Category Archives: Politics

Interstate Transportation of Firearms and Ammunition Bill

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HR 131, recently introduced by U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.)

“Current federal law guarantees the right of law-abiding persons to transport firearms between two locations where they have a legal right to possessand carry them, regardless of state or local laws that would otherwise apply. The firearm must be cased or otherwise not readily accessible. Unfortunately, anti-gun local officials are using overly restrictive state licensing laws to harass and prosecute travelers who have made every effort to comply with the law, resulting in seized guns that are sometimes never returned, delayed travel, legal fees, and sometimes even unnecessary guilty pleas.

H.R. 131 would ensure the law has the effect Congress intended when it passed more than 25 years ago. Specifically, the legislation would make clear that transportation of both firearms and ammunition is federally protected, as well as expand the protections afforded to travelers to include “staying in temporary lodging overnight, stopping for food, fuel, vehicle maintenance, an emergency, medical treatment, and any other activity incidental” to the trip. Additionally, the bill would place the burden of proof clearly on the state to show that the traveler failed to comply with the law.”

Emphasis mine. So some state clowns have been flouting federal law in going after people who travel innocently through their states with gun.
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Responsible Body Armor Possession Act

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HR 378

The title is of course misleading, as is all the speech of authoritarianism. Is it to protect the possession of responsible body armor? But an inanimate object can be neither responsible nor irresponsible. Is it to protect responsible bodies with armor? If so, why does it limit said armor? Is it to protect the responsible possession of body armor? How then would body armor be possessed in an irresponsible manner? Are there hoards of people possessing their body armor in some obnoxious fashion, say, wearing orange body armor with red clothing? One is given to wonder.

With all the Progressives pretending to be concerned, to the point of hyperventilating, about all the carnage carried out with guns, you’d think the one thing they’d want to see, besides a monopoly on gun possession for criminals, is more people wearing more effective body armor. Oh wait…

Authoritarians are of course insane, so in that sense there is nothing to see here.

One has to wonder what the authoritarian Republicans will do with this. My gut tells me they’ll be very much in favor of it, but will at the same time feel uncomfortable about letting their support be known. How that will manifest itself in their political actions I cannot guess. This sort of thing is an on-going problem for them (damn those liberty-minded little Hobbits!).

Please try to avoid getting caught up in the matter of the technical details of the various classes of body armor. This has nothing to do with any of that you know.

If the truth be known (perish the thought) this is one of many signs indicating that Congress is preparing for war with the American people. Many of them are no doubt blissfully unaware of that prospect, but it must be understood that blissful unawareness, and the vehement defense thereof, is a key component of such campaigns, right up to, and through, the the very end.

Fire, prosecute, and scorn them

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Via Dave Hardy and Kelsey Harkness, we have the December 8, 2014 Staff Report on Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Involvement in “Operation Choke Point”. It contains these key findings:

  • The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the primary federal regulator of over 4,500 banks, targeted legal industries. FDIC equated legitimate and regulated activities such as coin dealers and firearms and ammunition sales with inherently pernicious or patently illegal activities such as Ponzi schemes, debt consolidation scams, and drug paraphernalia.
  • FDIC achieved this via “circular argument” policymaking: there was no articulated justification or rationale for the original list of “high-risk merchants.” Yet a list of “potentially illegal activities” included in FDIC’s formal guidance to banks justified itself by claiming that the categories had been previously “noted by the FDIC.”
  • FDIC’s explicitly intended its list of “high-risk merchants” to influence banks’ business decisions. FDIC policymakers debated ways to ensure that bank officials saw the list and “get the message.”
  • Documents produced to the Committee reveal that senior FDIC policymakers oppose payday lending on personal grounds, and attempted to use FDIC’s supervisory authority to prohibit the practice. Personal animus towards payday lending is apparent throughout the documents produced to the Committee. Emails reveal that FDIC’s senior-most bank examiners “literally cannot stand payday,” and effectively ordered banks to terminate all relationships with the industry.
  • In a particularly egregious example, a senior official in the Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection insisted that FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg’s letters to Congress and talking points always mention pornography when discussing payday lenders and other industries, in an effort to convey a “good picture regarding the unsavory nature of the businesses at issue.”
  • FDIC actively partnered with Department of Justice to implement Operation Choke Point, and may have misled Congress about this partnership.

