Category Archives: Freedom

The importance of judges

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Sebastian reported a new gun blog and I poked around some. The author, Nicholas J. Johnson, is a Professor of Law specializing in firearm regulation. I found this post of his fascinating.

The following, in particular, caught my attention:

Both the majority and the dissent acknowledge that the AR-15 is a gun in common use. How they proceed from there is illuminating. The dissent treats common use as a solid liberty-protecting standard. Guns in common use cannot be banned.

For the majority, acknowledging the AR-15 as a gun in common use is just a rhetorical lead-in to the burgeoning two stage standard of review. The court found that the D.C. law did in fact burden a core Second Amendment concern. But at stage two it determined that the ban does not “substantially burden” the right to self-defense (people could still have handguns and many other long guns).

This reasoning is not derived from Heller and it is interesting to speculate what else would pass muster under this approach. Pushed hard, it would seem to allow very broad gun bans as long as some core self-defense guns remained legal.

In Heller it was said that guns “in common use” are protected from prohibition by the 2nd Amendment. But some judges are ignoring that. This is essentially a repeat of what happened in Miller where it was said that to be protected by the 2nd Amendment a gun had to “has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” Yet many courts ignored that statement and instead substituted a twisted version of the actual wording of the Miller decision and said the individual wanting to own or bear a firearm had to be in a militia.

Mike B., a lawyer friend of mine, once told me engineers make poor lawyers because they believe the law means what the law says and it doesn’t. The law actually means whatever the judges want it to mean. This is another data point supporting that claim. And this is another reason why getting people who follow the law as written as our judges is vital to the preservation of our rights.

Or perhaps expressed better is the comment to the post by Brett Bellmore (Oct 06, 2012 @ 09:13:19):

In the end, there’s no substitute for staffing the judiciary with people who aren’t hostile to this liberty. They have too many ways to destroy liberties they don’t like, to afford enemies there.

Keep that in mind each and every time you vote.

Quote of the day—Ry Jones

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Vultures gotta eat, too.

Ry Jones
October 18, 2012
Comment to Engaging in capitalism warrants death
[While this is true the situations where I advocate increasing their food supply are rare.—Joe]

Social and Political Pandering

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…or “Chum in the Water”


Most of us are familiar with the dangers of pandering to dictators bent on world domination, of the Legacy of Neville Chamberlain, and so on.  It’s very simple.  Show the enemy that you’re a chump, that it can control you, and you get pounced.


I think that Mitt Romney is probably a very nice guy, trying to do the right things.  Doing the right things, and getting people to like you, are however very different, often contradictory, goals.


When he decided he needed to hire him some womens (you know, so people couldn’t accuse him of not hiring enough women, because hiring based on a person’s potential value to the company without regard to sex or race, would be….stupid?  Unfair?  It wouldn’t please the communists?) he apparently failed to understand that he was throwing chum in the water.  Condition white.  Sharks cannot resist a little chum.  When the feeding frenzy erupted last week then, no one has any excuse for not having predicted it.  Sharks have a habit of acting like sharks.


HE HAS BINDERS FULL OF WOMEN!!!!  HE HAS BINDERS FULL OF WOMEN!!!!  (“What kind of pervert is this guy!?” they don’t say).  I wonder if he has (GASP) BINDERS FULL OF BLACK PEOPLE TOO!  Oh, the horror– someone trying to hire black people.  RACIST!!!  He wants to put y’all in BINDERS!


No, Grasshopper; don’t pander to insanity.  That way insanity will have nothing on you.  You pander to it and it gets encouraged.  Evil will try to nudge you into doing stupid things.  You’ll want to do them to make it happy, to get along, to take some weight off your shoulders, but it’s always a trick.


So I’m making fun of the evil-crazy, right back, but the important thing is to be able to see it and watch it.  It can’t stand the light of day.

Quote of the day—Hobbes_Wayne

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Utopian ideals always lead to dystopian reality.

