Category Archives: Freedom

It’s time to ban assault knives

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A mass stabbing in Florida:

Tallahassee police were called around 8:35 a.m. to Dyke Industries, a building materials company located on Maryland Circle in an industrial park off Hartsfield Road.

When officers arrived, they found a number of stabbing victims and began treating them on the scene, said Officer Damon Miller, a spokesman for TPD. It was not immediately clear whether anyone was killed. Five people were taken to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare and were being treated.

A suspect is in custody, though police gave no description of the person or a possible motive for the violence. A source told the Democrat the suspect is currently being interrogated.

Most large employers I have worked for ban possession of knives as well as guns. I wonder how this happened.

Quote of the day—J.D. Tuccille

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While weaponizing laws against political opponents may buy votes among the faithful in the short term, it delegitimizes laws and their enforcers in the eyes of their targets. That further reduces any possibility of compliance with laws that already have a history of being honored only in the breach. When the dust settles, the government ends up looking weak and the law pointless. And the country will be more divided than ever.

Maybe O’Rourke and his colleagues will eventually be able to turn their gun confiscation wishes into law, but history is very clear that most people will defy the prohibition.

J.D. Tuccille
September 4, 2019
Beto’s Impossible Gun Ban Dreams
[Not only will such a prohibition be defied, there is a greater risk. It’s possible the people will implement a prohibition on prohibiting politicians. If they do, one should expect the people will have a higher success rate than that achieved by the politicians in banning guns.

Let’s keep them from being elected, get some good court rulings, and avoid the whole mess.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan M. Dershowitz

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No university student has the right to be safe from uncomfortable ideas, only from physical threats, and any student who claims to be in physical fear of politically incorrect ideas does not belong at a university. The most extreme example of this distortion of the role of higher education took place at my own university when a distinguished dean of a Harvard residential college was fired from his deanship because some “woke” students claimed to feel unsafe in his presence because he was representing, as a defense lawyer, a man accused of rape.

Alan  M. Dershowitz
August 31, 2019
The Dangerous Stalinism of the “Woke” Hard-Left
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—David French

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The battle for freedom has been fought and won. Your speech may be free, but that doesn’t mean it is easy. Truly confronting illiberal political correctness requires personal courage. Without it, the battle for the First Amendment will have been fought in vain.

David French
August 20, 2019
Courage Is the Cure for Political Correctness
[Via email from Chet who adds, “I would add for rights in general.”

He has some good points. But a case can be made that the battle isn’t over until the culture has been changed and is accepting of diverse speech and thought without a lawsuit to back up your coming out of the closet.—Joe]

Quote of the day—SayUncle

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I can’t wait for those who want their political opponents dead to be in charge of health care.

SayUncle
August 29, 2019
Details here.
[The same concerns would apply to law enforcement in a disarmed society. Criminals would know they could prey on those who were politically disfavored with little risk. In the early days of the USSR the criminals were openly considered allies of the communist party because they would prey upon those who owned property.

Although he doesn’t address the health care issue this guy from East Germany told me his experience with housing and jobs also confirms SayUncle’s point.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jennifer Rubin

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It’s not only that Trump has to lose, but that all his enablers have to lose. We have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party. Um, we have to level them because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again.

Jennifer Rubin
August 26, 2019
Washington Post Columnist Calls For Anti-GOP Violence: ‘Burn Down The Republican Party’
[This is what they think of you. They don’t want any survivors.

This could be said of all Socialist and Marxist politicians with a lot more justification than Republicans.—Joe]

Quote of the day—herbn

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At what point does “they are saying I am by definition worse than Hitler and need to be in a camp” cross over from “a stupid narrative they believe” to a “clear and present danger to me and mine I must actively respond to.” I’m already passively preparing, but at some point I have to choose, and choose wisely, to move to active interference.

