Category Archives: Freedom

Quote of the day—John Robb

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A form of direct democracy is coming.  One that lets people directly influence the decisions of the people they send to Washington.

A form of interactive democracy that doesn’t require any changes to the constitution since it works at the party level and not the national. 

When it does, it’s going to hit us fast, taking off like wildfire since it fulfills a fundamental need that the current system does not provide.

Here’s a quick example from the perspective of the Trump insurgency.  Other political parties would need different approaches, but they could if done in the right way (simple approach, scaled quickly by using disruptive marketing, grow from there), grow as quickly as this. 

Here’s how quickly populism can be automated:

  • Trump or Bannon picks an issue: the narrower and more inflammatory (disruptive marketing) the better.  Make the vote a yes or no.
  • Trump asks his supporters to tell him what they want (he doesn’t ask those opposing him). 
  • His supporters download the app to their smart phones and vote.  
  • A little programming and marketing magic radically improves the number of Trump supporters using the app and reduces spammers/non-supporters attempting to skew the vote down to a trickle.
  • Millions of Trump supporters download the app and vote.  
  • Once the decision is in, the app makes it easy to call or spam message to the user’s Congressional representatives.  Millions of calls roll in.  
  • A bill that codifies that issue is fast tracked in Congress.  Massive pressure via the app and the White House gets it passed quickly.
  • Connecting action and results quickly generates buzz.  Repeat.  This time with 10 m downloads.  
  • The app evolves. The pressure from the network increases.  It consumes the Republican party.

John Robb
March 10, 2017
How Trump and Bannon Could Automate Populism
[I’ve been wondering, for at least 30 years, what sort of new form of government might come out of the rapid technological changes we are seeing. Robb offers us, and he admits this, a very simple view of one possible outcome. I’m not convinced he is correct about the potential for the model he presents. I admit instant communication has great potential to make changes. But the minority party has the same tools as the majority party.

And the technological changes are not just in the field of communications. There are things of great importance on “the technological spreadsheet”. These include, essentially, continuous electronic surveillance on political opponents and the public at large, robots and drones (both armed and unarmed) for law enforcement and military action, and the threat of implementing a cashless society (more than just surveillance, it would make tax resistance extremely difficult).—Joe]

Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell‏ @ThomasSowell

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No society ever thrived because it had a large and growing class of parasites living off those who produce.

Thomas Sowell‏ @ThomasSowell
Tweeted on March 15, 2017
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Czech guns rights on the move

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This is news to me:

Officials from the Czech Republic have been among the most vocal critics of the European Union’s efforts to restrict the rights of law-abiding gun owners. Most recently, the Czech government has contemplated taking the drastic step of amending the country’s constitution in order to better protect the rights of Czech citizens to possess guns for self-defense.

I didn’t know they had a strong RKBA attitude there. If the MSM and anti-gun people (redundancy alert) are to be believed Europe is almost gun free. I knew Switzerland was good about guns but I figured that the Czechs would have had their gun rights supporting people sent to the gulags during their time behind the iron curtain.

Joe’s [Done] Answering Qs on Reddit AMA

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[Update: Joe’s done at Reddit. Thanks to all who participated in the interview.]

Joe’s over yonder on Reddit, still answering questions. Join in the conversation here.

For those new to Reddit (hint, hint Lyle), you’ll want to create a Reddit account, then go to this link and ask away.

Reminder: Joe/Boomershoot & Maj/Black Guns Matter on Reddit AMA

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Join the live conversation tomorrow, Tues. March 7, 11am EST: Joe Huffman of Boomershoot & Maj Toure of Black Guns Matter on Reddit AMA.

Joe Huffman, Founder of Boomershoot:
I’m white + from Idaho. I make reactive targets for people to shoot at, and detonate, thus causing fiery, fun explosions.

Maj Toure, Founder of Black Guns Matter:
I’m black + from Philly. I teach urban communities gun rights and responsibilities, to prevent inner cities from self-imploding.

We’re two peas in a pod, here to talk guns, gun safety, exploding targets, keeping cool, and peace.

We’re not here to nitpick about gun facts — that’s already been done.