Hobbes_Wayne
October 17, 2012
Comment to MILLER: Gun owners’ election–Ex-justice urges next Congress and president to restrict the Second Amendment
[I have a problem with absolute statements but I will agree there is a very high correlation between Utopian ideals and dystopian reality. This is particularly true when the use of force is required to implement the Utopian ideals. In these cases the correlation coefficient appears to be asymptotically close to 1.0.—Joe]

American Insurgency?

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First, read the original post and the comments over at Oleg’s place.


There are some interesting comments, well worth reading, but they fail to see the bigger picture, I think.  It took me a while to think of it, though it shouldn’t have done.  I now see it as obvious.


Any widespread insurgency in America is really the kick-starter to global chaos, and for some of our enemies that is actually the plan – take advantage of a weakened and distracted America.  Collapse the system into a new system.  Twelfth Imam and all that rot.


So no.


We had best get our own houses in order, and look at our Progressive (incremental communist) neighbors as part of our country, which absolutely MUST hold together.  “Last great hope for liberty” and “with malice toward none” come to mind.  I hope you have your beliefs and your communication skills well-honed.  You’ll need both, and by the way the latter doesn’t exist without the former – you know it.


Compromise with evil will get us nowhere and open warfare amongst us will get us all destroyed.  That leaves us a very narrow, delicate path then, doesn’t it?  Our enemies know it too.  Interestingly, that applies to your personal life as well as your public life and the global situation.

Engaging in capitalism warrants death

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The first time, probably about 1970, I read Atlas Shrugged I was fascinated by it. Awesome book. But it was just a piece of fiction to me. In my mind at that time it could not possibly represent anything past, present, and probably not the future as being close to reality.

As I grew less naive, and particularly with the easy access to differing viewpoints via the Internet I realized there really are people out there that hate the economic/political system that enabled the greatest advances in human prosperity, human rights, and living conditions in history. And they don’t just want to “tweak” it a little in some false hope of making it better. They want to kill those that participate in the system. And furthermore they use the fruits of that system to advocate their hate:

@NancyWonderful @Our4thEstate Hanging profiteers should restore confidence, not the other way. Ah, what do I know?

I can’t even make sense of this. Whose confidence could possibly be restored by hanging those that make a profit? The confidence of communists? Don’t they understand that if the rule of law breaks down and “hanging profiteers” has no legal repercussions the “hanging of communists” will almost for certain also be without legal repercussions?

We don’t want to go there. The end result will be very grim.

Redesign not required

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Professor Antony Davis says a complete redesign of government is required and that the redesign must begin with determining the proper role of government:

I agree with nearly everything he says except for the claim that a redesign is required.

The original design of 1787 would solve this problem just fine. It also has no chance of being seriously considered in the foreseeable future.

H/T to Tyler Durden.

I want a wheat farm on the moon

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It may be that we can mine the moon for hydrogen and oxygen. And to make it even more interesting is that it appears it is a renewable source. The sun creates the water on the moon:

The moon’s top layer of crushed rock and soil may hold far more water than previously estimated, according to a new study.

Most of that water can trace its origin to protons streaming from the sun, the researchers show, confirming in samples of lunar soil a mechanism for making lunar water that until now largely had been the province of theoretical models.

Getting water could be useful. Getting rocket fuel would be awesome!

The moon has an abundance of solar energy to break the water and/or hydroxyl down into H + O which is a great rocket fuel. The moon could be more than just a staging area for exploring and/or mining the asteroids and/or other planets. It could be a source of supplies.

The next question I want answered, “Is there a plentiful source of nitrogen and carbon available?” These are needed for an earth like atmosphere and as plant nutrients.

If N and C (and a bunch of other nutrients in smaller quantities) are readily available then crops can be grown for food. Once we have wheat farms on the moon we are snuggling distance from The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

Quote of the day—Mitt Romney

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I believe the next president could indeed have the opportunity to shape the Court for decades to come, and that’s a key reason why the tens of millions of Americans who support the NRA should support my candidacy. My view of the Constitution is straightforward: Its words have meaning. The founders adopted a written constitution for a reason. They intended to limit the powers of government. The job of a judge is to enforce the Constitution’s restraints on government and, where the Constitution does not speak, to leave the governance of the nation to its elected representatives. I believe in the rule of law, and I will appoint wise, experienced and restrained judges who take seriously their oath to discharge their duties impartially in accordance with our Constitution and our laws—not their personal policy preferences.