That is what worries me. Both the need to make that call and making it wrong.

herbn
August 8, 2019
Comment to But Then That Must Mean
[Many years ago John Clifford., the owner of a gun range I frequented, told me, “When you draw your gun is far more important than how fast you draw your gun.” It took a while for me to really understand what he was saying. See this post for elaboration on that point.

herbn’s dilemma captures the essence of what John was telling me.—Joe]

Think about it

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Via Elisabeth Diamond @diamactive2001:

ForefathersVsTyrantsAnyQs

At first I thought this was awesome. It’s not just old white guys supporting the right to keep and bear arms to protect themselves from a slave rebellion. Gandhi in this category might be a surprise to some, but it’s true (see also here). Martin Luther King Jr. is another which might also surprise people, but again, it’s true.

But after more thought I realized the tyrants listed are actually admired leaders to some. For example, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong each murdered 10s of millions of their own citizens after disarming them. But yet, there are still people today that not only advocate for the political philosophy of these tyrants but admire the tyrant for their accomplishments.

Hence, freedom lovers, as well as hard core Marxists, can both look at this image and find it supporting their world view. When you think about it, that’s kind of weird and messed up.

Quote of the day—Milo Yiannopoulos @m

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The First and Second Amendments mean exactly what they say. You should be able to express whatever you want and you should be able to own any kind of weaponry you want and can afford. End. Of. Fucking. Story.

Milo Yiannopoulos @m
Via Gab on August 5, 2019
[I think a good case can be made on restrictions for libel, slander, and incitement to riot/violence. But those exceptions doesn’t make for a good sound bite.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kurt Schlichter

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You can’t put anything behind you with these people, because there is nothing to put behind you. It’s all a lie. You are not a racist. Your guns won’t hurt anyone but criminals and aspiring tyrants. And the leftists know it. They know they are spewing skeevy slanders, and if you give in on this one – handing over your AR-15 and hanging your head over prejudices you don’t possess – the libs and their newsprint lackeys will just club you with another set of grievances that you can only atone for through further submission.

It will never end. They will always hate you. Always. Nothing you can do will change that. Nothing. So get used to it and invite them to pound sand.

Kurt Schlichter
August 8, 2019
They Will Still Hate You Even If You Disarm
[Via email from Chet.

Stand up to them and tell them the adults are in charge. Temper tantrums from people that act like two year old’s and insults from people that act like they are in Junior High will be dealt with appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kalmoe and Mason

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Items PV3 and PV4 from the CCES involve justifying violence by the inparty to
advance political goals. Terrorism, in other words. PV3 asks about violence today. PV4 asks
for responses if the outparty wins the 2020 presidential election, a hypothetical but realistic
scenario given recent alternation in party control of the presidency. Nine percent of
Republicans and Democrats say that, in general, violence is at least occasionally acceptable.  However, when imagining an electoral loss in 2020, larger percentages of both parties
approve of the use of violence – though this increase is greater for Democrats (18 percent
approve) than Republicans (13 percent approve). 

image

Nathan P. Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason
2019
Lethal Mass Partisanship:  Prevalence, Correlates, & Electoral Contingencies
[H/T to J.D. Tuccille.

The questions PV1 –> PV4 were as follows:

Political Violence
PV1
When, if ever, is it OK for [Own party] to send threatening and intimidating messages to [Opposing party] leaders?
PV2
When, if ever, is it OK for an ordinary [Own party] in the public to harass an ordinary [Opposing party] on the Internet, in a way that makes the target feel unsafe4?
PV3
How much do you feel it is justified for [Own party] to use violence in advancing their political goals these days?
PV4
What if [Opposing party] win the 2020 presidential election? How much do you feel violence would be justified then? 
 
4 “Unsafe” was replaced with “frightened” in the Nielsen survey.

I’m surprised by two things in this study.

  1. The number of people supporting violent threats and action is higher than I would have thought. I would have expected it to be not over one or two percent for any of the questions for either party. Sure, there are a lot of people advocating violence, but they are just a noisy, extreme, minority, right? Well… maybe not such a small minority after all.
  2. I would have expected a much bigger difference between the Democrats and the Republicans with the Democrats leading by at least a factor of two on every question. Aren’t Republicans the one who follow the process and the rules more so than the outcome?

That nearly one out of six Democrats and one out eight Republicans think violence is justified if the other party wins the presidency in 2020 I’m seriously hoping for a Libertarian win (yeah, right, only if the Democrats and Republicans kill each other off at some extremely drastic rate prior to the election) and planning on avoiding what probably will be “hot spots”.

