Category Archives: Freedom

CRA – not tired of winning

Posted on by

This popped up on a couple of different sources at about the same time, not sure who was first. Likely the WSJ, as this ZeroHedge post cites it. Short version: when congress passes a law and the president signs it, it will often have an outline of what’s to be done, and it directs the appropriate agencies involved to write up the implementing regulations and guidelines. A three page law might have hundreds of pages of legalese added to the Federal Register. Heck, the entire edifice built on “title IX” is standing on a single sentence! Anyway, a law passed in 1996 called the Congressional Review Act requires that after the regulations are written they have to send a report to congress, where they must be voted up or down by simple majority vote within 60 days. Congress was trying to keep an out-of-control agency from getting too hog wild on the details that were delegated to them.

The clock stars ticking when the regulations are published, or when the report gets sent to congress, whichever is later.

Well, it seems that the last administration was a tad sloppy on their paperwork. They rarely sent a report to congress. Trump can direct any agency under his command (effectively all of them) to send a report to congress if they have not done so already. If it gets voted down, the law is on hold until they can put together regs that are acceptable to congress, and the next attempt at reg-writing cannot be to simply re-submit essentially the same thing again. So a whole bunch of junk passed in the last 8 years might be, ah, revisited.

Suddenly Trump’s statements about reducing regulation hugely doesn’t sound so absurd.

Nope, not tired of winning yet.

He’s doing it wrong

Posted on by

Donald Trump, God Emperor, is vehemently opposed by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people worldwide. Both yesterday and today huge crowds marched and protested his coronation. They are concerned about their rights. That this new Hitler like dictator will cause them physical harm.

As one of his first acts as God Emperor he signed an executive order “giving federal agencies broad powers to unwind regulations … which might include enforcement of the penalty for people who fail to carry the health insurance that the law requires of most Americans.” This same article says:

Also late Friday, Reince Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, issued an executive memorandum ordering a freeze on regulations for all government agencies.

He has also Wants to Allow Concealed Weapons Everywhere and opposes any new gun regulations and may be an advocate for repealing weapons laws nationwide and put judges in the federal courts which will turn back many of the gun safety laws in place in various states and cities.

What all this means is that our new “God Emperor”, “Hitler dictator” wannabe is doing it all wrong. Dictators need an abundances of laws and regulations. Remember what Ayn Rand said:

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

And if the people protesting had any connection with reality they would realize that socialized medicine was a powerful tool for Nazi Germany:

No profession in Germany became so numerically attached to National Socialism in both its leadership and membership as was the medical profession. Because of their philosophical orientation toward finding a more scientific basis for medical research and practice, government funding for research, and the practical benefits of acquiring university positions and medical practices from the many banned and exiled German Jewish doctors, many physicians supported Nazi policies. One of the first Nazi laws, passed July 14, 1933, was the “Law for the Prevention of Progeny of Hereditary Disease,” intended to “consolidate” social and health policies in the German population and prohibit the right of reproduction for persons defined as “genetically inferior.” After 1933, the connection between the theory and practice of politicized medicine advocated by many in Weimar Germany became actual in Nazi Germany.

…

Following the sterilization laws, the National Socialists next implemented a strategy of euthanasia to solve the remaining problem of those whose conception and birth had preceded these laws. The pediatrician Ernst Wentzler, while developing plans to improve care in the German Children’s Hospitals in Berlin, personally decided (as consultant to Hitler’s Chancellery) on the deaths of thousands of handicapped children. Hans Nachtsheim placed delivery orders for handicapped children for his pressure chamber experiments on epilepsy. Joseph Mengele delivered genetic and anthropological “material” from Auschwitz to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and conducted his infamous twin experiments on the child victims of the Holocaust.

And in another disconnect from reality they apparently don’t realize that all good dictators ban and confiscate weapons in the hands of ordinary people. Such as Nazi Germany’s, Weapons Control Act of 1938 and the policies of the USSR.