Mitt Romney
September 11, 2012
NRA’s Chris Cox Goes One On One With Governor Mitt Romney
[If you can ever really be reassured by something a politician says what Romney says in this interview is about as reassuring to gun owners as you can get.—Joe]

Quote of the day—George MacDonald Fraser

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When my views were first published in book form in 2002, I was not surprised that almost all the reviewers were unfavourable. I had expected that my old-fashioned views would get a fairly hostile reception, but the bitterness did astonish me.

I had not realised how offensive the plain truth can be to the politically correct, how enraged they can be by its mere expression, and how deeply they detest the values and standards respected 50 years ago and which dinosaurs like me still believe in, God help us.

George MacDonald Fraser
January 5, 2008
The last testament of Flashman’s creator: How Britain has destroyed itself
H/T Tamara.
[Fraser discovered the same thing pro-rights people have. Liberals appear to be violent by nature.—Joe]

It’s a Model City alright

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Detroit, that is.  I’ve been thinking of a Model Cities post for a while, but PJMedia already has a nice one;


 



Hat Tip; Kevin.


It’s a Model City alright, for exactly the same reasons that North Korea and Cuba are Model Countries.  That video should be part of every right/left debate from now until all leftist ideas are shunned from polite society forever.

Friends or tools?

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I’m sure you have all heard the old saw “the enemy of my
enemy is my friend.” Well… No. I think a better version is “the enemy of my
enemy is a useful tool.” And I think
that is what we are seeing evidence of unfolding before us right now.

Obama & Co announce a record $ 181 million in donations
in Sept, largely in small amounts from “first time” donors, too small to require tracking. At the same time, a
breaking story is about extremely lax verification of donor credit card legitimacy (i.e., essentially none) ,
and a LOT of hits to Obama’s “contribute” page (something like 2/3) come from
overseas, and there is not much in the way of addressing matching with the card payment. I would be VERY unsurprised if a lot of OverSeas America Haters made
donations, in violation of US law and with complicit looking-the-other-way by
the Obama fundraisers, because they know that while Obama may not be their
friend, he is an easily manipulated fool who isn’t very fond of America and is
working to destroy it. Not because he really wants to per se, but because he is too stupid and narcissistic to realize
what real effect his actions have. The folks surrounding him want to hang on to
power because it’s shiny and what ALL the cool kids want, but they really are NOT
very good at wielding it (or even understanding it), and REALLY don’t
understand dealing with those that only understand the power of tribe, bribe,
and force, for whom our western values are antithetical to their fundamental
values.  These people (the power players
in China, Saudi Arabia / MENA, Russia, drug cartels, radical Islam, etc) would REALLY like to
see Obama pull out a win, because America’s weakness is their gain.

News is also coming out that there was a LOT of warning
about security problems in Benghazi, and a SEAL team was pulled out only a
month before, displaying massive incompetence on behalf of the administration.
His foreign policy in general is now being widely
seen as increasingly ineffective, and his biggest supporters are those that
would gain from our weakness.

It is widely acknowledged that the first debate was a
disaster for Obama. Even the New Yorker magazine cover showed Romney Eastwooding
at the debate. I think there is also
a very real potential that the second debate, on foreign policy, will be as bad
or worse (if for different reasons), in part because of the above facts. I’m
not saying that the fat lady is singing her final notes, but I do get the strong
feeling that she’s starting to warm up for a really rock’n finale.

Then, of course, we’ll have to hear about the election being
stolen, voters being too stupid to know what’s good for them, etc., for the
next half-dozen or more election cycles, but that’s a price I’m willing to
accept.

Economics 99 (Remedial)

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About this “(multi) trillion dollar tax cut” thingy; First, tax cuts don’t cost anything.  Taxes cost us, but cutting taxes saves us money.


