The majority of (real)Americans agree with everything the OWS stands for and you ignore their message at your own peril. You will “get it” from their peaceful protest or you will get it through more forceful means, but you will get it.
Robert Breedlove
December 2, 2011
Comment to Gun Ad Likens Obama To Hitler, Other Dictators.
[Why are liberals so violent?
Oh yeah! Now I remember.—Joe]
I challenge you to debate the Second Amendment in my district in front of real Americans in the heartland, not Washington D.C. insiders. Unless, of course, you have no interest in hearing what real Americans have to say.
Joe Walsh
U.S. Representative from Illinois
December 2, 2011
Letter to Dennis Henigan, Acting President, The Brady Campaign.
[Henigan wants to have the debate in D.C.. Walsh says it should be in his Congressional district.
Henigan didn’t care what the U.S. Constitution said about guns so of course he has no interest in what real Americans have to say about guns. People are even less relevant than the Constitution to his type. Plus being outnumbered 100:1 by a bunch of gun owners would probably require too many layers of Depends.
Sebastian has more thoughts on the debate about the (no) debate.—Joe]
I was just reading a NYT op-ed about the insane, irrational paranoia of gun nuts during Obama’s presidency. These people are just itching for any reason to go on a mass shooting spree. Most of them probably have really small penises too.
edgeninja
December 2, 2011
Comment to Gun Ad Likens Obama To Hitler, Other Dictators.
[It’s Markley’s Law Monday!
I was going through the comments on this Huffington Post article and finding the commenters were generating QOTD material faster than I could harvest it. There are going to be Markley’s Law QOTDs every Monday for several weeks along with “Crap for Brains” and “Why are Liberals so Violent” QOTD material for quite some time.—Joe]
The U.S. is done. It’s all over but the killing and eating. I just hope we have the ‘nads to never let another government take root in this country. Governments are always corrupt. Always.
Crotalus
November 9, 2011
Comment to Theory.
[Ubu52’s comments here reminded me of this quote.
While I could find a lot to agree with this I fear that for the foreseeable future government will always be a necessary evil. Hence the best we can do is minimize the evil. We probably will not be able to eliminate it without going to a small tribal society which looks to be an even worse option.—Joe]
This is the power of victimhood in the “social justice” (Marxist) movement, and it’s why I’ve said many times that victimhood– real, genuine, beautiful, wonderful, rich and delicious victimhood, is so deeply cherished, sought after and uplifted with such passion by the left. It’s their gold and diamond currency and they mine it, mint it, wear it and show it off with a greedy, lusty fervor.
Lyle
November 30, 2011
Comment to Peterson Syndrome example.
[You don’t have to think about this very long to realize Lyle has nailed it.
The NRA says, “Refuse to be a victim” and trains people to enforce this refusal with knowledge, confidence, and, if necessary, force. The anti-gun people seek out victims, hire them, and not only enable more victims but work to force others into being victims.—Joe]
Of course I knew it was possible. But I didn’t dare say it for fear of being wrong and embarrassed when some other explanation came to light. So I just stated the facts when a pro-gun story disappeared from the UK’s Daily Mail.
I did manage to contact the author who responded with a single URL. It is a link to the same story on a different website with the subtitle, “Read the column the UK’s Daily Mail pulled for being too dangerous”.
Not only was it possible; it was what happened. Some people in the UK are such wimps they can’t tolerate people even speaking about the exercise of their natural right to keep and bear arms.
Should they end up needing that which they don’t have it will be hard to give them much sympathy beyond nominating them for a collective (as they surely would have wanted it) Darwin Award.
Government turns to clandestine terrorist operations when it is afraid of it’s own population.
Noam Chomsky
[I was reminded of this quote by various links to this article and related stuff.
But from actually reading the bill I don’t see what the big fuss is about:
Subtitle D—Detainee Matters
SEC. 1031. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40) includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition under the law of war.
(b) COVERED PERSONS.—A covered person under this section is any person as follows:
(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.
(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.
This appears to be consistent with my understanding of the Geneva and Hague Conventions in regards to acceptable conduct during war. When someone aids the enemy, on or off the battlefield, they are subject to detention, interrogation, trial, and if not a privileged combatant, even execution.—Joe]
Son James, his wife Kelsey, and I had an interesting conversation about the possible coming collapse of the Euro this evening. I read part of this story to them:
British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain.
As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.
Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.
The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.
A senior minister has now revealed the extent of the Government’s concern, saying that Britain is now planning on the basis that a euro collapse is now just a matter of time.
