Category Archives: Freedom

Quote of the day—Larry Correia

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I really don’t get the mindset where being willing to hurt a perpetrator is equivalent to blaming a victim.

If you truly believe in empowering women, then you shouldn’t stand in the way of the ones who choose to defend themselves.

Larry Correia
June 10, 2014
The Naive Idiocy of Teaching Rapists Not To Rape
[I think the mindset he describes is extremely harmful and out of touch with reality. But I do sort of understand it.

It is a cultural thing. They view taking responsibility for your own self-defense as “joining the cult of individualism”. They view rapists as someone in “the collective” who hasn’t been sufficiently indoctrinated. If only the collective had more power…

Individualist are opposed to giving more power to the collective hence we, by our very nature, are opposed to what they view as a force for good. Giving individual women the power to defend themselves distinguishes them from the masses of women that do not have the inclination, skills, or tools to defend themselves. It is cultural suicide for the collective to encourage individuals to stand out.

But understanding it doesn’t mean we have to accept it. Only in a homogenous collective is one opinion or viewpoint just as valid as another. This is their goal. Their utopia will be achieved when the response to dissent is a prison term, a psych ward, or a bullet to the head* and the power of the collective is nearly infinite in comparison to the power of the individual.

We need to do all we can to legally and morally destroy the cult of the collective. It’s not just anti-women it’s basis of all the great genocides of the 20th Century and perhaps of all time.—Joe]

* I’m nearly finished with The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Volume One). Lenin and Stalin’s vision and the implementation of that vision are disturbingly vivid right now.

The greatest risk to you and your family

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A government that disarms you:

Via email from JoeyD Sr.

Open letter to Eric Holder

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This, from Mike Vanderboegh, is interesting. It represents one of the stated ideas behind the second amendment back in the day– Something about keeping would-be tyrants “in awe”, presenting a force beyond that of any standing army, etc.

I’m not sure what good the letter could do, beyond letting Holder and Company know that we have a fairly good, general idea of what they’re up to, that we’re not all entirely intimidated, blind, cowed, distracted and demoralized. There may be some value in that and there may not, but there it is. I’ve done similar in the past, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again.

As for the possibility of violence; I do NOT believe that, at this point anyway, Holder and Company are the slightest bit intimidated. Not in the way the author may have intended. I believe it is likely, insofar as I understand the mentality or the occupying identity that drives them, that Holder et al are quite looking forward to violence, that they’ve been getting impatient waiting for it and can’t quite understand why we’re taking so long to get with it (and thus help them fulfill their plans).

It might be more productive to try to convince Holder & Company that they themselves are mere pawns, and that once their role is served and their usefulness expired they’ll be left in the lurch, or squashed like cockroaches, by those they currently serve, but that won’t dawn on them until it’s far too late for them. It almost never does.

And so the value in such letters or postings is, at best, that later on they’ll not be able to say they weren’t warned or didn’t have any choice. In light of THAT, maybe our efforts should include defining for such unfortunates a viable way out.

When insanity works, but not the way you expect

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Sometimes insanity works… but not the way you expect.

Consider the Napoleonic Wars. Men in orderly rank and file marching into battle with rifle and musket, to face volley fire from opposing rank and file of uniforms. Were the men marching insane? Would not a soldier’s chance of surviving be greatly increased by running away from the line of men firing at his formation? Undoubtedly, yes, it would. Would his own formation have a marginally lower chance of winning if he were to do so? Yes, again. If the man next to him ran away, would he increase his personal chances of survival, too? While decreasing, a bit more, the chance of failure for their side? Yes, absolutely, to both. It is crazy to stand and fight, if you can increase your chance of survival by running away. But if enough people on your side choose to run and survive that fight, you also doom your side to total defeat, and being hunted down by the victors and having your land, property, and women taken, because they were collectively crazy enough to stand and fight. It’s a fine line between disciplined and insane. Continue reading →

On sex offender registries

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Interesting:

California’s registry isn’t practical. Amanda Agan, a postdoctoral fellow in economics at Princeton studied sex offender registries at The University of Chicago. She explained her findings to NPR’s On the Media in 2011. She compared multiple studies, across multiple types of registries, including ones like California’s, and found that when the information is public, the pattern of recidivism (which means committing a crime again) was discouraging.

When they were in a public registry there was “a slight increase in how much they recidivated,” although “a slight deterrent effect for first-time offenders. But as the registry size grows, it seems like that recidivism effects swamps the first-time registrant effect. And so, we get kind of an overall increase in sex crimes.” Are you getting this? Sex crimes increased.

