Detroit, that is. I’ve been thinking of a Model Cities post for a while, but PJMedia already has a nice one;
Hat Tip; Kevin.
It’s a Model City alright, for exactly the same reasons that North Korea and Cuba are Model Countries. That video should be part of every right/left debate from now until all leftist ideas are shunned from polite society forever.
Joe is one of the moderates who would give him the choice of being disarmed.
I, on the other hand, would strip him of his right to vote for not meeting his militia duties. And make him get a permit to NOT carry, and put him in a public database to shame him for his moral cowardice.
And make him pay double sales tax to fund the additional police protection he requires.
Kristophr
October 9, 2012
Comment to Quote of the day—JMMII.
[Kristophr is right. I’ve gotten soft in my old age. In the past I have advocated for the Swiss system where you cannot vote unless you periodical qualify on the rifle range. Assuming someone does not point out a constitutionality problem that I have overlooked I have no serious objections to implementing a system such as advocated by Kristophr.
I’m currently reading Lone Star Planet and expect to get some ideas from the book. Perhaps that will help me regain my edge.
Thank you Kristophr for pointing out how soft I am. I’ll try to maintain a sharper edge in the future.—Joe]
I’m sure you have all heard the old saw “the enemy of my
enemy is my friend.” Well… No. I think a better version is “the enemy of my
enemy is a useful tool.” And I think
that is what we are seeing evidence of unfolding before us right now.
Obama & Co announce a record $ 181 million in donations
in Sept, largely in small amounts from “first time” donors, too small to require tracking. At the same time, a
breaking story is about extremely lax verification of donor credit card legitimacy (i.e., essentially none) ,
and a LOT of hits to Obama’s “contribute” page (something like 2/3) come from
overseas, and there is not much in the way of addressing matching with the card payment. I would be VERY unsurprised if a lot of OverSeas America Haters made
donations, in violation of US law and with complicit looking-the-other-way by
the Obama fundraisers, because they know that while Obama may not be their
friend, he is an easily manipulated fool who isn’t very fond of America and is
working to destroy it. Not because he really wants to per se, but because he is too stupid and narcissistic to realize
what real effect his actions have. The folks surrounding him want to hang on to
power because it’s shiny and what ALL the cool kids want, but they really are NOT
very good at wielding it (or even understanding it), and REALLY don’t
understand dealing with those that only understand the power of tribe, bribe,
and force, for whom our western values are antithetical to their fundamental
values. These people (the power players
in China, Saudi Arabia / MENA, Russia, drug cartels, radical Islam, etc) would REALLY like to
see Obama pull out a win, because America’s weakness is their gain.
News is also coming out that there was a LOT of warning
about security problems in Benghazi, and a SEAL team was pulled out only a
month before, displaying massive incompetence on behalf of the administration.
His foreign policy in general is now being widely
seen as increasingly ineffective, and his biggest supporters are those that
would gain from our weakness.
It is widely acknowledged that the first debate was a
disaster for Obama. Even the New Yorker magazine cover showed Romney Eastwooding
at the debate. I think there is also
a very real potential that the second debate, on foreign policy, will be as bad
or worse (if for different reasons), in part because of the above facts. I’m
not saying that the fat lady is singing her final notes, but I do get the strong
feeling that she’s starting to warm up for a really rock’n finale.
Then, of course, we’ll have to hear about the election being
stolen, voters being too stupid to know what’s good for them, etc., for the
next half-dozen or more election cycles, but that’s a price I’m willing to
accept.
Retire? I will probably get killed in the early battles of the coming revolution.
Mostly Cajun
January 27, 2012
Potpourri
[Via Kevin who posts about the violence in parts of Europe over the economic collapse in progress.
I can relate to this. Although I would like to think things will collapse slowly enough that I can retreat to a “bug out place” and avoid most of the bloodshed or worst case, as someone told me a few years ago, “You and I won’t have to worry about getting into an armed conflict with the government because they will pick up us on the first pass.” I would then hope I get released after the fighting, if any, is over with.—Joe]
Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.