That’s not the main point though.  The main point is that cutting taxes lightens the ball-and-chain that’s around our ankles, allowing us to invest and produce more, resulting in more income, which in turn increases revenues.  Taxing any behaivor reduces the behaivor while incentivising an underground economy (black market) in that behavior.


You might think that taxing something less dynamic, like property values, might be different– that you could actually add up the property values in your district, multiply that by the amount of change in the tax rate, and know exactly the difference in revenue that will result.  Simple huh?  Well you’d be totally wrong for several reasons.  Here in North Idaho we have a whole population of refugees from other states who fled high tax rates in their states, increasing our property values and presumably reducing the values in the areas they fled.


I could barely afford to get new siding on my house and resurface my huge deck, but since it would increase the assessment value, resulting in a higher tax bill, uh, maybe it’s not so important.  Not this year.  And there is why we have a lot of what I call “Tyvek Houses”.  A Tyvek house is one that remains in un-finished condition for decades at a time.  They are ugly, and unattractive to buyers, but if you plan to live in your house you don’t care about buyers.  You care about the assessed value, because you don’t want to pay out huge sums in taxes year after year, so you don’t want it looking too nice.


You lower the tax rate, and because the punished activity (punished by taxation) becomes more affordable it becomes more common.  The result is more tax revenue.  M’kay?  Reducing rates beyond some extremely low level that we haven’t seen in over 100 years will at some point start to reduce revenues, but in that case we will not only have no use whatsoever for 95+% of what government does today, we’ll have no time nor patience for it.


I needed the first paragraph because there is a plan that could be called a multi-trillion-dollar tax cut.  Dramatically slash the income tax rate, and you get trillions more dollars flooding into the treasury.  You get trillions more dollars flooding into the country from everywhere too, essentially, because investments in the U.S. (as opposed to investments in other countries) become that much more attractive.  Capital, along with the people who own it, moves to where it can be safe and free.  Better put it’s; “free and therefore safe”.


The “expert” economists on the left understand all of this perfectly of course, as any kid who ever ran a lemonade stand would.  That proves to us that their intentions are not good.  If they know that lower taxes will result in a better economy, and that ultra low low taxes will result in a super good economy, and they oppose all tax cuts, well, you figure it out. (hint; they think that America is too big and important already)  They want you out in the streets shouting “Eat the rich” while promising to pay for everything in your life through tax revenues.  Do you see the blatant contradiction there or has your mind been taken over?


Meanwhile, the Republicans can’t quite bring themselves to explain it, because they’re afraid.  That or they have brain damage, but I don’t think it’s brain damage per se.


I say that the American people deserve to have the case made, straight up, what it is that we face, verses what it is that America was meant to be.  If the Republicans can’t bring themselves to make the case, we’ll have to take over their stupidshitty, Progressive party and fundamentally transform it from the inside.

Quote of the day—Mostly Cajun

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Retire? I will probably get killed in the early battles of the coming revolution.

Mostly Cajun
January 27, 2012
Potpourri
[Via Kevin who posts about the violence in parts of Europe over the economic collapse in progress.

I can relate to this. Although I would like to think things will collapse slowly enough that I can retreat to a “bug out place” and avoid most of the bloodshed or worst case, as someone told me a few years ago, “You and I won’t have to worry about getting into an armed conflict with the government because they will pick up us on the first pass.” I would then hope I get released after the fighting, if any, is over with.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ronald Reagan

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Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

Ronald Reagan
[I’m always perplexed when people insist rights are something granted by the government. I don’t know if I’m just coming across it more or if it really is that I hear this more frequently in the last year or so. In any case it concerns me greatly.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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I heard Romney did exceptionally well in the debate last night. I wasn’t interested in watching. I couldn’t see any advantage to watching in real time as opposed to hearing a recap on the radio talk shows and blogs as I got ready for work and rode the bus to work this morning. So I spent the evening at dinner with friends and didn’t get home until midnight.

