Category Archives: Politics

Typical

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Some incompetent religious fanatic tries to blow up the infidels and the would be tyrant politicians want to infringe the rights of everyone:



New York desperately needs more anti-terror funding and tighter gun control laws to guard against the next attempted attack on the city, Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly told Congress Wednesday.


Bloomberg cited the handgun found in the van of Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahraz. He noted new federal stats showing that suspects on terrorism watchlists tried to buy weapons more than 1,200 times in the last six years and were successful 90% of the time.


…


Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) backed Bloomberg’s plea for more Homeland anti-terror funding while breaking with the Obama administration on how the arrest of Shahraz was handled.


“I don’t believe somebody like Shahraz should receive Miranda rights,” Lieberman said. Terrorism suspects “ought to be turned over to the military justice system” Lieberman said.


Until a suspect is clearly associated with a foreign organization they are common criminals not enemy combatants.

Quote of the day–Say Uncle

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This would be catastrophic for a few reasons. First, a good portion of funds invested in the market are now government property. Second, if you tried to take money from folks’ plans, they’d just take their money out of the plans. And third, they’d probably kill you for trying.


Say Uncle
May 5, 2010
401(k) and union retirement
[I’m not sure about the first point. I’ll take his word for that.


I have some questions on the second point–money and most hard assets such as your home and vehicles are far too easy to trace.


On the third point I suspect he is spot on.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Glenn Beck

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To quote the president, he didn’t want to take over GM, but he had to. The auto industry was in a crisis. He didn’t want to take over the banks, but he had to. The financial industry was in a crisis. It was corrupt and on the verge of trouble. I don’t want global regulation but we have to. Remember the pitch for TARP? The global economy would collapse if it’s not passed. They’re saying it now again.


The stimulus, America wouldn’t survive if we don’t pass it. Health care, how many times did we hear that the health care system is in crisis? Cap-and-trade, energy crisis, environmental crisis, climate crisis. Oceans will flood if we don’t act now.


Each one of these crisis, there is only one benefactor. One. Who is it? Big government.


Mark my words, the pattern will continue.


Glenn Beck
May 3, 2010
Big Government vs. Small Government
[Barb sometimes complains that I depress her. Sometimes I depress myself too.–Joe]

Illegal Immigration – a Primer

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You can speculate over the notion that so many legislators over the decades proposed and passed immigration laws that they never intended to see enforced.  You can speculate over the intentions of said legislators, whether or not they’re evil or just retarded, or some combination of both, or whether they should be tarred and feathered or simply stripped of their citizenship and deported to Cuba.  There are some things regarding illegal immigration however, that I believe are not arguable (though I know well that most readers will argue passionately all the same.  You shouldn’t bother on my behalf, as I’ve heard it all before, more times than I can count).


One assertion at a time;


“They’re takin’ our jobs, Man.”  Uh,.. no.  First, you don’t own your job.  Your employer, and to some extent your employer’s customers, own your job.  Illegals are coming here, some of them, to work for below minimum wage.  They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t consider it an improvement over their previous situation.  American citizens also work for below minimum wage, under the table so to speak.  Immigration status is not the issue in this case.  Minimum wage and income deduction laws are the issue.  Government has no business getting between a worker and a prospective employer.  Peaceable, voluntary exchange is not a crime, since no one’s rights are being violated.  Repeal minimum wage laws and the sixteenth amendment, eliminate 95% of the IRS, and that government-manufactured problem goes away overnight.  Instate a fixed 5 to 8% national sales tax and all the legitimate functions of government will be more than paid for, given the massive increase in GDP that will soon follow, plus we’ll save billions of dollars, and countless productivity hours, on tax preparation.