With that high of percentage of violent people available to surround themselves with people are going to find the courage to “take action”. Regardless of who wins, the 2020 election could just be the spark that ignites CWII.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell

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The grand fallacy of the political left is that decisions are better made by third parties who pay no price for being wrong. Much of the 20th century has been taken up proving how tragically mistaken that theory is, all around the world. But those who want to be the third-party decision-makers remain undaunted.

Thomas Sowell
March 6, 1999
THOMAS SOWELL: Back again – random thoughts
[This is true in economics, personal ethics, self-defense choices, and all but a few special cases mostly covered by the enumerated powers given to the U.S. government in the constitution.

At this point I’m convinced it’s only a fallacy or mistaken belief on the part of the useful and professional idiots. Those who are smart enough to rise and retain political power have to know the truth.

Evidence for making the case for the 21st century will be little different from the 20th is Venezuela.—Joe]

Power hunger

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I find present day politics fascinating and scary. For example:

Bloomberg @business tweeted:

An emerging trend in this debate: Kamala Harris very clearly only wants to debate Joe Biden. Every time she’s been challenged by a lower-polling candidate, she takes it back to Biden

In response Ellen Pompeo @EllenPompeo tweeted:

Because she’s overconfident and believes he is her only competition

This was one of the responses:

Let me be very clear this was racist

The consensus appears to agree with the racist declaration despite the fact it is extremely clear there is no racism.

This is political correctness run amok.

I used to wonder how it was possible things could get so messed up in the USSR and Nazi Germany that they could execute people for speaking what most people knew to be the truth. Now I see the virulent roots of this growing in our country.

When those who insist they should have the power to control other people get most of what they want they don’t stop. They find more things and people they must control. In many people it appears hunger for power is never sated. Read The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Volume One). Even when such people have the power to murder others on any imagined slight, and no matter how many they murder, the hunger cannot be satisfied.

Insist they obey the constitution. Vote them out, put adults in charge, and have a backup plan.

See also a previous post on this same topic.

Quote of the day—Kalev Leetaru

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the sad reality of the encryption debate is that after 30 years it is finally over: dead at the hands of Facebook. If the company’s new on-device content moderation succeeds it will usher in the end of consumer end-to-end encryption and create a framework for governments to outsource their mass surveillance directly to social media companies, completely bypassing encryption.

In the end, encryption’s days are numbered and the world has Facebook to thank.

Kalev Leetaru
July 26, 2019
The Encryption Debate Is Over – Dead At The Hands Of Facebook
[Via email from Chet who referred me to Slashdot, which linked to Bruce Schneier, who linked to the article quoted above.

The article says WhatsApp will be, or perhaps already has been, compromised by Facebook. Moving to Signal is probably warranted but that is no guarantee of security. Furthermore, I think blaming Facebook for this is a little unfair.

Back when I was working for Pacific Northwest National Labs I suggested the government could add code to whatever O/S a particular set of terrorists were fond of using and then “upgrade” their phone to send duplicate copies of messages, phone calls, and even record conversations when the phone was believed to be “asleep”. To the best of my knowledge the suggestion went nowhere. But that doesn’t mean I was just very late to the game and there was no need to tell me it had already been done.

Similar things can be done to your Windows and/or Apple devices. You upgrade your computers and other communications devices all the time to guard against security vulnerabilities. But how do you know you aren’t also installing a custom version of the O/S dictated to Apple, Google, and/or Microsoft, by government spies?

If you want communication security you will need to make sure your O/S is secure as well as the applications and the channels it transmits over. It’s not an easy thing to ensure.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sebastian

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Overarching, and across the world, is the fight over globalism. I’ve said in the end globalism will win, because it’s being driven by technological change at its root. The struggle isn’t whether we have transnational systems where the nation state plays a less important role: that will happen. The struggle is whether globalism will be a democratic movement that is controlled by the people for the people’s benefit, or whether it will be a aristocratic movement that benefits the transnational aristocrats. It’s been set up as the latter, and the people are, across the globe, calling foul.

