Category Archives: Freedom

‘Get the Hell Out of Palestine’…

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…says Helen Thomas to the Jews in Israel.


Doug Powers posted it.  I’m amplifying it.  Watch the video.  Helen Thomas is one of the most revered journalists in all of Leftopia.  She’s been in the front row at Whitehouse press conferences since the Grant administration, and she’ll be there, just as revered, at the next one.


Let’s see; it’s been nearly 10 years since I began linking the motivations and goals of the jihadists with those of the American and European left.  In examining the various “peace talks” between Israel and Hamas, et al, brokered by American presidents, keep that in mind.

A potentiality is not an actuality

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Yesterday I posted a quote from someone opposed to open (and I would imagine any type of) carry. He was responding to someone else in the comments to a newspaper article:

“How many open carry citizens have committed crimes with their weapons?
Answer – none”.

You are incorrect. Open carry laws make it easy for psychos to tote
around LOADED weapons, which are responsible for a lot of the crime and gun
deaths each year. The law may be designed for the “law abiding” citizen, but if
you think only “law abiding” citizens utilize the law you are an idiot.

It is my belief that we are so frequently exposed to irrational and nonsensical thinking and behaviors that we frequently cannot see it for what it is. We accept it as normal and attempt to confront them on their own territory using their own “rules”. This is like mud wrestling with a pig. They are going to be an extremely slippery opponent, you are unlikely to win, and even if you do there is no hope of any dignity or great reward.

I didn’t notice that I had ignored this guy’s subterfuge until sometime after I had posted it and rather than update the post I decided to see if anyone else noticed and pointed it out in the comments. About a 1000 people have seen that quote here and no one has said anything about what the guy did. I doubt that he himself realized what he did. It is what these people do naturally. Their thinking process is so messed up that it just comes out.

The two points that need to be made are:

  1. The responder changed the question. The question was, “How many open carry citizens have committed crimes with their weapons?” The responder changes this to, the implied, “Does the ability to openly carry enable crime?”
  2. A potential to do harm is not the same as actually doing harm. In nearly every instance of a push for greater gun control (and, if you think about it some, nearly all government programs) those advocating more government control focus almost entirely on the potential harm if action is not taken and the potential good if the action is taken. Actual harm and actual benefits appear to be (and in many cases I’m sure it is deliberately) ignored.

This second point is very important. A potentiality is not an actuality.*

For the most part when we debate against gun control (or socialism for that matter) we use actual facts. We accuse them of using emotionalism but it goes deeper than that. They frequently argue about “what could happen”. When they do this there is almost no limit to what conclusions will be reached.

They end up arguing that .50 caliber “sniper rifles” can bring airplanes down out of the sky. To the best of my knowledge there has never been a case of a semi-auto or bolt action .50 caliber rifle taking down an airplane. Potentiality versus actuality.

They end up arguing criminals will buy guns at gun shows with “no questions asked”. Criminals obtain their firearms at gun shows less than 1% of the time. Potentiality versus actuality.

They end up arguing if you carry a gun it can be taken away from you and used against you. Defending ones-self with a gun results in less injury to the defender than any other course of action. Potentiality versus actuality.

They end up arguing that if there were strict, “common sense” gun laws in place crime would go down. At the very best the facts show heavy restrictions on private citizen access to firearms is not positively correlated with an increase in crime. Potentiality versus actuality.

Keep your eyes and ears open and your brain working. Don’t let them get away with arguing potentialities. Make them argue actualities. A potentiality is not an actuality.

*The title for for this blog post comes from Susan K. (Cherry Tree–Susan will know) who, about 25 years ago, used this phrase to emphasis a point in a debate I had with her. This post was inspired by the book I’m currently listening to, The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand. Susan was a huge fan of hers although I didn’t hear that exact phrase in the book (so far anyway) similar wordings and phrases caused me to remember the debate I had with Susan. It turns out, that if you do a web search for that phrase you will find that Ayn Rand did in fact use it–but in a totally different context.

Trade-offs and goals

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If you want to save yourself some time by not read my late night rambling just read three sentences from Say Uncle on this topic.


As an engineer I make a lot of trade-offs. Execution speed and size (assembly language) versus code clarity and development time (high level languages) used to be a big trade-off. Calculating results every time you need them or caching them in RAM is a trade-off (it didn’t use to be that way but today the answer is usually you want to calculate them every time). Do you load everything in RAM for quick access or leave it on disk until you need it? Do you bringing a new hire up to speed or do you do it yourself?