“They’re using up government services, breaking the bank of local governments, Man…”  That’s a case of socialist services being used as a magnet to attract freeloaders and deadbeats (more socialists).  American citizens take advantage of the same goodies– more slowly perhaps, but with the same results eventually.  Immigration status is not the issue in this case.  The socialist goodie spigot racket is the issue.  If people are not being attracted by the socialists’ confiscated goodies, they’ll only come here for the right reasons, and in that case the more immigration the better.  More people equals more productivity, not less resources.  Turn off the spigot completely, remove the pump, dig up the plumbing, dynamite the well, and that problem goes away literally overnight.


“They’re comin’ here to sell drugs, Man, and that results in violence, Dude…”  (sigh) Did we learn absolutely nothing from alcohol Prohibition?  Seriously?  Prohibition’s primary legacy is the empowerment and enrichment of international organized crime.  Its secondary legacy is the encroachment and entrenchment of official government corruption.  Together, those two inevitable results are vastly worse than the actual drugs’ effects on society.  Government has no business telling any emancipated adult what they may or may not put into their bodies on their own property.  No rights violation, no crime.  That’s the proper test.  Eliminate all vice laws and that whole set of problems goes away almost overnight, plus we save billions and billions on drug enforcement and the corrupt sons-a-bitches in government will have to resort to more conventional crime.


Immigration is tedious and takes a long time, so it’s much easier to jump the border.  Simplify the process, which will be easy after the above steps are taken, and that problem goes away overnight.


Take those simple steps, and we can all get on with howling over some other man-made/government-created problems we’re unwilling to face honestly or with courage, or compassion, or tolerance.


Is all that too “extreme” for you?  Can’t handle the nation’s founding principles?  OK then, this manufactured problem will persist and grow and become far more expensive, which is of course the intention, and it is just one of countless examples of how, as I put it some fifteen years ago; every little bit of socialism requires just a little bit more.  Just a little.  Hope you like crap.

Hear Ye!

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I can’t call it the Quote Of The Day, because that’s Joe’s gig.  Instead I’ll just post it;



“I think public service should be an honorable profession, with high standards of integrity.  I don’t know about you, but I’m done waiting for these people [the current crop of politicians and their sycophants in media] to supply that which they do not have.  I’ve come to the conclusion that if we want it, we’re gonna have to bring it.”  —  Scott Ott of PJTV, referring to his recent decision to enter local politics.


Yup.  That’s about the size of it.  If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself.  After all; you can’t expect a pig to write a sonata, no matter how hard you might wish for it.


Afterthought; We hear a lot of talk about integrity.  “This is a man of great integrity..” and so on.  OK, but how about principles?  Integrity doesn’t really tell the whole story, does it?  Cannot one have integrity and still be wrong?  Alright then, I want to see integrity and principles.  Alright; integrity and American principles (of liberty).  It’s all I ask.

Quote of the day–L. Neil Smith

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They hate it because it’s an X-ray machine. It’s a Vulcan mind-meld. It’s the ultimate test to which any politician — or political philosophy — can be put.


If a politician isn’t perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash — for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything — without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn’t your friend no matter what he tells you.


L. Neil Smith
Why Did it Have to be … Guns
[I have tried to put it a little more succinctly but I suspect I will lose a lot of people with that. Smith spells it out concisely in a manner that everyone can understand. RTWT.–Joe]

You ARE the Help

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The now infamous North Hollywood bank robbery has been analyzed every which way and beaten to death.  Dozens of cops pinned down and absorbing fire from two sedated robbers was a disgusting, pathetic situation.  But this isn’t about that.  Seeing the History Channel documentary on it again the other day only reminded me of the larger point.  What triggered this post was the comment that these dozens of cops were waiting for help.


Help?  Dudes; WTF?  You ARE the help.  As Ron White pointed out; any teenager having experience with a hunting rifle could have ended the bank robbery standoff with two shots from a concealed position.


It comes down to mindset.  Sure, some people have more capabilities and resources than others, but in your everyday life, you, the reader, ARE the help if you have your mind right.  Bringing a pistol to a rifle fight is just one of countless examples of going through life, and even responding to an on-going situation, unprepared and oblivious.  Condition white.