Ronald Reagan
[I’m always perplexed when people insist rights are something granted by the government. I don’t know if I’m just coming across it more or if it really is that I hear this more frequently in the last year or so. In any case it concerns me greatly.—Joe]
As Tyler Durden said, “See if you can spot the outlier in the chart below.”
And after doing the seasonal adjustment:
If you can detect an outlier then feel free to draw your own conclusions. Those that cannot detect any outliers probably aren’t reading this, aspire to careers as fence posts, and vote for Obama.
Via Kevin:
This really resonated with me. I know an avowed Marxist who is a professor of business. The last few times I spent time with him I wanted to leave the restaurant because of the way he bullied the staff. I was extremely uncomfortable with his demanding to be in control of things that were against the restaurant policy. And that same demanding “in charge” attitude extended other things as well. He asked that I not carry a gun when in his presence. He apparently didn’t know that at least two others and possibly three were also carrying as well. I told him, “No. I prefer to carry.” My soon to be ex-wife asked him to drop it and he did so I didn’t have to tell him what I really thought and blister the ears of others.
His superior attitude, even with confronted with the logical inconsistences and obvious falsities of his beliefs, was nearly intolerable. Even the simplest to confirm facts would be dismissed with, “I don’t believe your facts.” And finally, just, “We’ll just have to disagree because I feel this way.” in direct conflict with his own supplied facts. He even insisted that basing decisions on emotions, “is just as valid as facts and logic.”
He seemed proud of the corruption of his city politicians (Chicago). He told stories of all the graft and was proud of his vote for Democrats. He laughed at the fence around the graveyard, “To keep the dead from voting.”
I’ve had extended conversations with others who view themselves as “intellectuals” and they all view themselves as superior to others and I wouldn’t trust them to think themselves to a draw in a game of tic-tac-toe. It’s the “intellectuals” of the anti-rights crowd that are confused that everyone doesn’t see the superiority of their view and demand guns be banned regardless of the increases in violent crime when the victims are disarmed. Facts are irrelevant because they believe they are smart when in fact they have merely subscribed to a religion that rewards its followers with the belief they are superior to others.
I heard Romney did exceptionally well in the debate last night. I wasn’t interested in watching. I couldn’t see any advantage to watching in real time as opposed to hearing a recap on the radio talk shows and blogs as I got ready for work and rode the bus to work this morning. So I spent the evening at dinner with friends and didn’t get home until midnight.
Some pundits are claiming Obama made such a poor showing that he may lose the election. But I think those people are overlooking something.
Obama has the critical communist dictators endorsements of Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, and Vladimir Putin while Romney has the kiss of death NRA endorsement. When the choice is between the tranquility of servitude and the animating contest of freedom how is there even any question of who should or will win? Who would want to compete when you can have tranquility?
Of course some people see things differently than I do. There are those that believe the clear winner of all three presidential debates will be Obama.
You smell that? Do you smell that? Schadenfreude, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning. You know, one time we watched the “great communicator” liberal president bomb, on live tv. Read the transcript. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ anti-gun talking point. When it was all over I walked up to the podium. The smell, you know that patchouli and tears smell? The whole hill. Smells like … victory.
ISH (Mininerd)
October 4, 2012
Comment to Watching the Twitter Debate Meltdown.
[Someday, in the not too distant future, one of my grandkids will be reading the archives of my blog and ask, “Grandpa, what is a ‘Brady Campaign’?”
I will then explain to them about the KKK, the Aryan Nations, Handgun Control, Inc., and other organizations that tried to infringe upon our natural and constitutionally protected rights and how many thousands of people spent millions of hours and 100’s of millions of dollars defeating them. And how they are now nothing more than a sad footnote in history. And I imagine them saying, “That’s boring. Can we use the M-16 to blow something up with Boomerite?” And with tears streaming down my cheeks I will say, “Yes. Yes we can. You are welcome.”—Joe]
There is no organization on our side in Olympia that can do for us what the NRA does for our pro-gun colleagues; that can gin up the support, generate the letters to the editors of every hometown paper, get the folks in our districts to circulate petitions and call and write and visit our district offices, get the back-stories of gun violence on the TV news, bring surviving victims to visit with editorial boards, bring the home folks to Olympia to pack the room at legislative hearings, raise funds to hire the consultants and wordsmiths to help target the sensitive races and frame the message and run the outside game. There is no one to organize this state’s willing and wealthy donors to fund independent expenditures and cut maximum checks to those suburban and rural Democrats for whom any gun bill is a tough vote—and yes, any Republican gutsy enough to buck his or her caucus—so that we legislators can get the job done. CeaseFire has little if any capacity for this unglamorous work. It prefers to release position papers and go on TV.