The struggle over the RKBA is downstream of that fight, but what we’re seeing I think fits in the overall struggle. It’s a theme repeated throughout history that aristocrats do not like their subjects being armed. So it was practically inevitable that when the people started asserting themselves against this cultivated global order, the counter-reaction was the aristocracy returning to their traditional fears and anxieties about armed peasants. That anxiety is acting itself out among the pool of Democratic candidates.

Sebastian
July 31, 2019
What Money Can Buy
[He has a valid point.

The counter point is that 100 million people with 300+ million guns and billions of rounds of ammo can make themselves heard and respected…if they have the will to do so.—Joe]

We live in interesting times

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Via Kevin.

I find this very interesting:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ powerful campaign arm, has just abruptly purged half a dozen staffers. Why? Because they are white.

It appears that no one had anything against these particular staffers … except for the color of their skin. Although roughly half the committee’s full-time staff (13 of 27) were nonwhite, this was not enough for some Democratic members of Congress. They complained DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos of Illinois had brought in too many white staffers when she won the position. And they put enough pressure on her that she sacrificed her loyal staffers to the god of diversity.

Slate says they resigned instead of being fired. So does The Hill. But they could have been given “an offer they couldn’t refuse” so it would give the DCCC a way to avoid legal action.

The Blaze has an interesting take on it.

That we have a major political party purging people from jobs because of the color of their skin forebodes some very interesting times ahead. That the people being discriminated against are the majority population is even more interesting. It would seem, long term, that will not end well for the minority engaged in racist discrimination.

Quote of the day—Milo Yiannopoulos @m

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I would support a modest income tax rise to issue every citizen with a gun when they reach the age of 21.

Milo Yiannopoulos @m
Via Gab on July 30, 2019
[As amusing as I find this, I would like to think it is just as unconstitutional as government provided food, housing, and healthcare.—Joe]

Quote of the day—MJ @morganisawizard

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if who the president is actually scares you then clearly that office has way too much power

MJ @morganisawizard
Tweeted on July 24, 2019
[You would think this is obvious in hindsight and clearly applies equal to any of the half dozen or so political parties I can think of who conceivably could hold the office. But somehow there is a substantial number of people do not think it applies when one of their tribe is in power.

For some reason that scares me as much as the amount of power the president holds. How can people be so blind?—Joe]

I thought government regulation was for consumer protection

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This is an obscure but publicly available bit of information from the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services who recently announced:

Final health insurance rate decisions lower 2020 premiums by $44 million

The Oregon Division of Financial Regulation issued final rate decisions for small businesses and individuals who buy their own health insurance.

“Our collaborative rate review process has been key to building a stable health insurance market that enabled us to limit the individual market rate increase to an average of 1.5 percent,” said Insurance Commissioner Andrew Stolfi. “The Oregon Reinsurance Program has also continued to show its value, keeping individual rates 6 percent lower than they would be without the program. We are grateful to the legislature for passing and our stakeholders for supporting the six year extension of this important program.”

They could have kept the average rate increase even lower had they not insisted that one company increase their rates:

image

Notice the last row? Regence requested a rate increase of 3.9% with a rate of $445. Oregon decided that wasn’t enough and set the rate they must actually charge customers at $452 which is a 5.5% increase.

So why is the state of Oregon, by force of law, increasing prices to consumers more than that requested by the company providing the service?

One could postulate this is to protect other companies which are unable, or unwilling, to compete at the same price point, $445, as Regence. But BridgeSpan, Kaiser, and PacificSource are all allowed to price their product at or below $445.

I thought government regulation was supposed to be for consumer protection. This looks to me as if it is random exercise of power.

Quote of the day—Bob Barr

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The world in which most liberals live is one of magic and fairytales — where socialist systems have starved millions of people and destroyed every economy forced into its model, but which certainly will work the next time. It is a world in which using fascist tactics to silence opponents actually makes you an anti-fascist; and where presidential candidates can promise everything for everyone, and still have enough money left over to cut taxes. In this fantasy land, anything is possible if you just feel it to be true.

Bob Barr
July 24, 2019
The Elephant in the Gun-Control Room
[Via Matthew Bracken.—Joe]