    • Because of this pressure by the FDIC private companies which create and sell compliance and risk management training software incorporated things such as:

    image

    The pressure was far from subtle. The official referred to in the following is Jim LaPierre, Regional Director of the Kansas City Region:

    The official told the banker, “I don’t like this product, and I don’t believe it has any place in our financial system. Your decision to move forward will result in an immediate unplanned audit of your entire bank.”

    This is what you get with government employees who believe they are masters rather than public servants.

    A good start on the way to restore public trust would be to release the names of the scoundrels so they can be publically scorned. While I am sure there are many more here are some names from the report:

    • Anderson, James L.
    • Bar, David
    • Benardo, Michael B.
    • Bowman, John B.
    • Bresnick, Michael
    • Brueger, Kathleen S.
    • Brown, Luke
    • Butler, Janice
    • Delery, Stuart
    • Dujenski, Thomas J.
    • Eberley, Doreen R
    • French, George
    • Gray, Andrew
    • Gruenberg, Martin J.
    • Jackson, Michael L.
    • LaPierre, Jim
    • Lowe, Anthony M.
    • Osterman, Richard J.
    • Pearce, Mark
    • Plunkett, Sylvia H.
    • Miller, Jonathan N.
    • Miller, Rae-Ann
    • Sagatelian, Marguerite
    • Sawin, April D.
    • Spitler, Eric J.
    • Sweet, Joel
    • Watkins, James C.
    • Valdez, Victor J.
    • Weatherby, Katheryn M.

    The public servants who “debated ways to ensure that bank officials saw the list and ‘get the message’” need to be sent a very strong “message”. They should be fired, prosecuted, and held personally responsible for the harm done to the business affected and the general public by their illegal and immoral actions.

    The derp is strong with this party

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    Now that the Republicans control both Houses, they’re asking for money to “fight” the Democrats. I get multiple pleas from them every day, asking for money.

    I didn’t know it took a constant in-flow of money for a representative or a senator to do the right thing, that without said constant flow of money they’d…what?– They’d still be caving, capitulating, and expressing disdain and disgust toward their liberty-minded base? This is an interesting phenomenon. So money = courage, principled stands and moral fortitude? I did not know that.

    It would be vastly more principled and honest of them to come right out and say, “We’ll support this specific bill and get it pushed through for this specific price. We’ve already received this percentage of our price, and so can you spare a hundred bucks? And by the way; if our price isn’t met, we’ll of course keep your money anyway and use it for things WE want instead.”

    Or is it that they intend to buy gold with my donations, place gold bricks in a leather bag, and beat Democrats up ‘side the head with it? That would at least make some kind of sense, but then why not use a plain, clay bricks, or some rocks? Why gold, particularly? A hickory axe handle can work wonders, and it only costs a few dollars.

    Quote of the day—William Barkley

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    I thank God there are no free schools nor printing. And I hope we shall not have these for 100 years. For learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both.

    William Barkley
    Governor of Virginia
    1671
    From Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: A Cultural History) by David Hackett Fischer.
    [One has to wonder if a similar attitude in our present government is the explanation for the poor quality of our schools.—Joe]

    For the ‘Save the children’ Progressives

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    Bill Whittle brings the facts;

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pELwCqz2JfE

    You decide. Would you rather raise your children in Democrat controlled-since-the-Stone-Age, Detroit, or in Gun Nut Central, Plano, Texas?

    (Hat tip Kevin Baker)

    Would you rather more places be more like Detroit, or more places be more like Plano? There are causes and effects involved here. Are you interested in cause and effect, or are you more interested in furthering the Progressive agenda?

    If you’re interested in “saving the children” the answer is fairly simple, and yet you’ll reject it out of allegiance to your political agendas. Therefore you’re not interested in saving children, QED, and no one should listen to you. You’re interested in something else entirely, and it isn’t pretty, or noble, or based on compassion or understanding.

