Category Archives: Politics

Striking back

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The political left dominates both conventional and Internet social media outlets. This bias is so overwhelming that it probably isn’t possible to recover from the adverse public perception generated by their bias by public discourse. If an environment where the free exchange of political thought is possible has to be someplace other than the media. Gun ownership is but one case in point. Our retention of gun owner rights and even freedom of political thought must be recovered via other means. I’ve been thinking for some time now that other means is the courts. That is why it was absolutely critical that Hillary Clinton not be allowed to appoint Federal judges.

So, its off to the courts and this looks like a good start:

Nunes sues Twitter, some users, seeks over $250M alleging anti-conservative ‘shadow bans,’ smears

California GOP Rep. Devin Nunes filed a major lawsuit seeking $250 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages against Twitter and a handful of its users on Monday, accusing the social media site of “shadow-banning conservatives” including himself to influence the 2018 elections, systematically censoring opposing viewpoints and totally “ignoring” lawful complaints of repeated abusive behavior.

…

Although federal law ordinarily exempts services like Twitter from defamation liability at all levels, Nunes’ suit said the platform has taken such an active role in curating and banning content — as opposed to merely hosting it — that it should face liability like any other organization that defames.

“Twitter created and developed the content at issue in this case by transforming false accusations of criminal conduct, imputed wrongdoing, dishonesty and lack of integrity into a publicly available commodity used by unscrupulous political operatives and their donor/clients as a weapon,” Nunes’ legal team wrote. “Twitter is ‘responsible’ for the development of offensive content on its platform because it in some way specifically encourages development of what is offensive about the content.”

If Twitter and other leftist social media platforms get slapped down for their bias and collaboration in defaming those with different political beliefs it will not only make them less inclined to do this in the future it will also enable more people to realize the political left has an evil streak.

Quote of the day—Good Snek

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Of the 10 states in the country with the lowest murder rates, half of them have some of the loosest gun laws in the country, and of those, the lowest consistently have murder rates comparable to Europe. I’m not going to tell you what to make of that, but in my mind, those states have essentially, intentionally or not, solved their violence issues, and they did it without gun control. Perhaps you may have a differing opinion, and that’s fine, but to me, knowing there is a solution to violence out there that doesn’t involve restricting rights, means that’s the only path we should pursue.

Good Snek
December 29, 2018
Gun Control: How the Media Manipulates You to Give Up Your Rights
[A stronger statement can be made and defended, such as, “Rights are not negotiable and not in any way conditional upon crime rates.” But you could get more political support for Snek’s weaker version.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Derek Hunter

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Liberals collect scalps, conservatives collect moral victories. This isn’t a battle for local dog catcher, it’s a fight for the future of the country; it’s time for the right to fight back the way they’re being attacked. Mutually assured destruction is the only way to stop these fascists in their tracks.

Derek Hunter
March 14, 2019
It’s Time For Conservatives To Choose: Fight Back Or Surrender
[There is more than a little truth in this.—Joe]

Quote of the day–Jean-Pierre Rupp

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I can picture that woman walking around a gulag with a notebook taking complaints from prisoners, and then reminding them that they are there because they are considered problematic by the communist party, with a smile on her face. She is that scary.

Jean-Pierre Rupp
March 13, 2019
Comment to Joe Rogan Experience #1258 – Jack Dorsey, Vijaya Gadde & Tim Pool:

[Rupp’s comment may be a little overstated but it’s not wrong.

This was an fantastic podcast. Daughter Jaime strongly recommended it to me. She was super impressed with Tim Pool. I’m really glad I listened to it.

Jack Dorsey is, of course, the co-founder and CEO of Twitter. Vijaya Gadde serves as the global lead for legal, policy, and trust and safety at Twitter.

If you are following the suppression of speech in social media issue you must listen to this. After faltering a bit in the beginning Tim Pool articulates the case for free speech extraordinarily well. There were times when he would say something so clearly and compelling I could not think of anything other than, “Wow!”. More than once, in response, Gadde would respond with, “I don’t know what that means.” They apparently live on a different planet.