You Do have fire extinguishers in your house and garage, right?  You do carry one in your vehicle, and you do carry jumper cables, tools, a working jack, water, a first aid kit, a spare coat, a good spare tire, a tow strap, a phone and a carbine, right?


I don’t have to try to display a complete list.  That’s not the point.  It starts with the mindset.  After that, the list comes along naturally.  Nor does preparedness come solely from hardware and supplies.  You can have all the goodies and not the mindset that tells you, everywhere you go, that you are the help.  Backup is another matter.  You are the first responder in your own life.  You choose either to face up to it or shirk your duty.


The current crop of weasels in government would have you do the latter.  They fear and hate the strong, the self reliant and the charitable, as threats to their relevance.


Tam’s recent post provides further study.

Quote of the day–James

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Conservatives admire radicals who were right. Liberals admire radicals who have been proven wrong, but remain convinced that the theory is sound if only the right people were in charge….


James
April 19, 2010
In a comment to Quote of the day–Leo C. Rosten.
[Of course this disregards the redefinition of “liberal” that has occurred over the last 150 years.


Reading between the lines of this you can see why it is so important to “liberals” to engage in voter fraud and engage in political violence. They want a powerful (and frequently totalitarian) government and they know it is critical “the right people” control such a powerful government.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Leo C. Rosten

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Conservative: One who admires radicals centuries after they’re dead.


Leo C. Rosten
[There is more than a little truth in this.–Joe]

Quote of the day–George S. Patton, Jr.

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I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.


George S. Patton, Jr.
Exhortation to troops, North Africa
[Even if we if only speak figuratively about fighting a culture “war” with the enemies of freedom the same sort of exhortation applies. “Dying” may be an economic “death” of their organizations from lack of donations. Or it may be that we starve them of media coverage because we outnumber them 10 (or 100) to 1 at rallies. But still we win the war by “killing off” their “troops” (supporters).


Think in terms of your activism doing the most damage possible to your opponents rather than sacrifice of yourself.


Also of possible interest is people attending Boomershoot this year will be within a mile or so of one of Patton’s Jeep drivers who served in Europe during WW II. He has a farm nearby and lives just over the hill a little way from the Boomershoot site.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Bill Summer

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When it comes to realism about elections, democrats (the Evil Party) generally do better than republicans (the Stupid Party). Democrats really want to win. They’re motivated by a belief that America is a sexist, racist, homophobic, unfair, unequal country. At the same time, they believe that society can be fundamentally changed by the political process. Therefore, getting and keeping political power means everything, and justifies any and all subterfuges. In addition, many democrats know that if they don’t win, they don’t eat. Many leftwing activists live on government paychecks, or government grants to organizations that, like ACORN, meet their budgets with taxpayer money.


Bill Summer
Via Alan Korwin
[This matches my impression but Summers expresses it more eloquently than I could.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Mohandes Gandhi

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Political power means capacity to regulate national life through national representatives. If national life becomes so perfect as to become self-regulated, no representation becomes necessary. There is then a state of enlightened anarchy. In such a state every one is his own ruler. He rules himself in such a manner that he is never a hindrance to his neighbor. In the ideal State, therefore, there is no political power because there is no State.


Mohandes Gandhi
November 17, 1921
[Maybe it’s just crazy talk but it seems to me that Gandhi has it right.


In the ideal State there is no government because there is no need of government. Agreed, my utopia is just as unattainable as everyone elses. I concede government is necessary. But the less government we have the closer to the ideal we are. Yet so many people seem to think more government (via Kevin) brings us closer to the ideal.


Do these people even have a glimmer of what their end result looks like? Either they don’t have any concept of the principles, as explained above by Gandhi (and countless others including the people who wrote our constitution), or they have a radically different view of what utopia looks like. Both of these possible conclusions are equally frightening.–Joe]

The Most Sociable of Social Activities…

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…and the most intense.