So, I must conclude that, the claims that President Donald Trump is “God Emperor”, “Hitler”, or a dictator of any sort, are premature at best. The actions taken and professed directions of his polices make a dictatorship and mass infringement upon the rights of ordinary people more difficult. I’m far from convinced that he going to usher in utopian Libertarian era, but there are significant indicator that he is going in the wrong direction to implement a dictatorship.

Hence, I have to conclude most of those millions of people protesting are suffering from some sort of mass delusion. Those which are not suffering a disconnect from reality are protesting because they have been distanced from the levers of power by the election.

Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech

Posted on by

Stupid-Leftists-safe-spaces-v-Israeli-military

It’s hard to argue with willful ignorance. And I no longer try. I have come to the conclusion that leftists are intellectually impenetrable.

Robert J. Avrech
January 4, 2017
Deranged Lefties
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

They prove themselves unworthy

Posted on by

A thought occurred to me.

All the smartest people* in the nation -nay, the smartest people in the world- said two things over and over in 2016:
A) We plebs need to give more power and control to the government so all the really smart technocrats can make life better, more fair, safer, cleaner, more productive, and nicer for everyone because they were so smart and had all the data; and
B) Trump would never win.

It seems to me that (B) disproves the premise that they are the smartest people in the room, and further is a strong indicator that (A) should never be done because they just demonstrated they are clueless more often than not.

 

* we know they are the smartest people in the world because they tell us constantly.

Quote of the day—Paul Koning

Posted on by

As a general principle, you should assume that any weapon not yet banned by left wing state laws is so merely due to an oversight.

Paul Koning
January 6, 2017
Comment to Quote of the day—Hollis Phelps
[My only quibble is that Koning is limiting this observation to state laws. Left wing local and national governments are always looking for “loopholes” to close as well. It’s all part of the grand scheme where eventually those things which are not banned are mandatory.—Joe]

Violence and the left – pathology and party

Posted on by

Interesting interview by Stefan Molyneux of an academic researcher. Dr. John Paul Wright is a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati and the author of “Criminals in the Making: Criminality Across the Life Course.” More links and discussion at his youtube page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2w23Zc-Zfs

Not a lot we here didn’t already know, but interesting. I like some of his observations about why this sort of connection are not normally the subject of research.

Be careful out there

Posted on by

I generally avoid crowds simply because I am an introvert and find contact with a lot of people to be draining. I do it sometimes when the rewards are worth the effort (Boomershoot, NRA Conventions, family gatherings, etc.).

Things have been changing and the downside of being in large groups of people is increasing. DHS and the FBI warned us (from December 24th):

Federal authorities warned Friday that ISIS sympathizers “continue aspirational calls for attacks on holiday gatherings, including targeting churches.”

The bulletin was issued by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security and issued to law enforcement agencies and private security companies around the US.

    There are no known specific, credible threats, US law enforcement officials say. The bulletin was issued out of an abundance of caution given the public nature of the posted threats and the holiday season.

    The bulletin was sent Friday to law enforcement after pro-ISIS websites had published a publicly-available list of churches in the United States.

    There are also more explicit threats, ‘We will make New Year mayhem’ which include the following pictures (click to see higher resolution pictures):

    3BB20B5200000578-0-image-a-32_14830075638113BB20D9A00000578-0-image-a-26_1483007367770

    3BB20C1800000578-0-image-a-31_1483007553988

    3BB20CBA00000578-0-image-a-29_1483007535635

    3BB20DA500000578-0-image-a-28_1483007472800

    Stay alert, stay calm, and carry if you can.

    Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech

    Posted on by

    This should put to rest, once and for all, the notion that support of Israel is a bipartisan issue. This talking point is fiction. The Democrats are the party of nuclear Iran, the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the enemies of of Israel. The Republicans are the party that supports Israel in spite of the shameful fact that 80% of American Jews reliably vote for the Democrats.

