Category Archives: Economics

What’s the problem?

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From the Seattle Police Department blog:

Security came out of nowhere,” he told officers, adding that all he did “was not pay for some items.”

I will concede that the perpetrator could just be criminally stupid. But nearly every time I walk down the streets of Seattle I’m amazed at the number of communists openly advocating their failed economics. I can’t walk more than a couple blocks without seeing someone selling “Real Change” (here is one socialist/communist editorial I found after about 30 seconds of looking).

Tonight as I was heading to my bus I crossed Pine Street on the east side of 3rd. There were a bunch of people chanting and holding signs in the middle of Pine street. The one sign I bothered to read was something about demanding a $15/hour minimum wage. I couldn’t understand all the words of the chant but it ended with “against the wall”. I don’t know for certain but it sounded like a threat to me. On the north side of Pine there were a bunch of police officers on bicycles. One was giving directions to the others and they broke into two groups and surrounded the chanting crowd. A few minutes later I received a couple Tweets from the Seattle PD:

I have to wonder; Is this what it was like in the early days before the communists took over in other countries? Even in the cities of Kirkland and Bellevue just a few miles to the east of Seattle openly advocating for communism is rare. On the east side of the state and on into Idaho it’s even more rare. Yet in downtown Seattle it’s so accepted that someone there acts as if there isn’t a problem with taking things from a store without paying for them.

We have a serious problem if the concept of private property is so alien that when these people get caught stealing their response is bewilderment and ask, “What’s the problem?”

Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell

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One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people’s motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans– anything except reason.

Thomas Sowell
Dismantling America: and other controversial essays
[It’s so bad that people cannot distinguish between a coherent argument and an emotional appeal. I see this most frequently in the gun control movement but it is common in all of politics and probably all human interaction.

We saw it in government legislating “affordable housing”. We saw it in government legislating “affordable health care”. We saw it in the government creation of the welfare state. We saw it in government “creating jobs”. The list is probably impossible to enumerate.

Look at advertising. Do the majority of ads give you numbers and statistics or attempt to evoke emotions?

Reason is nothing but a thin veneer which is easily and frequently pierced.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Martin Luther

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Die verfluchte Hure, Vernunft.
(The damned whore, Reason).

Martin Luther
[While this and similar words from Luther are frequently used as justification for rejection of religion I, even as an atheist, tend to give him a bit of a pass for it. It appears that in context he was referring to using reason to determine the nature or validity of god(s), not the general use of reason. He was not consistent in this however. For example he concluded that the earth was motionless and the sun, moon, and stars moved around the earth because some phrase in the Bible said as much.

But an analysis of Luther’s philosophy is way beyond the scope of a blog post as well as my interest. I bring up this quote because of it’s application to politics, economics, gun control, and even interpersonal relationships.

As Lyle has pointed out many times:

If you’d been born in Saudi, you’d most likely be a Muslim, in Borneo maybe a cannibal, born in America with low self esteem and watching the Old Media, you’ll be what I call a “default leftist”, meaning you’ll have the mentality that has you expressing puzzlement. It’s a given, and very few people can escape it, and even then they don’t really escape conditioning really, but are merely receiving conditioning of a different kind.

In Luther’s case he had a set of assumptions that he would not, perhaps could not, challenge despite evidence those assumptions had flaws. The Muslim, the cannibal, and the “default leftist” have a different set of assumptions about the world around them. To a certain extent those assumptions are unchallenged or even buried so deep into the unconscious they are invisible to the possessor of said assumptions.

The very basis of truth and knowledge within a culture depends upon a base set of shared assumptions. If those assumptions are at odds with the real world, as in the movement of the earth versus the sun, moon, and stars in Luther’s case, then reality is frequently rejected rather than the unacknowledged assumptions.

Lyle goes on to claim:

To be truly objective means you have no Earthly conditioning. How possible is that, being as we’re all born into some form of conditioning?

What are we doing right here, right now, if not attempting to reprogram people to a different set of cultural assumptions or “stimulus A = reaction B”?

Is our over-arching thesis that there is an “Ultimate Measure or Ideal of Right and Wrong” and if so, where is it? Or are we trying to tell people to “be objective” and then be the ones ourselves to define what is objectivity, thus forming our own cult?

I don’t buy the conclusion that there is no, or perhaps cannot be, an objective view of reality. Yes, we have biases from our culture. Yes, we have limitations of our senses. Yes, ultimately we cannot say with absolute certainty that our universe is not just an incredibly detailed simulation in some super-being’s computer lab. But even in this later case we can characterize the essence of our universe in a way that can be reproduced by others with significantly different cultural biases. For example, a dropped rock always falls and boiled water always evaporates and you will be find wide agreement with those claims across nearly all cultures.

