The big reveal in Afghanistan is that what happened there can happen here, quickly. Those goat-herders just showed us how to defeat an Empire abroad. Now it’s time to defeat the empire within.
Tom Luongo
August 16, 2021
What If Afghanistan is More Than Just a Failed War?
[I suspect the rot is very deep and collapse could be much closer than what 99% of the people realize.—Joe]
I think I detect some hostility in the response.
Perhaps the anger clouded his thinking and this is why they limited the probable response to the unvaccinated. I am inclined to believe there are vaccinated people who also regard authoritarian activities as worthy of a similar response.
I’m not going to speculate as to why people buy pickup trucks, but the reality is the vast majority aren’t doing so for work purposes.
Their choice is putting us all at risk, whether on the streets, or through damage to the climate. Reducing further destruction to the climate and harm from needlessly fatal road accidents is far more important than corporate or consumer freedom.
It’s time to ban sales of pickup trucks for non-work purposes, for all of our sakes.
Davide Mastracci
July 13, 2021
Reducing further climate destruction and harm from needlessly fatal road accidents is more important than corporate or consumer freedom.
[Tyrants have to tyrant.
Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]
The democracy beat shouldn’t be some kind of specialized innovation, but a widespread rethinking across the mainstream media.
Making this happen will call for something that Big Journalism is notoriously bad at: An open-minded, nondefensive recognition of what’s gone wrong.
Top editors, Sunday talk-show moderators and other news executives should pull together their brain trusts to grapple with this. And they should be transparent with the public about what they’re doing and why.
As a model, they might have to swallow their big-media pride and look to places like Harrisburg, Pa., public radio station WITF which has admirably explained to its audience why it continually offers reminders about the actions of those public officials who tried to overturn the 2020 election results. Or to Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn’s letter to readers about how the paper and its website, Cleveland.com, refuse to cover every reckless, attention-getting lie of Republican Josh Mandel as he runs for the U.S. Senate next year.
Margaret Sullivan
July 28, 2021
Our democracy is under attack. Washington journalists must stop covering it like politics as usual.
[Ms. Sullivan openly demands the suppression of views which diverge from her narrative.
Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]
The FBI needs to go away. It should happen in an orderly and thoughtful process, over a period of months. Congress should authorize and create an investigative division in the U.S. Marshals Service and open applications for law enforcement officer seeking to be rigorously screened, vetted and then accessed into the new organization. Similar action was taken before in the very creation of the FBI. It is now time to clean house and restore the public’s trust in the “premier investigative agency” of federal law enforcement.
Chris Farrell
July 28, 2021
Disband the FBI
[About 99% of the Federal government needs to go away to be operating with the limits set by the U.S. Constitution. So the FBI is just a tiny snowflake at the tip of the iceberg.
And if you think about it a little bit you realize the bigger issue is all the Federal laws the FBI enforces. The laws need to be eliminated first or at least concurrently with the FBI. If they didn’t have laws to enforce their “teeth” would be essentially pulled and be mostly irrelevant.
The FBI was once extremely well regarded. I remember my dad once telling me, I must have been about eight years old at the time, how great the FBI was. They trained to shoot one handed and using their weak hand only. I was amazed at this. And, “Once the FBI is on a case the case will be solved. The FBI always gets their man.”
After Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the failed coup against President Trump, to hit just a few of the low spots, many people now rightfully regarded the FBI as an enemy of the people.—Joe]
If we’ve gotten to a point where a giant tech company, or even a little company, is silencing people who are providing first-hand sourcing for major, major news stories, or reading press releases from elected officials, that’s like not America anymore.
Naomi Wolf
July 30, 2021
Former Clinton Adviser Naomi Wolf: Big Tech Bans Leading to Self-Censorship
[I was chatting with someone about this sort of thing a few weeks ago and he said something which surprised me. He said, “I don’t expect Facebook to exist a year from now.”
I expressed my surprise but there were more important things to discuss and I dropped it. He is a former Secret Service agent, but I don’t see how that would give him insider knowledge about something as big as the elimination of Facebook as a company.
Is this a QAnon thing I haven’t heard?—Joe]
From Newsweek (emphasis added):
Millions of Americans could be forced out of their homes after the Biden administration declined to extend the federal eviction ban put in place last September to protect tenants during the pandemic. The White House said Thursday that it would not extend the moratorium, citing a Supreme Court decision last month against an extension past July.