    I’ve often criticized the use of statistics, when asserting the principles of liberty takes back seat, and I will likely continue to do so. This bit from Whittle however will be very useful in the sentencing hearings of Progressive operatives who’ve been depriving people’s rights under color of law. One of those rights being deprived is the right to protect one’s children using a gun, and a very high death rate has resulted from that deprivation. Progressives are killing people at an astonishing rate, right here, right now.

    Save the children; get a gun. Save the children; defeat Progressivism and relegate it to the dust bin of an ugly history. Save the children; advance the American Principles of Liberty.

    ETA; There can be no “getting along”, or making nice, or living with, an idealogy that violates human rights on a wholesale level as a matter of national policy. Practicing Progressivism is in fact a crime, right now. All of it. It’s a violation of everythig America stands for and a violation of the constitution, and it’s perpetrators should be dealt with accordingly. The only question left is; are we going to it the easy way or the hard way?

    Carrots versus Sticks?

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    [The following was written by Brian Keith and posted here for the first time.—Joe]

    Carrots Vs Sticks?
    Or, why other gun rights activists make you so angry and what you can do about it

    I spoke at the December 13th I Will Not Comply rally. As the first speaker, I encouraged thousands of armed citizens to shout “I Own Guns!”

    At the January 15th rally, I was behind the scenes. I helped organize the I Will Not Comply people for some of the photos that were taken, and went with them through the Capitol to smooth feathers.

    In both cases I was surrounded by people whose idea of the good life is roughly similar:

    All peaceful adults should be allowed to defend themselves as they see fit.

    (I say “allowed” because I am discussing our vision of the future and the specific reality we want to see happen. “Allowed” refers to the choices of the government and not to the nature of our unalienable rights.)

    And yet, quite a few people at the Dec 13 rally are angry at the people at the Jan 15 rally. Many boycotted Jan 15.

    And the reverse is true as well. Plenty of people didn’t go to Dec 13 for reasons ranging from the organizer not getting a permit to the planned civil disobedience to a disregard for Washington’s organized gun groups.

    I met some good people Dec 13. And I met some good people Jan 15. And we all share the same stated goal.

    So why are some of us at each others’ throats?

    ——

    We see this same theme throughout history. A political minority wants more acknowledgment of their rights. Some people want to work within the current political system, while others take a more hard line approach.

    I call these groups the Carrots and the Sticks.

    The Carrot says “I’ll work with you on your terms, follow your rules, and in exchange you’ll give me more political power.”

    The Stick says “Your rules exist to keep me powerless. I will break them and I dare you to try to stop me.”

    (When I say rules, I speak of the political process as it is. Mentioning that the US Constitution or the Washington State constitution guarantee the right to keep and bear arms does us no good. It is true that they do, but what of it? We do not actually get to practice that right. So I speak of what actually is, now, and not what ought to be.)

    Carrots usually achieve victory when they have Sticks backing them up. Alex Haley, Malcolm X’s biographer, referred to this in regards to Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK had some power through nonviolence. But the organization Malcolm X gave much of his life to had the numbers of trained men ready to do damage to earn freedom. And that bolstered MLK’s cause. The powers that be would much rather deal with Carrot than Sticks.

    This is not to say that the Carrots like the Sticks that help them win. Simply to say that, in the absence of Sticks, the Carrots have little back up plan.

    One Carrot that did win without Stick support is Gandhi. But he also said he would choose violence over cowardice if those were the only two options. Perhaps if his team had more guns they would have also pursued a Stick strategy.

    In the American Revolution, many people tried the Carrot strategy for many years. Read the Declaration of Independence and you can see the transition of those men from Carrots to Sticks.

    ——

    We have Carrots and Sticks in the gun rights movement.

    Alan Gottlieb is the quintessential Carrot. I’ve never read him advocating breaking the law. In a conversation with him on Jan 15, I asked him why he wasn’t trying to stop background checks. I acknowledged that he had done more than any other individual in my lifetime to further the cause of freedom. So why was he compromising on background checks?

    To paraphrase, he responded that politics is the art of the possible, and that repealing 594 was not politically possible at this time.

    Fight political battles you can win. That’s the Carrot point of view.