From such simple, reproducible, observations one can build an entire objective view of the world that includes mass, time, distance, and temperature. You may lose some people as you start manipulating the simple concepts and forming derived concepts such as energy, sub-atomic particles, and quantum effects but a (perhaps very long, detailed, and expensive) set of experiments can be done to retrace the path and arrive at the same conclusions. If a different conclusion can explain the same data obtained from the repeatable experiments then two or more people can discuss the differences in the conclusions and, in most cases, devise an experiment to disprove one or both of the differing conclusions.

This is the scientific method.

Yes. The scientific method can be, at some level, described as a cult. This is because, if you dig deep enough, there are base assumptions which are not provable. An example would be that we can trust our senses to correctly tell us there does exist some object we call a rock and that such an object does fall. You might claim this is clearly provable. But I claim that you cannot disprove the claim the entire universe was created a millisecond ago complete with intact memories, buildings, books, and archeological evidence of ancient plant and animal life. Or try proving that the “rock” you are so certain actually exists is not just an elaborate model, along with models for all life forms and the rest of the universe, in a super computer.

But even if you can successfully argue that the scientific method is a “cult” not all cults, or world views, are of equal validity. The cult that believes a spaceship with aliens will soon arrive and carry off the true believers saving them from the imminent destruction of the earth can be proven wrong when the arrival date of the spaceship passes and the associated destruction of the earth fails to occur.

Data and reason conclusively demonstrates that some “cults” are more valid than others. It is only by the willful, or negligent, rejection of reason and/or data that most “cults” continue to have followers.

Many will claim, with what I find to be fairly convincing evidence and reasoning, that reason has been destroyed in our schools. While this may have a great deal of validity a case can be made that reason is just a thin veneer over a very primitive brain that does not recognize reason and is far, far more eager to embrace the assertions of authority figures or comfortable beliefs of simple sound bytes.

How else can you explain the widespread embracing of assertions as “Violence is always wrong.”? Or the small parade of people marching past my office window yesterday chanting, “No justice, no peace!”? It is my opinion that people gather into crowds and chant in unison because it helps them believe the irrational and the unbelievable. It penetrates that thin veneer of reason and taps into that deeper primitive brain. It gives them a sense of accomplishment when no accomplish, beyond the destruction of reason, has been achieved.

The “currency” of the left is in masses of people with simple, and almost always, wrong ideas.* Why do you think we run into “Reasoned Discourse” so often? Why do you think the leftist talk show hosts shout down their “guests” who disagree with them? It’s because they actively reject reason and data. Their minds have been stripped of, never developed, or actively reject that thin veneer of reason.

Peterson Syndrome is merely an articulable example of the absence of this thin veneer. I have recently mentioned to Ry and Barb L., “There are far too many crazy people in the world.” It’s true that much of the bizarre behavior we see around appears “crazy”. But these people are not really crazy in the usual sense.

It is crazy to reject success? The left has made tremendous strides in Dismantling America (Thomas Sowell) by rejecting reason. All the advances in gun control in the last century was through the rejection of reason and data on both the benefits and the clear intent of the 2nd Amendment. It’s crazy that an abusive spouse would claim their victim deserved the beating because dinner was five minutes late. But if they repeatedly convince their victim it was their own fault and the victim stays with them was it really crazy to make that claim?

It is my belief “the damned whore, reason” only services a small subset of the human population. That small group of people were, and are, frequently attacked for being seduced by the “damned whore”. But that same group of people, when they could escape the inquisitions, purges, and genocides, brought us health, wealth, and knowledge billions of times greater than the collective minds of 100’s of millions of others who could not or would not partaking of her services.

As Thomas Sowell points out, after Roman collapsed it took a 1000 years to recover to a point comparable to the peak of Roman culture. How much more clear of examples than Detroit, Greece, Cyprus, and Spain do people need to reject the politics of the left? Will it take another 1000 year lesson?

The answer is no example will be “clear enough”. These people do not operate on examples the way those serviced by the whore do. They cannot distinguish between intention and results. They cannot distinguish between truth and falsity. They are missing that thin veneer of reason and appealing to reason in someone without reason is a fools errand.

I see only three futures with numerous variations ahead of us. Two are exceedingly unpleasant and I believe the third is exceedingly unlikely. Those options are:

  1. We convince a much larger portion of the population to embrace the “whore” of reason. I believe this is so unlikely that claiming it impossible is probably a safe bet.
  2. The entire human society collapses into superstition, chaos, tyranny, and massive numbers of people die from starvation and disease.
  3. Relatively small geographic areas with defensible borders achieve relatively self supporting infrastructures with something approximating “Gault’s Gulch”. Those outside those few and small areas experience the die off. Those surviving will, in essence, experience another long dark age.

For a long time I assumed rural areas, such as the farm where I grew up, would be relatively safe. But there is historical evidence that farmers (along with bankers) are frequently among the first victims of societal collapse. So now I don’t know what to think or how to prepare for the final fall of reason to the barbarians.

