Category Archives: Freedom

Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

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A human right is a bit like the sun. The sun is essential to life. You can bask in it, or hide from it. You may be able to change people’s attitudes toward it, or even start a religion around it. You may hate it or love it, or be largely indifferent to it, or think anything you want to think about it. If you fail to deal with it properly it can burn or even kill you, but without it you are dead. You could get a group of sun haters together in the street and carry picket signs denouncing the sun, and you might even be able to lobby enough idiots and criminals in Congress to get laws passed denouncing the sun.

But two things will remain true no matter what you think or do. A) your life depends on the sun, and B) neither you, nor any group of people, any committee or government body, no force on Earth, has the power to alter it in any way. You did not create it and you cannot alter or destroy it.

Similarly, human rights can be respected and honored, or they might be despised and violated, but they cannot be created, granted, altered, revoked or destroyed by any force on Earth no matter how popular or powerful that force may be. That’s where we get the term “unalienable” as applied to human rights in the Declaration of Independence.

This in partially in response to McThags post here;

http://mcthag.blogspot.com/2013/12/better.html
“He’s head and shoulders above A&E who may be in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for suspending him. Oh yeah, everyone who’s been saying that A&E had every right to fire him over his remarks forgot the religion clause of that law, didn’t they?”

But it apples to all such discussions. I’d comment over there, but commenting seems to require a google account and I’m not starting a google account.

The “Civil Rights Act” does not create, enhance, or modify any right, any more than a law can create, enhance or otherwise modify a star in some other galaxy or a physical law of the universe, though it certainly may be used as a tool or an excuse to violate some rights. Mostly it’s just some words written by people who don’t understand the meaning of rights, or hope that the rest of us don’t understand.

Quote of the day—Predator

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Interestingly, and not surprisingly coming from The Left, he is advocating capital punishment for possessing a philosophy rather than committing an act. Looking at history, that appears to be a constant.

That said philosophy is supported by, and adheres to, centuries of documented, established rights, which in turn is supported by the natural laws of this particular planet, is irrelevant to him; it is the philosophy he considers so dangerous.

This is certainly a real stretch – for the moment, anyway – but at what level does such a threat constitute basis for justifiable defensive action? For now it’s just talk; I suspect as political power waxes and wanes it may not always be.

Predator
December 19, 2013
Referring to This is what they think of you
[To answer the question, it depends upon what your definition of “justifiable defensive action” is.

I consider defensive training, stocking up on ammo, and keeping my home location difficult to find “defensive action” and more than justified by the current enumerable threats to my philosophy, person, and family. If you are talking about using deadly force as the “justifiable defensive action” then the answer is when the threat is eminent and of a nature that it would result in death or permanent injury to an innocent person.

Other than that I have nothing to add.—Joe]

This one is simple

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I usually stay away from stupid pop culture stuff, but this one has a lesson to it and maybe some on the left can learn from it (yeah I know; don’t say it).

GQ Magazine has every right to bait the Duck Dynasty dude in an interview.

Duck Dynasty dude had every right to fall into the trap, providing GQ with some juicy stuff about homosexuals to peddle their stupid magazine to stupid people.

A&E had every right to lay off Duck Dynasty dude or fire him outright, or do nothing, or whatever they wanted, so long as it’s within their contractual prerogative.

The Duck Dynasty stars have every right to stay or to leave A&E, so long as it’s within their contractual prerogative.

A&E watchers have every right to quit watching, or keep watching, that stupid network as they choose and/or as they can afford it.

Any other network has every right to take on the Duck Dynasty people in a new show, and everyone has the right to watch that one, or not, as they choose and/or can afford it.

See? That’s how freedom works. No one goes to jail or gets robbed or beaten up, no one has to sign a contract at gunpoint, everyone has free choice so long as it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights, and no one has the right to be free from the inevitable consequences of their own stupid mistakes.

No politician on the face of this Earth properly has anything to say, in any official capacity, about any of it. That’s not their job, and they should be smart enough to say so when questioned about it, though unfortunately they’re not that smart. Not by a mile.

Fake moral controversy resolved. Now mind your business.