    Mike Vanderboegh is the quintessential Stick. He advocates breaking the law. He smuggles illegal magazines in to states that have banned them.

    His tagline is “When freedom turns to tyranny, the armed citizen still gets to vote.”

    ——

    Carrots get mad at Sticks when the Sticks make noise and rock the boat. The Carrot needs the boat steady, so he believes, so that he can get more political power.

    Sticks get mad at Carrots when they compromise and value popularity or wealth over freedom. Sticks want freedom now, because compromise is what got us in this mess!

    ——

    The Dec 13 rally was the biggest armed civil disobedience rally in the history of our country. The thousands who attended effectively nullified the Transfer prohibition of 594. When confronted with thousands of people not following the law, the State Patrol decided not to enforce the law, and many other law enforcement agencies have followed suit. Sticks: 1.

    But a law enforcement organization choosing to not enforce a law at an event is not the same thing as protecting people at other times and in other places from that law. Matt Shea introduced a bill to repeal 594. And many other Carrots are on the move- from Gottlieb’s court case to get some parts of 594 thrown out to a law enforcement group’s attempt to make having your Concealed Pistol License count as your background check. None of these efforts have born fruit yet, but they are the only way we can continue to experience the freedom we claimed on Dec 13. Carrots: 1.

    Gottlieb & the Carrots may have been able to get an injunction for the Transfer prohibition of 594. But Gavin Seim & the Sticks demonstrated that the law is unenforceable in a way no politician can ignore, and they did it fast. We are more free for their efforts.

    Gavin and Mike could, in theory, introduce legislation repealing 594. But it’s Representative Matt Shea who actually did that, and it is he and his non-offensive demeanor that people can rally around. Few politicians can rally to the cause of a man who talks on the radio about how everyone should own tanks. When Matt Shea & the Carrots win with this bill, we will be more free for their efforts.

    ——

    I titled this essay Carrots Vs Sticks? because I don’t think we have to be as angry at each other as we are.

    Carrots: The Sticks are the only way we’ll ever get more free. It is only the threat of armed resistance that has stopped law enforcement in California, Connecticut, New York, and now perhaps Washington from enforcing clear laws banning guns and magazines. Sticks may embarrass you, but their principled stance is what buys you political capital as well as fundraising money. By all means keep trying to talk your way out of bad laws. It might work now, and it is almost always talking it out that eventually secures a state of liberty for the people. Stop badmouthing the people who have the guts to live free and demonstrate to the nation what freedom looks like. Remember, there were ten times as many people at the I Will Not Comply rally as at the Let’s Use The Political Process rally. Respect the courage of those who demand their rights.

    Sticks: Don’t hate the Carrots for being politicians. It’s really rare for the people as a whole to get more free simply as a result of violating unjust laws. Rosa Parks didn’t write any laws. Nor did Malcolm X. They just resisted. Stay principled yourself, and by all means call out corruption when you see it. Stay professional in your demeanor as you commit felonies and make people uncomfortable. Be unfailingly kind and polite. Keep on doing what you know is right. And respect those who work in different ways to achieve freedom. (And wear suits and professional clothing when possible. I know you are more comfortable in your Carhartts- so am I. But you are the front lines of liberty. Dress like it.)

    ——

    So what happens now?

    Sticks will get angry at me for defending Carrots. And Carrots will get angry at me for defending Sticks.

    And both will get angry at each other for being irresponsible short-sighted jerks.

    And Bloomberg, Gates, and the rest of the anti-freedom crowd will grab the popcorn and laugh themselves silly.

    Because every ounce of energy we direct at denigrating a fellow gun rights activist is energy we’re not directing at winning.

    Carrots and Sticks have different tactics for winning.

    If you really want freedom, take a page from the other guy’s book.

    Are you a Carrot who puts your energy in to the political process?

    Awesome- now go to the next rally at the Capitol with your long gun and demand to be heard. It’s February 7th at 10am. Don’t think the I Will Not Comply people are reasonable? Great- go and talk with them. Convince them of your point of view. https://www.facebook.com/events/1547594748829848

    Are you a Stick who puts your energy in to demanding your rights in a public way?