I’m left thinking about the wise words of Marty Smith:

To hell with the 72 virgins … Give me three good whores.

—Joe]

* One of the most basic tenets of the political left is that is somehow wrong for there to be wealthy people. It’s not wrong that there exist super wealthy people. The world would be a better place if everyone, by todays standards, were super wealthy. And in fact by the standards of 1000 years ago the bottom 1% of the population in the U.S. have nearly unimaginable wealth. 1000 years ago all the richest king’s gold could not have bought a vaccine to prevent their child from contracting small pox. Nor could they have purchased a ride on a vehicle that could take them 50 miles in less than hour. Or gotten a valid answer to some of the toughest questions ever asked within a few minutes.  But almost anyone today can get that for a pittance if not for free.

Without that thin veneer of reason the people of the political left cannot, or in some cases will not, recognize that the poor are only temporarily, if that, improved by taking wealth from the rich and redistributing it. The situation of the poor is improved through the creation of more wealth.

This creation of more wealth was how our world today became so much better for everyone than the world of 1000 years ago. We created a trillion (just a WAG) times more wealth. Creating more wealth may increase disparity between the rich and the poor but in the long term the poor will be improved far more than if the wealth of the rich was taken from them. This is not just an assertion but a simple extrapolation of countless “experiments” run in hundreds of cultures around the world over hundreds if not 1000s of years.

This creation of wealth required a large population growth and a dramatic increase in the consumption of natural resources. Both the population growth and the consumption of natural resources were, and are, seen as catastrophic by the political left. Yet, humans are far better off for it.

Quote of the day—charles hugh smith

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Everything centralized, from the Federal Reserve to the Too Big To Fail Banks to Medicare to the National Security State depends on the Federal government being a Savior State that must ceaselessly expand its share of the national income and its raw power lest it implode. All Savior States have one, and only one trajectory– they must ceaselessly expand and concentrate wealth and power or they will fail.

They are like the shark, which dies once it stops moving forward: the Savior State must push forward on its trajectory of expansion or it expires.

Stasis is not possible, nor is contraction; the promises made to the citizenry cannot be withdrawn without political instability, but the promises cannot be kept without fatally disrupting the neofeudal financialized debtocracy.

charles hugh smith
July 4, 2013
The Next American Revolution (Emphasis in the original)
[His main point is that the next revolution will be much different than any in the past. It will be one where the existing bureaucracy is bypassed and ignored rather than being forcibly removed from power. It will be, he claims, a place where, “wages are no longer an adequate model for distributing the surplus generated by the economy.”

I agree with his characterization that the government is on a path where it must constantly expand or implode. I can believe his is right that the next revolution will be different than any ever seen before. But I am far from convinced that he has it right on the nature of the next revolution.

It seems to me that the nature of the majority of people is that they want/desire/require a central leader or authority. Either they either want to be ruled or they want to be a ruler. The concept of just leaving people alone to freely associate with others is inconceivable to most people. Even in a relatively free state they think in terms of freedom being forced upon them by some authority.

It is my expectation that from the ashes of our current government there will rise some new form of claimed authority to rule over the people and the vast majority of people will have not learned the lessons of history and will welcome it.—Joe]

In my other life I am also a mechanic

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I started repairing musical instruments in the 1970s. My hippie days. Started a business doing that when I was 19. Taxes and red tape slowly turned me, or helped turn me, into a conservative, if by conservative we mean someone who believes that people should stay the hell out of other people’s business.

Anyway it’s difficult to get away from the musical instruments completely. Below is a Yamaha 894– solid silver body and keys, and this one has a custom headjoint made by Drelinger in White Plains, NY. The Japanese have been making some fine instruments and this one is no exception. Each key is like a piece of jewelry, not in the sense that certain guns are said to be “jewelry” but literally.

Every key is fit to its pivots or shaft to perfection. Any tighter and it would bind with temperature changes. One key can have a half dozen or more parts, silver soldered together in a jig and hand polished. The soft pad each key holds must produce an air-tight seal with a light touch to the tone hole, it must do it quietly, and it must usually do it in mechanical combination with one or more other keys, so there is a fair amount of regulation of each key, and more regulation between keys.

image

The soft pads are leveled to the tone holes by use of paper shims of various thicknesses. I work with .001″, .002″ and .003″ shims mostly. Mark, remove the pad, cut a shim, paste it on the back of the pad, reinsert the pad, and try. Repeat as necessary, which can be many times per pad. You can see the punches, of which I’ve made several to fit various pad cup sizes, and bits of round shims, and a razor blade for cutting them into pieces. Sometimes you use whole shims to increase the effective thickness of the pad.

If you’re not already crazy it can drive you there. Many, many attempts, by many people (myself included) have been made over the decades to come up with a pad that’s more or less self-leveling and that can still hold up to moisture and all the rest, without sticking or making more noise, and so far it’s still the old felt and bladder skin pad that’s generally preferred.