Second Amendment Foundation kicks additional butt

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In the grand scheme of things it’s a small win, but we’ll take what we can get;

CITY OF SEATTLE SETTLES SAF PUBLIC RECORDS LAWSUIT FOR $38,000

BELLEVUE, WA The Second Amendment Foundation has accepted a $38,000 settlement from the City of Seattle for the city’s failure to release public records about the city’s gun buyback in January.

As part of the agreement, the city has acknowledged that it did not promptly or properly provide all of the documents sought by SAF under the Public Records Act. SAF was represented by Bellevue attorney Miko Tempski.

“It is a shame that this had to drag out so long,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “but the important thing is that the city, and outgoing Mayor Mike McGinn’s office has been held accountable for sloppy handling of our request. One would have thought the city had learned something earlier this year when the police department had to pay the Seattle Times $20,000, for also not providing requested documents.

“Maybe the citizens of Seattle can consider this a Christmas gift from the departing mayor,” he remarked. “This would not have been necessary had McGinn’s office done its job.”

SAF had pursued e-mails and other documents related to the January buyback, which was conducted in a parking lot underneath I-5 in downtown Seattle. The operation was something of an embarrassment that even Washington Ceasefire President Ralph Fascitelli had advised against, the recovered e-mails revealed.

Earlier the city had supplied some of the requested documents, but a story in the Seattle P-I.com revealed there were other materials that had not been provided to SAF by Mayor McGinn’s office.

“It seems hard to conceive,” Tempski said, “how you could accidentally overlook hundreds of documents and how that could be unintentional.”

“The settlement,” said Gottlieb, “will help SAF continue its legal work. Hopefully, we will see better performance from a new city administration in January.”

Bureaucrats care very little when they’re playing with other people’s money, but eventually they get booted out of office for their douchebaggery.

What the Seattle government critters were trying to hide through their obfuscation of course is that gun “buy-backs” (as if they were ever their guns in the first place) are nothing but a cheap, stupid sham. They knew they’d be called on it, so they were willing to take their very slim chances in court at the citizens’ expense.

At a minimum, the settlement should come of out their salaries. That is after they’re arrested for using their position in an attempt to chill the exercise of a constitutional right.

How about a printer and ink “buy-back” as a means of “fighting” counterfeiting? Yeah; shockingly stupid. Insane, actually, if anyone were to think it could ever help anything.

If you trust people who do this sort of thing to hold positions of power there is something wrong with you.

Hey; let’s have a Koran “buy-back”, after which we’ll show videos on the evening news of those Korans being shredded for recycling. “Getting these Korans off the streets is another way to help save lives” the announcer would say, as a flock of doves is released. Surely that’ll put a big dent in the jihadist threat, right? Same reasoning. Same anti constitutional behavior. Same insanity.

They have it back asswards of course; crime (both the freelance and the official kind) is the reason we must at all times protect the right to keep and bear ams.

I gave quite a bit (for me) to the SAF this year. How about you?

Wrong hands, right hands… uh, say again?

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Assault-weapons_2

I shamelessly copied this from Ace, who copied it from Bookworm, who found it on FB. Seems to be on-topic.

This is what they think of you

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Via email from Col. Milquetoast who says, “Phillip Adams is an old Australian lefty with a newspaper column and a radio show. And apparently a bit of a totalitarian streak”.

Adams’ Twitter profile says, “Broadcaster, columnist, presenter of Late Night Live on ABC RN.”

Adams wrote this column on September 10, 2011:

It was widely accepted that her attempted assassination was triggered, no pun intended, by the verbal violence of US politics – such as the “lock ’n’ load” rhetoric of gun-totin’ Sarah Palin, whose campaign literature literally targeted political opponents, depicting them in the crosshairs of telescopic sights.

While sticks and stones break bones, words can never hurt? Manifestly untrue.

…

The massacre in Arizona that almost killed Giffords killed six others – and the appalled reaction almost killed off Palin’s campaign. Let this and Norway remind us to turn down our political volume and venom. It’s not enough for Abbott to tell us he “doesn’t entirely agree” with vile placards being waved at right-wing rallies. He must denounce them. And when an Alan Jones suggests that Gillard should be drowned in a hessian sack? With memories of his role in the Cronulla riots, he should he sacked.

…

Today, words. Tomorrow, sticks and stones. And the day after that?