That’s the background. What’s more interesting to me is this article:
About a year ago, I spoke at a conference in Europe that attracted a lot of very rich people from all over the continent, as well as a lot of people who manage money for high-net-worth individuals.
What made this conference remarkable was not the presentations, though they were generally quite interesting. The stunning part of the conference was learning – as part of casual conversation during breaks, meals, and other socializing time – how many rich people are planning for the eventual collapse of European society.
Not stagnation. Not gradual decline. Collapse.
As in riots, social disarray, plundering, and chaos. A non-trivial number of these people think the rioting in places such as Greece and England is just the tip of the iceberg, and they have plans – if bad things begin to happen – to escape to jurisdictions ranging from Australia to Costa Rica (several of them remarked that they no longer see the U.S. as a good long-run refuge).
Of course. Once it is pointed out it is obvious.
Those with money will escape the collapse if it occurs. They will take a big hit and won’t be able to get all of their wealth out but they are generally smart and will generally succeed. The looters (by this I mean to include the socialist governments) will attempt to prevent the wealth from leaving but even if they were successful eventually the looters will run out of loot.
Much of the wealth and nearly all the brain power that generated that wealth will “take a holiday”. There is also a good chance, as in the book, that the escape of these people to another place will hasten the downfall. Rand may have missed a lot of the details but the basic concepts may be close enough that the end result is essentially the same.
Atlas may be shrugging.
Give the Treasury Department health and safety authority over the gun industry, and any rational regulator with that authority would ban handguns.
Real gun control will take courage. In the long run, half-measures and compromises only sacrifice lives.
Josh Sugarmann
1999
Seattle and Honolulu shootings more reasons to regulate guns
[This is from the dark days of gun owner rights activism.
Sugarmann goes through regulatory proposals such as licensing, registration, expanding background checks at gun shows and stopping the import of high-capacity magazines. He then concludes a complete ban is the only rational conclusion.
I grudgingly admire Sugarmann for his genius in regards to “assault weapons” and his honesty in saying the endgame must be, always has been, and always will be a complete ban.—Joe]
Seen here. I heard about it on one of the morning talk shows. Sorry I don’t remember which. Beck, Limbaugh or Medved – take your pick.
I said it when I heard Congress was legislating the rules of baseball years ago– this is final proof that we’ve gone far off the deep end of pathological insanity. If the founders of this nation had heard Congress was involved in determining whether the tomato was a vegetable and no one had stepped in to haul them off and lock them in an asylum, they’d have shot somebody. Maybe themselves, for they’d have realized that all their learning, inspiration, vision, struggle, suffering, perseverance, profound loss and eventual victory had been in vain.
Every last bit of it pissed out a window by vacuous, nasty little fools who to this day still think we look up to them and celebrate them. It always comes as a shock to the tyrant when he finally gets his due at the hands of the people, as did Mussolini and his wife. “Why, they don’t love me? Surely this is some mistake. I am the Father of The People. I don’t understand. No wait…”
ETA; Congress getting involved in the likes of baseball and vegetables is the very definition of totalitarianism— the doctrine that says nothing is outside the realm of politics, that everything is government’s business. I used to pose the question to leftists; “What, if anything, do you believe is absolutely, positively, none of government’s business whatsoever?” It’s a rhetorical question of course. We know the answer, as evidenced above. Now that it is settled– that we live in an ideologically totalitarian state, I pose another question. What is the way out of this?
People that make tax law must be drunk.
Glen Utzman
Fall Semester 2011
[Via daughter Kimberly who is taking a class from Professor Utzman.
Some of them certainly are drunk in the usual sense but a lot of them are “drunk” on power which is far worse than if it were just alcohol. But I suppose the symptoms in the tax law would be similar in both cases.—Joe]
I find it interesting that not a *single* member of the opposition to HR822 named the @bradybuzz position as a reason to oppose the bill.
Bloomberg was mentioned by many, but @bradybuzz seems to have become politically irrelevant.
BitterB
November 16, 2011 in two Tweets: here and here.
In regards to the debate over HR822, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act.
[And The Brady Campaign should be politically irrelevant. The KKK and similar anti-civil rights organizations are no longer relevant are they?
Their “membership” is non-existent, their donations are in the tank, and now important people don’t listen to them. They should just give it up, change their names, and rejoin civilized society.—Joe]
Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
Aesop
[It is also true that any excuse will serve those that enable tyrants. Here are some of the many I have come across:
It’s interesting how there are truths which appear to be universal yet people never learn.—Joe]
I promise you; you will want to read this excerpt from The Life of Colonel David Crockett if you haven’t already.