I did form the opinion that they are probably not being deliberately malicious. Everyone agreed that the political left wants to ban anyone opposing them from social media. Twitter’s own internal data shows that the political left has a strong tendency to only follow those of a similar political view while the political right are much more likely to follow a political mix. Even if Twitter employees were politically neutral, which they are not, there would be difficult challenges in creating a social media platform that was “comfortable” for all participants. Because the political left exercises their Outrage Culture with the tiniest or even fabricated justification and the political right tends to shrug it off, the “squeaky wheel gets greased.” This comment by Vokzmedizen is a good summary of this aspect of the discussion:

The left wants to suppress free speech, and is cowardly in its willingness to rat people out to accomplish this, and hypocritically willing to deliberately exaggerate and distort context to claim offense they do not actually feel (In fact, they are overjoyed to discover something ‘actionable’ in what the other person said, even when they know full well something else was meant!) They right is loathe to suppress free speech, and does not wish to show gutlessness by reporting people, and would rather contend with the offender directly.

So it is obvious that a policy that relies on reporting frequency and simply accepts statements of harm in the report, and seeks for context in the ‘tweets’ that supports the report rather than exonerates the speaker, is going to manifest serious skewing to the left. This is simply because the left is going to report anything opportunistically, while the right will only report on the truly egregious.

A fair policy would take THIS ‘context’ into account, and tend to give LESS credence to reports that are essentially harassment themselves (left), and MORE credence to reports that come from the right. The REALITY is most likely that Twitter CREATED the policy in order to FACILITATE the left methodology. There are many other facilitations that source a DELIBERATE skew. For example, accusers are anonymous. The accused is allowed to face his accuser in our culture, anything else is generally considered Stalinist. Again, as mentioned, the policy against misgendering is politically left. Again, they consider dog piling bannable, but yet a coordinated mass reporting is considered legitimate.

My impression is that Tim Pool completely outclassed Dorsey and Gadde. They were overwhelmed.

I suspect Tim is right in that Twitter will continued down the path of good intentions not realizing that this path cannot turn out well. Twitter management doesn’t really want to facilitate the avalanche even if they do have strong signals it is coming. Because they view themselves as just another snowflake (Pool’s analogy) they will not realize they were a contributor when the avalanche (civil war was discussed) happens.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sharon Wehrly

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As sheriff of Nye County, I agree with Sheriff Watts: I will not participate in the enforcement of this new law and certainly won’t stand silent, while my citizens are turned into criminals due to the unconstitutional actions of misguided politicians who, for the most part, are trying to do the right thing.

Sharon Wehrly
March 7, 2019
Sheriff of Nye County, Nevada
Letter to Governor Sisolak
[I think she is being generous with the “misguided politicians”. But I can understand why saying, “You are a bunch of evil, communists, SOBs!” would not be helpful at this point in time so I give her a pass on that.

We’ve known, and have been saying, for a long time now that the law enforcement will ignore these stupid and unconstitutional gun laws. We now have proof, not just anonymous polling data, in several states, that much of law enforcement is on our side on this issue. And this one is about simple background checks! This isn’t about something as extreme as banning most semi-automatic guns.

If the political left does not, or cannot, pull themselves out of this downward spiral into a confrontation we could see their first trials in a few years or perhaps even months. Give them fair warning. Tell them to enjoy their trials. Give them these links http://bit.ly/EnjoyYourTrial1 for private citizens and http://bit.ly/EnjoyYourTrial2 for government employees.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Philip Reeves

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Drive around Caracas, and you see long lines of cars waiting for hours at the few gas stations still operational.

Motorists park on highways, cell phones aloft, searching for a signal. The rich have taken refuge in luxury hotels. The poor stand in lines in the street.

Philip Reeves
March 11, 2019
‘This Is Going To End Ugly’: Venezuela’s Power Outage Drags On
[It already is ugly:

Venezuela has been in the grip of a crippling blackout for four days — and the humanitarian situation there is growing increasingly dire.

As we have been predicting (read the comments) for a long time this is ending badly.

Don’t let it happen here. We need a landslide against the socialists in 2020.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Grog

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At this point in the political climate, it is my belief that talk and debate is and has been useless about this issue and others with regards to the Left.

I’m not telling others what to believe about guns, but my mind is made up and I have severe doubts as to my being assuaged at this point.

