This Ted Cruise ad could be an Obama ad, except for one single word (and the face). It may in fact BE a recycled Obama ad, with the tiniest bit of editing. Check it out.
Someone needs to be fired, and right now too. The same old crap such as this won’t do this time around. It won’t do at all.
The Democrats are totally ill-equipped to defeat him. He simply doesn’t fall for their game, and so it will require the combined efforts of Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, the American Communist Party, et al, plus Jihadists and other foreign interests, to defeat him. This will be interesting.
The predictable, or rather a common, outcome would be that someone would get to him and convince him (threaten, bribe, cajole, lie, intimidate, mesmerize, etc.) that “For the Greater Good of the Party” he should quit before he does too much damage to the 2016 prospects. That or they primary him right out.
I thought they was Yankees.
Granny
From Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: A Cultural History)
[During World War II three German submariners escaped from Camp Crossville Tennessee. Their flight took them to an Appalachian cabin where they stopped for a drink of water. The mountain Granny told them to, “Git!” When they ignored her she promptly shot them dead. The sheriff came and scolded her for shooting helpless prisoners. Granny burst into tears and said she would not have done it if she had known they were Germans. The exasperated sheriff asked her what in tarnation she thought she was shooting at. Her reply is today’s QOTD.
A case could be made that the divide between certain cultures in the U.S. has just as much stress now as it did then.—Joe]
We frequently hear the some large percentage of the public is in support of universal background checks for firearms sales. But it is easy to demonstrate that a large percentage of the public is either ignorant of the effectiveness of background checks or has evil intent.
Basically the problem boils down to a large percentage of the public has opinions on things they really don’t know much about. Brother Doug pointed out a great example recently:
A … survey in January conducted by the Oklahoma State University Department of Agricultural Economics found that 82 percent of respondents supported mandatory labels on GMOs. However, 80 percent of respondents also said they supported mandatory labels on “foods containing DNA.”
This is the reason we have a representative democracy with enumerated powers for the government rather than a direct democracy. Our representatives are supposed to carefully study and debate any potential laws and only enact laws that are beneficial to the majority of people and do not infringe upon the rights of anyone.
Popular opinion can easily be shown, see above, to be a very poor way of determining, well, almost anything.
When Obama was campaigning in 2008 the one good thing I thought might come out of him being elected was better support for FOIA. My experience with FOIA and the Federal Government is that they completely ignore you unless you get a lawyer involved. That’s just wrong. If the people don’t comply with FOIA they should be prosecuted. That’s not what happens. If Obama could make some progress on getting better compliance with FOIA I would have praised that achievement.
It was just another Obama lie.
We are sliding further down the slippery slope into a police state:
The White House is voiding a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA (incidentally the same act that discovered none of Hillary Clinton’s “personal” government-business emails since they were not even stored on government property!) which as USA Today explains, makes “official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject requests for records to that office.”
Update: More evidence:
The Obama administration set a record again for censoring government files or outright denying access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.
The government took longer to turn over files when it provided any, said more regularly that it couldn’t find documents and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy.
It also acknowledged in nearly 1 in 3 cases that its initial decisions to withhold or censor records were improper under the law — but only when it was challenged.
Its backlog of unanswered requests at year’s end grew remarkably by 55 percent to more than 200,000. It also cut by 375, or about 9 percent, the number of full-time employees across government paid to look for records. That was the fewest number of employees working on the issue in five years.
I have nothing to add.
There’s no question that gun rights groups like the NRA are winning the battle for hearts and minds.
Christopher Ingraham
March 5, 2015
America has more guns in fewer hands than ever before
[H/T to SayUncle.
This is in the Washington Post!
It makes me sad to say this but humans, in general, have a herd instinct. They want other people to like them and to be like other people. Facts, logical support, and consistency tend to be of less importance than being a member of large herd.