    Great- now go call your Legislator and schedule a meeting with them to talk about Matt Shea’s bill to repeal 594. It’s House Bill 1245. Find your legislator at http://app.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/

    ——

    We need Carrots and Sticks working together full throttle to win back our rights. We all want the same thing. Let’s go get it.

    C.S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism

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    I have never been a big fan of C.S. Lewis in general. When I received the following email I very nearly responded back with a negative response:

    Dear Joe,

    Could I interest you in please posting a notice on your blog of the following new YouTube video from the C.S. Lewis Society of California of my keynote talk at the first annual conference of Christians for Liberty, that was held at St. Edwards University in San Antonio, TX, August 2, 2014?

    Thank you for your kind consideration!

    Best regards,

    David
    ——
    David J. Theroux
    Founder and President
    The Independent Institute
    100 Swan Way
    Oakland, CA 94621
    (510) 632-1366 Phone
    (510) 568-6040 Fax
    http://www.independent.org

    I decided that I should at least watch a minute or two of video before rejecting it.

    This quote at about 2:25 in the video made me decide to post it:

    Could one start a Stagnation Party—which at General Elections would boast that during its term of office no event of the least importance had taken place?

    C.S. Lewis
    1940

    Naïve, stupid, crazy, or malicious

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    Some people “want to make it harder for bad guys to get guns”. Okay. I understand the sentiment. I can even understand that some people are more “practical” than principled.

    People with far different principles than I have long made a “principled” case that economic central planning is better than a free market. Such a system “will make everyone more equal.” But that “principled” approach is easily defeated by pointing out the practical results of those experiments. Tens of millions murdered by their own governments and shortages of even essential products.

    We have the principled approach of an inalienable right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment. What data do they have which contradicts this? Why can’t they understand it’s a fool’s mission to keep guns away from the bad guys?

    This is from a UK paper article titled How did the Paris terrorists get hold of their weapons?:

    In 2010, police in Belgium stated: “Counter to what you may have heard, it’s not easy to get hold of a Kalashnikov.” To prove them wrong, a reporter for Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure managed to do so in less than six hours.

    The evidence is overwhelming that black markets supply any product which is both technically possible and people have the money for. The price might be higher and the quality may be lower. But where there are buyers there will soon be sellers.

    The examples are all around us as well as in history. Think of prohibition. Think of recreational drugs. As I have said before, “The average high school dropout can get all the recreational drugs they want within an hour anytime of the day, any day of the week. So just how effective you think a background check would be in reducing the abuse of recreational drugs?”

    The people that insist that background checks, bans, restrictions on ammunition sales, and “gun free zones” cannot be right in the head. They have to be willfully naïve, incredible stupid, have mental issues, or they are malicious.

    When you are dealing with people like this there is no value in compromising. There is no value in “agreeing to disagree”. There is no value in “respecting their opinion.” These people need to be defeated. They need to be put in their place. They need to be made an example of. They need to be made politically irrelevant. They need to be prosecuted. They are prejudiced bigots. They need to be swept into the dustbin of history. The should be despised as a 21st Century version of the KKK because this is what they are.

    Today is The One Day…

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    …we are told, by someone (?) to celebrate the life’s work of one Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – gun owner, second amendment supporter and NRA member.

    OK, but if I approve of his message and his efforts, then surely every day is MLK Day, no? Just as, if you’re a Christian every day is Christmas.

    Anyway; I wonder what MLK Jr. would say today, more than 50 years later, of race relations and the moral state of Americans. I don’t recall him having said;

    “I have a dream…of a day when a little black child and a little white child will sit down together, and the little black child will accuse the little white child of exercising “White Privilege” and blaming him for his problems. I have a dream of a time when over ninety percent of all black people will sell their votes to the political party of the KKK in exchange for largess, indoctrination into the authoritarian system, lies and broken promises. I have a dream of a time when black people are corralled into dysfunctional, government-union-controlled schools, discouraged from using the schools of their choice, and taught hopelessness and anger instead of hope and love, and I have a dream today, People, of a time when government will have replaced the father in the majority of black families…”

    No, I don’t recall him saying any of that, but that is apparently what some people are celebrating today, while calling for more of the same.