    Robert J. Avrech
    December 28, 2016
    Israel Responds to Antiochus Obama and the UN
    [Obama and his colleagues are continuing their destruction of the Democrat party.—Joe]

    Courage

    Posted on by

    The New York Times Editorial Board claims Europe Takes a Braver Stance on Gun Control. They tell us:

    The proposals, which are headed toward a final vote by members next year, would extend bans on semiautomatic assault weapons to more models, institute medical checks for gun buyers, tighten sales on the internet and track the resale of guns to foil black-market dealers.

    …

    The final compromise did not ban all of the most dangerous semiautomatic weapons, like the AK-47, as some nations wanted, nor limit ammunition magazines to 10 cartridges for all of them.

    Don’t ever let anyone get away with telling you that no one wants to take your guns.

    As well as other errors such as saying there were 300K homicides (most were suicides and many were justifiable homicides) committed with guns in the last ten years in this country they are wrong about Europe being “brave”.  They further claim  that in the United States, “Congressional leaders, unfortunately, show no sign of mustering the courage of the Europeans.”

    This is clearly in error. Courage would be the NYT Editorial Board taking point on the door to door enforcements of the bans they advocate for.

    I’d even give them partial credit for being “brave” and “courageous” if they were to tell the truth when they write about guns. But since I haven’t seen anything approaching that from them in the last 20 years it is unlikely they will develop the integrity or courage anytime soon.

    Privacy in the 21st century

    Posted on by

    This bears watching:

    In what may be a first, police in Arkansas asked Amazon for recordings potentially made by an Echo device in connection with a murder investigation. Amazon declined to provide the data.

    As Echo currently works it keeps less than 60 seconds of sound internally and only sends recordings to the cloud (Amazons servers do the voice recognition) after you get it’s attention with the word “Alexa”. This is probably an acceptable tradeoff for most people.

    Still, it is easy to imagine government mandates for “updates” to selected users which enable the devices to send continuous sound to law enforcement. And of course the same could be said of any other sound or video recognition devices in your home such as Xbox.

    It had to happen eventually

    Posted on by

    Armed robber repelled by store employees wielding dildos.

    Make jokes about it long enough, eventually it’ll happen in real life.

    Still, I won’t be trading in my guns anytime soon.

    No doubt Joe can come up with some self defense training scenarios involving the use of both guns and sex toys. We have umbrella guns. Some entrepreneurs might consider making a dildo gun, you know, in for the case you’re attacked while dildoing. The BATFEIEIO would have to make up another NFA weapon category, Any Other Dildo (AOD) and slap a five dollar tax on it.

    Quote of the day—William Knox

    Posted on by

    The Militia Laws should be repealed and none suffered to be re-enacted, the Arms of all the People should be taken away, & every piece of Ordnance removed into the King’s Stores, nor should any Foundry or manufactory of Arms, Gunpowder, or Warlike Stores, be ever suffered in America, nor should any Gunpowder, Lead, Arms or Ordnance be imported into it without License: they will have but little need of such things for the future, as the King’s Troops, Ships & Forts will be sufficient to protect them from any danger.

    William Knox
    Under Secretary of State in the British Colonial Office
    1777
    What is Fit to be Done with America?
    From The Arms Of All The People Should Be Taken Away
    [The government will protect you! We hear that now and it would seem people have heard that for as long as there have been governments. Upon the first hearing of claims such as these one should take appropriate and vigorous action to remove the people making the claims from power.

    See also my post on this over five years ago.—Joe]

    This is what I was talking about

    Posted on by

    The other day I said:

    Don’t ever forget there are certain inalienable rights all humans have.

    Well, here is why we always need to have our guard up:

    Notice, they didn’t complain about surveillance before. My assumption has been that with a Muslim running DHS, a Muslim DCI, and a Muslim POTUS, the Muslim community was pretty much surveillance-free. Now they know the worm is turning.

    What I hope Trump will consider is not stopping at the Muslims, but going a step further. Democrat politicians, liberal political activists, #Blacklivesmatter assholes, global warming cult believers, Democrat contributors, Cuckservative never-Trumpers, mainstream media traitors, and other enemies of the state should all get their own government-funded perpetual proctological exams.

