The fatal fallacy of gun control laws in general is the assumption that such laws actually control guns. Criminals who disobey other laws are not likely to be stopped by gun-control laws. What such laws actually do is increase the number of disarmed and defenseless victims.
Thomas Sowell
Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
December 23, 2016
Sowell: Gun-control laws do not make us safer
[Via a Tweet by #2A Wisdom@2AWisdom.—Joe]
Hypothesis: “Academic freedom” was constructed as a notion in order to protect communists and other leftists who worked in education from responses by non-leftists. Now that it’s no longer needed, because leftists are thoroughly in control of those institutions, it’s being discarded.
Glenn Reynolds
March 5, 2021
AND NOT BY ACCIDENT
[It certainly seems to fit the available evidence.—Joe]
We are facing a new post-justice, post-truth society. We won’t be able to debate our way out of it, vote our way out of it, or tweet our way out of it. No one is coming to save us. If traditional America wants to be free, it will have to stop living in the past, get up off the couch, and take action.
Max Morton
February 23, 2021
The Last Stop Before Thermopylae
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
It may appear that the state holds power over the people, but in reality the converse is true; it is the people en bloc who—by choosing to obey or not obey—hold ultimate power over the state. The only way a state can enforce its laws at all is if the people overall acquiesce to it. If sufficiently widespread, political resistance would disrupt the status quo to such a degree as to render its function completely ineffectual. In the final analysis, it is the people who hold the power.
James Ketler
February 25, 2021
Why the Capitol Riot Terrified the Elite
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Once the cattle (that’s us) have been herded into the digital slaughterhouse, we will be told to “use it or lose it” when it comes to our own money. In other words, either we spend the money, or the government will take it away.
Of course, the spending can be channeled into politically correct causes by excluding unpopular vendors such as gun dealers or conservative social media platforms from the payment system. This represents total domination of human behavior through world money + digital currencies + confiscation.
This is not speculation anymore; it’s happening in front of our eyes. The Great Reset is coming fast. The future is here.
The only solution is to use a non-digital, non-bank store of wealth that cannot be traced or manipulated. Given the planned dollar devaluation, it’s one more reason to own physical gold and silver.
Get it while you still can.
James Rickards
February 22, 2021
The Great Reset Is Here
[While I can see his claim is more than plausible, I’m not certain it’s as dire and certain as Rickards says it is. But, he’s far more qualified than I am to make that judgement.
I’m currently listening to his book The New Great Depression: Winners and Losers in a Post-Pandemic World which was published January 12th of this year. I suspect he will make his case for the QOTD conclusions in the latter portions of the book which I have not yet reached.—Joe]
I find this very telling about the character and intentions of “House Democrats”.
House Democrats’ Attempt to Pressure TV Carriers Could Trigger Lawsuit: Dershowitz
Reps. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) and Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) sent a dozen letters to 12 different carriers this week urging them to deplatform or otherwise take action against Fox News, Newsmax, and One America News for allegedly spreading misleading information about the Jan. 6 Capitol breach and the COVID-19 pandemic.
They pointedly asked the carriers if they were planning on carrying the networks “both now and beyond any contract renewal date.”
The open debate of ideas tends toward the truth.
Stated little more strongly, falsehoods fail on their own. Only the truth needs to be suppressed.
If you are afraid to lose something, then that something can be used to control you. Carano was not afraid to lose and so she could not be controlled, and I commend her for that. The example she has set for others is far more valuable than any work that she might have done by submitting to the Hollywood Cheka. If only the majority of people would do the same, our civilization could change for the better overnight.
All tyranny is an illusion predicated on fear within the minds of the enslaved. So, do not fear.
Brandon Smith
February 24, 2021
How Societies Are Imprisoned: The Whole World Will One Day Be Like Hollywood?
[See also this example.—Joe]
Anybody who wants to participate in a protest unmonitored, engage in clandestine meetings, or travel untracked has to, at a minimum, leave behind all cell phones and other modern electronic devices connected to their names and identities. A burner phone purchased with cash and free of social media accounts is probably fine, but that’s as far as it goes. The conveniences of the connected modern world come with a steep price: our anonymity.
