Category Archives: Freedom

Quote of the day—Robert J. Avrech

Posted on by

We return to Stalin’s omelet. Over and over, Democrats calmly and cruelly explain that only five percent of Americans will be booted off their insurance plans. And those insurance plans were substandard anyway.

First of all, five percent translates into roughly 16 million Americans. Each person whose insurance is terminated because Obama does not like his or her choice is a story of fear and panic and possible financial ruin. Further, does anyone even believe the Democrat apologists’ quote of five percent? That number will grow and grow as ObamaCare tightens its death grip.

The “only five percent” line of reasoning tells us a great deal about the utopian vision of Democrats. The individual does not count. Democrats claim to see the larger picture. But they see only a collective, a manageable herd. And once again, they know better. Forget that millions of Americans voluntarily entered into contracts they deemed right for themselves and their families. This counts for nothing to the Democrat political class. They are experts. They attended Ivy League schools. This makes the professional political class — overeducated, inbred elitists — better qualified to make decisions for us, the American people, that are truly about matters of life and death.

The core of American values is liberty, not government.

Robert J. Avrech
October 30, 2013
The Democrat-ObamaCare Purges
[You should never forget that “only five percent” line. Communists have used identical reasoning in their purges. The good of the whole is more important than the good of the individual. And if they have to “break a few eggs” they really don’t see what the problem is.

The differences between us cannot be resolved with a compromise. If they liquidate 1% or 10% it does not matter to me. They would still be committed mass evil and deserve whatever the “Nuremburg Courts” rule.—Joe]

NSA spying has rippling effects

Posted on by

From the Wall Street Journal:

AT&T Inc.’s ambitions to expand in Europe have run into unexpected hurdles amid the growing outcry across the region over surveillance by the National Security Agency. German and other European officials said any attempt by AT&T to acquire a major wireless operator would face intense scrutiny, given the company’s work with the U.S. agency’s data-collection programs.

This is no different than the problems China would have buying Intel, Microsoft, T-Mobile, or Google. Would you want a country with such a poor record of human rights having the ability to surreptitiously read all your Internet traffic, listen to your phone calls, and even read the snail mail letter you wrote using Microsoft Word?

Guess what. Our country now has a poor record on human rights and is suffering the consequences for it.
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Quote of the day—Roberta X

Posted on by

Lining up armed men in uniform to say “Verboten!” to members of the public wanting to pay their respects at a revered monument (one made of hard, hard rock and solidly anchored) is utterly necessary to the continued functioning of our great republic.

Okay, then.  But they’re gonna need taller, shiner boots.

Roberta X
October 6, 2013
Fed.Gov Has Shut Down The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall?
[I think I will start stealing that last line even though it’s not the shiny boots that make the difference. It’s the guns that back them up.

What they don’t seem to understand is that we have guns too. Not only guns but numbers. Numbers of people and numbers of guns that outnumber their guns and numbers. Please stop pushing because demonstrating the guns or the numbers will be very unpleasant for all involved.—Joe]

Chilling effect

Posted on by

New York City recently had its “stop and frisk” policy struck down as violating the Fourth Amendment. The city has not implemented a “monitor” of the program as the court ordered. Now New York City senior attorney Celeste Koeleveld says Judge Scheindlin’s order has had a “chilling effect” on police officers.

And her point is? Does she have a concern about the “chilling effect” of the Fifth Amendment not allowing police officers to torture suspects for confessions? How about the “chilling effect” of the Eight Amendment on Judges because of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments in the Eighth Amendment?

The entire intent of the Bill of Rights was and is to have a “chilling effect” on the power of government. In U.S. law the phrase “chilling effect” refers to the stifling effect that vague or excessively broad laws may have on legitimate … activity. A “chilling effect” only exists when government passes laws that private citizens have to obey. Not when government is overstepping bounds that have been in place for hundreds of years. It appears Koeleveld either does not understand government is a servant of the people or she wishes to change the relationship.

NSA decryption

Posted on by

From Leaked Slide Shows NSA Celebrated Victory Over Google’s Security With A Smiley Face:google-cloud-exploitation1383148810

That’s good to know. What that means is that either they can’t break the encrypted messages directly or that it is more work to do so. So they do it by attacking the Google servers that do the encryption and decryption.