    Needing clarity

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    There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over what to do with the “terrorism done in the name of Islam” problem in the wake of the recent events in France, just as there is after each such event. Many talking heads say many things, but mostly their words shed darkness rather than light. The first step in finding a solution is properly defining the problem. Without clarity, there can be no visibility.

    I have a simple proposal:

    The next time there is such an event in a western nation and we can positively identify and surround the perpetrators before they are dead, we offer them this deal: Drop their guns/bombs and hold up their hands and surrender with the remaining hostages unharmed, and they can be tried in the Sharia court of their choice, with the following caveats: the trial must be started within one year, the verdict delivered within two years, and the court must be formally recognized and approved of by at least two leading national Islamic leaders in the Islamic world (such as the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia and the Ayatollah of Iran, or similar) who acknowledge in public, in the nation’s native language, to the people of their respective nations, the court’s legitimacy.

    Either they find the perps not guilty and we can have an official Islamic court ruling that Sharia is utterly incompatible with western culture, laws, and values; or they are found guilty and executed, and we have an official Islamic finding that terrorism and murder is forbidden under Islam. If no leading scholars will recognize the court publicly it will be a tacit admission they want it both ways – be legal in Islam, but not have the west see that.

    Either way, the clarity such a decision would provide would allow the appropriate battle-lines to  be drawn, so the proper war could commence with sides more clearly delineated.

    Achtung, Juden! Das ist Verboten!

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    In processing a customer order today, we got a “Service Not Allowed” message from our credit card merchant services bank. They’re the ones who handle all of our credit and debit card transactions. We called them to find out what this message means, because we’d not seen it before. Well, they were by this time quite familiar with the “problem”. The problem is MBNA, in this case, who issued the card to our customer, DOES NOT ALLOW TRANSACTIONS WITH GUN RELATED BUSINESSES.

    If you’re doing any business with MBNA, you’d best give them a jingle, and DO NOT FORGET this. This sort of thing seems to be on the rise, and it will get worse unless we push back, soon.

    Update, Jan. 7, 2015; The customer called his bank, assuming the “Service Not Allowed” was due to a late payment on his part. As I explained to him several times; we were told by our Merchant Services bank that it was due to MBNA policy, and that our Merchant Services people were quite familiar with said policy as they’d had to deal with such denials many times previous. The customer only repeated what he’d said about a possible late payment. In any case, the transaction, on the same card, was approved today. All I can make of it, given what we were told by Merchant Services, is that MBNA will cave without comment or discussion once they’re called on it. From what commenters are saying, the practice of denying transactions may be random, or it may be targeted toward individual customers or vendors. Without more information I have no way of knowing. This would all seem quite unbelievable, except for what we already know about the recent IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, the attempted intimidation of Sharyl Attkisson and others, and other insidious pranks aimed at the perceived enemies of Progressivism.

    Quote of the day—Bill Hooper

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    A Nation Practically Owned and Run by the N.R.A. and Walmart,which has countenanced the Fascist W regime ,and where Jeb Bush is a likely Presidential Candidate DESERVES Gun-toting Dogs on a Rampage.

    Bill Hooper
    December 18, 2014
    Comment to Dog shoots man: Accidental shooting injures man
    [H/T to Paul Koning.

    Disregard the factual errors and hypocrisy of claiming President Bush was Fascist with no mention of President Obama. This is what they think of us. You and I DESERVE to be shot.

    Why are progressives so violent? Oh, Now I remember. It’s in their nature.—Joe]

    This is what I’m talking about

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    In the comment thread here ubu52 demonstrates something I have been saying for a long time. Sometimes people literally cannot “hear” (or in this case read) your words without mapping them into something else which you did not say.

    Here is an abbreviated version of the conversation:

    ubu52: That’s ridiculous. That’s like saying all those who wanted to see Bush/Clinton tarred and feathered actually wanted to see that.

    Joe: 

    And it is ridiculous to think those saying, “Rats. Destroy Them.” actually wanted to see that.