I can whip out some code that will test a hypothesis in a few minutes or an hour and not worry if there is a single comment in it or if it handles a single error condition. To implement that same functionality in a product that literally millions of people will use, sometimes millions of times a day (or even per minute) may take weeks of effort by a team of people. It will involve specifications, design documents, a test plan, manual testing, automated tests, unit tests, code reviews by multiple peers, and alpha/beta testing by thousands or even 10s of thousands of end users. It only takes me a fraction of a second to decide how to proceed when I know the final goal for the task at hand.


Man minutes versus man months of time involved. Two different extremes in the effort involved in implementing, essentially, the same functionality. The difference is in what I was attempting to accomplish.


I’ve been making engineering trade-offs for over 30 years and most of the time it comes pretty easy to me. When my officemate, a very smart person but a fairly new entry into actually producing deliverable code, asks for advice on a trade-off it takes more time for her to ask the question than for me to arrive at the correct answer.


Another example comes from this morning. My boss came into my office and asked, essentially, “Do we ever return an answer of less than ‘X’ for condition ‘B’?” I knew my code didn’t do that directly but there were times when my code got the answer from the server rather than computing it directly and I couldn’t say for certain without checking with the server people. I started to go down that path and explain how the server might come up with a different answer and I barely got started into the fine details when he stopped me. “Let me give you some more context”, he said. The context was he was writing an email with the target audience of upper management who would not care about the fine details. When he asked the question I thought there was some bug that had been reported and he wanted to know if it really was a bug and if so who it should be assigned to. Without knowing what he was trying to accomplish I had made the wrong trade-off. I was giving him more and more detail when he really needed validation of his high level overview.


As a gun lobbying organization the NRA-ILA makes trade-offs too. What they are trying to accomplish is to improve, and in certain worst case scenarios minimize harm to, our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. Nearly all other considerations must be given a lower priority.


At the NRA Annual Meetings last month I spent a couple hours talking to a NRA board member. He explained why they had done certain things in the D.C. lawsuit (for the most part I am not at liberty to discuss them) and had avoided the U.S. Supreme Court for decades. The next night (or was it the night after?) I spend time with Alan Gura who had a different view of the NRA contribution to the D.C. lawsuit. It was Gura’s contention that NRA-ILA really knows their stuff in regards to legislation but the same people attempting to handle court battles results in people working out of their area of expertise with less than optimal outcomes. My simple take on the topic was that the NRA was trying to avoid a disastrous loss and Gura was trying to get solid win. They both have our best interests at heart but in certain situations ended up “fighting over the ball” and risked fumbling it for a loss.


I think the people that are upset with the NRA support of Harry Reid don’t really understand the trade-offs involved and what the NRA is trying to accomplish. To best support the members, the gun owning people of this country, they have to play a “chess game” where they can never take back a move, the pieces are clouding in smoke, the playing field is shifting, the rules are only partially known and subject to violation by the individual pieces at any time. Try thinking three or four moves ahead under those conditions and see how well you can do. The NRA plays that game very well. They are experts at it. Sometimes when an expert is at work you will be baffled at the moves they make.


To the simple minded observer if you put a “good conservative” in office you will automatically get support for gun rights, hence you should always give support to “good conservatives”. Even an amateur like me can see far enough ahead to see a problem with that in certain situations. There are trade-offs involved. With a ‘D’ beside his name and lots of seniority Reid has lots of power that someone with an ‘R’ and little (or no) seniority would not have. That is just one trade-off. Another is that in certain jurisdictions a “good conservative” is not electable. The demographics of that district are such that the NRA can curry favor with someone that will be in a position to help us or they can try to defeat them during the election then try to make up with them after the election. Another trade-off is that some people like everything, or most everything, the Democrats offer but support our right to keep and bear arms. To a certain extent I am baffled by both the Republican’s and the Democrats. I really don’t understand (and don’t think they do either) the philosophy behind their politics. My guiding political principles are pro freedom. Each party has something to offer and a lot they want to take away from me in this regard. There are trade-offs in who I vote for.