That means encrypting my data on my computer before it hits the Internet makes it more difficult or impossible for the NSA to read. Hence:
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If a tree falls in the forest

Posted on by

Yesterday, in reference to spying on U.S. citizens, U.S. Congressional Representative Mike Rogers and Intelligence Committee Chair insisted:

You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy is violated.

I can only conclude he would also insist that he hadn’t actually stolen cash from your wallet if you didn’t know it had been taken. Or that a teenage girl hadn’t been raped if she had been drugged and didn’t know what happened.

Someone should tell him that must also mean his privacy wasn’t violated if someone made of video of him having sex with a sheep and didn’t tell anyone.

Quote of the day—Daniel Greenfield

Posted on by

Liberal supersessionists claim to be worried about conservative secessionists when they should be far more worried about conservative supersessionists. The consensus we all live by is a fragile thing. It is being torn apart by the radical left and once it is destroyed, it will not bind the right, in the same way that it no longer binds the left.

And then the true conflict will begin.

Daniel Greenfield
The Supersessionists of the Liberal Confederacy
October 20, 2013
[H/T Kevin Baker.

Every paragraph in this awesome post could qualify as a quote of the day or week or even month. It is very, very good.—Joe]

Ever had a cell phone get strange on you?

Posted on by

Ever heard of “carrierIQ?” Its an “app” on most cell phones (one that is hidden) that’s sort of part of the OS. It sends stuff to the carriers. It can also execute commands that someone texts to your phone by intercepting them before you see them. It has bugs, and might get a buffer overflow and blow chunks on your phone. Or it might just execute the code, and send a keylog or your current location or contact list back, then delete the text message so you never see it.

As a friend of mine that has been doing software research for years said, it’s basically a trojan that gets loaded by your phone manufacturer, and yes it’s been hacked more than once. (Of course I’m sure a software researcher would never hack the OS of a phone, any more than they’d see if they could run UNIX on an XBox 360, and here of course I’m just making up hypotheticals that no one would ever do.)

Just thought you’d like to know. Sleep well.

The government lies and people die

Posted on by

FACT: Nothing in #Obamacare forces people out of their health plans. No change is required unless insurance companies change existing plans.

— Valerie Jarrett* (@vj44) October 29, 2013

I asked a friend who is in the health insurance business if the above was true. I knew the answer but thought maybe there was some narrow definition of the word “is” or maybe “in” that would make it something other than a false statement.

The response was a laugh and, “No. That’s what I have been doing for the last several weeks. We have been preparing notification letters for individuals telling them their insurance plans are no longer available. Plans they were perfectly happy with and could afford cannot be offered anymore because of ACA.”

I was a bit surprised by the laugh and the almost cheerful mood. They explained, “It’s what we deal with everyday. They constantly say things that are not true and it has gotten to the point where we joke and laugh about it.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised, it’s obvious in hindsight, but they also told me, “We can’t say anything about it though. If we do we will be audited and harassed by the regulators. It’s just not worth it. You don’t say anything bad about the regulators.”

They also told me, “It’s going to be sad. Due to “health care reform” a lot of people that used to have insurance will no longer be covered.

I could say a lot, lot more…if it weren’t for the fear of the government taking revenge upon someone for exposing their lies.

A single person losing their health insurance is a tragedy. 16 million is a statistic. https://t.co/0hgOrYnSEZ

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) October 29, 2013

If you don’t recognize the form of the quote above; it’s from Stalin who probably actually said, “’When one man dies it is a tragedy, when thousands die it’s statistics’”.

It’s appropriate to bring Stalin into the discussion for more than just this one reason. Read this book: How Do You Kill 11 Million People?: Why the Truth Matters More Than You Think. It’s a very quick read. There is one thing that government have proved, again and again, that they are very, very good at. It’s killing people. Particularly their own people. One of the crucial links in accomplishing this is lying to their victims and to those who carry out the orders to arrest, transport, and jail them. The lie could be a black as “Arbeit macht frei” or telling the friends and relatives of those executed in the basements of the local police station in the USSR that the ‘counter-revolutionaries and traitors’ had been sent to labor and reeducation camps. It could be the lie that the crowded rail cars were carrying everyone to a place where they would have good homes, schools, and jobs. Or it could be what many would consider a white lie of a campaign promise to provide universal health care. Never mind the “health care panels” administrating the “care” would decide who were treated and who were euthanized.