It takes hours and hours, but I love it when it all comes together and the instrument finally becomes a “single thing” again, rather than the many parts I’ve been working on separately. You could even say it’s music to the ears. Lately though I’m given pause, wondering what good any of this does for anyone.

This flute is one of several owned by the principal flutist in a Northwestern U.S. orchestra, and yes; she knows that her flute is being worked on by a gun accessory corporation president. We’ve known each other for decades. She’s also a university professor and so it is safe to say that our world views differ somewhat. Two worlds. We get along very well all the same.

Quote of the day—Sebastian

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I don’t want to face being driven from my home by the likes of Mike Bloomberg, Joe Biden and Barack Obama. No more two Americas. This has to end. We need to stop these people and ruthlessly crush them.

Sebastian
June 18, 2013
40 Round PMAGs
[This is what is required and, at least on the gun issue, there is a reasonable chance of success (for some values of “success”).

The bigger problem is that repression is much more than just guns. Currently it includes soft drinks, light bulbs, collecting rain water, how many gallons flushing your toilet requires. In another year it could include restrictions on owning gold and/or silver, TSA groping at train stations, and rationing of health care.

Although I’m a pretty optimistic person I’m essentially convinced (the Obama Care ruling on health care was the last straw) we are getting out of this without tremendous pain. The question is how to optimize the chances for my immediate family in the various scenarios.

I have have ancestors that go back to pre-revolutionary war (Barb L. even has Mayflower ancestors) and most steadily moved west in as the country opened up. They escaped the big cities with the corruption and repression associated with them. There isn’t much further we can move. Maybe Alaska could offer some respite but Alaska has to import a lot of goods which means they can’t really be self-supporting in many cases.

I fear collapse with the associated risk of a rise of a dictator is possible. Or would such a collapse follow the USSR model where the individual states regain power as the Feds go broke? Or would the Feds confiscate the wealth in such a way that it destroys the infrastructure as it goes down?

There are far too many “columns on the spreadsheet” to predict. I think what needs to be done is write up the plausible scenarios and plans for dealing with them. Prepping with food storage, “bug out locations”, and low level medical training until the economy recovers? Learn blacksmithing and soap making, acquire draft horses and horse powered farm implements and prepare for a return to technological world similar to 1900? What’s common to most scenarios? What’s likely and what is implausible?

The looters are destroying the country and, really, the world. The only question I see is how much will be left when they are stopped. The answer hinges on whether it is because they ran out of things and places to loot or is it because the producers finally stood up to them and said, “No. Stop. No further. Looters will be shot.”—Joe]

More on Metadata

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This has been passed around for a while now, and it’s fascinating.

A certain cyber spook who shall remain nameless at this juncture told me about this sort of data analysis many years ago. It was just one or two little sentences along the lines of, “You would be AMAZED at the sort of things “they” can find out about you.” As I say; that was many years ago, and orders of magnitude in increased capability have been achieved since. As a merchant having done installment sales for more than a decade at that time, I had a database of my own, consisting of thousands of accounts, and immediately could see the power of what on the surface would seem like rather mundane and mostly useless points of information.

BUT, when you ask the right questions, and can sort by multiple data fields, WOW! We used it to make buying decisions, which were extremely important and had to done months in advance of peak selling seasons, and so it involved recent history and long term trends. It was also extremely useful in predicting patterns and indicators of contract violations. If I told you half of that stuff I’d be branded a scumbag, a bigot and a general son of a bitch. Its one and only purpose though was to avoid going bankrupt– You make the wrong decisions and you’re stuck with major inventory you can’t pay for, or you get it out the door and don’t get paid for it, and so you can’t pay for it.

So yes; we profiled in a very big way, you could say. At one time the default rate was so bad that we required a credit check of every prospective customer, but with analysis of a large enough database were able to do far better by asking for only a few simple bits of information.

Learning important things doesn’t need to come from positive data either. That is to say, what isn’t there can be as useful as what is there, when forming the kinds of association tables in the link, or plotting behavior patterns. For example; knowing those times when someone is unaccounted for (enter the Smart Grid, to know when someone is not at home), when compared to certain events, over time, can tell you a whole lot.

So I now wonder what a look at the metadata in the time and place of Jesus (arguably one of the most influential people in human civilization) would show. How about Bedford Falls of “It’s a Wonderful Life” (thoughbeit a fictional town)? In that story, you could say that Clarence showed George Bailey where he fit in the metadata analysis.

The Soviets, using infiltrators, both of the overt and the covert kind, were able to come up with their various arrest and kill lists in much the same manner.

That brings us to another issue, that being the concept of the inception i.e. a planted idea– The tiny seed of an idea that can germinate in the minds of people, multiply and grow into something large. The looks into associations in the link are all very interesting, but being able to predict or pinpoint inception sources is also very interesting.