We’re here to have fun. We’re individually atypical, so let’s dig deep into what makes us tick: why we do what we do, and how we do it! Ready. Aim. Fire. Kaboom!

#BlackGunsMatter
#Boomershoot

News you can use

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Apparently, if you tell the police you are going to be inappropriately touching people, before you actually do it, the police will then give you a pass:

the TSA decided to inform local police in case anyone calls to report an “abnormal” federal frisking, according to a memo from an airport trade association obtained by Bloomberg News.

Good to know.

Security theater has another act

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U.S. Airport Pat-Downs Are About to Get More Invasive

The TSA reacts to a study that found weapons making it past security.

While few have noticed, U.S. airport security workers long had the option of using five different types of physical pat-downs at the screening line. Now those options have been eliminated and replaced with a single universal approach. This time, you will notice.

The new physical touching—for those selected to have a pat-down—will be be what the federal agency officially describes as a more “comprehensive” physical screening, according to a Transportation Security Administration spokesman.

Denver International Airport, for example, notified employees and flight crews on Thursday that the “more rigorous” searches “will be more thorough and may involve an officer making more intimate contact than before.”

“I would say people who in the past would have gotten a pat-down that wasn’t involved will notice that the [new] pat-down is more involved,” TSA spokesman Bruce Anderson said Friday.

It’s still going to be security theater.

When will the people say this is too much and demand the abolishment of the TSA?

Quote of the day—Benjamin Franklin

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I ran over in my mind every property by which she was distinguished, not only from other animals, but from those of the same genus or class of animals, endeavoring to fix some meaning to each, not wholly inconsistent with common sense.

I recollected that her eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids. She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage. As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarreling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her, she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenseless animal; and even when those weapons are shown and extended for her defense, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds however small, are decisive and fatal. Conscious of this, she never wounds ’till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her.

Benjamin Franklin
December 27, 1775
Benjamin Franklin on the Rattlesnake as a Symbol of America
[Via an email from Firearms Policy Coalition promoting “a limited-edition “Don’t Tread on Me” morale patch.”

FpcDontTreadOnMe

Interesting. I had never given the Gadsden flag anywhere that much thought and there is far more reflection on the meaning at the link.—Joe]

This Tues. March 7, 11am EST: Joe Huffman & Maj Toure on Reddit AMA – Ask Me Anything

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Stop by Reddit this Tuesday, March 7, at 11am EST, to participate in Reddit AMA interview of Joe Huffman, Boomershoot Founder & Maj Toure, Black Guns Matter Founder.

Joe is white + from Idaho. Joe makes reactive targets for people to shoot at, and detonate, thus causing fiery, fun explosions.

Maj is black + from Philly. Maj teaches urban communities gun rights and responsibilities, to prevent inner cities from self-imploding.

They’re two peas in a pod, and will be on Reddit AMA to talk guns, gun safety, exploding targets, keeping cook, and peace. Please, ask them anything!
….
More Joe/Boomershoot info:
Boomershoot.org
At Twitter
On Gab

More Black Guns Matter info:
GoFundMe Page
On Facebook
At Twitter

#BlackGunsMatter
#Boomershoot

Quote of the day—Allan Cors

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The defeated elites are trying to convince Americans that censorship is good; that “we the people” are too stupid to discern between fact and fiction, veracity and lies, and news and propaganda.

The truth is when it comes to the Second Amendment and all that the NRA stands for, “fake news” has been the mainstay of the majority of the elite media for as long as I can remember.

Allan Cors
NRA President
February 28, 2017
The Media Want You To Believe Everything You Read, As Long As They Publish It
[I’ve been following the issue closely since early 1994 and it has been true for that entire time. And that includes numerous incidents in which I was a participant. I knew exactly what the truth was and how the media presented something completely false.—Joe]

Spain appointed a ‘sex tsar’

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Spain appoints ‘sex tsar’ in bid to boost declining population:

Spain reported a higher number of deaths than births for the first time last year 

In response and faced with an impending population crisis, the government has appointed Edelmira Barreira to the position of sex tsar. 

