in this article even though she knew them.)

Community leaders and gun control advocates yesterday said many of the illegal guns in Massachusetts likely come from states like Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, where private gun owners can sell their weapons to anyone without requiring background checks.

Bruce Wall, the pastor of the Global Ministries Christian Church in Codman Square, said he is planning to hold a prayer summit on the steps of the New Hampshire State Capitol in Concord, N.H., to get the attention of public officials and call on them to tighten their laws.

“We’re going to pray for the trafficking of guns to stop,’’ he said. “Those gun shows in those states are making a lot of money off people in Massachusetts. Now the criminals are using weapons that can outpower what the police have.’’

Let’s see… violent crime rates (FBI stats for 2007 that I just happened to have on my computer):

  • Massachusetts: 431.5/100K
  • Maine: 118.0/100K
  • New Hampshire: 137.3/100K
  • Vermont: 124.3/100K

Blaming the laws in states with low crime rates for the high crime rates in their state proves that logical thinking doesn’t even rate a place holder in their brains. If it was private sales of guns increased crime then why is the crime rate lower, by at least a factor of PI, in those states than in Massachusetts? Massachusetts should look to the laws and policies of states with low crime rates, see what is different, and emulate those other states. NOT insist that those other states adopt their failed polices.

What do you think? Are the authors correct that it’s all about “fearsome firearms”? Or is it that the authors have crap for brains?

Author Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com let her know what you think. I sent her a link to this post and a link to Just One Question.

Update: I received a response from her:

From: MCramer@globe.com
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 7:59 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: Brazen weapon fire chills police

Thanks for your note.

 

 

Maria Cramer

Reporter

Boston Globe

w: (617) 929-3169

c:  (617) 291-6008

It’s not about safety

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It’s not about safety. They want our culture eradicated. They even say so:

Mr Ahern says the legislation is designed to halt the emergence of a gun culture in Ireland.

Response from Senator Murray

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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
—–
https://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.

Hopeful?

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Paul Helmke says he is hopeful:

I am hopeful that our Congress will now start addressing proactive measures to reduce gun violence in this country by doing things like requiring background checks for all gun sales, particularly at gun shows.  We make it too easy for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons in America.

Emphasis in the original.

Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center, has similar thoughts:

Today’s legislative victory reinvigorates us in the fight for stricter gun control laws. The next target of the gun control community will be passage of national legislation to close the so-called “gun show loophole” by requiring stringent Brady background checks on all gun purchases. Hopefully this victory will give momentum to efforts of the administration, Congress and the gun control advocacy community to enact strong and safe gun control measures, like this one, that will protect the sanctity and value of human life.

Why do “dangerous people” have access to the general population? Shouldn’t they be locked up in prison? Do we also make it too easy for “dangerous people” to get gasoline and matches? How about clubs, knives, and pointy sticks?

They were only able to get 39 votes in the Senate to stop legislation that I wouldn’t have dreamed would even come up for consideration a year ago. Their “gun show loophole” mantra has been going on for at least ten years and they are “hopeful” now is the time for it? They have mental problems. But we already knew that.

Constitutional law advice for Sotomayor

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Bitter and Sebastian has been pointing out just how bad nominee Sotomayor is on the right to keep and bear arms. This is probably the most damning.

She does not want to admit that people have a right to self-defense. She is smart enough to know it is a slippery slope to the acknowledgment of the right to keep and bear arms if she were to admit that. The British have learned that lesson sliding down the slope in the other direction–if there is no right to keep and bear arms then there is no right to self-defense.

Alan Korwin gives Sotomayor some pointers on what the U.S. Supreme Court has said about self-defense. It’s not a question mark at all. The conclusion:

The Supreme Court has recognized, addressed and answered all the most fundamental questions about self defense. The idea that they have never addressed this core American issue is completely false, as the numerous cases clearly demonstrate.

He’s really on our side, right?

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Sometimes “The Gun Guy” is so far out that it’s like a caricature. But he’s further out than I could portray even if I tried. Case in point:

If the gun lobby gets its way in Congress, the following scenarios might become all too real:

  • You’re visiting an elderly family member at the hospital when you see a gruff man in the parking lot adjusting his loaded and deadly handgun in his belt. You inform the nurse that there is a dangerous and armed man outside and the nurse informs you that it is “legal” for the gun owner to carry a concealed weapon only steps away from the hospital entrance.
  • You’re walking through the park with your kids on a sunny day eating ice cream when you see two men pull up in a dark SUV. As you walk by, you see them take two handguns out of the glove box and stick them in their jackets. You immediately call 9-1-1 to inform the police that there are armed men in a park with families and children, but the police tell you that unless their is cause, the armed men are perfectly legal carrying deadly weapons in family-friendly locations.
  • You’re at a coffee shop sipping your latte when you see a woman with a handgun casually tucked inside her purse chatting away on her cell phone and says she’s from out of state. You’re terrified at the sight of the weapon knowing that children are present. You ask an employee why loaded handguns are allowed at a coffee shop and the barista says that the owner still hasn’t posted a sign explicitly prohibiting carrying concealed weapons and therefore it’s permitted.

A gruff man with a handgun is known to be dangerous? “A gruff man with a handgun” describes a fair number of police officers.