Again we find that if the government gets involved in preventive measures they make things worse.

The motivation for evil

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is evil.

Did they think this through?

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I find this scary as well as ironic:

A committee chaired by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff has come up with a three phase plan to “all but do away with cash transactions in Israel”.

This represents a severe failure of the Jews in the Attic Test—by a Jewish nation.

Quote of the day—Lyle

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Anyone who uses the word “profit” as a dirty word should be watched very, very carefully. If they hate the idea of gain through free trade it can only mean that they’re looking to get it through robbery.

Lyle
May 27, 2014
Comment to Quote of the day—reality
[I’ve often had similar thoughts but hadn’t put them into words as well as Lyle did.—Joe]

Quote of the day—reality

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The NRA is primarily in it for money and profit, and have demonstrated that they don’t give a SH about you and your family. They are not protecting your gun rights to have a gun (because no one is trying to ban all guns) – they are protecting THEIR PROFITS. Keep being ignorant and voting with them, and see how far it gets you . . .

reality
May 26, 2014
Comment to Shooter’s rage at women too familiar in America
[“reality” appears to be living in an alternate reality because in my universe the NRA is a nonprofit organization, does a lot to protect our right to keep and bear arms, and there are a lot of people who want to ban all guns.

I wonder what color the sky is in their world.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Mark O’Mara

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Our Constitution is a resilient force, and our Bill of Rights has survived countless modifications and restrictions without the erosion of fundamental freedoms. Our Second Amendment right is no different: It can survive modification and restriction without the fear that it will vanish altogether.

Mark O’Mara
May 2, 2014
I’m a gun owner and I want gun control
[“…without fear that it will vanish altogether”! That’s his criteria for the preservation of a specific enumerated right? So as long as you get permission from the government to checkout your single shot .22 rifle once a month at the gun range and use it under close supervision before checking it back your right to keep and bear arms hasn’t been infringed, right?

Let’s test this concept with some other rights:

  • Your right to freedom of speech hasn’t vanished altogether as long as you are given a “free speech zone” a mile from the nearest person that might be offended.
  • Your right freedom of religion hasn’t vanished altogether as long as you tithe 10% to the one government approved church regardless of which of the other two approved religions you more closely align with.
  • Your right to not have government agents quartered in your home hasn’t vanished altogether as long as you get one day a month without them.
  • Your right to be free from involuntary servitude hasn’t vanished altogether as long as you get one day a week to yourself.

I would like to suggest that O’Mara review the concept of “strict scrutiny” in regards to constitutionally protected rights. But I fear his ability to think rationally has vanished altogether.—Joe]

Government at work

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This is what happens when the government tries to do something. It is in part because it’s “someone else’s money”:

Employees at an ObamaCare processing center in Missouri with a contract worth $1.2 billion are reportedly getting paid to do nothing but sit at their computers. 

“Their goals are set to process two applications per month and some people are not even able to do that,” a whistleblower told KMOV-TV, referring to employees hired to process paper applications for ObamaCare enrollees.  

The facility in Wentzville is operated by Serco, a company owned by a British firm that was awarded $1.2 billion in part to hire 1,500 workers to handle paper applications for coverage under the law, according to The Washington Post. 

The whistleblower employee told the station that weeks can pass without data entry workers receiving even a single application to process. Employees reportedly spend their days staring at their computers, according to a KMOX-TV report. 

“They’re told to sit at their computers and hit the refresh button every 10 minutes, no more than every 10 minutes,” the employee said. “They’re monitored, to hopefully look for an application.”

Obamacare will make healthcare more affordable. All the government has to do is pass a law declaring something to be true and that is what will happen.

That is what the suckers believe. Historic data to the contrary is always ignored. Present results are ignored. They believe intentions are more valid than results. These people do not operate in a world of facts. They operate in a world of good intentions. Most of them anyway. Some are truly evil and take advantage of this flaw in the nature of many people.

Daniel Webster and Henry David Thoreau both had it nailed over 150 years ago.

It’s time people put their brains to work and stop relying on their “hearts”. If we don’t the consequences may be extremely severe. Their ideology puts millions of people at extreme risk.

Quote of the day—Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

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To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions.

Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble—and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare’s evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.

Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilizations; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.

Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions.