If you really want to get acquainted with your fellow man, if you want to understand people and society, start a business.  I’ve run a business since January of 1978.  Originally it was in musical instruments.  First repair only, but that quickly led to retail and installment sales.  It’s a walk-in store and shop, plus we do on-location sales, sound system installation and setup, and on top of all that I was part of a performing group (sound engineer) that also traveled.  All that’s still going on, but I’m now doing the design, manufacturing and internet sales thing with the gun accessories.


Please; this is not about me, though it may sound like it.  It’s really about you.  And people.  It’s about the world.


You cannot really understand your fellow human beings until you’ve sweated, worried, obsessed, invested, committed, risked everything, issued credit, and experienced the range of reactions, to that effort, from your fellow citizens.  You end up knowing the bank managers (they come and go) on a first name basis, the county clerk on a first name basis, several lawyers, teachers, fellow business owners.  You end up in small claims court, as a repo man, in debt yourself.  You end up in district court and in federal court trying to defend the property you sweated, cried, and devoted your life to.  You develop a relationship with the local collection agency, the local churches, and the local schools.  You deal, haggle, plead with, and give charity to, many people per day, every day.  In our case it was six days a week, plus weekends in the taverns, conference halls, churches, farms, businesses, and convention centers playing music.  One gig was in the garage/shop of a trucking company, for a company party.  Another was for a wedding of two friends.  Later, we played for their “divorce party”.  We played for a lot of weddings.


You deal with many thousands of people on a very personal level.  You learn of their troubles, their struggles, their marriages, their kids, and their extended families– their successes, their failures, their medical problems, their births, their schooling, their graduations (and do come, please) their weddings, their new children, and their deaths.  All of those things become part of your business.  They buy things from you, they utilize your services, and many of them owe you money.  They are your life.  One family could no longer pay us because their mother was in jail.  Another customer could not get into the Air Force because he’d rented a saxophone from us and immediately pawned it for cash, eventually losing the pawn, and had never paid us.  He eventually got in on a promise to pay, but I must have spoken to four or five base commanders on several continents, before we ever saw one payment.  Another family invited us to their son’s graduation party, being as we’d been so much a part of his music education.


You owe a lot of other people money.  You get to know your account rep at General Motors finance, at TransAmerica, and at Textron Financial.  You get to know the sales reps at the manufacturers, while you must see and judge the credit reports of hundreds of your customers.  Can these people be trusted with a thousand dollars worth of my sweat, blood and tears.  They sure think so themselves, but that’s not the benchmark.  The proof is in the pudding.


Wal Mart gets to know millions of people– their habits, their wants, their needs, their strengths, their weaknesses, their successes and their failures.  They have to.  It’s how they stay in business.  Some people love them, some people hate them and want them eliminated, and some don’t care– all for the same things Wal Mart does.


Then there’s hiring and firing.  You find out what’s being taught at the universities.  And what isn’t.  You make friends, and then you have to fire them.  You make other friends that are permanent.  You share in their successes and their failures, their sickness and their health, in good times and in bad.  You learn of their families, and their extended families, and you meet their circle of friends.


You learn more about life than you can ever tell.  You learn that utility rates (phone and power) are nearly double the rates paid by residents.  You learn that property taxes are also nearly double the rate for a live-in home.  “Home Owner’s Exemption” they call it here.  You learn that property tax isn’t just paid on real estate.  Those tools you built yourself?  Those are property too, and subject to the same tax.  You wanna spend forty grand to beautify the exterior and improve the sidewalks of your downtown business?  That’s gonna raise your assessment, and increase your tax bill, you money-grubbing motherfucker.


You get to know the police, too.  Very well.  You end up testifying as a witness when that customer you though you knew, ended up embezzling the entire trust fund his bed-ridden mother signed over to him as executor.  You end up in federal court when you refuse to hand over an instrument that you’re still making payments on, but a customer rented it (on a rent-to-own plan which is deemed legally as a “purchase”) and then filed bankruptcy, and it’s a big no-no when you try to exert your property rights without permission from the trustee (you also find out how a trustee can get a personal hatred for business owners who try to assert their rights without permission, and launch into a years-long vendetta).