Reading about the various groups and group associations in the link got me to thinking about the modern version of the 1700s pub. You’re looking at it. Sort of, but it’s much more open to the world.

I was also struck by the modern lack of such clubs and associations. We’re a much more fragmented society. We don’t meet with our neighbors much at all anymore, whereas it used to be common. We often don’t know anything about them.

But your government sure as hell can find out.

And I submit that this is by design. It’s either by the design of mere mindsets, which will reflexively respond in predictable ways, or by some mastermind scheme. I say it’s a combination of both, each nourished by the other.

Call it a leap into Crazyland if you like (I’ll be quick to say I told you so, later) but looking at the data points over my lifetime, things make a lot more sense if one assumes that our government is in a full-on war against the ideals and principles, the foundation of the U.S. and has been for decades. When other people are saying “W. T. F.!???” and getting all exasperated and confused, I’m saying, “Well sure. It fits perfectly don’t you know.”

Try it. Ask yourself what institutions, traditions and associations would be under attack or already under control if our own government were at war against the American founding principles and the American economy. What groups would be funded worldwide, which ones given a pass, and what groups would be targeted for degradation, intimidation or destruction. What industries would be targeted for nationalization? Yup. Gotcha. On all counts.

So accept it. Then you won’t be surprised or confused anymore. The specific organization of this war isn’t so important, not so much as that you realize it’s a war. And we’re losing, mainly because we’ve not been willing to face up to it’s full import. It’s too crazy. Too horrible. We can’t go there. We’re cowards. Look and listen to the pundits. Any of them, no matter how great you think they are. They’re giving you data points that they themselves are unwilling to connect. We’re all afraid and so we’re very easy to distract. Oh look! Gays!

Quote of the day—Brian Cates

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This demonstrates the biggest problem with Liberals isn’t KNOWING what the evidence shows. Instead, the problem is that their vested interest in a false vision compels Liberals to discount each and every fact that would destroy that vision.

Brian Cates
June 4, 2013
Why Evidence Doesn’t Matter to Liberals Enchanted by a Vision
[I’ve run into this sort of thing with numerous people. Many people simply cannot be reached with evidence.

I’ve literally had people tell me, “I don’t believe your facts.” That the facts were from the FBI UCR and there was no contrary evidence did not matter. He did not even have an interest is supplying “his facts”. He was just right and I was wrong. This was a college professor. That he was an admitted Marxist teaching in the school of business made me realize we did not have a common basis for communication. I’m pretty sure we don’t even share the same reality.

Some people have unshakable faith in things that are demonstrably false. When these type of people are encountered as individuals it can be a source of amusement, frustration, or make your job miserable. When these people are in positions of governmental power they burden you with stupid regulations, destroy economies, and commit genocide.

The Second Amendment was designed and put in place to protect us from Liberals enchanted by a vision.—Joe]

Quote if the day–James E. Miller

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The theory of collectivism relies on the unsteady moral conscience of leadership. Capitalism rests only on the material desire for more. The former requiring more virtue than the latter, it would be wiser to put one’s faith in that which does not demand the all-knowing hubris of central planners.

James E. Miller
May 27, 2013
Government and Collapsed Bridges
[I have nothing to add.–Joe]

It’s the whole point

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There seems to be some surprise and indignation at the idea that the IRS would be used as a weapon against political opponents. I don’t understand.

First; what did you expect from a communist administration? Really. Can you say, “DUUUH!”? Second; the entire tax code is a weapon of political power. Always has been. It is designed to nudge you into behaviors you’d not be engaged in if you were left to your own devices, and to nudge you out of other behaviors. The very concept of a progressive tax is a political weapon, designed to substantially reduce wealth creation and accumulation. Raising revenue is far down the list, or it is only an ancillary function of the tax code and the IRS. I could on and on, but you should have gotten the point by the time you received your very first paycheck.

The specific targeting of individuals and groups is nothing new at all either. The Clintons were famous for it. Rush Limbaugh has been getting audited every year for many years. The list is longer than this whole blog since its beginning.

A “Gosh, we’re sorry” will change nothing. The only solution, assuming anyone wants one, is to abolish the tax code, abolish the IRS and go to a single digit flat tax. Otherwise quit your bitching– this is exactly what you’ve been asking for. Begging for, actually. Don’t bother pretending to be surprised– it makes you look even more stupid.

My alternate quote of the day – Me

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In comments here;

“The bottom line is; we have authoritarians and anti-authoritarians living in the same society. Each is attempting to foster its separate, incompatible doctrine. Neither can afford to tolerate the other.”

It’s more like we’re living as separate societies in the same country, and that we have incompatible world views rather than “doctrines”. Neither world view can tolerate the other, because one example is often capable of poisoning, or infecting, a whole lot of people.