    Spiegelman-Rotten

    Right?

    ubu52: [Repeatedly says she doesn’t get it. After completely spelling it out for her she finally says she gets it.]

    Joe: [In six different contexts I ask, “Is it ridiculous to believe they are serious?”]

    ubu52: So, who created it? Was it the occupiers? Was it someone Danish? Did they do it under duress or with their own free will? Was it created to mock the Nazis or was it created by someone who agreed with them? Without knowing it’s actual background, it’s really just a piece of 1940’s art.

    …

    Sometimes, creative people do things for effect. It has absolutely nothing to do with what they really think or feel. You are looking for some sort of deeper meaning to things that may not mean anything at all. (You’re also trying to compare them to people who are mentally ill, but that’s another topic altogether.)

    You have such a black/white way of looking at things, it seems that you are incapable of seeing any of the grays in life.

    I was asking if it was ridiculous to take the rat poster seriously. This was the work of the most famous genocidal group of all time targeting their most famous victims and she changes the subject to be something about “creative people” doing “things for effect” and claims I’m “incapable of seeing any of the grays in life.”

    I cannot fathom how someone could see “shades of gray” in answering the question whether it was ridiculous to take the poster seriously. This poster cannot be interpreted any other way than literally deadly serious. It would be unfathomably ridiculous to interpret any other way than serious.

    My question was not verbal, but in written word, repeated six times, and yet ubu52 ignores the question, changes the subject to be a question about the person who did the actual artwork, and tells me I have some deficiency in seeing the nuances of “just a piece of 1940’s art.”

    Either she is deliberately trolling me to waste my time or chiefjaybob got it right, “In the end, they are all like Joan. It’s just a matter of degrees.”

    Quote of the day—Bill Whittle

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    Progressivism is a philosophy of lawlessness, disregard for truth, contempt for individual lives, and individual freedom. It is utter, total, barbarism.

    Bill Whittle
    December 12, 2014
    THE NEW BARBARISM

    [H/T to Kevin.

    I have nothing more to add.–Joe]

    Their humor is very telling

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    While I have a desire and perhaps even fantasies of my political enemies being prosecuted for breaking existing law this (NSFW) is a really messed up way to think of your opponents. There are over 600 comments praising it. I almost always think of my opponents getting a fair trial, their sentences matching their crimes, and respecting their right to not be subject to cruel and unusual punishments.

    What these people are doing is way beyond resorting to Markley’s Law when we inform anti-gun people about SCOTUS decisions. But it’s of the same mindset. They degrade, insult, and attempt to humiliate those who oppose them.

    These people think sexual domination and degradation is a form of humor. Would they think it funny if one of their political commentators were subject to this sort of “humor”?

    I find it difficult to imagine this is anything other than a form of “othering” in preparation for making their fantasies come true. This should give more than enough reason to fight for your Second Amendment rights. These people would torture and murder you if they got the chance.

    North Idaho Socialist Party

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    Brother Doug also sent me this today:

    I stumbled across this story in the June 29, 1928 edition of the Clearwater Tribune.

    IdahoSocialistParty20141219_120230
    IdahoSocialistParty20141219_120304

    IdahoSocialistParty20141219_120323

    The Clearwater Tribune is published in Orofino Idaho which is in Clearwater County. The advocacy for the nationalization of natural resources is interesting to me. So how did that work out for Venezuela and their oil recently? Or maybe the farm land in the USSR at the time of this article?

    Some people get it

    Posted on by

    Meet Jonathan Gentry.

    This is what happened as I see it now. The Party of the KKK, the Party of Progressivism and Margaret Sanger, saw what was happening in the 1960s, and saw that they could not stop it. So they got out in front of it. It’s a standard tactic of the left; if you can’t stop it, at least take some credit for it, join in, and steer it your direction or otherwise work it to your advantage. Co-opt it.

    Now the Democrats have over 90% of Black Americans in their back pocket, keeping them angry, keeping them feeling sorry for themselves, keeping them hopeless, and thus keeping them voting Democrat. Meanwhile far more black babies are being aborted, as a percentage, than white babies, and the black family has been degraded such that Black mothers turn increasingly to the government as a surrogate father. Margaret Sanger, right there. She and Woodrow Wilson both loved the KKK.