There’s a powerful lot of meaning in few words. I intend to print it off and hand it to my daughter, to be brought into her high school history class for discussion.
Special Thanks to LukeM, who brought it to my attention in comments here. I don’t know how I missed it for so long.
There are several misconceptions about CO2, most created because proponents tried to prove the hypothesis rather than the normal scientific practice of disproof.
Dr. Tim Ball
November 9, 2011
Whether It Is Warming or Climate Change, It Cannot be the CO2.
[There is lots of other interesting data in this post. As Ry summarized when telling me about this, “North America and Europe are net absorbers of CO2. South America and Africa are net producers. And it’s all due to natural causes. Human CO2 production is in the noise of measurement error of the natural sources.”
Beyond the point the CO2/global-warming/climate-change fraud I wanted to point out that the “normal scientific practice of disproof” is what has been tripping up the anti-gun people. Their hypothesis that gun control will decrease crime is so easy to disprove that they expose themselves as a religious faith. Their deeply held beliefs persist in the absence of and in despite of evidence. I have no problem with them exercising their First Amendment rights to exercise the the religion of their choice but they do not have the right, nor should they have the power, to force others to worship the same god(s) they do.
If you only need a couple of talking point so to put them in their place point out that since the gun ban in Washington D.C. was thrown out the number of murders (the murder rate would be lower still) has dropped to the lowest in 46 years. Since the gun ban in Chicago was overthrown the number of murders is the lowest in at least 20 years. The gun bans reduce crime hypothesis cannot survive exposure to the normal scientific practice of disproof. This has been well known since at least the mid-1980s when Rossi and Wright published their book.
The Brady Campaign, The Violence Policy Center, and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence are nothing more than fading religious cults whose beliefs have killed tens of thousands of people and put millions of lives at risk. They are no more credible and should be given no more political voice than a cult advocating castration to reach an alien spacecraft.—Joe]
The new progressive era will need a fresh and gutsy generation of candidates to seek election victories not through wealthy campaign financiers but through free social media. A new generation of politicians will prove that they can win on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and blog sites, rather than with corporate-financed TV ads. By lowering the cost of political campaigning, the free social media can liberate Washington from the current state of endemic corruption.
…
Those who think that the cold weather will end the protests should think again. A new generation of leaders is just getting started. The new progressive age has begun.
Jeffery D. Sachs
Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University
November 13, 2011
The New Progressive Movement
[As SebastianSH said, “This is a lot of crap.” First off, our current economic situation is not due to insufficient “progressive politics” (actually Marxism is very old and hence regressive, Libertarianism would better be called “progressive” and/or “liberal” but left-speak requires that words be redefined to suit their purposes). It is the result of progressive politics.
Second, “social media” and the Internet in general tends shine the light of truth and the progressive rats and sidewalk scum wither in that light.
Third, the corruption in Washington is because Washington has the power to pick winners and losers. As long as the power exists there will be people and companies who find it necessary to see that power is exercised in their favor or at least not used against them. It will only be by the elimination of that power, as the Constitution was intended and written, that the corruption will fade.
What Jeffery D. Sachs advocates will only make the problems worse. Just read New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America to get a clue. But even if given motivation with a clue-by-four Sachs will probably always remain clueless.—Joe]
I want to be clear: the New York Times editorial board does not oppose gun ownership. We believe the Second Amendment confers a communal right on Americans to own guns – not an individual one. But that’s actually a smaller point than you might think. All we really want are sensible restrictions based on public safety and common sense. I wrote about our position in April, 2009 on our website. You can read it there, but I’ll summarize it here.
Go ahead, buy a gun. Use it to hunt, for target practice, in a collection, or in case you need to defend your home. Just register it and submit to a background check. If you live in a city, then your political leaders have the right to restrict ownership of handguns. In cities, they tend to be used to kill people.
Andrew Rosenthal
November 8, 2011
The Gun Lobby and Military Suicides
[This is so full fail that I could write thousands of words about it. But I don’t have the time and the people in the comments did a pretty fair job and raking him over the coals.
I’ll just give an overview.
Since all nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices disagree with the individual right issue what Rosenthal and the NYT editorial board thinks only has political implications and very few legal implications.