The authoritarian’s fantasy of a glorious regime can be highly threatened by one “upstart” who simply will not be intimidated or fall in line. The ideal of liberty in the minds of anti-authoritarians can be poisoned by the emergence of gangs as they infiltrate the political and media infrastructures.

So far in this post I’ve treated authoritarians and anti-authoritarians as separate but equal, but there is of course a major difference– The anti-authoritarian (libertarian) can best further his goals by being straight forward and honest, while the authoritarian must use deception, fear, anger and doubt.

One is honest and motivated by love while the other is a lying sack of shit motivated by hate trying to appear good and reasonable only as a means of getting its greedy way. One is honest with himself to the greatest extent possible while the other must avoid reality or be exposed and discredited. One builds and provides while the other is a deadly parasite, and yet one can be seen as mocking the other for its selfish goals.

Which are you? Most people are confused on the matter, believing themselves to be one when they are the other. Further; you can at times actually be doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Feints within feints within feints. What a tangled web we weave.

You can dress the conflict up in millions of words, appealing to various motivations and emotions, but it is still that simple, age-old conflict between love and hate, or liberty and tyranny.

Each sees itself as a liberator, too, and again it is because the mere existence of the other is a threat to its own existence. One is poison to the other and so it longs to be free of that poison.

How many ways can we say the same things? Millions and millions and millions. We fool ourselves into playing the same deadly game over and over.

Still more on communications

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I got an e-mail today off our web site, complaining that we’re too hard to contact. He went on and on about it. He wants to spend money. He was asking several questions that are answered on the web site. His message did not include his phone number or address, just the e-mail.

My e-mail reply was bounced back to me by his mail server.

This reminds me of the woman who always hooks up with scum-of-the-Earth men, who abuse her, and she then ends up hating men, the Progressive who advocates massive restrictions on commerce and then complains about businesses colluding with politicians, and the gun control advocate who points to Chicago’s crime rate as a reason why we need more gun restrictions.

Methinks thy complaints be self fulfilling.

Quote of the day—Lyle

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The answer is pretty simple. It can be found in the basic tenet (which is a lie) of communism; “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

You get more stuff by asserting your need. You assert your need by asserting your status as victim. Victims need perpetrators from which the goodies are coerced. And so it’s very simple; if you’re in the business of looting, you go where there is the most wealth to be looted. That’s the U.S.

Lyle
April 29, 2013
Comment to Quote of the day—Bill Maher
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Divemedic

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Here in America, we have passed the tipping point: There are more people on the government dole than there are working and paying the bills. There is no longer an escape. The slide towards financial collapse has begun. Once the powers that be see this, they will try to avoid the anarchy that happens when the free money machine stops, and there will be a massive crackdown.

It is mathematically certain.

Divemedic
March 26, 2013
A virus
[There are some outs. None of them particularly pleasant.

  1. Entitlements are drastically cut. The scale required to balance the budget will result in riots, starvation, inadequate shelter, inadequate health care, and large numbers of premature deaths.
  2. The deliberate killing of “undesirables”. In some scenarios this is just a more direct version of 1. above. Another scenario is that the “undesirables” are the moderately wealthy (the extremely wealthy can almost always escape) and the looters extend their “on the dole” careers until they have consumed all that is consumable including most of each other.
  3. Massive influx of productive people and wealth from other parts of the world. This wealth and productivity would be taxed to continue supporting paying out the “entitlements”. The addition of new people to the roles of the beneficiaries would have to be essentially stopped with productive people having to work, essentially, “until their dying day” to pay off the debt without adding to it.

The third option is the least unpleasant and had some hope of occurring. This is because other countries are ahead of the U.S. on the collapse timeline. The wealthy of those other countries will, and are, fleeing. If the U.S. can attract those people then it may become a viable option. The biggest problem is that those on the dole are also fleeing areas of economic collapse. As long as the U.S. has “free” food, shelter, education, health care, ad infinitum it will be just as impossible to keep them out as has in the past.

I think the most likely scenario is that the government will not cut entitlements or stop adding people to the roles of those on the dole. The political reality will be that it is always easier to continue the looting tomorrow than it is to trigger the riots today. The end result of this is that the inevitable collapse is more complete and more people will die.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech

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The one topic Sol cannot talk about are the Jewish overseers: the Judenrat, and the Kapos, Jews who collaborated with the Nazis. Of these men and women, Sol just shakes his head in disbelief. The evil of the Nazis is comprehensible for evil is ever present. But the Jews who cooperated in the genocide of their own people is beyond imagination.

The Judenrat and kapos are still with us.

Too many American Jews worship at the altar of the state. Their religion is not Torah Judaism, but the Democrat party. So closely do they identify with the power of government, they don’t even realize that they are creating the apparatus of a soft tyranny that will enslave their children and their children’s children.

Obamacare is Egyptian slavery. It is Pharaoh’s court of magicians, charlatans who create an illusion of reality.