The portfolio was created by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Ms Barreira, a demographic expert, will help draft a document for a national strategy of demographic imbalances. 

Spain’s education ministry said the declining birth-rate “aggravates other economic imbalances and generates important “impacts” in the Welfare State”, Spanish news site ABC reported.

Well… there’s the problem. Socialism. It’s the weapon of choice when you want to destroy a people.

Quote of the day—Vice President Mike Pence

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America’s Obamacare nightmare is about to end. Despite the best efforts of liberal activists around the country, the American people know better. Obamacare has failed, and Obamacare must go.

Vice President Mike Pence
February 23, 2017
VP Pence: ‘America’s Obamacare nightmare is about to end’
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

More brand new discoveries by the left

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In addition to the constitution and the concept of limits on executive power being good things, the leftists appear to have discovered, for the first time ever, the notion that government interference in our affairs may result in brain drain, and also in “instability and uncertainty” in the economy.

It’s as if they’ve heard us and understood us all along, and just didn’t give a damn.

As I’ve been saying recently, it is a mistake to assume gross stupidity among your enemies. They know, and they laugh at you calling them stupid.

Of course they’re still incapable of openly distinguishing between legal immigration and illegal immigration, because that would blow their current gig. The WA Post article is based entirely on that lie of non-distinction.

They’ll use that lie now, in the courts, and muck up immigration enforcement as much possible. We will play along as though they actually had the power to do that, thus granting them that power. And so it will have been conservatives and libertarians who broke with the principles, as much as the Progressive Marxists.

Just as sure as you’re born, however, the leftist agitator sector will at some point even recognize the importance of preventing the courts from assuming authority they do not have, over-stepping their purpose and exceeding their constitutional limits. But they’ll only recognize that when it suits them. Today it does not suit them.

You may call them stupid, or blithering idiots or whatever. I’ll call them brilliantly evil.

Quote of the day—cspschofield

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Ah, but for the last century or so, egalitarianism has always been a false front for elitism.

cspschofield
February 8, 2017
Comment to All Animals Are Equal
[Via email from Paul Koning.

He has a point there.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Scott Adams

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One of the most underrated qualities of Republicans is that they police their own ranks. If you have a problem with a violent Republican racist, call some Republicans. They’ll solve it for you.

But don’t call a Republican if you are simply offended by another person’s opinion. In that situation you want to call some Democrats to ridicule and physically attack the person with the objectionable opinion.

Scott Adams
February 5, 2017
A Thought Experiment About Republicans
[Interesting observation.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Christiana Figueres

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This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.

Christiana Figueres
Executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change
February 3, 2015
Figueres: First time the world economy is transformed intentionally
[See also: Global Warming is About Destroying Capitalism? and U.N. Official Reveals Real Reason Behind Warming Scare.

They always have to use force don’t they? It’s always about control by whatever ruse they think might work.

Free markets and free minds are just not acceptable to them.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Robert Spitzer

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A cluster of issues come together with gun rights zealots. They’re predominantly older white males who think the country is falling apart at the seams; they’re suspicious of outsiders, and quick to blame others for issues the country may face. The worldview typical of an NRA member is the same as that of a far-right conservative person. This is the group that has been very important for the Trump coalition.

Robert Spitzer
February 3, 2017
In Trump’s America, Nothing’s Off the Table for the NRA
[You just keep thinking that.

Reality may be a bit different. Barb and I went to the range last weekend and about half of the people there were women.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Winston S. Churchill

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British troops were still fighting hard in the centre of Athens, hemmed in and outnumbered. We were engaged in house-to-house combat with an enemy at least four-fifths of whom were in plain clothes. Unlike many of the Allied newspaper correspondents in Athens, our troops had no difficulty in understanding the issues involved.

Winston S. Churchill
1953
Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War Volume VI)
Page 259
[I find it interesting the press is frequently so out of touch with reality. Ulysses S. Grant made similar observations several decades earlier.

This six volume series on WW II by Churchill is excellent. His perspective is, of course, a bit different from what I learned in history classes and I enjoyed seeing things from his view.—Joe]

CRA – not tired of winning

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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

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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.