Back when we were still operating, out of a one-car garage in my brother’s back yard, our competition in town (a music store that had been in business for many years, was much bigger and had a downtown location) started to lose franchises.  Having no one else to sell to in the area, the factory reps came to our garage.  We eventually bought a pathetically few instruments from them.  A personal friend of the competition in town reacted by visiting us to yell at us for “grabbing up all the business”.  Yeah; that’s us.  Two kids in a garage we’d rebuilt ourselves, in a backyard.  It had no inside walls– just bare insulation.  Living hand-to-mouth.  Virtually no assets other than our brains and our hands.  We’re the “privileged class”.  We’re “The Man” out to suck the life out of the righteous, with our dirty, no-good instrument repair tools (many of which we built ourselves) and little more than the trust and faith placed in us by some wholesalers’ credit departments.


People are funny that way.  You’ll never be able to please all the people all the time, but you can sure as hell please a few of them some of the time.  That’s the best anyone can do, and in the process you’re being as sociable as sociable gets.  You’re participating in life, and interacting with the community, to a degree that few people ever experience.


Sometimes it is very, vary sweet to be alone.  Only for a while.

Quote of the day–John Kenneth Galbraith

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People of privilege will alway risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.


John Kenneth Galbraith
1977
The Age of Uncertainty
[I find it interesting that Galbraith was a hard-core socialist and advocated the government intervention to remove “inequities”. The reason I find it interesting is that when I read the quote above I immediately, and only, thought of politicians and government bureaucrats.


Apparently he didn’t think of people in government as being “people of privilege”. He, like many other advocates of socialism, gun control, etc. only think in terms of the hoped for benefits rather than weighing the total package for its net worth. Contrary to those with experience with attempts to achieve utopia they think the equalizers will equalize themselves.


I should come up with “Just One Question” for socialists/communists. I believe it would end up something like, as I mentioned before, “How do you measure fairness/justice?”–Joe]

Quote of the day–Ellen Glasgow

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The mob that would die for a belief seldom hesitates to inflict death upon any opposing heretical group.


Ellen Glasgow
From The Great Thoughts (link is to the 2nd Edition, mine is the 1st Edition–1985)
[The people on both sides of the current political battles would do well to keep this in mind.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Joycelyn Elders

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If Medicaid does not pay for abortions, does not pay for family planning, but pays for pre-natal care and delivery, that’s saying: I’ll pay for you to have another good, healthy slave.


Joycelyn Elders
WASHINGTON POST
February 16, 1993
[So I wonder what she says about Obama signing an executive order not allowing government funds to be spent on abortion.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Daniel Webster

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In the nature of things, those who have no property and see their neighbors possess much more than they think them to need, cannot be favorable to laws made for the protection of property. When this class becomes numerous, it becomes clamorous. It looks on property as its prey and plunder, and is naturally ready, at times, for violence and revolution.


Daniel Webster
Address, Massachusetts Convention, 1820
From The Great Thoughts, (but I have the first edition) compiled by George Seldes.
[Laws protecting property had a knife slipped between their ribs with the passage of the 16th Amendment. Laws protecting the possession of property mean nothing if you can’t purchase it to begin with. The government takes such a high proportion of my income that I don’t really work for myself and my family anymore. I work for the government which distributes my life energy to those people the government thinks are more worthy.


Where is Galt’s Gulch?–Joe]

The Revolution has Begun

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Just so we’re clear; No, I’m not kidding.


I attended a rally for Idaho Gubernatorial candidate, Rex Rammell last night in troy, and spoke with him for some time.  No arrests were made.  They fed us elk spaghetti.  Afterward, I told my older brother that Rex was either the best damned actor in all the world or he is for real.  I’m now convinced he is for real.  Rammell has fought the Idaho Legislature and won, he has defied state authority over his own property rights, had his livestock killed and taken by state goons, been arrested, fought that, and won, and he is now jacked up to fight for Idaho, within Idaho and with the feds, for liberty.  His plan is make Idaho an example for the rest of the states to follow.