Obamacare is now being recognized for the disaster so many people knew it would be. What comes next is that the failure will and is being blamed on political obstructionists. This is a lie. The system, as I explained in my previous post, cannot work because of the principles involved. But some are calling for Republicans and the Tea Party to be tried for treason.

What happens next? There is a good chance that the democrats will lose seats in the next election because of it. But that isn’t the only possible outcome. Stalin and the Khmer Rouge regimes handled the failures and criticism of their policies in a different manner without giving up control. And many in the U.S. media approved with rationalizations such as (H/T to Alan Gura):

The new government of Cambodia may have to resort to strong measures against a few to gain democratic socialism for all Cambodians. And we support the United Front in the pursuit of its presently stated goals.

The current administration has consistently lied about gun control, operation Fast and Furious, the massive spying, stopping the wars, closing Guantanamo Bay, Benghazi, jobs creation, and health care reform. But the really scary stuff is what they have told the truth about. They said they would be willing to use drones to kill U.S. citizens on American soil.

Lying is what comes naturally to them. They tell lies the people want to believe. But once you have told enough lies your brain changes and you have trouble telling or even knowing the truth.

History has some very brutal examples of what happens when government policy is to lie. We must not let that happen here.

* Valerie Jarrett (@vj44) is an official Whitehouse twitter account.

Quote of the day—Mike Konczal

Posted on by

It’s important we get more sophisticated analysis of what has gone wrong with the ACA rollout to better appreciate how utilizing “the market” can be far more cumbersome and inefficient than the government just doing things itself.

Mike Konczal
October 23, 2013
What Kind of Problem is the ACA Rollout for Liberalism?
[In other words, “Our government program is such a disaster that we need a new and expanded government program to fix it.”

Monopolies are almost always a bad thing. The lack of choice creates a situation where inferior and expensive products do not get improved or replaced. Konczcal and hard-core liberals want government monopolies. The soft-core liberals want to regulate the market.

What Konczal doesn’t understand is that he, politicians, and government in general, do not have the domain knowledge to solve most problems. This includes regulating the solution providers. When I read the instruction manual for my car and it says to use a particular grade of gasoline and change the oil every 5000 miles I follow their recommendations. They know their car far better than I do. Even though I am a software engineer when a software package says it requires X megabytes of RAM Y megabytes of disk space I follow their recommendations because they know their software far better than I do.

The advocate for more government might say, “We will bring in experts and/or we will become experts.” This doesn’t work. I worked in a government lab for three years. I remember sitting in a meeting discussing how to get more research contracts. One guy said, “What we have is the ability to become experts on anything within a couple of weeks.” He was serious. I felt the blood drain out of my face. I had been working with him for over two years and I had not yet discovered anything that I considered him an expert on. They spent several years and millions of dollars coming up with a software testing and quality program for the software being developed at the lab. What they came up with was something that the industry had left behind a decade or two previously (the “waterfall model”).

The reason government cannot acquire the expertise is because they are a monopoly and expertise is like a product. It must constantly be improved and updated to remain relevant. And without the marketplace pressure it will stagnant and become obsolete.

Because of this lack of domain knowledge and the inherent inferiority of monopoly products government “doing it itself” will always be the wrong answer to a problem that doesn’t involve the use of force.—Joe]

Incentives

Posted on by

Incentives matter. People pay attention to them. The larger the incentive, the more effective it is. Look at Obamacare. You get heavy subsidies right up to exactly 400% of the poverty line. Then you get nothing, you go directly from being heavily subsidized to being the subsidy, all for that extra dollar in income. This might easily mean for a married couple that they pay an extra $10,000 a year for the same health insurance policy (more or less depending on specifics, but this number is not atypical). Then look at the fact that a lot of employers are shifting to providing employee-only health insurance, and dropping coverage for spouses and dependents.

If a working couple are each making $30k a year, they receive a significant subsidy. If one gets a promotion that comes with a 10% raise ( $3,000), then it kicks them into zero-subsidy land and the net loss of $7,000 a year. The incentive for divorce in order to make ends meet is powerful, because if they divorce, then they both qualify for a bunch of other programs, too, which would effectively boost their effective incomes considerably. Meeting bills vs not meeting bills, being able to afford vacation vs not… This ACA thing is a powerful incentive that, if it stands more than two years, will drive a HUGE boom in divorce and application for “single parents with kids needing government assistance.”

ObamaCare is the most destructive bill to American society I’ve ever witnessed pass congress.