J.D. Tuccille
February 26, 2021
So Long as You Carry a Cellphone, the Government Can Track You
[No! It is not fine!
In addition that phone or other networked device should never be turned on near your home or any other place you don’t want snoopy people to find out about. Just having your “burner phone” associated with the location of your place of work and your child’s school is going to make the Venn Diagram dramatically smaller.
And don’t forget there are a ton of license plate scanners out there. All the traffic cameras and many police cars automatically scan the license plates and put the data in a database that is kept for long, long time.
Of course, you could also deliberately create deceptive data on the phone if you were extremely careful. As in have a friend turn it on in another state while you were known to be at meeting at work. Of course your friend needs to keep his license plate from being scanned while in the vicinity of where the phone drops its breadcrumbs. Bicycles may be useful.
My first order advice is that the less information you provide the better. The burner phone only gets turned on if you really need it while at the event. Then as soon as the event is over you destroy and dispose of it.
Think of it this way… How much would you pay to get out of bad legal situation? It’s more than the cost of a burner phone, right? So pay that price up front to the phone retailers rather than on the back end to the lawyers.
Also you should leave your normal phone turned on at home or another place far away from the protest you are attending.—Joe]
Small-minded, even ignorant people see salvation in controlling the minds and lives of others. Is it a mass delusion that they believe they are actually “fighting racism,” that they’re doing this for white people’s own good? Or are these the same efforts at control that have been around since humans created civilizations?
Rick Moran
February 20, 2021
‘Critical Race Theory’ Costs a Brave Smith College Whistleblower Her Job
[There are alphas in most social animals so I expect the answer is that control of others has extremely deep genetic roots which go well beyond the first human civilizations.
And of course “racism” is just the current tool of choice in our country. In other times and places the tool was chosen to match a vulnerable target. Classic example from early in the 20th Century are Hitler with the Jewish (and other) people while Stalin had Trotsky, counter revolutionaries, capitalists, etc.
In the U.S., in addition to “racism”, some of the tools of control are “climate change”, “equality”, “social justice”, etc. And those tools are used against the political right. Don’t believe for a second it is actual racism they believe they are fighting. If that were the case you wouldn’t have people talking about multiracial Whiteness. Or claiming that asking students to show their work in class is “white supremacy”. These two examples are just the beginning of what is to come.
History is full of examples to provide hints as to how this may turn out. If the people who would be masters get their way, as they did in the USSR, the bar to pass the purity tests will continually raise. Even now things like the “master” branch in software version control, and “whitelists” and “blacklists” have come under attack. And non-trivial amounts of resources are being expended to satisfy the ever increasing demands of the power hungry.
Each victory for these people increases their thirst for more. They get a thrill from it. Even a “high”. They absolutely love it and in more candid moments admit this. Such people need to be stood up to because the end game is far worse then standing up to them now.
Here is one brave woman standing up:
If she can do it so can you.—Joe]
Western States Sheriffs’ Association
2018
Western States Sheriffs’ Association web site page About
[I’ve heard details via private channels which are even more reassuring.—Joe]
Fake beef. Fake crowd noises at sports games. Fake fans. Fake news. Fake health orders that make real human interaction illegal.
At what point do people realize this is every Sci-Fi nightmare movie ever?
An0maly @LegendaryEnergy
Tweeted on February 18, 2021
[Good question.—Joe]
Many schools in the United States have ceased issuing grades that have any meaning, or they have dropped grading altogether, which means there is no way to judge progress or achievement. National test scores for evaluating possible college entry are on the way out almost everywhere as they are increasingly being condemned as “racist” in terms of how they assess learning based solely on the fact that blacks do less well on them than Asians and whites. This has all been part of an agenda that is being pushed that will search for and eliminate any taint of racism in the public space. It has also meant the destruction or removal of numerous historic monuments and an avoidance of any honest discussion of American history. San Francisco schools are, for example, notoriously spending more than $1 million to change the names of 44 schools that honor individuals who have been examined under the “racism and oppression” microscope and found wanting. They include George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Paul Revere.
Philip Giraldi
February 18, 2021
The Decline of the West: American Education Surrenders to ‘Equity’
[It is easy to conclude our technological progress is being impeded by these people. There might even be sufficient evidence to support the hypothesis we are about to enter, or at least are at risk of entering, a new dark age. This could even be an existential threat to technological human society.