Adam Kline
Washington State Senator
October 2, 2012
Sen. Kline: Democrats haven’t wimped out on guns—The more complex truth behind Olympia’s failure to restrict access to firearms.
[H/T to Joe Waldron on the WA-CCW Yahoo Groups email list.
Read the whole thing and the comments. Understanding why we win and why they lose is important. We need to keep winning.—Joe]
The vast majority of Americans would like to see serious gun control. It does not pass because there is this huge disconnect between what people think and what legislators think and are willing to act upon.
Barak Obama
October 19, 1998
Listen starting at 0:18:21.
[The disconnect is between Obama and 1) the Constitution and 2) “the vast majority of Americans” Obama regards as irrelevant.
See also John Lott’s post on the same quote.—Joe]
Yesterday was the main day for the Gun Rights Policy Conference. It was wonderful meeting and listening to all the big names of the gun rights movement.
The thing that struck me most was that it would appear that we had more speakers at our conference than everyone that attends the Brady Campaign meetings. I count nearly 70 speakers.
Another thing of particular note is that the attitude at GRPC 2012 is much different than the last one I attended in 2000. The feeling was of confidence and reports of winning on multiple levels and in so many jurisdictions. There are more than 8,000,000 active CCW licenses out there. There are 200 campuses that do not infringe upon the rights of the students to defend themselves.
Alan Gura was not able to attend due to the birth of his son a week ago. But he did send us a report telling us that there is a good chance the next 2nd Amendment case to reach the Supreme Court will be one regarding the right to carry a firearm in public. In 2000 we were having trouble getting a majority of states to recognize it as a privilege.
Last night at dinner I found a small table with some room at it and asked if the chair was taken. It wasn’t and I was welcomed to sit down. After a bit one of the people introduced himself as Fran Becker the Republican challenger to Carolyn McCarthy (of “shoulder thing that goes up” fame). Wow! As we chatted about McCarthy I said something about it seemed that those most ignorant about firearms are those most opposed to firearms ownership. He extended that thought and said liberals seem to be ignorant on nearly all issues. I told him of my recent date with a liberal being like a visit into an alternate reality and he started taking notes. He said he really liked how I expressed a particular thought.
Wow!
I emailed him a link to the post where I had developed the thought in more detail.
I have a plane to catch now but there will be lots of pictures and other content to post about GRPC 2012 in the coming weeks.
H/T to JoeyD Sr. for the email.
I got a laugh out of this even if the zombie meme is wearing thin and I don’t really think of Obama supporters as being mindless.
To think of Obama supporters as being mindless is to underestimate the intelligence, power and resourcefulness they have. Many may indeed be little more than “useful idiots” but there are also those that believe they are the intelligent ones that “should be in charge”. They understand politics, psychology, and sociology well enough to be dangerous and frequently have the mindset such they don’t have a problem being extremely dangerous to their political opponents. All with the best intentions for the greater good of course.—Joe]
Mitt’s probably the best practical hope — and a thin, thin reed indeed. Changing the slope isn’t the same as reversing the slope.
Roberta X
September 27, 2012
“Not Getting it” Less Is Not The Same As Having A Clue
[I agree. And as near as I can tell the slope is such that sliding off the “cliff” is pretty close to inevitable. No set of viable politicians will be, or can be, elected that have the political capital to reverse the slope. Approximately 47% of the population is dependent upon the slope remaining the same or increasing. Reaching them and getting them to vote against their own short term best interest is extremely unlikely.
