Category Archives: Freedom

Quote of the day—Brinda Karat

Posted on by

The tremendous achievements of the first Socialist State beckon us to understand what was possible and what is possible to create today. The Soviet Union created records, equally relevant today in wiping out poverty, backwardness, and illiteracy, in establishing equality among peoples and nationalities, between men and women. It is an inspiration of what was and what can be, and that is why we say that the era it established of the transition from capitalism to socialism is as relevant today. Capitalism is not the end of history.

Brinda Karat
November 9, 2017
The Russian Revolution Is Still Relevant Today
[Via email from Chet.

Delusions are often functional but I’m struggling to find the function in this whopper of a delusion. Perhaps Karat thinks they would be one of the leaders who would be in control.

I can’t imagine they believe conclusive evidence supports the claims they made. Just reading a few chapters of The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Volume One) would dissuade anyone of sound mind that this is a path a society as a whole would knowing and willing venture.

And yet, via another link from Chet, we have Teen Vogue discussing the differences between resistance, rebellion, and revolution while speaking fondly of the Russian and Cuban revolutions.

We live in interesting times.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rep. Steve Scalise

Posted on by

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Wednesday on new gun control legislation Democrats plan to push on the American people. The top Republican on the committee, Doug Collins, R-Ga., asked committee Democrats if I could testify about this legislation in an appropriate setting to offer another perspective as both a survivor of a shooting attack and strong supporter of our Second Amendment rights. But the Democrats said no. While liberals may try to silence conservative voices, I will not be silenced. The American people deserve to hear all perspectives.

Rep. Steve Scalise
February 6, 2019
Rep. Steve Scalise: Democrats don’t want you to hear what I have to say about guns and the Second Amendment
[Socialists cannot tolerate the truth and must repress opposing points of view. Particularly when that point of view involves individual liberty. Socialism is about coercion. And an armed society is able to resist coercion and hence the view of people like Representative Scalise must be repressed.—Joe]

Quote of the day—James Woods‏ @RealJamesWoods

Posted on by

The raging communist moron Bernie Sanders and half of Hollywood held Venezuela up as the Utopia of the future just a few short years ago. These liberals are also classic gun grabbers. So please enjoy this video of “Venezuelans Without Guns…”

James Woods‏ @RealJamesWoods
Tweeted on January 31, 2019

[Never give up your guns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sarah H. Hoyt

Posted on by

It’s going to continue ramping up. That the enemy gets a say, doesn’t mean we’ve lost the war.  Note the game is always the same they’ve played, only it’s working less now, now that us thought criminals know we’re not alone. They are not by and large, safe for the antifidiots resorting to physical violence. (And the antifidiots only operate in the cities where they feel safe.) They’re yellow under all the black paraphernalia. They are using what they always used: doxxing, whisper campaigns, mobbing and destruction of reputations and livelihoods.

They’ve done this my whole life. It’s their modus operandi. It’s just that now half of their campaigns (at least) fall apart and what they wish to keep under the rug comes flying out.  And we’re not alone. And we know we’re not alone.

My guess is that we’re so far from alone that the end-game for the US is the same as Romania, in terms of the worm turning (hopefully not in terms of the stupid afterwards, but that is up to all of us.)  One morning the “progressives” are riding high and by evening they’re cooling meat.

Sarah H. Hoyt
January 30, 2019
The Liberation Won’t Be On The Payroll
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Auschwitz Memorial‏ @AuschwitzMuseum

Posted on by

When we look at Auschwitz we see the end of the process. It’s important to remember that the Holocaust actually did not start from gas chambers. This hatred gradually developed from words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence.

Auschwitz Memorial‏ @AuschwitzMuseum
Tweeted on November 26, 2018
[Correlation to present day circumstances are left as an exercise for the reader. Possible reference materials are here and here.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dan Bongino‏ @dbongino

Posted on by

Socialism is the religion of the imbecile. Support for it is blind faith in a governing system so devoid of reason that it signals either your complete lack of intellect OR your thirst to subjugate others. ANYONE supporting socialism is an accomplice to the destruction it causes.

Dan Bongino‏ @dbongino
Tweeted on February 10, 2019
[In part, because of their deficiency in their ability and/or interest in using reason they are far more likely to use violence than those unaligned with socialism.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Superkick Paulty @paulbensonsucks

Posted on by

All gun owners are criminals. Only then will we be free.