Robert J. Avrech
March 25, 2013
Passover 2013: Of Slaves, Slavery, Judenrat, Kapos and America
[It’s not just Obamacare. It’s the entire nanny-state. And it may not be so “soft” when the economic system collapses.—Joe]

Five year plan?

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From Tyler Durden:

Yesterday Senator Tom Harkin introduced S. 544, “a bill to require the President to develop a comprehensive national manufacturing strategy.”

In effect, Senator Harkin wants the President to centrally plan the economy. Never mind that the President has zero experience in business or manufacturing. But hey, this worked out so well for Stalinist Russia, it’s no wonder Mr. Harkin wants to copy that model.

If I were emperor of the U.S. I could come up with a plan that outperform anything the President could accomplish in five years and have it implemented in five days. It’s really simple:

Government shall make no law restricting the free association of people other than a tax on retail sales not to exceed 5% and to enforce contracts freely entered into by people and companies.

All waste products shall be safely contained or returned to the natural environment in such a manner that those people responsible for producer of said waste are willing to build their own homes on, eat, breath, or drink said waste products.

In five years there would so much wealth generated there would be private companies with terraforming Mars, robots bringing mining products back from the asteroid belt, and sex tourists going on vacations to the resorts in low earth orbit.

Unintended consequences

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Or; Action, Reaction, Synthesis
Or; Thesis, Antitheses, Synthesis
Or; “I’m not sure that it means what you think it means.”

Refusing to sell to government entities that attack the second amendment is fairly popular, it certainly has made good press, and I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, but I’m not sure people are thinking things through.

Oskar Schindler was a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party, and he had extensive business dealings with the Nazis. Just keep that in mind.

Let’s say we all refuse to sell to any government entity that even infringes (literally; “touches around the fringes”) on second amendment rights. That would be all of them. Just keep that in mind; we are talking ONLY about degrees of violation when we say that New York or Chicago is bad and OUR jurisdiction is…what…a bit less egregious? Or does your state and local .gov commit zero infringements? So we all refuse to sell to any government entities. What will be their obvious reaction, for 100% sure and for certain? Taxpayer funded, government owned munitions factories of course, with union workers, full benefits and a retirement plan, and now they are, one way or another, competing with the private industry. Good luck with that. OR, you know all it takes is for one individual company to sell to your worst violators, they will become the next General Electric, i.e. a pet company for the tyrants, funneling their profits via multiple channels into the Democrat Party. They’ll arrange it that way just for that purpose. It’s what Progressives do.

What we KNOW…. that isn’t true

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Mark Twain said: It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” I’ve seen a lot of examples of this in my life, and heard of more. I’m sure you have too. In fact, in installment 002 of “The Stars Came Back” Helton points out that a lot of time the so-called experts have really BAD plans, and that you can’t tell what the outcome of a lot of projects will be based on the credentials of the people starting it.(He is specifically talking about climate science, in fact)

The Climate debate is no different. There is a LOT of garbage out there (and I say this a a teacher with a cert that includes “Earth Science;” I’m in the “CO2 is plant food” camp) Then, along comes something from out of the dry fields that takes on directly one of those “common knowledge, common sense” things directly, and says, “We were wrong. The solution we have been pushing for decades is CAUSING the problem!” It takes some good sized balls, and a dose of humility the size of a Hollywood celeb’s coke habit, to make an admission like that. More so to take that fact, and a much better DEMONSTRATED solution, on the road.

We all know over-grazing causes land to turn into deserts, right?

Maybe not. Maybe the solution to desertification is to put MORE beef in the fields, and on the grill. It’s a win-win-win-win, meaning the lefties will HATE it, and fight it tooth and nail. But the guy makes a good case.

So much for that “common caliber” meme

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Re-think?

Background checks

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The anti-gun people insist “improved background checks” and even “universal background checks” should not be controversial. Let me try to explain why they are both pointless and completely unacceptable to thinking people.

Pointless demonstration number 1:

The claimed purpose of background checks is to prevent “people who shouldn’t have guns” from acquiring them. That is a noble objective. It sounds so reasonable and “common sense” that I want to agree without giving it even a seconds thought. It’s an excellent idea! It’s such a great idea we should apply that to some other dangerous things. Let’s have background checks before people can purchase recreational drugs. Far too many people abuse them and destroy their lives and frequently the lives of others. Keeping recreational drugs out of the hands of people that would likely abuse them is just “common sense”. Right?

Oh! That’s right. We have something way beyond background checks in place for most recreational drugs. We have banned them not just from “people that might abuse them” but from everyone. How’s that working out? How long does it take the average high school dropout to find a way around the ban? Yeah, that’s right, Einstein. The average high school dropout can get all the recreational drugs they want within an hour anytime of the day, any day of the week. So just how effective you think a background check would be in reducing the abuse of recreational drugs?