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Volume One) pages 173 and 174.
[Those that believe in the power of the state to do good have and will use the state to enforce their ideology upon the unbelievers. They believe “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” The twentieth century saw 60 to 100 million people murdered by their governments to make the world a better place. Governments which believed the welfare of the nation took precedence over that of individuals. That is what their ideology enabled. The ideology of the U.S. Constitution is that government has a very limited role, must be given only a small set of enumerated powers, and must respect the rights of the individual. That is why the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. The oppressed individuals in the great massacres of the 20th Century always vastly outnumbered their active oppressors. This is why the ideologies of those who believe in the power of the state always include the disarming of the individual. The armed individual is too dangerous to their ideology.

Let’s not let the 21st Century ideologies that succeed be those that enable the murder of 10s or 100s of millions.—Joe]

Delusional

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I stumbled across “Cracks in the NRA armor?” recently:

For more than 30 years, the NRA and its lobbyists have controlled the debate on gun reform with both money and media. Since the Sandy Hook massacre on Dec. 14, 2012, that has changed. That event woke Americans to the hold that the gun manufacturers and the NRA had on our country.

…

The NRA is no longer your “Grandfather’s Association” for hunters and sports shooters, but a more militaristic organization spreading fear of government tyranny.

We learned that we will not rest until our families and communities are safe from gun violence.

Yes. She is delusional if she thinks the NRA has “controlled the debate on gun reform with both money and media”. And there are a lot of other signs of her delusions there as well.

While in general a delusional opponent is probably less of a threat that a reality based one they are still an opponent. And when allowed to have power they can be an extremely deadly threat. Do not dismiss them. Keep them from the levers of power.

Think Stalin, Mussolini, and Michael Bloomberg.

Quote of the day—Ludwig von Mises

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The welfare of the nation takes precedence over the selfishness of the individuals … was the fundamental principle of Nazi economic management. But as people are too dull and too vicious to comply with this rule, it is the task of government to enforce it.

Ludwig von Mises
1949
Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (4 Volume Set)
[For more context see here.

“Dull and vicious.” That is what they think of you if you do not place the welfare of the nation above that of your own. When people tell you this today inform them there have been a lot of people in agreement with them. It was the fundamental principle of Nazi economic management.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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We have a slave class in this country.

There is a segment of the population that lives solely off the toil of others without making their own contribution. Their grandparents, parents, and children insist they are entitled to being supported by their slaves. They deserve to be supported and appear to have no remorse, see anything wrong with the situation, and fully expect they and their offspring to be able to continue to live off the back of others forever.

We have the slave overseers who punish the slaves who do not “contribute their fair share”. And actively seek the favors of their master who give them their power. They promise more and more benefits if only they will vote for them in the next election.

As Ayn Rand said, socialism is the enslavement of people by vote. And we have made great “progress” in becoming a socialist society.

Yes. I know. Comparing modern-day wage earners to slaves trivializes true slavery. But Marxists have been doing this for a long time and I’m not going to accept criticism for using the same tactic they use against us.

Footnote 1
From here: “It can be persuasively argued,” noted one concerned philosopher, “that the conception of the worker’s labour as a commodity confirms Marx’s stigmatization of the wage system of private capitalism as ‘wage-slavery;’ that is, as an instrument of the capitalist’s for reducing the worker’s condition to that of a slave, if not below it.”[249]

Footnote 2
While doing a bit of poking around in the process of writing this blog post I ran across this fascinating tidbit:

A black man named Anthony Johnson of Virginia first introduced permanent black slavery in the 1650s by becoming the first holder in America of permanent black slaves.[116]

And this:

Some of President Obama’s ancestors were slave owners.[263]

Quote of the day—Jay Leno

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We wanted a president that listens to all Americans – now we have one. Yeah.

Actually, President Obama clarified the situation today. He said no one is listening to your phone calls. The president said it’s not what the program is all about. You know, like the IRS isn’t about targeting certain political groups. That’s not what it’s about!

I mean what’s going on? The White House has looked into our phone records, checking our computers, monitoring our e-mails. When did the government suddenly become our psycho ex-girlfriend? When did that happen?

Jay Leno
June 7, 2013
From here.

[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

It’s not just gun owners who are considered terrorists

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This is very interesting.

A sample:

These incidents were not aberrations of the era. During the Bush years, for example, documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed, as the group put it in 2006, “new details of Pentagon surveillance of Americans opposed to the Iraq war, including Quakers and student groups“. The Pentagon was “keeping tabs on non-violent protesters by collecting information and storing it in a military anti-terrorism database”. The evidence shows that assurances that surveillance is only targeted at those who “have done something wrong” should provide little comfort, since a state will reflexively view any challenge to its power as wrongdoing.