Superkick Paulty @paulbensonsucks
Tweeted on January 31, 2019
[I know. I doesn’t quite make sense. But almost none of the rants from anti-gun people make sense anyway.

But if you put just a little bit of a twist on it then it makes sense in a different way. What if you were to interpret it as once gun owners are considered criminals they will be free to do what they want with us and the rest of the country? —Joe]

Quote of the day—John Robb

Posted on by

In the past, winning meant having the largest army. That isn’t true anymore. Now, with new forms of warfare, any small group can successfully wage war. With simpler and more appealing goals almost any cause can raise an army. And they will.

John Robb
2007
Brave New War—The next stage of terrorism and the end of globalization, page 63
[What he says is possible hasn’t always become reality (see for example this description of how we might have fallen into civil war after the November 2016 election). But I have spent enough time in the security field and that I listen closely when he has something to say and I don’t think I have ever considered his ideas crazy or implausible.

In this book he tells how a society dependent upon vulnerable infrastructure can be brought to it knees with relatively few people and resources. The leverage exerted can be enormous. How much does the Molotov Cocktail cost versus the government vehicle it destroys? What is the cost to deliver it versus the cost to defend against it? What is the cost of a power outage versus the cost of a cutting torch to bring down a few transmission line towers? What does it cost to topple the towers versus the cost to defend them?

Go through the list of critical items in our world. Food, water, power, sanitation, communication, roads, bridges, etc. The list of leverage points is almost endless in a high tech society.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Michael Z. Williamson

Posted on by

You know why these people fear the myth of a Trump Death Camp™? Because they know they belong in one. They also know that’s their ultimate goal to do to others.

Michael Z. Williamson
January 24, 2019
We’re Ever Closer To The Gloves Coming Off
[I’m pretty sure most liberals (the definition used in his context for the above quote) don’t “know they belong in one”. And unless they were actively involved in the illegal deaths of one or more people they almost for certain don’t belong in one.

So, it’s a little overstated but a plausible explanation that I’m willing to accept for conversational purposes. Sprinkle similar caveats here and there as you read the rest of his post for some potentially useful gems.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John Yarmuth‏ @RepJohnYarmuth

Posted on by

I am calling for a total and complete shutdown of teenagers wearing MAGA hats until we can figure out what is going on. They seem to be poisoning young minds.

John Yarmuth‏ @RepJohnYarmuth
Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Budget Committee
Tweeted on January 20, 2019
[Democrats consider the First, as well as the Second Amendment, toxic.

Vote them out of office before they get a chance to deny us our right to vote as well.—Joe]

Translation of The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Posted on by

Via a comment from bob r is this translation into modern day English of Rudyard Kipling’s poem I quoted from yesterday:

The simple substitution of a couple phrases made a huge difference in my understanding of this poem. Listen and marvel at so much substance packed into so few words and rhyme.

Agitators

Posted on by

Twitter suspends account that helped ignite controversy over viral encounter

Twitter suspended an account on Monday afternoon that helped spread a controversial encounter between a Native American elder and a group of high school students wearing Make America Great Again hats.

The account claimed to belong to a California schoolteacher. Its profile photo was not of a schoolteacher, but of a blogger based in Brazil, CNN Business found. Twitter suspended the account soon after CNN Business asked about it.

The account, with the username @2020fight, was set up in December 2016 and appeared to be the tweets of a woman named Talia living in California. “Teacher & Advocate. Fighting for 2020,” its Twitter bio read. Since the beginning of this year, the account had tweeted on average 130 times a day and had more than 40,000 followers.

Late on Friday, the account posted a minute-long video showing the now-iconic confrontation between a Native American elder and the high school students, with the caption, “This MAGA loser gleefully bothering a Native American protester at the Indigenous Peoples March.”

…

Molly McKew, an information warfare researcher who saw the tweet and shared it herself on Saturday, later realized that a network of anonymous accounts were working to amplify the video.

Speaking about the nature of fake accounts on social media, McKew told CNN Business, “This is the new landscape: where bad actors monitor us and appropriate content that fits their needs. They know how to get it where they need to go so it amplifies naturally. And at this point, we are all conditioned to react and engage or deny in specific ways. And we all did.”