He puts quotes around the word legal? It’s currently legal in nearly all states. So what is his point? The proposed law wouldn’t make the described scenarios any more or less legal.

Armed men in the park? I’ve done this more times than I could count and I know lots of people that do it. It’s currently legal in nearly all states. So what is his point?

Women at a coffee shop with a gun in her purse–and his point is? Oh, yeah. He’s terrified.

If he were talking about blacks or homosexuals that way it would be virtually impossible for him to get or keep a job. But since it is gun owners he is talking about he gets paid by the Joyce Foundation to spew hate at such a ridiculous level it’s difficult to not believe it is a deliberate farce.

Either Scott Vogel is conning the Joyce Foundation or he is really wacko. I’m really not sure which.

What do facts have to do with belief?

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Kevin asks, How Can People Still Believe This?

It’s easy, just because something is irrational doesn’t mean you don’t have to believe in it. Or so says one high school teacher.

Ayn Rand says it’s because philosophy isn’t taught. Or at least the philosophy that is taught, mostly indirectly, has been total crap. Philosophy, she said, is vital to humans. When we have crap for philosophy we make crappy decisions and this person is just one example of many with crap for brains.

Isn’t it About Time…

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…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?

Quote of the day–Dale L. Gillis

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It is distressing to see that the National Rifle Association’s Eddie Eagle Program will be part of the Highlands County Library’s Youth Summer Program. This was mentioned in Highlands Today on July 2.

The NRA is a lobbying organization dedicated to putting more guns in the hands of criminals. As a lobby group, the NRA twists the facts when it uses them at all. The NRA often sues cities and states to advance its radical program. How did the NRA get to be considered a harmless organization that should have access to our libraries and our children?

Dale L. Gillis
July 13, 2009
Gun safety among children
[“Dedicated to putting more guns in the hands of criminals?” I guess that is why they have they have the support of four million members, right? And that is why two thirds of the states Attorney Generals support the NRA lawsuit against Chicago.

“Twists the facts when it uses them at all?” See projection.

Gillis is just another bigot.–Joe]

I think I see a trend here

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Via an email from Chet:

The source is here.

I’m sure glad the stimulus plan saved 150,000 jobs since February. Just for scale, assuming the claim was true, those alleged 150,000 jobs account for about two widths of the horizontal lines in the above graph–since the beginning of the recession in the middle of 2008 about 6.2 MILLION jobs have been lost. Hence those 150,000 make a difference of about 2.4%.

So the government authorized spending nearly $800 Billion of money they didn’t have and now is considering spending more in a second attempt.

I think I see a trend here–these people just don’t learn, do they?

Anti-gun bigots in action

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Via an email from Mike B.

The city of Seattle can’t ban firearms from being carried openly because of state preemption–so they do what they can:

Q: Is it illegal to bring an unconcealed airsoft handgun into a public place?

A: Seattle police say it is, and reference Seattle Municipal Code section 12A.14.083, regarding weapons in public places.

That states: “It is unlawful to knowingly carry or shoot any spring gun, air gun, sling or slingshot, in, upon, or onto any public place.”

“An airsoft gun specifically fits into that weapons code,” police spokesman Jeff Kappel said.

But police note the above code does not reference or regulate the carrying of firearms which are different from airsoft guns.

So I could legally walk down the sidewalk with my fully loaded (18 + 1 of .40 S&W) STI and a spare magazine openly displayed in a holster on my belt and someone else with an unloaded Airsoft gun in their backpack could be end up paying a fine of up to $500 and/or spend two months in jail for a first offense (up to 12 months for a third conviction).

Bigots, they try to get away with whatever they can no matter how ridiculous it is.

This is an Idaho gun owner?

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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.

I Don’t Care Who You Are…

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…(or how many times you’ve seen it already) that’s funny right there.  With credit given to Larry The Cable Guy (you do also have an alter to him in your bedroom closet, complete with votive candles, don’t you?  Or am I weird?)

This goes out to Dennis A. Henigan, who clearly needs some cheering up these days as he’s being beaten by a bunch of redneck dolts, and to the people of the TSSAA, who need a little bit of reality therapy to help them in their decision making during these trying times.

Dennis; the dialog in the video is a little more than one of us dumb, inbred, backwoods Idaho rednecks can fit on a bumper sticker.  Maybe we could reduce it to a simple, easily repeatable and easy to spell phrase like, “Gun Free Zones Are Dumb”.  I don’t know; with your superior intellect, maybe you could do a little better.  If you do a good job I promise to put it on the back window of my “rig” as we say in Idaho.  Just be sure to make it small enough that it doesn’t obscure the AR-15 in the gun rack of my beat-up 4 x 4 pickup.

Vultures?

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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.

‘Investment Coordinators’

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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.

Quote of the day–Thomas Goldstein

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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]

Quote of the day–Robb Allen

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Markadelphia questioning my logical reasoning ability is like Helen Keller questioning my taste in music.

Robb Allen
July 4, 2009
In a comment to It’s the End of the World as We Know It
[Markadelphia, for those that don’t know, is a liberal who frequently makes comments at Kevin’s place.

I am of the opinion that with the quote above Robb actually somewhat understates the situation.–Joe]