In the case of Harry Reid an NRA lobbyist said this about him in an email discussion:



I have candidates for office running against pro-gun Dems who expect that NRA is going to endorse them as the pro-gun Republican challenger over the pro-gun Democrat incumbent…and tout all of their other “conservative” positions as proof that they’re the better candidate. They get frustrated with me, but I have to remind them that NRA doesn’t use whether you are pro-Life and small taxes to determine your endorsement or grade — and a large number of our members appreciate that, because they don’t agree with conservatives or Republicans on anything but guns! 😉


Whether they like it or not, Harry Reid has voted with gun owners and NRA 100% and used his position in the Senate to advance gun ownership rights in recent years. The Obama Admin was forced to sign a bill with Guns in Parks because Harry Reid allowed the Amendment. The House is holding up DC voting rights because Harry Reid allowed the DC gun rights amendment to the bill.


If Harry Reid isn’t the Senate Majority Leader, we’d have Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin — think we’re going to get any of those amendments on bills with THEM in charge? No — it’ll be more Lautenberg crap.


In the eyes of an expert political lobbyist the making of the decision about Reid took less time than it took to write the first sentence of the explanation and it’s clear that is the correct answer for gun owners. Those that try to change the NRA support of Reid risk fumbling the ball to the loss of all of us.

Opposing Gun Control

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I want to expand on a comment made here, since Joe often says I shouldn’t bury certain things in comments.  I’m never really sure what he means by that, so I can only give it a go;


The citizens have been declared incompetent.  Posing a danger to themselves and others, they cannot be entrusted with their basic rights.  That is, in a nutshell, the entire message of the left, and they call us hateful, racist and divisive.


 


It’s really simple; in their efforts to rob us of our treasure and trample our rights, they have to portray us as evil by way of justification and to rally others to their side.  That’s the whole gig, right there.


 


In opposing them, always keep that in mind.  When you cut right to the chase with the basics, there’s nothing for them to do but express outrage, kicking and screaming, pointing fingers and lying in the hope that we’ll be distracted off-subject, that we’ll embarrass ourselves with a reply in-kind or be intimidated into silence.  Maintain your course and composure, argue principles, and they lose every time.  This takes practice.


 


Remember that this is not about the person, or the people, making the argument.  If this or that person weren’t making the silly assertions, it would be someone else.  “It” will always find a willing accomplice.  You’re not fighting the person or the group of people on the attack.  You’re fighting the urge toward theft and coercive power.  That urge feeds on weakness, and can infect a lot of people.

Quote of the day–Dave Kopel

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Petitioners’ prohibitions are now and always have been based on invidious prejudice that the law-abiding citizens of the District are incipient murderers.


David B. Kopel
2008
Brief of The International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA), The International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors (IALEFI), Maryland State Lodge, Fraternal Order of Police, Southern States Police Benevolent Association, 29 Elected California District Attorneys, San Francisco Veteran Police Officers Association, Long Beach Police Officers Association, Texas Police Chiefs Association, Texas Municipal Police Association, New York State Association of Auxiliary Police, Mendocino County, Calif., Sheriff Thomas D. Allman, Oregon State Rep. Andy Olson, National Police Defense Foundation, Law Enforcement Alliance of America, and The Independence Institute as amici curiae in support of respondent. D.C. v. Heller.
[This applies to anyplace, anytime, there are restrictions on the right of ordinary people to keep and bear arms.


Also note that this is a big worded way of saying the anti-gun people are bigots.


I was adding a quote to my database from spending most of the evening listening and talking to Dave Kopel at the NRA Annual Meeting last month (thank you Sebastian and Bitter for arranging it!) when I ran across this one that I had not yet posted. I would post the one I heard directly last month (it is awesome!) but he had been drinking and was probably a little more enthusiastic about freedom than he normally presents himself in public.–Joe]

Speaking of the FBI

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While making my previous post about the FBI I remembered another item I picked up at the NRA annual meeting:



I obtained this from the husband of Nancy R. (also known as “The Shorter Half”).


It is reputed (in jest) to be a practice target for Lon Horiuchi. I would like to point out there is no evidence to support the assertion that Horiuchi practiced to shoot a mother in the chest while holding her baby in her arms–Vicki Weaver was shot in the head.

Invisibility

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Via email from Chet we have a simple tutorial in how to become invisible.


It’s not perfect because he doesn’t talk about how to obtain a residence without generating a paper trail (hint from my experience–look through the “roommates wanted” ads) but it’s a good start at keeping your physical profile a little lower than most while still being visible on the Internet.