The opportunity those in power have to characterise political opponents as “national security threats” or even “terrorists” has repeatedly proven irresistible. In the past decade, the government, in an echo of Hoover’s FBI, has formally so designated environmental activists, broad swaths of anti-government rightwing groups, anti-war activists, and associations organised around Palestinian rights. Some individuals within those broad categories may deserve the designation, but undoubtedly most do not, guilty only of holding opposing political views. Yet such groups are routinely targeted for surveillance by the NSA and its partners.

One document from the Snowden files, dated 3 October 2012, chillingly underscores the point. It revealed that the agency has been monitoring the online activities of individuals it believes express “radical” ideas and who have a “radicalising” influence on others.

***

The NSA explicitly states that none of the targeted individuals is a member of a terrorist organisation or involved in any terror plots. Instead, their crime is the views they express, which are deemed “radical“, a term that warrants pervasive surveillance and destructive campaigns to “exploit vulnerabilities”.

…

The government may treat anyone who challenges its policies as terrorists.  For example:

…

Constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead writes:

No matter what the Obama administration may say to the contrary, actions speak louder than words, and history shows that the U.S. government is not averse to locking up its own citizens for its own purposes. What the NDAA does is open the door for the government to detain as a threat to national security anyone viewed as a troublemaker. According to government guidelines for identifying domestic extremists—a word used interchangeably with terrorists, that technically applies to anyone exercising their First Amendment rights in order to criticize the government.

Daniel Ellsberg notes that Obama’s claim of power to indefinitely detain people without charges or access to a lawyer or the courts is a power that even King George – the guy we fought the Revolutionary War against – didn’t claim.  (And former judge and adjunct professor of constitutional law Andrew Napolitano points out that Obama’s claim that he can indefinitely detain prisoners even after they are acquitted of their crimes is a power that even Hitler and Stalin didn’t claim.)

And the former top NSA official who created NSA’s mass surveillance system says, “We are now in a police state“.

The implications of such massive surveillance are staggering. It might be nearly impossible to stop because with such surveillance in place a political reformist can and will be targeted. From the article:

Among the information collected about the individuals, at least one of whom is a “US person”, are details of their online sex activities and “online promiscuity” – the porn sites they visit and surreptitious sex chats with women who are not their wives. The agency discusses ways to exploit this information to destroy their reputations and credibility.

One might hope that an economic collapse of the Federal Government, which I think is nearly certain, will stop it. But an agency with that much power and the tools to maintain it will be among the last to go down and make itself “useful” in any government resurrection.

Quote of the day—Ayn Rand

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There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism – by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.

Ay Rand
“Foreign Policy Drains U.S. of Main Weapon,”
The Los Angeles times, Sept. 9, 1962, G2
From here.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

That’s not the way it works

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As you might have gathered from reading Prince Law Office’s blog or what Sebastian had to say the ATF recently ruled that non-incorporated trusts are not considered a “person”. A careful reading of the law regarding machine guns then becomes very interesting:

(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), it shall be unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun.
(2) This subsection does not apply with respect to–
(A) a transfer to or by, or possession by or under the authority of, the United States or any department or agency thereof or a State, or a department, agency, or political subdivision thereof; or
(B) any lawful transfer or lawful possession of a machinegun that was lawfully possessed before the date this subsection takes effect.

Because it is only unlawful for a person to transfer or possess a machinegun and a trust is not a person then your trust can now purchase machine guns. If the law means what it says.

But that isn’t the way thing work in our country anymore. The way things work is that many or most of the politicians and judges dispense “justice” which means not what the law says but what they want it to mean at this particular time and place. We are long past the time when the law really means what it says. You don’t believe me? Review the history on Obamacare in the last few months. Or try getting a prosecutor to bring charges against someone using 18 USC 241 or 18 USC 242 for infringing upon the rights of people exercising the right to keep and bear arms.

And they are proud of the way they dispense “justice” so don’t expect anything to change anytime soon.

Mixed feelings

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I approve of the end result but I wish we had got there via the legislature rather than the courts:

A federal judge has issued an injunction Tuesday blocking enforcement of Idaho’s ban on same-sex marriage, saying it is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Magistrate Candy Dale issued the ruling in the case of four same-sex couples who challenged the constitutionality of Idaho’s marriage laws, which voters approved as an amendment to the state constitution in 2006.

In her decision, Dale wrote that Idaho’s laws barring same-sex marriage unconstitutionally deny gay and lesbian citizens their fundamental right to marry.

I see marriage law as being in the domain of the state legislatures. I haven’t read the court decisions but it would seem to be a stretch to find a fundamental right for same sex couples to marry in the U.S. Constitution, common law, or natural law and yet there be some question about the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms being protected.