We have the facts, logic, and SCOTUS decisions on our side but for decades they had the herd. That is slowing changing. Their claim of “few hands than ever before” is probably false do to the justifiable concern by gun owners that gun ownership polls may be an intelligence gathering subterfuge by criminals (by this I intend to include people working for the government). There is also some funny business with the wording of things. If we are clearly winning hearts and minds then I find it difficult to believe that we aren’t increasing the size of the gun owner herd as well.
I can say, with increasing confidence, that my dream may one day come true.—Joe]
It seems that someone just embezzled three billion dollars from the US treasury. Well, actually, it was some insurance companies, and the Treasury just cut them checks. And it wasn’t authorized by congress. And the treasury told congress to go piss up a rope when they said “you can’t do that!” That story and other bureaucratic contempt for the law here.
The rule of law is dead, unless some pols and appointees start going to jail, or otherwise paying for their crimes against the people.
And hardly anyone is noticing, apparently. This is one of the biggest power grabs regarding free speech in the history of history, and it seems to be going through without much discussion, or even much notice.
I’ve been saying for years that the left really, really MUST gain control over the internet, and right now it seems they’re just a day or two from initiating their Solution; FCC control. Goodbye Wild West. Hello Federal Department of the Internet. I hope you like your new overlords.
How much more clear can it be?
University of Michigan Activism class.
Just heard about it on Rush.
The university goes on to say that they’re not exhibiting any political bias. In Left-Speak that would be true of course, because “Bias” means any opposition to the Progressive authoritarian system.
Think of the state as a band of thieves, and you will not be far wrong.
Glenn Reynolds
December 28, 2014
TINKER, TAILOR, STALKER, SPY
[And thugs.—Joe]
Height over bore, that is.
I’ve only half jokingly mocked other “future weapon” designs in the past, saying that the trend is toward an ever more clownishly high sight axis. My educated guess is that this is in fact a psychological problem.
With the lower velocity of the grenade/shotgun, it would make actual sense to put it on the bottom, with the flatter trajectory rifle barrel closer to the sight axis.
The new terms like “Soldier integrated such and such” (which obviously turn ordinary warfare into something totally new and different) are also the result of psychological problems. Years ago, while reading one of the supposedly big cheese U.S. military publications, I found that such a thing as an “army” is, technically speaking, no more. No, ladies and gentlemen; we now have a “Soldier-Centric Force Structure” instead, don’t you know, which no doubt changes EVERYTHING.
The advantage you see is that people who have actual experience in stuff are no longer needed, and can therefore be safely and conveniently brushed aside. Who needs an Army General when you can have a shiny, new, Soldier-Centric Force Structure Command and Control Engineering Specialist? Hmm? Was General Patton a Soldier-Centric Force Structure Command and Control Engineering Specialist? I don’t think so. All he did was lead an Army to kill a bunch of folks and break things. Feh!
And who needs a stupid old rifle when you can have something that looks like it came out of a bad Sci-Fi movie written by an ignoramus, and having the ergonomics of a cinder block?
Essentially the vast majority of the existing population is already suffering to one degree or another under the present day rule. And they are doing nothing to free themselves from their oppressed condition. Other than the very small minority who will join the rebellion when hope surfaces with the insurgency, the majority will remain either neutral (meaning frozen in fear glued to their propaganda mind control devices) or will rise to defend their shepherd……or at the very least their meal ticket. The ultimate enemy of a revolution is not the oppressive government it is attempting to overthrow, but the general population it is trying to ‘free’.
Cognitive Dissonance
February 8, 2015
The Paradox Inherent in Any Slave Nation Revolution — Even When the Sociopaths Lose They Win
[This post has some interesting insights for those who yearn for a rapid revolution. A case can be made that successful revolutions (those that actually change things as opposed to merely substituting one tyrant for another) must occur in the cultural rather than at the point of a gun.—Joe]
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.
Continue reading
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.
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:
Because of this pressure by the FDIC private companies which create and sell compliance and risk management training software incorporated things such as:
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:
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.
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.
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]
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?
[The following was written by Brian Keith and posted here for the first time.—Joe]
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.