I see the communists and socialists passing out flyers on the street corners and signs, speeches and chanting in the park across the street from where I work. I feel a chill up my back when I wonder if these are the same indicators that foretold the coming to power of the tyrannical governments of the USSR, China, Italy, and Germany and the deaths of 100+ million people in the last century.
I understand the psychology of postponing the chaos, hardships, and horrors of the “safety net” (it’s really more of a trampoline that bounces people up and then off into the dirt at a later time) and the “guarantees” of other “free” stuff people have come to depend on going away. But it’s going to happen. The only questions are when, how massive the disruption will be, and the form of society as we reboot. Is postponing it going to make it less painful or more? Without data and very little rational thought to support the belief I believe it will make it more painful.
I will vote in a few weeks but without passion or even “practical hope”, as Roberta put it, the elections can change much. I’m betting my best interest is in continuing to invest in copper, lead, brass, nitrogen based chemicals, food production, and smart capable friends as my hedge against inflation and the big “splat” at the bottom of the cliff.—Joe]
If there’s any conflict between Hillary and the Chicoms, it’s kinda like the difference between a Maoist and a Trotskyite.
Bubblehead Les
September 26, 2012
Comment to She’s a libertarian all of a sudden.
[In political philosophy anyway. Hillary wouldn’t want to play second fiddle to Mao or Trotsky.
I’ve read a fair amount about Hillary. She is smart, extremely ambitious, craves power, and the ice water in her veins is pumped by a heart of steel.—Joe]
If people “are crazy, can’t be trusted, and need to be regulated and controlled”, as one Socialist recently told me, then doesn’t that mean that government which are made up of people need the same type of supervision?
It would seem to me that, if you value consistency and hence truth, you must conclude that either both people and governments made up of people need to be controlled or governments/supervisors must be made up of greater beings.
Governments which rule by divine authority have an extremely poor record of generating peace, prosperity, and happiness. Hence I think we can dismiss them outright. That leaves us with governments which have some degree of control over their actions or no control.
Again it would seem the choice is clear. Governments with no controls upon them are historically hostile to peace, prosperity, and happiness. Hence the only question would seem to be how much control. What is the optimal amount of control for a government and it’s people such that some measure of “public good” is optimized?
I suspect we have all the data we really need to answer that question. We have 50 states with various amounts of controls upon the government and the people living in those environments. The question can thus be refined a bit more. How do you measure “public good” and how do the various states rate using that system of measurement? Do there exist states with too much or too little control of government and/or their people? Or can it be shown that all states have too much/little control over government and/or the people and we need to increase/decrease the scope of the regulation of government/people in our experiments to find the optimum?
I think I know the answer but I’m willing to look at the data to see if my hypothesis is correct.
Or course there is also the valid concern of natural rights and where government gets it’s authority to regulated and control people. That is my preferred domain to have a discussion about limits on governments. But it’s challenge enough to get people to think about facts and results. Getting them to think about fundamental principles is generally an advanced topic beyond the scope of ordinary discourse.
Via Say Uncle.
This is very appealing to me. It almost sounds like Galt’s Gulch:
Small government and free-market capitalism are about to get put to the test in Honduras, where the government has agreed to let an investment group build an experimental city with no taxes on income, capital gains or sales.
Proponents say the tiny, as-yet unnamed town will become a Central American beacon of job creation and investment, by combining secure property rights with minimal government interference.
“Once we provide a sound legal system within which to do business, the whole job creation machine – the miracle of capitalism – will get going,” Michael Strong, CEO of the MKG Group, which will build the city and set its laws, told FoxNews.com.
Strong said that the agreement with the Honduran government states that the only tax will be on property.
“Our goal is to be the most economically free entity on Earth,” Strong said.
…
The laws in the city will be separate from those in the rest of Honduras. Strong said that the default law that will be enforced in the city will actually be based on Texas state law, which has relatively few regulations.
“It will be Texas law with more freedom of contract. Texas scores well on state economic freedom rankings,” he explained.
Hmmm… I wonder what I could build and export using native labor and materials.
If you think you have the right to use force against me bring guns.
Atlas Shrugged Part II Trailer
September 5, 2012
That really resonated with me. But then the entire book did.