It might have been “widely accepted” by those who do not require evidence to form their beliefs but it wasn’t accepted by most people. But that is mostly beside the point.

The main point is that he then demonstrated his total lack of an irony co-processor, or perhaps an overactive hypocritical gland, by tweeting the following:

Tweeted December 14, 2013 3:53 PM:

Biggest US death toll?Not Iraq or A’stan but the war waged within the US by the Invincible NRMA.Seems to gain strength with every massacre

Tweeted December 14, 2013, 3:58 PM:

The target of the US war on terror should be those NRMA nutters-who outgun and outmaneuver every challenger from POTUS down.And always have

Tweeted December 14, 2013, 3:59 PM:

The charnel house of Charlton Heston

Tweeted December 14, 2013, 4:05 PM:

Oops. NRA. Brain dulled by medication

Tweeted December 14, 2013, 4:07 PM:

National Ratbags. National Racists

This is a broadcaster with ABC who thinks “The target of the US war on terror should be those NRA nutters”. You, as a NRA member and gun owner, are to be give special treatment. This is not the special treatment afforded to others exercising a specific enumerated right but the special treatment of military assaults, detention without trial, and drone strikes.

How would ABC handle it if he were to say something similar about blacks, Jews, feminists, or gays?

Quote of the day—L. Neil Smith

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I also declare that, like murder, crimes against the constitution have no statute of limitations (and never can, owing to the matter of conflicting interests involved). Those in the school system who smugly believe it’s smart or cute to strip away childrens’ rights for the sake of administrative convenience (or plain old sadistic pleasure) will someday face those former children in a jury box, possibly in a small town in Pennsylvania that will lend its name to the Nuremberg II tribunals.

L. Neil Smith
October 14, 2007
And Sow Salt on the Ruins
[It’s a really, really small town. But the sweetness of the name and the location, a little over 100 miles from Philadelphia, give it great weight in the venue selection.

H/T to Paul Koning in the comments.—Joe]

ITAR update

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Last May I told of the risks posed to us by International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

Yesterday I received an email from a friend who is a NRA Instructor who had concerns about the implications. He wanted more information so I had a long chat with my “source” last night. He is a lawyer and he got the advice from another lawyer to “Not get involved.” This is a very risky area. When Hillary was head of the State Department there wasn’t a problem. But with Kerry things changed.

He contacted the Department of State and asked about Basic Firearm Safety training. He wanted to know if this was considered regulated under ITAR. The answer came back, “Yes.”

The law, as written, is very broad. Strictly speaking; telling a foreigner the NRA three safety rules could be construed as a felony. All firearms are considered munitions and cannot be exported without a license. Hence telling someone how to load the magazine of a Ruger Mark III is training someone on the use of export controlled munitions.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/22/120.10
http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/22/120.16
http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/22/120.17

The advice is to not teach foreigners anything about firearms. This is also the advice from the NRA. From the NRA Instructors website:

NRA cannot provide any assistance in training foreign persons due to conflicting information from the U.S. Government regarding regulations pertinent to foreign persons and arms training. NRA cannot process any requests for assistance in training foreign persons. In view of the above, we regret to inform you that NRA cannot renew NRA firearm trainer credentials for any foreign national.

This is not good.

But what is “a foreign person”? My source emailed me the following “cheat sheet” to answer the question:

Status

 Can Possess? Can Train?

US Citizen or National (not otherwise prohibited)

 Yes Yes

Permanent resident (Green Card)

 Yes Yes

Tourist visa or waiver

 Yes No

Non-immigrant visa (H-1B,  J-1 etc.)

No No

Non-immigrant visa with valid hunting license or admitted for lawful hunting or sporting purposes

 Yes No

I reported back to my friendly neighborhood NRA instructor, he replied with more than a little concern and anger about the situation and then I watched as the hits accumulated on my web page from last May.

As my source told me last night, “I used to think we would all be sent to prison because DMCA violations. Now I think it’s going to be because of ITAR.”

Fair weather defense

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Last time I went out shooting it was a beautiful, sunny day. Granted, it was nine degrees Fahrenheit and very windy, and my fingers were going numb to the point where I could barely load my guns, but hey; sunshine and beauty.

There’s a lot of discussion about shooting in adverse conditions under stress, and then there’s also a lot of talk that goes along the lines of, “Hey I got this fabulous new gun, but I’ll have to wait ’till Spring before I can try it out.”