Quote of the day—Larry Correia

Posted on by

The Tea Party is made up of people who can do math.

Larry  Correia
October 17, 2013
The scientific Tea Party
[Citation here.

Of course they can do math! The Tea Party was a response to Obama Care and the massive government spending. And you probably didn’t even need to “do math” to figure that out. Mere arithmetic should be more than adequate for the task. But those on the left had to think of the Tea Party as inferiors in order to justify the condescending attacks. Apparently those on the left can’t handle or don’t want to be bothered with the arithmetic.

I don’t remember where I saw it but I remember reading many years ago something to the effect that politics was much too important to be subject to the impersonal rigors of mere numbers. Whoever said seemed to believe they had expressed some great truth. My thought was, and is, that numbers are a measure of reality. If you can’t express something in numbers then it’s just opinion. There is, of course, no guarantee that any given set of numbers reflect reality but if you can’t or won’t express something in number then it’s a pretty sure bet that it’s an opinion without basis in reality. And if your opinions don’t have any basis in reality you have no, zero, nada, zilch, business being involved in politics.

But that’s not the political system works. Unfortunately reality can only be ignored for so long. If reality could be ignored then something like this would make sense (H/T to ubu52 who said, “It’s total Fail to look at this as a math problem”). Where ‘this’ is the deficit. I was tempted to respond but I’m not sure the intended recipient would (or could) understand. If the deficit isn’t a math (or arithmetic) problem and the amount of spending being greater than revenue isn’t a valid concern then why not just print enough money that everyone in the country (or heck, why not the entire world?) receives $100 an hour for 40 hours per week “following their dreams” or whatever? Everyone could retire and live happily ever after. We could forget the debate over Obamacare because everyone could afford to pay for their own health care or buy the insurance of their choice, right? Everyone could afford to pay for their own education or not bother with it, right?

Numbers matter. If you can’t do arithmetic then you are going have some serious problems with math. And math is what bonds us to reality. If you can’t do math you don’t really understand reality. And that Tea Party members understand math and science better than those that can’t do simple arithmetic is no surprise.

What the Yale Professor who “discovered” what was blindly obvious to me and I would have thought most people didn’t conclude, which is also obvious to me, is that those who denigrate the Tea Party are those who truly deserve the condescending insults, jeers, and casual dismissal. And we have the numbers to back that up.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Chuck Michel

Posted on by

The authors are candidly blunt about fatal gun deaths being their measurement criteria. Using this criterion amuses working criminologists who, knowing criminals on a deeply personal level, tend instead to use violent crime as the standard of measure. They do so especially when discussing gun control, because their research shows that guns are used to deter criminal activity (usually without a gun death), upwards of six times more often than to commit crimes (with or without a gun death). A woman pointing her pink-gripped revolver at a rapist with his clothesline noose will instantly prevent a fatal crime of violence that did not involve a gun.

Chuck Michel
October 21, 2013
New Math, Old Buncombe
[I cannot recall an anti-gun person ever using violent crime rates as a measurement of the (in)effectiveness of gun control. And frequently they will be so bold as to quote the denial of firearm sales as proof of effectiveness. It’s hard to get any more transparent about their true motives as when they brag about the millions of people that have been denied their right to keep and bear arms.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Timothy Sandefur

Posted on by

The Fourth Circuit has shown that it isn’t interested in proof. This runs a dangerous risk of changing the rational basis test into a “Get out of the Constitution free” card.

Timothy Sandefur
October 23, 2013
Fourth Circuit: don’t bother us with the facts
[Not only do the courts not want to be bothered with the facts they will ignore facts presented and even refuse to rule on something.

A long time ago when I was much younger and even more naïve than I am now I believed the courts could and would straighten out a lot of the constitution issues with all the repressive gun laws.

I have reluctantly concluded that my friend Eric E. was correct when he told me over 10 years ago in regards to class action suit that I was involuntarily a part of and thought was totally wrong (paraphrasing), “Going to court is just rolling the dice. If you reject the settlement then you are giving up money that you should have collected some other time when you should have won but lost because the dice came up snake-eyes.” I cashed a check for something like $18,000.

As an engineer I am accustomed to the physical world being rational and predictable. The people world is, at best, a very thin veneer of rationality over seemingly random emotions. The result is a great deal of frustration with most people.—Joe]

No More!