Quote of the day–sfprogressive

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If we see anyone walking around with a gun it is a signal that they are crazy and we should lock them up. “Guns don’t kill people, but crazy open carry people walking around with guns can kill people”. Lets hope that Obama has the guts to push for a total gun ban and melts down all the guns these crazy people want to wank around with.


sfprogressive
May 28, 2010
Comment to Dueling emotions on gun control flare anew
[Ahhh… yes. This is no surprise. If you don’t conform to their view you must be crazy and need to sent off to the mental hospital. That is what they did in the USSR and it’s what the “progressives” advocate here.–Joe]

Censorship

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As I’ve said before, I buy banned guns and books.


I think proposed “assault weapon” bans should be viewed exactly the same as bans on books, magazines (unintentional pun), or videos. The same goes for import bans on firearms, it’s just another type of censorship.


Taking it a step further why isn’t a fully functional Ma Duce considered a work of art and given the same protections as any other piece of art or expression?

Quote of the day–Thomas Paine

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THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth.


Thomas Paine
The American Crisis
[I find it interesting how applicable these words are to our present situation.–Joe]

They are getting impatient

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It appears the left is getting so close to their victory they are getting impatient. Sort of a “I’m so close I can taste it” type of thing. This is from Woody Allen:



“It would be good… if [President Obama] could be dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly,” Allen is quoted as saying.


Allen is also to have said: “I am pleased with Obama. I think he is brilliant. The Republican Party should get out of his way and stop trying to hurt him.”


I read this last night and spent a lot of time thinking about it as I went to sleep and after I work up this morning.


My first thought in response was Allen would probably think it was a less desirable situation that he thinks because the health care system would probably be heavily strained by all the lead poisoning that would result from such a change in our form of government.


Then this morning I thought, “No. That wouldn’t happen. The military would be required to implement it and the leadership would quietly and firmly tell him that they took an oath to defend the constitution from all enemies–foreign and domestic. But then it occurred to me that the military course of action would probably be to replace Obama with the next in line to succeed the President. I’m not certain what Biden would do but I am of the opinion that Pelosi and the Marxists in Obama’s cabinet would all be inclined to take the role of dictator. What would happen if all the Commander-in-Chief replacements said their position was that a dictatorship (or the equivalent) was what was required?


Bear with me for a minor tangent…


Last week a friend (who I think I might have already known had a gun but he does not identify as a “gun-owner” like many of my friends) was on a rant about the debt, the bailouts, the health care farce, etc. and said he was about ready to get out his gun and start oiling it. He might have to start shooting pretty soon he said. I asked, “Who would you shoot?” After a long pause he said, “I would figure it out.”


This is would be the problem the military would be faced with. If there is just one or two (or 1000) people that are a threat to our form of government then the solution, even though “messy”, illegal, and perhaps immoral it would still be plausible to implement. But what if it is 20% of the population that is intent on enslaving the other 80%? Do you still think it could be done? Before you answer keep in mind that only about 1% to 2% of the German population was involved in the Holocaust and yet that small percentage was not stopped by the vast majority. Predators have a different mindset than gives them an advantage in many situations.


I don’t know the answer. But I do know the left is getting impatient and that recent gun sales show people who value their freedom are contemplating such solution to the looming threat.

Quote of the day–John Lott

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Having a gun is consistently the safest course of action when someone is confronted by a criminal. Research by academics such as Gary Kleck and Larry Southwick have used the National Crime Victimization Survey, which surveys about 100,000 to 150,000 people each year, to directly measure how different types of victim reactions impact the probability that they will be injured by the attack. The data from the 1990s indicated that the probability of an injury after self protection with a gun is 3.6 percent; for running or driving away, 5.4 percent; screaming, 12.6 percent; threaten without weapon, 13.6 percent; and passive behavior, 55.2 percent.


John Lott
An Interview with John Lott
[I find it very interesting that the anything other than being passive will result in less injury than “giving them what they want” which is frequently the advice given by anti-gun activists.


This shows three things.


First, violent criminals think different than most people. In the stereotypical situation the bad guys offers you a deal, “Do what I want or get hurt.” But the evidence is that the bad guy frequently does not honor the deal they offered. They break the “contract” they wrote.


This was one of the surprising things I learned in the book Ice Man about mafia contract killer Richard Kuklinski. One of his contracts were brothers in South America who were suppliers of cocaine to the mafia. The mafia found a cheaper supplier and rather than simply paying for the last shipment and ordering from the new supplier they refused to pay for the last shipment. When the brothers complained about not being paid they hired Kuklinski to murder them. In another case Kuklinski had a request from a pharmacist for some cheap Tagamet (Kuklinski was also in the business of hijacking trucks and selling the contents “wholesale”). Kuklinski didn’t have any leads on it but when the pharmacist said he had the cash ($20K) in hand Kuklinski told him he had the drug and then killed him for the money when the delivery was supposedly going to be made.