Some pundits are claiming Obama made such a poor showing that he may lose the election. But I think those people are overlooking something.

Obama has the critical communist dictators endorsements of Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, and Vladimir Putin while Romney has the kiss of death NRA endorsement. When the choice is between the tranquility of servitude and the animating contest of freedom how is there even any question of who should or will win? Who would want to compete when you can have tranquility?

Of course some people see things differently than I do. There are those that believe the clear winner of all three presidential debates will be Obama.

Quote of the day—ISH (Mininerd)

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You smell that? Do you smell that? Schadenfreude, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning. You know, one time we watched the “great communicator” liberal president bomb, on live tv. Read the transcript. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ anti-gun talking point. When it was all over I walked up to the podium. The smell, you know that patchouli and tears smell? The whole hill. Smells like … victory.

ISH (Mininerd)
October 4, 2012
Comment to Watching the Twitter Debate Meltdown.
[Someday, in the not too distant future, one of my grandkids will be reading the archives of my blog and ask, “Grandpa, what is a ‘Brady Campaign’?”

I will then explain to them about the KKK, the Aryan Nations, Handgun Control, Inc., and other organizations that tried to infringe upon our natural and constitutionally protected rights and how many thousands of people spent millions of hours and 100’s of millions of dollars defeating them. And how they are now nothing more than a sad footnote in history. And I imagine them saying, “That’s boring. Can we use the M-16 to blow something up with Boomerite?” And with tears streaming down my cheeks I will say, “Yes. Yes we can. You are welcome.”—Joe]

But I only paid X for the gun!

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I’ve brought this up before, but I keep hearing that assertion.  It says you can never pay more to accessorize a gun that the price you paid for the gun.  It should always be less.  I’ve had people mention their free guns– gifts.  “I didn’t pay a dime for the gun, so how can I justify X?” or “I only paid 100 dollars for this Carbine back in the ’60s…!” (Never mind that it may now be worth 800 or more)


There are high-end optics that cost more than almost any firearm made, except for some of the fine double rifles, and you aren’t going to be using these optics on a fine double rifle.  Ditto for some of the hand-made flintlock longrifles and such, and a few boutique rifles.  There are also sound systems that cost more than a lot of used cars, so I guess you have suffer with an inferior sound system until you can afford a more expensive car to put it in.  A friend of mine once had a $50K sound system in his apartment, so I guess he was really breaking the rules.


The way I see it, if you paid some low price for your rifle, and it does the job you need of it, then you now have more money to spend on a good optic.  I don’t see a conflict here.  It’s all about the setup you want, not some spreadsheet of arbitrary rules based on relative prices of the components.


If it makes anyone feel better, I once had a 150 dollar stereo in a 100 dollar car, with a 500 dollar set Michelins under it.  Can someone make the case that I should have restricted myself to crapy tires because I only paid 100 bucks for the car?  I put over 100K miles on that car too, which included some rather long road trips – you want to me run retreads on it?  Uh; no.  It had well over 200K on it when it finally died a violent death, otherwise, 20 years later I might still be driving my 100 dollar 1963 Dodge 330.  What’s your problem?


ETA,  From comments;  “You are not accessorizing your rifle, you are accessorizing your SCOPE!”  That is a better way to look at it.  Get a great scope and find a rifle that’s good enough for it.  Then you have something.

Back to the basics

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I’ve been debate the pro-rights side on guns for so long that I sometimes forget that it is easy to leave newcomers behind. Tonight was a case in point.


I left the following comment, via Facebook, on a “Think Progress” article entitled “An Aurora Shooting Survivor Makes A Powerful Gun Control Ad:



We had the debate. Your side lied, cheated, and took unfair advantage at every opportunity. But still your side lost. Big time.


You side lost the safety argument and your side lost the legal argument (see the U.S. Supreme Court decisions D.C. v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago). You have no arguments left. The conversation was over years ago and all you are doing now is whining about the outcome. Go tell your problems to a therapist because the adults in this conversation aren’t interested in your delusions of relevancy.