There are a bunch of other good quotes in there too.—Joe]
2000 guns enter Mexico per day! ATF lost maybe 600 net over the entire operation period of Fast and Furious operation. While it is small consolation to the grieving of Mexico, a disproportionate 40% of the 2000 guns per day are arriving directly from the United States. Because the smugglers are shielded within the “gun rights” industrial complex, no one has had the courage to directly challenge them by regulation. Issa’s witch hunt has a perverse agenda to tie up law enforcement’s hands against weapons regulations that protect Mexicans and Americans.
Thomas Glenchur
September 20, 2012
Comment to Illegal guns from ‘Fast and Furious’ still on street
[2000 per day? Only 600? “‘gun rights’ industrial complex”? Wow! Glenchur is suffering from Peterson Syndrome, is living in an alternate universe and only visits here, or he is one of those “I know the truth in my heart of hearts” types.
Another commenter, Gary Villa, responded and provided a template to straighten him out but I can’t imagine Glenchur used it:
This is not even remotely true. There is only one official US Government assessment of the number of guns smuggled into Mexico from the US. It is the 2009 GAO report on the issue, compiled from the ATF’s own trace data – “FIREARMS TRAFFICKING:
U.S. Efforts to Combat Arms Trafficking to Mexico Face Planning and Coordination Challenges”. Google it. The report is still on the GAO website. Pay special attention to the Dept. of Homeland Security letter attached in the appendix, expressing concern that the data be accurately represented so as not to portray the number of guns being more than it actually was, exactly as the Obama administration did just before F&F was launched.Over 5 years, the total number of guns found to have been smuggled into Mexico from the US was only 3450 out of over 30,000 total seized. That’s fewer than 700 guns/year, nowhere near your ridiculous figure of 2000/day. Also, the types of guns that were found to have been smuggled were almost all cheap handguns, not AK-47s, which is what the F&F idiots allowed to walk. In addition, according to US State Department documents released by Wikileaks, the vast majority of guns going to the cartels are those sold to the Mexican government through the US State Department itself, as part of US military aid, not guns purchased from US businesses and smuggled across the border. Why pay retail for small numbers of neutered civilian semi-autos and risk smuggling them across the border when the US State Department, led by Hilary Clinton, will have fully-automatic military assault rifles, grenades, and anti-tank weapons delivered to your doorstep in bulk and at wholesale prices?
The Obama administration knew about both the GAO report showing that gun smuggling was not a significant source, and their own State Department reports that the guns from their direct sales were, months before the beginning of Fast and Furious. So, the ATF claims that they launched F&F to combat a problem that their own best data said didn’t exist, and walked a type of gun their own data said was not preferred by smugglers, but which the administration has repeatedly said it would like to ban. Yeah, none of that is suspicious.
By the way, those same guns WERE regulated, under Clinton, and his own administration admitted that their regulations had no measurable effect on any form of crime.
It’s hard to believe someone can be so out of touch with reality but I’ve sat across the table and talked to people like that for hours. They apparently have happy productive lives as take out clerks at the grocery store and reluctantly vote for Obama because a more socialist candidate isn’t available.—Joe]
What is it that makes Keynesians so insanely self destructive? Is it their mindless blind faith in the power of government? Their unfortunate ignorance of the mechanics of monetary stimulus? Their pompous self-righteousness derived from years of intellectual idiocy? Actually, I suspect all of these factors play a role. Needless to say, many of them truly believe that the strategy of fiat injection is viable, even though years of application have proven absolutely fruitless. Anyone with any sense would begin to question what kind of madness it takes to pursue or champion the mindset of the private Federal Reserve bank…
Quantitative easing has shown itself to be impotent in the improvement of America’s economic situation. Despite four years of free reign in central banking, employment remains dismal in the U.S., the housing market continues its freefall, and, our national debt swirls like a vortex at the heart of the Bermuda Triangle. Despite this abject failure of Keynesian theory, the Federal Reserve is attempting once again to convince you, the happy-go-lucky American citizen, that somehow, this time around, everything will be “different”.
Brandon Smith
September 14, 2012
Get Ready For An Epic Fiat Currency Avalanche
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]