Grog
March 9, 2019
Comment to GUN CONTROL which had this as the entire post:Image result for gun control meme image
[I can see his point. But, being a ridiculous optimist, I still have hope the courts will settle the problem in a satisfactory manner and the bullets will be used for punching holes in paper rather than in people.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tom Knighton

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I think they don’t want these regulations properly enforced because if they were, they fear they’d have less justification to demand new gun laws.

Which is what their entire existence is about these days anyway.

Tom Knighton
March 7, 2019
Did USA Today Admit Gun Control Laws Not Enforced?
[I agree but there is more to it. True criminals are their allies. They don’t want their allies to be put in prison.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Steve Hebbe

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As a law enforcement agency, our job is to uphold the law, and we take an oath to uphold the Constitution. We are dedicated to ensuring a safe community and will be keeping a close eye on all proposed legislation.

Steve Hebbe
Farmington Police Chief
February 20, 2019

San Juan County sheriff concerned NM gun control bill could violate constitutional rights
[This is about parts of New Mexico. See also here.

What is it, maybe 75% of Washington state is 2nd Amendment sanctuary territory? Parts of Oregon are as well. Then there are nine states which have passed the Firearms Freedom Act.

It’s trivial to create analogies to free/slave states and sanctuaries in the early 1860. The Democrats are pushing, and passing, bills that I couldn’t have imagined they would try even a couple years ago. Nearly all semi-automatic guns are to banned?

They have become berserkers. My guess is that it is some sort of late stage Trump Derangement Syndrome. What happens if the courts slap them down? What happens if the courts support them? I hope they recover their senses before the only cure is a repeat of the 1860s, but The Fourth Turning keeps coming to mind.—Joe]

Point

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40hours

I find it amusing people expect me to believe collecting taxes and administrating the redistribution of the remainder will somehow result in a more equitable situation. Either they are stupid or they think I can’t see that they are lying. In either case I see it as funny.

Lack of trust

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Tweeted by PYTHiasGHOST on March 4, 2019:

TrustDemocrats

While true, there is more to it. Government in general cannot be trusted. And of course not all our fellow citizens can be trusted.

It is true that twice as many prison inmates identify as Democrats as all other political affiliations combined but it’s not close to 100%. And my impression is that ratio holds for convictions of politicians as well as common criminals. So while the meme above is substantially true it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Quote of the day—Donald Trump

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We reject oppressive speech codes, censorship, political correctness and every other attempt by the hard left to stop people from challenging ridiculous and dangerous ideas. These ideas are dangerous. Instead we believe in free speech, including online and including on campus.

Today I’m proud to announce that I will be very soon signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research grants.

Donald Trump
U.S. President
March 2, 2019
Trump says he’ll sign executive order for free speech on college campuses
[While I applaud a push for free speech I wonder if this really should have been handled a different way. Could the next president sign an executive order requiring colleges and university to censor “hate speech” by anyone opposed to socialism?

I would think a better approach would be to prosecute university officials or individuals using existing laws. Wouldn’t 18 USC 241 and/or 242 be applicable? This would be particularly in the case on exhibit in the article (a kid was punched in the face). If something broader were needed then I think it should go through the legislative process.

Explain to me how I’m wrong on this.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Richard Hudson

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It’s a shame that in their rush to “do something”– anything – Democrats have made this critical debate a partisan show. Last week, my Democrat colleagues rushed to pass two partisan pieces of legislation that would have done nothing to stop some of the most prominent mass shootings in recent memory. H.R. 8 would not have stopped Newtown. H.R. 8 would not have stopped Parkland. It would not have stopped Las Vegas, or Sutherland Springs, or San Bernardino or many other tragedies. But the proponents of gun control don’t want you to judge them based on outcomes; they want you to judge them based on intentions.

Richard Hudson
United States Representative for North Carolina
March 2, 2019
H.R. 8 won’t stop school shootings
[I thank Representative Hudson for standing up for our rights and pointing out the deliberate deception of many anti-gun people.

While I agree that what Hudson says in that last sentence is true for many people and it’s a relatively safe thing to say to avoid a lot of controversy it’s not entirely true.