Posted on by

I got this circular from some GOP Senate twerp;

“Lyle,

In 8 days, we’ll hit an important fundraising deadline. How much we raise will have a big impact on whether or not our candidates are set up to succeed, so every dollar counts. I’m so committed to helping us reach our goal that I’ll match 3 times your donation.

As the last few weeks have made crystal clear, our country desperately needs new leadership in the Senate. It’s plain to see that Harry Reid just isn’t up to the job. Under his tenure, the Senate has become a dysfunctional disaster — plagued by political games, partisan stalemate, and constant finger pointing. We can break the mold, but we’ll need your help to do it.

With 7 seats up in states Mitt Romney won, combined with the Democrats’ failure to recruit competitive candidates, the political map shows we can win in 2014. Now we’re counting on you to help us make it happen.

Harry Reid and his left-wing special-interest groups are already raising millions to protect their majority. They’re desperately doing everything they can to out raise us. We simply can’t allow that to happen.

Will you please contribute $100, $50, $25, or whatever you can afford today and help us take back the Senate?

Again, donate before the deadline and I’ll personally make sure your donation is triple matched.

Thanks,

Senator Roy Blunt”

To which I replied;

“Roy,

This plea of yours reads like a joke. In fact, the GOP has become a dysfunctional disaster — plagued by political games, ideological hypocrisy, and constant finger pointing. I’ve been saying for years that we must first defeat the GOP before we can defeat the Progressive movement and the Democrats, that the GOP has been a major obstacle standing in our way.

That fact is, right now, more blatantly obvious than ever. I will be working to convince as many people as possible that it is time to defund the GOP, and stop being fooled by the pseudo conservative pap that is being fed to us as a ruse. I’m sick and tired, and I am DONE having my own money used against the principles I hold dear by the very people who have pledged to uphold them!

After the despicable performance of the Republican senate leadership these last weeks, I am insulted by your request for money. You apparently take your voter base for gibbering fools, but to some extent I can understand your confusion being that against our better judgment we have supported you so much in the past. Well, Sir; No More!

Lyle”

I don’t know Roy Blunt from Adam, and I don’t care to know him or any other GOP hack.

If you want to throw money at the problem, don;t send it to the GOP and don;t send it to any candidate– some of that money always goes to the Party even if you gave it to a candidate. Send it to Freedom Works or some other group you know for a fact doesn’t play games. At this stage I think it’s better to send no money rather than risk one dime going to game-players, “the wizards of smart” and Progressives.

Besides; money is far from being that which defines victory. There may even be an inverse relationship. If the GOP dorks want to win, all they really have to do is stand up for the principles we elect them to stand up for. In that case they wouldn’t need any money. We’d be able to see them as people we want representing us, just by their actions. It’s free.

Don’t fall for the crap anymore. We’ve tried it too many times and seen it thrown back in our faces already. The enemy (The Bloods) of my enemy (The Crips) is NOT my friend! Same goes for the Dems and Reps. I think we have yet to learn this lesson properly.

Update, 10/23/13; My reply to Senator Twerp at the NRSC was bounced, so they want your money but they don’t want to be bothered hearing from you. It seems to me I’ve gotten replies through to them in the past. I’ll look for his own e-mail address and get this to him that way.

Quote of the day—Jon Gabriel

Posted on by

Math doesn’t care about fairness or good intentions. Spending vastly more than you have isn’t good when done by a Republican or a Democrat. Two plus two doesn’t equal 33.2317 after you factor in a secret “Social Justice” multiplier.

debtchartfw2

Jon Gabriel
October 21, 2013
The Reality of America’s Finances
[H/T to son James for showing me this.

Sometimes I think that part of the problem is that people think that math, even arithmetic, is subject to opinion. People will just proclaim, “I don’t agree with that”, and they believe they have refuted your numbers.

In many ways politics is faith based. The democrats have a tendency towards being economic tyrants and the republicans have a tendency towards being moral tyrants. Neither really understand principles. Or if they do their principles are to destroy the principles they can and ignore the rest.

With their policies having no principles it should come as no surprise they also believe that numbers are subject to whatever whim they have this election cycle. Numbers are just something you use to make your opinion appear valid. And everyone’s opinion is just as good as anyone else’s so that must mean that everyone’s numbers are just as good as anyone else’s.