…
Bush and Pressley spearheaded a letter to Biden Saturday—signed by six others including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota—calling for “an urgent government response,” according to Politico. “Extending the eviction moratorium is a matter of life and death for the communities we represent,” they wrote.
Rep. Maxine Waters of California called on Biden to issue an executive order to “expand and extend” the moratorium on CNN Saturday, criticizing the president for following the Supreme Court’s ruling. “We thought that the White House was in charge,” she said. “We have families, probably 11 million families, out there who stand to be evicted.”
I grant you that Rep Waters isn’t the sharpest Fruit Loop in the knife drawer, but her “thought” seems to be shared by others. This appears to include the writer of the article. I find this “thought” of hers extremely telling. She and others do not regard SCOTUS decisions as binding on the executive or legislative branch.
This is truly scary stuff. Make appropriate preparations.
Wokeism has infected the system and it is destroying everything. Let’s say the New York Times was always sort of Left, but it wasn’t bananas Left. There was a big plurality of opinion there and obviously Barry Weiss was there.
Barry Weiss, who’s a liberal. She’s a liberal, which doesn’t even really make sense to me anymore. But God bless her, she’s a liberal. She couldn’t even take it there anymore because there’s no Left far enough for the Left. There’s no woke enough for the wokesters.
They’re constantly purging people and as they do that purge, they’re going to destroy every institution that they’re let into.
Dave Rubin
July 27, 2021
Dave Rubin: A Growing Alliance Against the ‘Cult’ of Woke Ideology
[Encouraging stuff in the interview. Rubin claims more and more people are seeing the light. Seeing that the political left has gone completely off their rockers. And once they see this, there is no unseeing it. They then see the toxicity of the left and that it can be accurately described as a cult.
Once they see the insanity they may not become instant classic liberals or libertarians. But they are escaping the cult and are publicly pointing out the errors of the cultists.
Probably most importantly is that people are starting to think for themselves. They realize the sides are not left and right or “woke” and fascists/racist/supremist.
I especially like how he describes the “sides”. The sides are best described by “cognitive liberty” and “cognitive outsourcing”. Once people realize they are allowed to, and are capable of, thinking for themselves the world will be a much better place. We won’t all arrive at some universal truth. But it will mean you don’t become a social outcast if you aren’t woke enough. It will mean we have a decent chance of avoiding universal error.—Joe]
I started off not being pro-gun. I was largely apathetic, kind of leaning toward anti-gun. It became a fascination for me, from a physics and enthusiasm standpoint. I started getting into more political aspects of it and realized that my ability to protect myself with a firearm is probably one of the most important aspects of things that I do in my life, because the most important thing I have is my life. The ability to depend on myself to protect myself, and the people that I love, to me, is one of the most important things you could possibly have in this world.
Colion Noir
July 27, 2021
A Gun-Owning Citizenry Is a Free Citizenry
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
The constitution is pointless. It was meant to restrain govt. That didn’t work. The rights you have are the ones you take. In other words quit arguing about it and make machine guns in your garage.
john @john76804114
Tweeted on July 24, 2021
[I’m not sure I agree with this.
I’m incline to keep my car in the garage and have a nice shop for those sort of things.—Joe]
What is truly telling is that the government is no longer afraid to admit they’re blatantly censoring our 1A rights.
Before, they tried to hide it. Now they brag. They feel like they can do anything now.
This is how tyranny starts.
Lauren Boebert @laurenboebert
Tweeted on July 17, 2021
[She is referring to the Biden administration announcement they are “identifying ‘problematic’ posts for Facebook to censor because they contain ‘misinformation’ about COVID-19.”—Joe]
When law enforcement became a growth industry, liberty minded free men became endangered.
Maj Toure @MAJTOURE
Tweeted on July 17, 2021
[Technically, this is probably true. But law enforcement as a growth industry is a symptom. Politicians, in defiance of their constitutional limits, creating all the laws which made law enforcement a growth industry are the source of the problem.—Joe]
$1,000 per bullet.
That’s my solution.