One of the ways I see this problem is that some people, perhaps with malice aforethought, confuse and/or conflate equality of outcome with equality of opportunity. And furthermore the “equality of opportunity” is, again perhaps with malice aforethought, confused and/or conflated with “equality under the law”.
I think at least part of the solution to this problem is to push back HARD when someone plays this confusion/conflation con game.
Just because there exists a difference in earnings and/or life expectance, and/or criminal convictions, and/or representation in some professions, etc. does not necessarily mean there was discrimination and/or racism. People of Asian decent account for only 5.9% of the U.S. population. While Black or African American people account for 13.4% of the U.S. population. Yet as of 2019 in the U.S.:
So, if someone claims racism against minorities is to blame for income inequality demand they explain how Asians, with less than half the representation in the U.S population of blacks have over twice the household income.
Furthermore demand they explain, if they claim the differences in outcomes are racist, why the differences begin to show up at the start of school rather than in graduation rates, college admittance, or starting wages.
The next point which I think needs addressing is that the whole concept of “inequality is bad” must be struck down. I’ve adequately addressed that issue before.
Put as succinctly as I know how, we must celebrate success and extraordinary achievement instead of rewarding victimhood.
One last thing. I do not claim to know the reason why people with different skin colors have different success rates in our society. I only know that it is extremely unlikely it is because of white supremacy and or racism.—Joe]
What we’ve done in the legislation is really create the set of circumstances and conditions that will facilitate the buy-back.
We are eliminating all legal use of these prohibited firearms. They can’t be legally discharged. You can’t fire them. You can’t take them hunting or to a range. They can’t sell them or transport them. They can’t bequeath them or trade them in any way. They will be required to store them in a very secure safe or vault.
I think the vast majority of people who bought these guns to use as firearms, now that there is no legal way to do that, they’ll be highly incentivized to surrender them for destruction, and then we’ll have a fair compensation program available to them.
Bill Blair
Canada Public Safety Minister
February 16, 2021
Bill Blair says new gun bill will help keep handguns off the streets without a federal ban
[It would seem to me that some incentives, and a fair compensation program, need to be given to Blair and company to respect the rights of the people.—Joe]
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.
If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?
Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
Thomas Jefferson
November 13, 1787
Letter to William Stephens Smith
[This provides more context to the one I usually see.—Joe]
Global markets today seem irresistible to central bankers with plans for better times. Planning is the central bankers’ baleful vanity, since, for them, markets are a test tube in which to try out their interventionist theories.
Central bankers control the price of money and therefore indirectly influence every market in the world. Given this immense power, the ideal central banker would be humble, cautious, and deferential to market signals. Instead, modern central bankers are both bold and arrogant in their efforts to bend markets to their will. Top-down central planning, dictating resource allocation and industrial output based on supposedly superior knowledge of needs and wants, is an impulse that has infected political players throughout history. It is both ironic and tragic that Western central banks have embraced central planning with gusto in the early twenty-first century, not long after the Soviet Union and Communist China abandoned it in the late twentieth. The Soviet Union and Communist China engaged in extreme central planning over the world’s two largest countries and one-third of the earth’s population for more than one hundred years combined. The result was a conspicuous and dismal failure. Today’s central planners, especially the Federal Reserve, will encounter the same failure in time. The open issues are, when and at what cost to society?
The impulse toward central planning often springs from the perceived need to solve a problem with a top-down solution. For Russian Communists in 1917, it was the problem of the czar and a feudal society. For Chinese Communists in 1949, it was local corruption and foreign imperialism. For the central planners at central banks today, the problem is deflation and low nominal growth. The problems are real, but the top-down solutions are illusory, the product of hubris and false ideologies.
James Rickards
2014
The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System
[See also Book Review: ‘The Death of Money’ by James Rickards which concludes with:
Rickards book is packed with cutting edge analysis and rational perspectives on pretty much every topic the world citizen has to know about. As of this moment, there is no other book offering explanations and solutions to the most pressing problems the world is facing, making “The Death of Money” an absolute must read.