Yes. It is recycled from a blog post I made a while back.


A former manager of mine at Microsoft (a really nice guy BTW) responded with:



Joe, If I were to support the idea of a civilian carrying a gun, you’d be one of the few people I would trust with one. Because I think you know what you’re doing. However, I don’t get why the law allows any average Joe (pun intended) who has no f*ing clue — or worse, has dangerous intent — to easily carry one as well. It makes no sense to me.


Okay. Time to get back to the basics. Shyam is a naturalized citizen from Sri Lanka. He doesn’t have the full history of gun control, gun ownership rates, and crime statistics in this country at the tip of his tongue. And probably 99+% of the native citizens don’t either. My original comment presumes too much. So I followed up with the following:



First off, you missed an important concept. The law doesn’t “allow”. The law has relatively few restrictions. Freedom is the default position rather than “allowed” or “granted”.


Getting past that point there are two reasons there are relatively few restrictions: 1) There is no data to indicate it makes the violent crime rate worse; 2) It is a specific enumerated right just as is the right to free speech or freedom of religion even if the speaker/writer has no clue what they are talking about. A case can be made that certain books (Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto as well as certain religious texts come to mind) are responsible for more deaths than private ownership of firearms. Yet we “allow” free speech.


Another way to think of this is that violence against an innocent person is already illegal. Making the possession of a tool that enables such violence illegal is not going to increase the barrier against the more fundamental crime. And furthermore even a complete ban on firearms cannot be expected to be any more effective than a complete ban on certain recreational drugs are now. Which is to say, “Completely ineffective”. But what such restrictions do accomplish is create a black market for such items and nearly completely eliminate any good that can be accomplished by the use of such items. Hence law abiding people who need to defend themselves are prevented from defending themselves with the best tools available while those with criminal intent get full advantage of such tools against disarmed victims.


There. I hope that helps.


Update: Shyam replied a few minutes later:



You had me, up to the point about self defense. I once had a manager at MS who carried around a Rambo knife, for self defense. He even once took it on the plane, on a work trip to Arizona (usability study of some educational software we were building) and San Francisco. Long story short, someone in baggage handling stole his knife .. and he was very uncomfortable being out in the open, walking around sfo that night… we should get lunch sometime. No guns or Rambo knives 🙂


My reply:



I work downtown near Westlake Park. If we are close enough to walk name the time and the place for lunch.


Interesting about self defense being the place that I “lost him”.

GRPC day 1

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Yesterday was the main day for the Gun Rights Policy Conference. It was wonderful meeting and listening to all the big names of the gun rights movement.

The thing that struck me most was that it would appear that we had more speakers at our conference than everyone that attends the Brady Campaign meetings. I count nearly 70 speakers.

Another thing of particular note is that the attitude at GRPC 2012 is much different than the last one I attended in 2000. The feeling was of confidence and reports of winning on multiple levels and in so many jurisdictions. There are more than 8,000,000 active CCW licenses out there. There are 200 campuses that do not infringe upon the rights of the students to defend themselves.

Alan Gura was not able to attend due to the birth of his son a week ago. But he did send us a report telling us that there is a good chance the next 2nd Amendment case to reach the Supreme Court will be one regarding the right to carry a firearm in public. In 2000 we were having trouble getting a majority of states to recognize it as a privilege.

Last night at dinner I found a small table with some room at it and asked if the chair was taken. It wasn’t and I was welcomed to sit down. After a bit one of the people introduced himself as Fran Becker the Republican challenger to Carolyn McCarthy (of “shoulder thing that goes up” fame). Wow! As we chatted about McCarthy I said something about it seemed that those most ignorant about firearms are those most opposed to firearms ownership. He extended that thought and said liberals seem to be ignorant on nearly all issues. I told him of my recent date with a liberal being like a visit into an alternate reality and he started taking notes. He said he really liked how I expressed a particular thought.

Wow!

I emailed him a link to the post where I had developed the thought in more detail.

I have a plane to catch now but there will be lots of pictures and other content to post about GRPC 2012 in the coming weeks.