For seven months of the year, there is a real possibility of snow on the ground here, and more so as you get higher in elevation. Maybe your practice should be around 7/12 cold weather practice in places like this then. You may find that your gun(s), which functioned well at 70 degrees, will start behaving in strange ways at zero and below.

Remember Washington’s crossing of that icy river on that snowy night to attack the Hessians at Trenton? Yeah. That kicked ass.

Do you know what it’s like policing your brass in three feet of snow on snowshoes while carrying all your gear on your person? Have you dropped a warm magazine in the snow when it’s zero degrees out? Yeah; it’s out of operation ’till you can warm it up and get the ice out of it. How does that slick new pistol hold work out when you’re wearing a heavy coat and standing on uneven ground on ice? What does your super bright flashlight do for you in a blizzard? What happens to the effectiveness of different types of batteries when they get very cold? Should you attempt to shoot while wearing gloves, or no? What do you do when snow falls out of a tree onto the exposed action of your rifle? What happens to the effectiveness of your optics at 10 degrees when you happen to breathe onto the ocular lens? Can you even turn the zoom control on your scope?

Next time it’s snowing, windy, very cold and dark, maybe consider it an opportunity for some good shooting practice. If you enjoy the warmth and comfort of home on a stormy winter’s night, just think of how much more you’ll enjoy it after some good shooting practice.

The setup, the pitch, and… WHACK!

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Home run!

“The nationalized preschool promoters, led by feckless bureaucrats who piled mounds of debt onto our children with endless Keynesian pipe dreams, claim that new multibillion-dollar “investments” in public education will “benefit the economy.” But ultimately, it’s not about the money or improved academic outcomes for Fed Ed. The increasing federal encroachment into our children’s lives at younger and younger ages is about control. These clunkers don’t need more time and authority over our families. They need a permanent recess.”

I was just telling my daughter on the way in this morning that you need to look past the authoritarians’ rationalizations, dismiss them out of hand, and look instead at their behavior and results over time. Then you see the disease for what it is. Malkin is exactly right; they need a permanent recess.

Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell

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If you believe in equal rights, then what do “women’s rights,” “gay rights,” etc., mean? Either they are redundant or they are violations of the principle of equal rights for all.

Thomas Sowell
November 26, 2013
Random Thoughts
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John Stossel

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We don’t live in a reasonable world. We live in a big government world.

John Stossel
2012
No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails-But Individuals Succeed
[I’m just finishing up this book. It’s a good book. For me there were lots of examples of how government screwed up things—all with the best of intentions. I knew in general that was the case but having more examples was nice. If you could get them to read the book the most benefit would be gained by politicians and progressive voters reading it. But if they could be convinced by facts and logic they probably wouldn’t be politicians and they certainly wouldn’t be progressives.—Joe]

Ordered thought of the day

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You know; ordered as opposed to random, just because I feel like being a smart ass.

The most ignorant, uninspired person in the room is the one who’s most interested in running things.

The person who’s doing nothing, seeing the person who’s doing something, will become irritated and try to tell the person who’s doing something that he’s doing it wrong or that he shouldn’t be doing it, and/or that the doer is victimizing the non doer with all his inconsiderate and irresponsible doing. Failure in that strategy requires falling back on plan B; taking credit for the works of the doer that could not be redirected or discouraged.

The non doer views the mastery of this simple strategy as incontrovertible proof of superior intelligence and worth.

This is the basis of all politics, in the same sense that space, time, matter and energy are the bases of life– It is a fundamental law of nature.

Random thought of the day

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The Bill of Rights isn’t about protecting rights the government has no interest in infringing. It’s about protecting those rights which are in danger of being repressed by government.

For about the first 150 years of this country there wasn’t a serious effort to disarm the citizens. Starting in about 1934 and continuing until the present day there has been.

The Second Amendment isn’t outdated. It was ahead of it’s time.

Interview with Jeff Cooper of Gunsite

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From the 1970s

Nothing new to those who’ve read his work, but it is interesting. He certainly never minced words.

When I heard the militaristic sort of music they used, I couldn’t help thinking that it would be taken as sarcasm today. Back then? I’m not sure.