Basically someone, who probably is not a U.S. citizen, deliberated created a narrative and publicized a fake story to inflame millions of people against each other in this country.

We live in interesting times.

Quote of the day—Rudyard Kipling

Posted on by

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.“

Rudyard Kipling
1919
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
[This truth was well known 100 years ago yet people still believe the lie it refutes.

Closely related.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Noah Smith

Posted on by

What if the government doesn’t have to pay back what it borrows, now or ever? This is the provocative thesis of an unorthodox economic theory that is rapidly gaining credence on the political left called modern monetary theory, or MMT.

Noah Smith
January 10, 2019
Don’t Be So Sure Hyperinflation Can’t Hit the U.S.
[Delusions are often functional. This particular delusion will give the political left a good shot at gaining absolute power over and destroying the United States.

Prepare for a civil war and/or buy gold and secure it in some other country.—Joe]

Risks posed by social media and cell phones

Posted on by

Via email from Chet.

Suicide prediction technology is revolutionary. It badly needs oversight:

Facebook is the largest and most visible company engaged in suicide prediction. After it introduced a live-streaming service in early 2016, dozens of users broadcast suicide attempts in real time on the platform. In response, on Feb. 16, 2017, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was experimenting with AI-based suicide prediction. Its software analyzes user-generated posts for signs of suicidal intent — the word “Goodbye” paired with responses like “Are you OK?,” for example, or “Please don’t do this” in response to a live stream — and assigns them risk scores. Cases with high scores are forwarded to Facebook’s community operations team, which reviews them and notifies police of severe cases. Facebook also helps pinpoint users’ locations so first responders can find them. In the past 12 months, the company initiated 3,500 of these “wellness checks,” contacting police about 10 times per day, Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global safety, said in a recent interview with NPR.

Chet comments:

Are there no limit? They have other avenues to explore to save lives. They could also use it to report crime. Anything that would potentially save lives. And why stop with saving live? Society has plenty of bad actors.

I suspect that if you have the Facebook application running on your cellphone it tracks your location. Furthermore, since you have given your permission for it to do so that data is now theirs to do with what they want. For the police, and others, to obtain that data is probably easier than getting it from your cellphone provider.

Now imagine you live in a relatively free state like, say, Idaho. And your social media posts have been tagged as you are almost certainly an owner of an evil “assault weapon” and you travel on vacation to a tyrannical state like California, New Jersey, or New York. Wouldn’t it be “the right thing to do” for Facebook, et. al. to notify the police? And might not the police and some judges view that as probable cause to search you and your vehicle?

And it need not be just gun ownership and the police involved. Recreational drug users, homosexuals, transsexuals, Jews, Christians, or the targeted group du jour. And they could be reported to employers, family, and spouses. Do you want your visits to a gay bar, strip club, abortion clinic, pot shop, gun store, women’s shelter, divorce lawyer, or Christian/Jewish/Islamic book store be for sale to companies or private investigators who pay for the service?

I’m not sure I want the government writing laws to prohibit such “services”. If you claim the government has the power to prohibit such activity you are also saying the government has the power to mandate that activity.

But I’m not comfortable with my activities being recorded. It violates my Jews In The Attic Test no matter who has the data.

Alan Gura going to court to defend the 1st Amendment

Posted on by

Via Twitter:

The ATF must give approval of the label on any alcoholic beverage sold in U.S. interstate commence. Since the ATF licensing center is currently shut down with no known reopening date some companies have their new products on hold for fear of prosecution if they were to proceed without approval.

2nd Amendment champion Alan Gura is asking the court to ignore the requirement on 1st Amendment grounds until the government shutdown is over and the process for label approval is available.

I think the whole requirement for permission for labeling your product is bogus and should be completely thrown out. False labeling should be addressed but not in the form of requiring prior permission. But one step at a time.

Quote of the day—Doug Casey

Posted on by

Nobody, except for a few libertarians and conservatives, are countering the ideas AOC represents. And they have a very limited audience. The spirit of the new century is overwhelming the values of the past.

When the economy collapses – likely in 2019 – everybody will blame capitalism, because Trump is somehow, incorrectly, associated with capitalism. The country – especially the young, the poor, and the non-white – will look to the government to do something. They see the government as a cornucopia, and socialism as a kind and gentle answer. Everyone will be able to drink lattes all day at Starbucks while they play with their iPhones.