Read his website and his Facebook page.  That’s not the half of it.  This is our guy.  I don’t care what state you call home, Rex wants be the one to show the rest of the country how it’s done, he’s willing to push back and to defy the powers that be in order to restore liberty based on America’s founding principles.  Among the agenda items in what he refers to as “The Cause” are; eliminating the Idaho income tax and creating a welcome environment for business to grow the economy, that will in turn attract more motivated people into the state to grow the economy, massively reduce the state department of education thereby eliminating the top-heavy system and relinquishing education control back to the locals, get everyone in the state off of welfare, and (get this) returning the two thirds of the State of Idaho that’s now federal land, back to the state.  If elected, he promises to climb aboard a bulldozer and use it to rip out some Forrest Service gates in front of the TV cameras.


He’s willing to “force them (the feds) out” of the state and he has a plan for doing just that.  “Gone.”  I don’t mean he’s going to sue on Tenth Amendment gounds or whatever.  That’s just a first step.  Rex is willing to do whatever it takes.  He’s been there before, as state goons were shooting his elk (with 5.56 mm AR-15s, the dipshits) right in front of him on his own property.  Don’t let his soft looks fool you.  He’s that skinny, quiet kid who’ll nail his targets at 1,000 yards and carry the water after the loudmouth bodybuilder has quit the fight.


Rex is a Mormon, and some will be put off by that.  Don’t be stupid.  Listen; he’s convinced that fighting for American principles is his calling in life.  That’s passion.  He has courage and a sense of purpose, and those are exactly what we need for this fight.  Make no mistake about it; there will be a fight and it will get ugly.  Best we start it from inside the system, with the constitution and founding principles of liberty as our guide.


If you’re one of those people, as am I, who’s been alarmed and disgusted at the direction this country has been going, and yet frustrated that there seems to be no one to vote for who’s serious, Rex is your candidate.  For years I’ve been watching the culture war in this country, hearing talk show host after talk show host, reading blogger after blogger, all chronicling the corrupt behavior of the Evil Party, and the cowardice, capitulation and corruption of the Stupid Party.  For years I’ve been saying; “OK!  I get it already!  Now what do we DO about it?”  Well this is what you do about it– you spread the word about Rex Rammell, attend his rallies, and support his primary campaign.  If you live in Idaho, you get at least ten people out with you and you vote in the primary election in May.


The Idaho Gubernatorial election will be decided in the May primary.  Rammell is up against Butch Otter, and the winner in the primary is going to be our next Governor.  Spread the word.  His campaign is running on a shoestring right now.  This Revolution can either splutter to a pause, leading to more and deeper pain, or it can roar forward.  It depends on you.


There you go.  I’ve never said much of anything nice about a politician before.  Most of them are sub-human scum.  If you knew me, you’d understand what a difference I see in this guy, to say anything positive about him.

Quote of the day–Rep. John Dingell

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Let me remind you this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.


Rep. John Dingell (D-MI)
March 23, 2010
Via Ed Morrissey at Hot Air (after hearing the audio on the Rush Limbaugh Show).
[I am reminded of something I said a long time ago:



Does it ever strike you as odd that some of our servants demand that they have a monopoly on certain types of weapons?


I keep thinking that they must have either forgotten they are servants or intend to change the relationship.


I think the selection of which conclusion is correct should now be obvious.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Robb Allen

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The end was passed a long time ago. This is simply the epilogue.


Robb Allen
March 21, 2010
This isn’t the end
[I suspect, since I tend to be such an optimist, that while this may be the epilogue it may also be the beginning of something else. Kevin points out a hint of things which may come. Kevin has a tendency toward pessimism. I’m hoping for some change we can believe in.–Joe]