I believe that some gun control proponents, particularly, but not exclusively the politicians, know the proposed gun legislation cannot make people safer and that is their intention. They want something that will fail to make people safer and, in fact prefer, that it will make people less safe. This gives the politician more power because it makes people more dependent upon government.

That said, the common person doesn’t realize they have been duped and believe the implied intention. I said “implied” because it is very rare that politician will come out and explicitly state that a law making access to guns more difficult will make people safer. They will say, “Its just common sense.” They will say, “No one should have these guns.” They will say, “80% of the people want background checks.” But they don’t say, “Criminologist predict this will reduce violent crime by 20%.” Or, “This will cut mass shootings deaths in half.” That they don’t make the claim that gun regulations will improve public safety strongly implies to me that they know it will not improve public safety.

I can give someone a temporary pass on not knowing something and making an overstated claim about their unproven hypothesis being true. But when they almost for certain know the truth and deliberately word things to deceive people that is an extremely strong indicator they are evil people. That these people deliberately deceive others to infringe a specific enumerated right make them criminals punishable by law.

I hope they enjoy their trials (http://bit.ly/EnjoyYourTrial2).—Joe

Quote of the day—The Common Sense Gun Regulation Act

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(1 )(a) “Assault weapon” means any:

(A) Semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and has at least one of the following:

(i) Any grip of the weapon, including a pistol grip, a thumbhole stock or any other stock, the use of which would allow an individual to grip the weapon, resulting in any finger on the trigger hand in addition to the trigger finger being directly below any portion of the action of the weapon when firing;

…

(B) Semiautomatic pistol, or any semiautomatic, centerfire or rimfire rifle with a fixed magazine, that has the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds of ammunition;

The Common Sense Gun Regulation Act
Oregon, February 26, 2019
[There is a lot more but the above is all you need to know. Their intent is to ban nearly all semiautomatic rifles and pistols.

This is despite the Heller decision which specifically protected a semi-auto pistol and almost explicitly protected rifles of the type targeted by this law. These people, such as Greg Wasson, are criminals. I hope they enjoy their trials: http://bit.ly/EnjoyYourTrial1 and http://bit.ly/EnjoyYourTrial2.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brianna @BriannaWu #EnjoyYourTrial

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I had an opportunity to fire a fully automatic M16 assault rifle today under professional instruction. This is the same weapon US Armed Forces use. The experience made me feel even more strongly there is no reason for a civilian to have access to this weapon, or one like it.

For starters, growing up in the South, I took an NRA safety class as a teenager. I spent many an afternoon as a kid in target practice. But this assault rifle is a different beast. It would take A MINIMUM of 30-40 hours of professional instruction to learn to operate safely.

It shoots a 5.56 mm bullet. You can feel the wind of it firing three feet behind the shooter. The gun is very difficult to control. I’ve seen these fired thousands of times in games and movies. In real life you understand the devastation even being grazed would cause.

Brianna @BriannaWu
Candidate for US House of Representatives in MA District 8 for 2020.

Brianna Wu

Tweeted (and here and here) on February 26, 2019
[She feels strongly. Apparently she is also an extremely slow learner because the first set of Boomershoot 101 students did just fine with only a few hours of instruction and practice.

There are no strong feelings or imaginary excess wind exceptions to the 2nd Amendment. http://bit.ly/EnjoyYourTrial1.—Joe]

#EnjoyYourTrial

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The anti-gun people have a narrative of “gun safety”. We know, as do they, they have never encouraged people to take a gun safety class or learn about guns. Ignorance and deliberate deception is all part of their game plan.

They insist background checks are “common sense” and save lives. They don’t save lives and are a deception for the real objectives:

  • Creating lists of gun owners
  • Delaying the exercise of a specific enumerated right
  • Increasing the costs (time and money) of exercising our rights

They insist we don’t need a particular type of gun or accessory and we end up trying to convince them we do need it. It’s a Bill of Rights, not a Bill of Needs. They should be the ones attempting to convince us there is a “compelling governmental interest,” and have narrowly tailored the law to achieve that interest (strict scrutiny). Until they can do that the proposed law does not pass constitutional muster and they are attempting to infringe upon our rights. The default position is the proposed law is invalid until they can conclusively demonstrate they have met the requirements.