    In summary; the Democrats, with help from Uncle Toms like Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson and promoter of violent revolution Lewis Farrakhan, are trying to turn black Americans into the objects of hate that they’ve always been for Progressives. And as a two-fer, they’re also trying to turn police into the “pigs” that the hippie/beatnik/communist/Progressives said they were back in the ’60s.

    Same thing has been happening with the feminist movement, by the way. It’s standard playbook. Co-opt a budding pro-liberty movement and turn it into a tool of agitation, of anti-liberty, anti-rights, anti-capitalist anti-human activism. It’s happening all around you.

    Meanwhile, the Republican Party is frozen stiff with fear, and anger at their own base. They didn’t get into politics to fight. They didn’t run for office to be harangued and maligned, yet that’s what they’re facing, and they’re making it worse the longer they sit on their hands and play their stupid games. They will never lead. Principled leadership has been bred out of the Party. Forget the parties. They’re done. Totaled. FUBAR. It’s up to the People.

    Edited to add; Here are a few famous and very loved Progressives, spilling the beans;

    Early 20th Century playwright and darling of the Progressives, George Bernard Shaw.

    Democrat President Woodrow Wilson and his pro KKK movie “Birth of a Nation”.

    Margaret Sanger, early 20th Century Progressive, revered to this day, on the “Negro Problem” and the purpose of advocating birth control. Sound familiar? It should. It was the inspiration for the German National Socialist’s Eugenics programs, and their Final Solution, which we now know as The Holocaust.

    And we’ll wrap it up with another all-time darling of the Progressives all my life and even to this day, Helen Thomas on what they view as the Jewish Problem.

    They must be laughing like hell at the fact that they actually managed to get the American black and Jewish votes wrapped up, and that no one called them out on it all this time.

    Mugme Street news

    Posted on by

    This is about the area near where I work:

    My heart is a little heavy because the city that I love, the city in which I grew up, the city where I’ve chosen to raise a family and make my livelihood, it’s just done. I’m finished with Seattle.

    Two weeks ago, we were talking to Seattle police about the area around Westlake Center. It’s an area that has gotten completely out of control. There is rampant open weed smoking everywhere you look between Westlake and Pike Place. There’s open drug dealing going on down there. There is all kinds of crime.

    …

    There is no way I would bring a family into downtown Seattle right now. The criminals have won. The gangs have won. The protesters are out of control.

    Seattle police, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, Kshama Sawant, they’ve all lost. But they refuse to do anything about it because it’s the rabble-rousers that comprise their base. They don’t dare stand up to the criminals and protesters who have taken over downtown Seattle because that is the element that got our politicians elected.

    Yup. I didn’t care for what I saw here over three years ago when I first started working here. There have been ups and downs since then but the culture I see and hear (literally, many floors up from the street I can hear them chatting nearly everyday) is that of looters (in the Ayn Rand sense). I don’t see it getting better any time soon.

    Quote of the day—evilwhitemalempire

    Posted on by

    I personally wish the blue states (but only blue states) would legalize all the drugs.

    Reason: You can’t straighten any of them out but you MIGHT be able to screw them up badly enough to render them useless as a voting bloc.

    evilwhitemalempire
    November 26, 2014
    Comment to The Children’s Wing of the Libertarian Party
    [I understand the desire to screw up the voting of the blue states but I don’t think drug legalization would have that effect any more than freely accessible alcohol and tobacco does now.

    Yes, many of the drugs are much more dangerous than alcohol and tobacco but I think that in general the people who currently avoid them because of their danger would continue to do so. And the people that don’t recognize the danger will, as they currently do, run those risks.

    Yes, I believe there will be some people that will use the drugs that wouldn’t have if they were illegal. But I also believe that some people will be more likely to get help and recover from the consequences of recreational drug abuse.

    And more importantly, where do you or the government, with a limited set of powers that you posses, get the authority to make decisions about what sort of recreation others partake in? Society has a legitimate concern about driving while intoxicated, or even carrying a gun in public while intoxicated. But aside from a few cases like that it really should be a matter of freedom of choice.—Joe]