    Once you get a government violating the rights of the “deplorables” it is very difficult to get it to stop. Government bureaucracies almost always grow and expand their original scope. Resist the urge to create such agencies to begin with and capitalize on every opportunity to shrink and/or eliminate them, and convict those who violated the rights of others, no matter how much you despise the victims of their crimes.

    Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

    Posted on by

    Instead of enacting, “A person may legally bear arms across state lines,” which officials can violate without repercussion, the law must say, “Anyone who interferes with a person legally bearing arms, shall go to prison and pay a fine.”

    Alan Korwin
    December 12, 2016
    Stop The National Carry Permit
    [See also Diplomatic Carry where Alan says, “As good as it is, Constitutional Carry is not enough.”—Joe]

    Quote of the day—mzmadmike

    Posted on by

    An emotional part of me would welcome them being scooped up, a la Soylent Green, shoved into camps, and exterminated. Just so they SHUT THE FUCK UP and stop wasting things we need, like tax money, food and air.

    The rational part of me understands that once that line is crossed, it never ends–there’s always someone else “unfit” who needs eliminated.

    So if such righteous justice were instigated, I’d be put into the position of opposing it.

    mzmadmike
    December 9, 2016
    What I Hate Most About The “Tolerant” “Left.”
    [The never ending list of the “unfit who need to be eliminate” is what happened in the USSR. They murdered tens of millions before the system finally shutdown after the death of Stalin. That isn’t the only example of the 20th Century but it’s one of the better known and documented ones.

    Don’t ever forget there are certain inalienable rights all humans have.—Joe]

    Quote of the day—AWR Hawkins

    Posted on by

    Seen in this light, Obama’s greatest regret is one of freedom’s clearest victories. The Second Amendment survived his presidency.

    AWR Hawkins
    December 8, 2016
    Obama Tells CNN His Greatest Regret Was Failure To Secure More Gun Control
    [I have nothing to add.—Joe]

    God’s humor

    Posted on by

    Sometimes something comes along and gives evidence that not only God exists, but he’s got a sense of humor. Such is this:

    Trump versus Reno

    The next level of surveillance

    Posted on by

    Via Bruce Schneier:

    Here, we develop an approach to translate chemistries recovered from personal objects such as phones into a lifestyle sketch of the owner, using mass spectrometry and informatics approaches. Our results show that phones’ chemistries reflect a personalized lifestyle profile. The collective repertoire of molecules found on these objects provides a sketch of the lifestyle of an individual by highlighting the type of hygiene/beauty products the person uses, diet, medical status, and even the location where this person may have been.

    Wow!

    Perhaps the next level beyond this will be similar type of analysis of the air around you. Imagine going through airport security and the scanning machine blows air over you and determines your health, how recently you fired a gun, what pets you have, your DNA as well as that of your spouse, children, and mistress.

    “Mad Dog” Mattis

    Posted on by

    This being a sophisticated and educational sort of blog, thought I’d post something about the likely next SecDef, General (ret) James “Mad Dog” Mattis. It’s an interview by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution from 2015. Mattis sounds like a very thoughtful sort that will bring some much needed clarity to the position. Continue reading →

    Quote of the day—Jeff Snyder

    Posted on by

    For years, feminists have labored to educate people that rape is not about sex, but about domination, degradation, and control. Evidently, someone needs to inform the law enforcement establishment and the media that kidnapping, robbery, carjacking and assault are not about property.

    Crime is not only a complete disavowal of the social contract but also a commandeering of the intended victim’s person and liberty. If the individual’s dignity lies in the fact that he is a moral agent engaging in actions of his own will, in free exchange with others, then crime always violates the victims dignity. It is, in fact, an act of enslavement. Your wallet, your purse, your car many not be worth your life, but your dignity is; and if it is not worth fighting for, it can hardly be said to exist.

    Jeff Snyder
    2001
    Nation of Cowards page 16.
    [Yes. Enslavement. The perpetrator is using force, without moral or legal right, to take that which you have labored for. Lethal force is justified against those who are in the act of enslaving others.—Joe]