Now apply what you know about the recreational drug issue to firearms. A background check is totally pointless.

Pointless demonstration number 2:

Universal background checks can only claim effectiveness if they can be enforced. Prostitution is illegal in most states but if a beautiful woman leaves a $100 bill on my nightstand when she leaves in the morning (yes, stretch your imagination a bit, or a lot, for purposes of illustration) how does  the government enforce the “no sex for money” prohibition in this case? It was a “private transaction” between willing parties. Do you think either party has an interest in disclosing the transaction to the police? And even if they do there is a significant obstacle in that it becomes a “he said, she said” problem.

In the absence of gun and/or gun owner registration the case of the “private transaction” between gun owners boils down to the same thing. The government, and perhaps one party to the transaction, can claim no background check was done. As long as the person being prosecuted keeps their mouth shut and the transaction wasn’t recorded it is going to be impossible to prove that a background check wasn’t performed. Remember, in order to get the Brady Act (“instant” background checks for gun transactions) passed the law states that all record of passing background checks must be destroyed. Searching the records of all those authorized to perform background checks would be a violation of Fourth Amendment rights.

Pointless demonstration number 3:

Even if a background check is performed it only requires a stolen or fake ID to defeat it. The fake ID doesn’t even have to be for a real person! The check is not against a “white list” of people that are “allowed” to have guns. The check is against a “black list” of people that are disallowed from possessing guns.

Conclusion:

If you still advocate for background checks for firearms I can only think of two possibilities:

  1. You have a motive other than reducing the misuse of firearms.
  2. You also get confused when your caretaker is reading Dr. Seuss books to you.

Now that we have it settled that background checks are completely pointless let’s proceed on to the “unacceptable” demonstrations.

Unacceptable demonstration number 1:

Background checks cost money and time. The FBI portion of them is “free” to the people doing the transaction. But really that just means the government is wasting scarce law enforcement resources using money they obtained through taxes (obtained at gunpoint–oh, the irony!). The only people authorized to do background checks are people with Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs). Because it is time consuming they always charge a fee and you must do a face-to-face transaction. This adds more wasted time and money to the transaction. A transaction which is a specific enumerate right.

This pointless waste of time and money is unacceptable at any time but when the government is deeply in debt and the economy is doing poorly wasting precious government and private resources it is even more so.

Unacceptable demonstration number 2:

If law requiring universal background checks is passed it will only be a short time before the politicians will “discover” the “loopholes” that prevents the law from working as intended. These include the lack of gun registration and the lack of defense against fake IDs. Any attempt at gun registration in the U.S. will result in massive non-compliance on a scale that will make alcohol prohibition look like first graders failing to stay in a straight line while waiting to go on recess. Look at the non-compliance experienced in the failed long gun registration in Canada. Multiply that by three (the difference in per capita gun ownership rate), multiply that by two (U.S. citizens trust the government less than Canadian citizens), then add ten billion rounds of ammunition (annual consumption by private citizens). Or look at New York state,  multiple by fifty (the citizens of other states included in the non-compliance) and multiply that by ten (the citizens of New York state have the option of moving to a freer state, with no place to escape the resistance will be more fierce), then add ten billion rounds of ammunition.

The “ID loophole” was identified years ago by the Feds and they passed a law requiring “Real ID” by the states. How’s that working out?

For the government to force this sort of situation upon the people is unacceptable.

Unacceptable demonstration number 3:

Since demonstrating that background checks are pointless the continued insistence upon forcing them upon the people this must mean that those continuing to advocate for them are either evil (option 1 above) or have the comprehension skills no better than that of an above average German Shepard (option 2 above). Despite the existence of blue dog democrats we have never elected someone so stupid as a real dog to a Federal office (Senator Patty Murray is not a counter example, she is capable of reading and comprehending most Dr. Seuss books). One can only conclude those advocating for background checks are evil or are doing so under duress.

Good people don’t knowingly and willingly cooperate with evil. It is unacceptable.

Conclusion:

Background checks are pointless and unacceptable. We are better than this.

Even compromising with those that advocate for them is the moral equivalent of compromising with people that want “common sense” limits on the 13th Amendment or someone intending to rape your 10 year-old child. The response must be an exceedingly firm no.

Update: I almost forgot, as pointed out by Tim S. in email a few days ago, there is a form of background check almost all gun owners would accept. That is if there were an “endorsement” on your state ID card (such as drivers license) like the restriction for corrective lenses or endorsement for motorcycle or commercial drivers license. It wouldn’t be much, if any, more effective than that currently proposed by the anti-freedom people. But it would eliminate the concerns over registration and most of the expense and wasted time. If such a thing is offered as a compromise to the anti-gunners expect it to be vigorously rejected. They know it doesn’t meet their “needs” and as such will refuse to give in.

Update 2: See also the conclusions which can be drawn from this study.