For some reason this failure to honor agreements surprises me. It shouldn’t, I have had far too many personal interactions where people and organizations that are supposedly “normal” law-abiding and trustworthy violate not only verbal but written contracts that they themselves wrote. And that doesn’t even count the U.S. Constitution and how it has been violated by our public servants.


As a bit of a tangent this is further evidence that unless you have a means of enforcing a contract you should not count on the contract being honored. The Second Amendment is a last resort contract enforcement tool.


Second, I believe that criminals have a behavior pattern that can be accurately modeled as predator versus prey. The more you act like prey the more likely they are to treat you like prey. If you give off signals that you are also a predator (you can be a benign predator such as a sheep dog) the more likely they are to avoid getting into a conflict with you. If they think of you as a “grass eater” they do not think you worthy of respect any more than they would respect a steak in the refrigerator.


Third, it shows anti-gun activists live in a fantasy world with only a tenuous connection with reality.–Joe]

The Bigger the Government…

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…the Smaller the Citizen.


I heard that saying from Dennis Prager the other day, and it stuck.  Turns out you can buy the bumper sticker here.  Go there and watch the video too.  It’s nicely done.


Speaking of freedom; I just had a nice conversation with a pro freedom (which makes him an enemy of the state, I guess) candidate for the Idaho state legislature.  We talked while he was standing outside a local business handing out pamphlets.  I mostly asked questions.  First was; “What’s your political philosophy?”  I’ve hit others with the same question, and it stumps them a bit every time (strange, don’t you think?).  This guy reacted a little better than most.  One thing sticks out like a sore thumb anytime I talk with one of these (for lack of a better word) “tea party” candidates.  They tell me the same thing– people are pissssed offfff at the status quo Republicans and the Left in general.  I mean torches and pitchforks pissed off.  Regular Americans, who would much rather just mind their own business, have had enough B.S.  But they’re waiting for a peaceful resolution.


November 2010 can’t come soon enough.  That’s when we get what will be one of our last chances to start to resolve this from within the system.  November 2012 is a very, very long way off given the pace at which things have been going to hell.  Still; talking with people like Ike gives me some hope.  We agreed that “the fix” if it’s possible, will come from the state level, and will involve no small level of defiance of the feds.


The feds are hopeless at this point, and will resist with all effort, I believe.  That would make state politics more important than ever.

Quote of the day–NotaPIFan

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I’ve noticed a trend with right wing fascists, like the above-commentators. When a poll shows findings that counter their wacky ideas, challenge the credibility of the poll. Why do we allow a minority of crazy, right wing people who believe the earth was created in 6 days and in faith healing to so dominate our political discussions? Can’t we just send them to a farm where they can live out their cloudy-minded days in peace and without harming the rest of civilization?


NotaPIFan
Comment at 5/12/2010 11:02 a.m. to Should gun-control group wake up and smell hot joe?
[“Send them to a farm”? Didn’t Joseph Stalin do that as he was trying to implement his utopia?


Denial of civil rights, reeducation camps, and gulags–it’s what communists/socialists/liberals/progressives do. It’s in their nature and they can’t help it–but you can.–Joe]

Wow!

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I really should read the decision before saying a whole lot but my first impression is that this is incredibly alarming:



In a broad endorsement of federal power, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Congress has the authority under the Constitution to allow the continued confinement of some sex offenders after they have completed their criminal sentences.


Prisoner: “Today is the day my sentence is complete!”


Government: “Today is the day we start keeping you in prison without due process and ex post facto increase the penalty as long as we feel like it.”


[H/T to Chet from work.]

On my way

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I’m on my way to Charolette for the NRA annual meetings.


I made it through A Security Theater at Seatac with only a minor hassle.


Because I was checking a gun through in my baggage TSA handles the bag “special”. They opened up the suitcase, pulled out the hard-sided case with the handgun and swabbed the interior for explosives. The gun was in a side compartment and they didn’t even see the gun. They just wanted to swab the interior of the gun case.


What do they think that is supposed to do? Other than, of course, irritate me.

Quote of the day–JadeGold

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So how do you measure a “potential terrorist”?