I’m only about 25% into the book and find it fascinating. I found the market intelligence and financial war sections particularly interesting. Rickards and others worked with the CIA to design and implement a system which could have predicted the 9/11 attack a few days before it happened based on the shorting of airline stocks by people in the social networks of the hijackers. It also has other uses related to insider trading.
“An absolute must read”? I probably wouldn’t go that far, at least not based on what I have read so far. But it’s highly recommended.—Joe]
Data companies are starting to sell “extremists scores” to help companies avoid doing business to Trump supporters. What is your score?
Andrew Torba @a
Posted on Gab February 11, 2021
[Exercise of a specific enumerated right is evidence of being an “extremist”?
“Extremist”? With those type of numbers…
I don’t think that word means what they claim it means. Or, probably more accurately, someone is doing some really heavy duty projection.
As I have pointed out before, historically, the political left progressively tightens the purity tests and eventually eats their own. It is an almost inevitable consequence of their psychology.
This is particularly relevant to current events. For example. Gina Carano was fired by Disney for an “anti-Semitic” post on social media. One of my sources says this was the post:
This is, at least partially, confirmed by Variety and the WSJ.
Variety and the WSJ quote a Lucasfilm spokesperson as saying:
… her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”
I see absolutely nothing to indicate she did anything even approaching what she is accused of doing. And, as one person in a private post on Facebook said:
Them firing her kinda proves her point.
We live in interesting times.
Prepare accordingly.—Joe]
Always love when the facilitators of Rapists & Hate Crime abusers expose themselves when demanding women, minorities, & LGBTQ+ be forced defenseless.
sacrebleu14 / SA Hinchcliffe @sacrebleu141
Tweeted on February 7, 2021
[This was in response to:
Martin Hussey @HusseyMartin
For a start in-depth background checks including mental health, raising the age limit for ownership of any firearm. Ban all assault weapons. Making it law that all firearms are stored in a secure place. Better still ban all firearms.
It is the obvious goal of the political left to make people helpless. That puts the politicians in a position to provide “protection” to those they decide are deserving. And, probably more importantly, to enable the punishment of those who would challenge their authority.—Joe]
Free men don’t obey unjust laws, they prepare for the tyrants who try to enforce them.
UR a Smart Ass, Carl @cleflore23
Tweeted on February 8, 2021
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Conservatives and moderates MUST start to physically separate from the political left. We must remove ourselves from the blood sucking parasites that have attached themselves to us. This allows us to remain free to think and speak as we like, and it takes all power away from leftists to hurt us by disrupting our means of making a living.
Secession is a more extreme measure, but it WILL become necessary if leftists refuse to accept that we are no longer participating in their games of fear and subterfuge. Leftists are collectivist by nature, and collectivists see people as property. Walking away is not an option in their minds. So, though we might successfully separate, this would only be the beginning of the battle.
The important thing is to first make sure that conservatives KNOW that there are places they can go where their civil rights are valued and defended. If conservatives feel completely isolated and alone, many will give up, go dark and pray they are not discovered. This is unacceptable.
Brandon Smith
January 20, 2021
Biden’s Presidency Will Be A Catalyst For Secession – And Perhaps Civil War
[See also my previous QOTD from this same article with particular attention to the “scapegoat Olympics” comment.—Joe]
Lee’s bill so far has no cosponsors, and it is unlikely to make much progress. But it reflects a broader mindset in the Democratic Party, which used to at least pay lip service to the Second Amendment but lately talks and acts as if it does not exist.
Jacob Sullum
February 5, 2021
This Draconian Bill Would Turn Millions of Peaceful Gun Owners Into Felons
[I see lots of chatter about this bill. I think it is best to save that energy for something else. President Biden has his own plans which have a much better chance of success than those of Representative Lee.
Give money to SAF and others who are engaged in the court battles protecting our rights. Contact your representatives and let them know how important respect of the Constitutional limits on government are to you, your community, your state, and the nation.
Other potentially useful activities might be to document your boating accidents, camouflaging your gun safe, and establishing relationships with people you meet at the range. Be creative and do what you are comfortable doing to prepare for and resist laws such as Lee’s if it does get passed sometime in the future.—Joe]