Slowing the march isn’t a step in the right direction

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Say Uncle pointed me to this article about MSM whining about the lack of “productivity” of Congress. Apparently slowing down the destruction of freedom with still more laws is considered a bad thing.

In my book Congressional “productivity” would be measured by the net number of laws repealed per unit of time. But no one really knows how many laws we have so we really need a different metric for productivity in Joe’s world.

We do know as of the 1980 we had something on the order of 23,000 pages of Federal law. But we know that Obamacare has about 2,400 pages all by itself! And that doesn’t include the regulations that are derived from the law. The estimates on the number of pages of regulations are on the order of 170,000 pages. And the U.S. tax code has something on the order of 13,000 pages.

I’m thinking a reasonable productivity rate would be something on the order of a page per minute. After an entire year on the the job they would be most of the way through Obamacare. It would take decades to get back to constitutionally enumerated limits. But it took us decades to get here so as long as they are making progress at a rate equal to or greater than the rate we arrived here I can’t really complain a whole lot.

Explain to me how this works

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There are more and more people calling for constitutional amendments, or a convention of states.

Let me see if have this right– Those in office aren’t obeying the constitution, so we’re going to change the constitution that they aren’t obeying.

Isn’t that a bit like a “gun free zone” sign, in that those who would obey it aren’t the problem we’re addressing? “We must pass new laws because criminals aren’t obeying the laws” is what we scoff at when it comes from Progressive communists. Now we’re doing it too?

The best I can see coming from a new or revised constitution is that it would represent an official mandate– It might serve as a psychological incentive for the three percent, somewhat like the Emancipation Proclamation which on its surface had no teeth being that there was already a state of active rebellion.

Just don’t think for a second that the dirtbags in power are going to see your shiny new, libertarian constitution and say to themselves; “Golly! Now THERE’S a constitution I can obey to the letter, the spirit, the whole deal! Heck yeah! No problem! No more redistributionist/interventionist/kleptocratic thinking for me! No, Sir! This is GREAT now…all of a sudden…like!”

Really?

Random thought of the day

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The Federal government has laws against marijuana use, possession, and sales. Although heavily regulated in Washington state you can soon buy pot in stores and people currently openly admit to using it in private. To the best of my knowledge the Feds have not and do not plan to prosecute anyone for violation of their marijuana laws but continue to do so in other states.

But the Feds aggressively fight the Firearms Freedom Act in the states which have passed such laws. And I’m certain that if I started manufacturing guns and selling them in Montana, Idaho or any of the other FFA states without a license or complying with the hundreds if not thousands of Federal laws and regulations on firearms I would soon get an unpleasant visit from the Feds.

What does this mean? Doesn’t it mean that laws are enforced by the whim of the politicians in power? How is this different than having laws against assault and battery but not enforcing them if the victim is of the “wrong” color, religion, or sexual-orientation?

You have to “just know” the law does or doesn’t apply to you this week/month/election-cycle. I firmly believe it would be better that all laws be vigorously and equally enforced. The outrage would result in the stupid laws being repealed.

The existence of a multitude of unenforced laws is a huge risk. How you ask? With so many things being illegal it means our government has the power to arbitrarily imprison anyone at any time. We have fully equipped our government with tyrannical powers just waiting for the “right person” to use them.

We will finally be safe and secure…

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…once we have been stripped of the best means of defending ourselves.

That was originally posted on Angelfire as one of the “121 Tenets of Socialism” my brother and I wrote many years ago, and which has since disappeared down the rabbit hole of early internet restructurings and multiple computer replacements. It’s one of the tenets I remember well. They all highlight the blatant logical contradictions we’re expected to embrace in the name of the coming Heaven on Earth that Progressive communism promises in exchange for total surrender to government authority.

Sheep testicles

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I came across a “TED Talk”  by the guy that does Dirty Jobs. In the comments, there was a link to a podcast he did giving some background on how it came about. The first in fascinating, funny, and thought provoking. The latter I thought was hysterical. Mike Rowe is sharp, and surprisingly well educated (I don’t mean just “he has a degree,” but seems to be familiar with Classics, Greek and Latin). He’s an excellent speaker. [Edit: Hmmmm… It doesn’t like to embed the frame with the video. Link to TED Talk is here.]

 

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