NRA ballcap or decal.

JadeGold
May 6, 2010
In the comments to Bloomberg on the “Terror Gap”.
[And when 80,000 “potential terrorists” get together this weekend just think of the havoc they will create. And it happens every year. It’s time people realized we can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately have freedom of association…

 

Oh, that’s right, the people at a NRA convention are extremely well behaved. It’s when a dozen or more leftists get together that they frequently riot and/or destroy property. The leftist terrorist organizations (FALN, ALF, ELF, anarchists, revolutionary socialists, etc.) commit far more crimes in this country than all the conservative, right-wing (National Alliance, WCOTC, Aryan Nation), and libertarian (have there any been libertarian terrorist organizations?) organizations combined.

 

I guess it must be the mental problems of JadeGold causing them to engage in projection.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Alan Keyes

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The only difference between today’s slavery and the slavery of the old South is that at least the plantation owners paid for the chains.


Alan Keyes
Presidential Candidate
At a speech in Orem Utah in approximately ~2000.
Via Richard Mack and From My Cold Dead Fingers–Why America Needs Guns, Third Edition (“Final Chapter”), page 197.
[Most people in this country don’t seem to realize they are slaves. A typical attempt at refutation might go something like, “Life is good! And if the government would just give us [fill in the blank] life would be even better. We aren’t slaves!” I’m almost at a loss for words in such a conversation. Their own words refute their claim. When you have to beg your superiors to give you what you want with no opportunity to escape you are their slave. I have heard slavery defined as when more than “X” percent of your work output is taken by force and only the remainder is used for your food, housing, and other individual needs. IIRC “X” was in the neighborhood of 25%. Our taxes far exceed exceed 25% of our work output. I have no meaningful escape to freedom from the oppression of my “master”. I, in many ways, am a slave.–Joe]

It sounds like a good idea to me

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I haven’t read it but I like what I see here:



The philosophical idea of liberty and Capitalism reached its peak at the time our Founding Fathers were authoring the U.S. Constitution and its enumerated Bill of Rights. Standing repeatedly in the way of progress and human dignity, then and now, are the nihilistic philosophies of radical economic Socialism and its myopic mystical counterpart, violent religious fanaticism. Today, these two binary ideological forces are embodied by irrational terrorism on the part of Islamic fanatics in the Middle East (e.g. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.), and radical secular extremists posing as intellectuals in the socialist wing of the Democratic Party, the U.S. Congress and the White House. Together they form a political and ideological date-rape drug for liberty and Capitalism. The present work advocates amending Federal treason law to include the definition of Socialism as a traitorous act of intellectual terrorism, and prosecuting the legislative acts of Socialism by the elected enemies within the American government who would destroy Capitalism, end private property, expropriate the means of all production and manufacturing; ultimately destroying our American right to “…Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Stripping controls from taxpayers

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From the editorial The Gun Lobby’s Long Shadow in the NY Times:



Senator John McCain and other members of the gun lobby’s cohort are pressing for legislation to strip local taxpayers in Washington of such basic gun controls as owner registration and a ban on semiautomatic battlefield rifles — laws already upheld by the courts.


First off, the owner registration and “ban on semiautomatic battlefield rifles” was not upheld in the Supreme Court. My presumption is that they are talking about the Heller decision which merely said registration and bans on certain types of guns were not at issue in the decision.


Second, it is very telling the way the writer words things, “strip local taxpayers in Washington of such basic gun controls…” It has not been proposed the taxpayers be stripped of anything other than “chains”. It has been proposed the local government be stripped of a claimed power than infringes on a specific enumerated right. The wording used is analogous to someone whining about proposed legislation that would eliminate registration of blacks and prohibitions against them being in public after dark after the 13th Amendment was passed.


Such basic controls are just common sense, right? It was foolish to pass the 13th Amendment but even if we accept it at face value surely no one can believe that it can mean that the people will be stripped of basic common sense Jim Crow laws. Can they?



Do you know that this will marginalize your side with the American people so severely that you will lose credibility for years to come?  Are you insane?  Or are you just really so blind that there is nothing, nothing, that you could ever, ever support to keep anyone, anyone, from [edited to “sneaking around after dark”]?


God. This one is so simple.  I cannot believe that you and your commenter’s can be opposed to this and call yourselves American patriots.  It’s put up or shut up time, [edited to “nigger lovers”].


Bigotry is an ugly thing. No matter where it is found.