Principles? They don’t even understand the concept of a principle.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell

Posted on by

There are people who have never fired a shot in their life who do not hesitate to declare how many bullets should be the limit to put into a firearm’s clip or magazine. Some say ten bullets but New York state’s recent gun control law specifies seven.

Virtually all gun control advocates say that 30 bullets in a magazine is far too many for self-defense or hunting — even if they have never gone hunting and never had to defend themselves with a gun. This uninformed and self-righteous dogmatism is what makes the gun control debate so futile and so polarizing.

Thomas Sowell
January 22, 2013
Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns?
[While this is true a case can be made that the ignorance of gun control advocates does not matter. Their ignorance is irrelevant both to them and to us. The only important fact to them is that control is lacking. Independence and freedom, no matter the form, are what they are fighting.

Their single minded goal makes our mission all the more clear. Efforts on our part to remedy their ignorance are wasted. Our only goal is to defeat them.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Anshel Sag

Posted on by

Having the ability replicate the human nervous system and some of their thought processes is a good thing to have, but I just hope that there are some very strict checks and balances within these systems. You know, to prevent a Skynet-like event where the robots become self aware and start to realize that the world is a better place without us. It’s a crazy thought, sure, but giving computers the ability to think and feel like humans is also a bit crazy too.

Anshel Sag
October 11, 2013
Qualcomm Takes Us One Step Closer to Skynet with Zeroth Neural Processing Chip*
[The propagation time of human nerves and synapses are many orders of magnitude slower than the electronic analogs because, contrary to the common misunderstanding, biological signals are transmitted via a chemical chain reaction not electrical signals. Electrical signals propagate at nearly the speed of light. IIRC it’s roughly 1 mSec per foot versus 1 nSec per foot. That’s one million times faster.

Imagine being engaged in physical combat with someone that has a OODA loop that is a million times faster than yours. The Terminator/Skynet universe of Hollywood may give you hope that wouldn’t be the reality of it. In that universe the machines were slow to observe and make decisions. In reality their actions would be, for all intents and purposes, instantaneous. If they were to use projectile weapons the compensation for all the environmental conditions, target direction and velocity, and all possible target responses would be calculated and if needed multiple projectiles would be launched to cover the responses.

At work, today, I’m working on something that writes computer code. Given a simple description in a few dozen lines it writes thousands of lines of code that compile and run without error. It completes the task almost before you can lift your finger from the “Enter” key. This same code would take a human many hours, if not days, to write.

Imagine a world with the industrial capacity of machines that not only build machines but can design them as well. There would be automated tools that build better tools and machines without human interaction. And those tools and machines could build better tools and machines than themselves.

It could be utopia. Or it could be a Terminator universe where the battle against an individual human is over in milliseconds and the battle for the entire planet is over in hours.

Sleep well.—Joe]

* See also Qualcomm Zeroth Processors official: mimicking human brain computing

The fun part of hunting

Posted on by

I’ve been asked by non-hunters a couple of times variations on “you think it’s fun to kill innocent creatures? Are you mental?” I replied that of course killing isn’t fun. But it got me to thinking… what IS the “fun” part of hunting? Continue reading →

Quote of the day—Carl Stevenson

Posted on by

We should have a very long memory of whom in power abuses us and who followed the order to do the abuse.

Perhaps if tyrants’ heads (and also their enablers) were still routinely mounted on sticks alongside the highway, for both a punishment and a reminder of their misdeeds, we wouldn’t have to endure such foolish people as them and the evil they set upon us.

Carl Stevenson
October 11, 2013
Comment to Park Service Milgram Failure.
[It would take a rather long and difficult research project to verify but my hypothesis is that the tyrants have mounted more heads along the roads “for both a punishment and a reminder” than the oppressed have mounted of the tyrants, their underlings, and their enablers.

Regardless of the truth or falsity of my hypothesis I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. If the tyrants mounted most of the heads then that would remind people of the hazards of letting tyrants gain power. If the victims mounted the most heads then that remind tyrants the hazards of their occupation.

I have been thinking about this sort of thing recently. The outrage of the victims that comes from extended oppression can lead to excessive killing and even genocide. Oppressors everywhere should be aware of this before they chose such a career path.

Think of the French Revolution or the genocide in Rwanda. To a certain extent “they had it coming” but I think society is better served when killing, even of evil tyrants, is done parsimoniously in a deliberate and carefully reasoned manner rather than en masse.—Joe]