John Ales AF @IAmJohnAles
Tweeted on July 12, 2021
[Apparently Mr. Ales has never heard of the 2nd Amendment or the black market. I blame government schools. Or he could just be evil.—Joe]
Wikipedia, like many other deeply biased institutions of our brave new digital world, has made itself into a kind of thought police that has de facto shackled conservative viewpoints with which they disagree. Democracy cannot thrive under such conditions: I maintain that Wikipedia has become an opponent of vigorous democracy. Democracy requires that voters be given the full range of views on controversial issues, so that they can make up their minds for themselves. If society’s main information sources march in ideological lockstep, they make a mockery of democracy. Then the wealthy and powerful need only gain control of the few approved organs of acceptable thought; then they will be able to manipulate and ultimately control all important political dialogue.
Larry Sanger
Founder of Wikipedia
June 30, 2021
Wikipedia Is More One-Sided Than Ever
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
I’d argue that one of the most in-your-face tyrannical phrases ever constructed is:
“RESTRICTED FOR GOVERNMENT OR LAW ENFORCEMENT USE ONLY”
David Codrea
June 29, 2021
Second Amendment will be Nullified if ‘Common Use’ is Restricted to ‘Popularity’
[A far more appropriate, and almost never used phrase, is found here:
Law Enforcement Restrictions
…
Governments that are unfriendly to basic human rights are not allowed the use…
It appears most people are of the opinion that our public servants are actually masters of the public. This attitude needs to change.—Joe]
Zero humans need a weapon that powerful. Most have them to compensate for 
s.
@MyBoxMyChoice21
Tweeted on June 23, 2021
[The irony of someone having a user name asserting freedom of choice and making a tweet about others having no need to make choices for themselves is surely lost on someone so stupid they claim an AR-15 is particularly powerful or that it is used as a penis substitute.
But, such is the situation with people who have little or no respect for civil rights.
They have childish insults. We have SCOTUS decisions.—Joe]
Political elites see California as their own little kingdom with their own special laws, and they plan to eventually spread those laws across America using California as the model. But, if such laws are overturned as unconstitutional, then the precedent actually works in reverse. Now, the leftists are concerned that an overturned gun ban in CA means more blue states will follow and their entire gun grabbing scheme will go out the window.
Brandon Smith
June 11, 2021
The Real Reasons Why California Leftists Are Terrified Of The AR-15
[The optimist in me sees the extremist gun restrictions in California gun as an opportunity. They have pushed things far past what normal people could possibly view as reasonable it makes it easier to get precedent set in our favor.
Once we have a firm defensive line we can then attack at whatever weak spot we chose and establish another firm defensive line. That is how we achieved shall issue concealed carry and how we are getting constitutional carry. That was mostly in the legislative domain but the same battle plan should work in the domain of the courts.
I would love to see, as Lyle demands, prosecutions of the perpetrators. But, the same reason California presents itself as an opportunity for us makes the prosecution angle difficult or perhaps impossible. The political jurisdictions with the best opportunities for prosecutions are the jurisdictions least likely to be friendly for prosecutions. We can escalate failures in the courts to friendly territory, but we cannot initiate prosecutions in friendly territory —Joe]
The government is made up of people in power who wanted to be in power and I think it’s important to remember that.
Kat Timpf @KatTimpf
Tweeted on June 25, 2021
[Never forget there are people who openly claim, “I was born to regulate.” There are also people who believe they are “born to rule”. They may be less public about it but they exist.
Power is addicting for these people. They get a thrill out of wielding power. And as time goes on to achieve the same thrill requires more and more power.
I suspect this was one of the reasons for the U.S. Constitution to have enumerated powers. Of course, as a practical matter, that didn’t last long.
A case could be made for nominations for political office to be made via lottery system. Perhaps then people would see the advantages of minimizing the power of government to the bare minimum of what cannot be done well via the private sector. But I suspect some other “lesson” and “solution” would be discovered to enable power hungry monsters to take over government.
I’m certain as long as there is a need for governments there will be a need for the citizen option of rooftop vetoing government overreach.—Joe]
The Bill of Rights isn’t completely dead:
Appeals Court Rules Aerial Police Tracking of Citizens Violates Fourth Amendment
The use of surveillance planes in Baltimore to track people’s movement for long periods without a warrant is a violation of the Fourth Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
The case revolved around an air surveillance program run by the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) called Aerial Investigation Research (AIR). Beginning in 2016, BPD announced it would be using cameras attached to planes to conduct aerial surveillance to fight crime.