The very words he uses demonstrates he is essentially living in a different universe. We don’t have “political leaders”. We have public servants. Our servants do not have “rights” to regulate anything. They have delegated powers given to them by the people via the U.S., and state constitutions. When our servants start demanding we give up firearms and beg permission from them to own what is a specific enumerated right it is quite clear to me they have either forgotten they are servants or that they intend to change the relationship.
Yes. Handguns are sometimes used to kill people. Sometimes deadly force needs to be legally exercised and sometimes people get killed. Get over it.—Joe]
Today I’m reminded of this quote from David Crockett;
Mr. Speaker–I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.
Representative David Crockett (TN)
Those are the words of a real man. I don’t know specifically who it was he was referencing. That’s not the point. If you want to help a veteran, by all means help a veteran. That’s your job. Personally. Don’t try to make a federal case out of it. Our military exists, ostensibly, to defend liberty, see. If we set up system of coercive redistribution to “honor” veterans, we’ve just insulted the hell out of them by contradicting everything they supposedly fought for. Hmm? So what side are we really on?
This book is dedicated to Harlon B. Carter, the man responsible for saving the Second Amendment freedoms for generations of Americans during a time in our country when gun ownership was on the road to extermination as a cherished and fundamental right. Equally important are the tens of thousands of local activists who make the “gun lobby” the true grassroots dynamo that it is. Money doesn’t vote, people vote, or as we said in the sixties, “Power to the people” and, I should add, “away from the elites, wherever they dwell.” I think Thomas Jefferson would have approved.
Richard Feldman
2008
Dedication to Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist
[This is a very nice start to the book.
Think about the “Power to the people” phrase. And remember what Chairman Mao said, “Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Private ownership of firearms is the ultimate power in the hands of the people. Yet nearly all communists and socialists who advocate “power to the people” in the U.S. today are opposed to private gun ownership. Why is that?
Could it be they don’t really want power in the hands of “the people”? I think what they really want is power in the hands of their people and want to remove power from those that oppose them.
Communism and socialism is not about “power to the people”. Those political systems are about government having a huge power advantage over the individual. “Power to the people”? No. Not at all. That isn’t what they really want. But no one has ever accused the political left of being consistent.
Thank you Richard for sending me an autographed copy. More later when I finish it. Not all of my review is going to be positive though. I’ve already got notes that are “not happy thoughts”.—Joe]
That’s the answer to Billy Beck’s question.
I’ve criticized your religion, certainly your politics, and the inconsistency behind the idea of women’s equality. Why not criticize your thoughts on homosexuality?
We’re not supposed to talk about it, right? It’s a taboo subject. For one thing we’re supposed to shut up out of fear– fear of being ostracized as a ‘gay’ basher or a homophobe. So when a man sees another man raping a boy, he clams up. If he’d beat the shit out the rapist as he should have done, he’d be the one charged with a crime and no one would say anything in his defense for fear of being labeled a ‘gay’ basher. Same as when a black, homosexual, Democrat man in Congress (probably the most protected class of humans, unless you’re talking of a black, lesbian Muslim extremist) running a homosexual prostitution ring in his basement. What? I suppose you’re a racist homophobe with a political agenda. Shut up. You Suck if you criticize this hard-working American who cares about kids, the poor, race relations, union workers and the environment, you racist homophobe. Neanderthal!
Sure; the witness should have done the right thing and kicked the rapist’s ass, even if he knew full well that he’d be the one prosecuted. But our cultural insanity makes doing the right thing just that much more difficult. And that, I submit, was the whole purpose of what I will call the insanity movement the first place– what’s good is bad and what’s bad is good. What’s wrong is right and what’s right is wrong.
How else do you get 300 to 400 million people to tolerate being treated like sheep?
I put the word “gay” in scare quotes because it doesn’t mean what most people today think it means. I try to use the language properly, so using “gay” to mean homosexual requires the quotation marks. He’s a bit “queer” is of course a euphemism. Lots of things are queer, but we’ve lost track of the word’s meaning. “Gay” is the same sort of euphemism, as is “fag”, as applied to a homosexual. If we’re going to use the terms in their true meanings, or understand them when we encounter them in classic literature, we have to be aware of this, and talk about it. So there you have it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to suck on one of the nice faggots I usually keep with me right now. And by the way; I suppose I could sue you if you criticize me for smoking. If it’s an addiction, or a disease, you’d be harassing or “bashing” a person with a disability. Shut up. You have no right to talk about it unless you give me lots of money. Oh, and stop taxing me because of my disease. Would you propose a tax on “gays” who get AIDS? Shut up. Now I’m thinking of closing comments because no one is supposed to talk about any of this stuff. Shut up.