…

That’s not even the best part. She’ll be idealized, lionized, and apotheosized by an adoring public. The media will hang on her every word. That’s pretty rich for a stupid, evil dingbat. Other young socialist idealists will try – and succeed – in replicating her success. Congress will increasingly be filled with her clones.

Frankly, at this point, resistance is futile.

Doug Casey
January 11, 2019
Doug Casey on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
[Certainly there are lots of paths to a very bleak future. However, I’m not sure resistance is futile. The courts are being filled with people much more inclined to declare her ideas unconstitutional than courts of the last 20 years. And one can make a reasonable case the courts will continue in this pattern for another five or more years. And SCOTUS could easily be originalist leaning within a year.

And even if the courts don’t “save the country” there are a lot of states that could “just say no” and ignore a significant part of the nonsense thrown at them as the Feds and other states nosedive into the dark pit of socialism. Resisting can take the form of moving to those states which can most effectively avoid the socialist influence. If the union fails being geographically and politically isolated is going to be to your advantage.

The Feds have a 22 trillion dollar debt with no plan to even slow the descent into catastrophe. When hard core socialists go toe-to-toe with reality, reality ultimately wins. This time will be no different. The biggest questions are, “How long will it take?” and “What is the best way to avoid the implosion?”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Wykeina Davis

Posted on by

I believe that there should be security cameras and full body scanners everywhere in public places to prevent mass shootings. The Second Amendment is not beneficial to anyone, it remains a threat to others due to people taking it into consideration of their rights to commit crimes.

Wykeina Davis
May 2018
Say Yes To Gun Control
[It’s not just guns they want removed from society. It’s the elimination of individual rights.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on by

In identity politics, loyalty to race, ethnic group and gender often trump the claims of party. The diversity Democrats celebrate is one day going to pull their party apart, as the social, cultural and racial revolutions of the 1960s pulled apart the party of FDR and LBJ.

Patrick J. Buchanan
December 28, 2019
2020: Year of the Democrats? Maybe Not
[Via email from a reader.

It’s something to think about and act upon when the opportunities become available. The reader also suggested some possibilities to help with the conflict:

  1. Get prepping articles in left wing web sites. If there are left wing groups saying not so fast with gun control we win. We could write leftist views of the need to prep not emphasizing defense. Then send it to starving leftist writers to rework and publish (perhaps with a small payment). Once people think about prepping (e.g., lack of police protection) that defense will follow.
  2. Target selected identity groups that have natural conflicts with other groups. Eg. Jewish white women are not welcome at the women’s march.
  3. Target intergroup conflicts. For example, Muslim groups are inherently anti-gay. Lesbians don’t want to have sex with transwomen. Freedom for one means less freedom for others.
  4. Advocate for causes that will cause internal conflict within the left. Example pregnant women are being discriminated against by planned parenthood.
  5. Develop supporting memes.

The best defense is a good offense.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Damon Root

Posted on by

Since joining the Court in 1993, Ginsburg has, in case after case, proven herself to be a reliable champion for the liberal side. When the Court declared the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program for undergraduate admissions unconstitutional in Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), Ginsburg accused the majority of turning a blind eye toward “the stain of generations of racial oppression [that] is still visible in our society.” When the Court came within one vote of declaring the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012), Ginsburg denounced the “stunningly retrogressive” idea that Congress might lack the lawful power to force individuals to buy health insurance.

Damon Root
January 5, 2019
The Case of the Notorious RBG
Examining the life and legend of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
[Barb and I recently watched both of the recent movies about Ginsburg (RGB and On the Basis of Sex). Assuming the movies are mostly true, she did some really good work knocking down numerous sexual discrimination laws. We really enjoyed them. And gun rights advocates can learn from her strategies—pick your battles, clients, and venues carefully.

What the movies didn’t even hint at was some of the Constitutional warping, and mutilating, decisions she participated in. See the source for the quote above for more on that.

In somewhat related news:

Ginsburg misses third consecutive day at Supreme Court

Her absence Monday marked the first time in more than 25 years on the court that she missed an oral argument due to her health.

Perhaps she will consider retiring. She has earned the rest.—Joe]