As it is we are playing defense and losing in public opinion.

It would seem to me that we need an easy narrative of our own. It must be something that tweets and sound bites well. It must put them on the defensive. We must gain the initiative in social media and when we contact our political representatives.

I discussed this with Brian K. and we came up with:

These can be used in a variety of ways:

Think women shouldn’t be allowed to carry guns without a man’s permission? #EnjoyYourTrial (Aimed at may-issue states.)

Send teens to war but don’t let them own handguns? #EnjoyYourTrial

Disarm peaceful African Americans because they live in the wrong state? #EnjoyYourTrial.

Deny me the right to defend my family because of my skin color? #EnjoyYourTrial

You are trying to ban guns in common use protected by the Heller decision. #EnjoyYourTrial

A right delayed is a right denied. #EnjoyYourTrial

You are demanding people ask permission for a guaranteed right. #EnjoyYourTrial

Background checks don’t save lives (https://fee.org/articles/california-s-background-check-law-had-no-impact-on-gun-deaths-johns-hopkins-study-finds/) and infringe our rights. #EnjoyYourTrial

Gun control is prior restraint of specific enumerated right and is illegal. #EnjoyYourTrial

“Red flag” laws are prior restraint and are illegal. #EnjoyYourTrial

What you are doing is illegal. Everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. #EnjoyYourTrial

In each invocation you can include http://bit.ly/EnjoyYourTrial1 (for private citizens) and/or http://bit.ly/EnjoyYourTrial2 (for politicians, law enforcement, and other government employees).

Yes, I know it’s not 100% correct in every context. But the point is to gain the initiative and put them on the defensive. I think this has a chance of doing that.

Quote of the day—Thales

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If a Rightist is going to have a problem with you, the odds are he’s going to punch you in the face. Or follow you into a bathroom and beat you down. The Right is much more fond of directness. Does anybody really think, say, a redneck is going to dump bleach on you and run away? Do you think he cares about the symbolism of a noose, or that he’s going to go out of his way to wear a certain hat – so as to make the right fashion statement during the attack? No. If he has a problem, he’s going to get in your face, probably punch it repeatedly, and walk away when he feels his point has been made.

In this the Left betrays how little they understand us. For even their hoaxes seem like bad parodies to us. It’s what a Leftist would do, only reversed in ideological polarity. It’s not what a Rightist would do. They don’t get us. Their rank-and-file doesn’t have any clue who they are dealing with anymore. Even the Media is too stuck on Leftism to understand anymore. There was a time, perhaps, when wiser Leftists would have thought “well, that doesn’t sound a whole lot like them… maybe we should check into this a little more.”

That time has passed.

This is profoundly dangerous to us all. Because, not knowing us, they cannot understand where the limits are. They’ve been butting up near our maximum levels of tolerance for some time now. Sooner or later, one of them is going to exceed that boundary because he doesn’t even know it’s there, anymore.

Thales
February 22, 2019
Leftist Hoaxes: A Failure to Understand the Right
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—L. Neil Smith

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I’m afraid they’re going to get crazier the more power they lose. Beware the wounded bear. By which I mean “let’s make them crazier.”

L. Neil Smith
From his website
[Sounds like a plan to me!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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Our planet is going to hit disaster if we don’t turn this ship around and so it’s basically like, there’s a scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult. And it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question, you know, ‘Is it okay to still have children?’

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
U.S. Representative (D-NY)
February 24, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez: People Maybe Shouldn’t Reproduce Due To Climate Change
[Via email from Lyle.

With such crap for brains one could make the case our country would be better off if her parents had not had children. But there is also the case to be made that we would not have such wonderful political entertainment and in-fighting in the Democrat Party if it weren’t for her.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Maj Toure @MAJTOURE

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Currently, folks can be locked up for feeding homeless, stashing rain water, growing plants, recording public servants and owning guns. What a time to be alive.

Maj Toure @MAJTOURE
Tweeted on February 22, 2019
[Look on the bright side. There is lots of opportunity for improvement because there is so much low hanging fruit.

Or is that, “Fruits that should be hanged”?—Joe]