Category Archives: Politics

Health care thoughts

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I occasionally post about the adverse results of socialized medicine but probably haven’t said much about what I think about it. A friend asked the following via email:

I have been meaning to ask you for a more detailed explaination of your stance on universal government run health care as it is being proposed right now. I understand you oppose it, but as someone who is poor and hasn’t had healthcare for 11 years and has used the emergency room for most of my healthcare needs, why it is bad.

I know there is no free lunch.
I know that someone is paying for it.
I want to know why YOU are opposed to it and why.

My response (except for a few personal things that were deleted to protect privacy):

Health care… Big, big topic.

I understand the no insurance situation. [details deleted]

I have tried to express this in a “Just One Question” format but haven’t quite been able to do it. Here’s my best attempt:

If it were possible to keep someone alive and robust essentially forever (baring catastrophic injury) but it cost $1M/year per person should the “government” supply it for everyone?

Of course the answer is “we can’t afford that”.

The thing is we are rapidly approaching the point where immortality may be achievable for some people. I suspect age-wise I am just above the cutoff line where it will be technically feasible. My kids (and probably you) have a good chance at that.

All government health care plans equalize (for the most part–people in power typically are more equal than others even if the law says otherwise) the care. There simply isn’t budget for everyone to get “the best”. Care will be rationed or it will be substandard. Look into what happened in the UK. The waiting lists cause people to die. Too old, too fat, or smoke? You don’t get the knee replacement or other care because that money would be “better spent” on someone younger or healthier.

Government bureaucrats will make the rules and/or review cases deciding who gets care and who dies. It WILL be abused. It might be on racial or religious lines or it might be on the basis of who you know. Whatever the case it won’t be on the basis of what you and/or friends and family think you are worth or can afford. When someone pulls the plug on me I want it to be because I and/or my family decided it was time or couldn’t afford the cost rather than some government official that decided they didn’t like my skin color or I had been just a little too uppity with some of my blog postings.

If Bill Gates and other extremely wealthy people are allowed to pay for whatever the free market can come up with immortality will probably be achieved soon. It will be extremely expensive and only a few will be able to afford it. But the price will come down and someday it will be affordable by the middle class. If equality of care is enforced we may never have that available to us.

See also what Alan Korwin has to say about it:

http://pagenine.typepad.com/page_nine/2009/07/dangerous-health-care-insanity-spreads.html

Quote of the day–Lyle @ UltiMAK

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[I]f you’re in favor of welfare programs, for example (allowing some people to live at the expense of others, by threat of force, i.e. to acquire value without having earned it) then what moral or intellectual tenet is going to stop you from saying those same people should never be arrested? If they can receive goods and services they didn’t earn by work or productivity, why then, exactly, shouldn’t they have freedom they didn’t earn through respecting other people’s rights? If you favor forced redistribution, you’ve thrown out the concept of rights at that point, so what basis do you have for punishing property crimes that would be intellectually or morally consistent with forced redistribution? Is there some huge difference between the government robbing you to support a layabout, and said layabout robbing you directly? Seems to me the latter would accomplish the same thing far more efficiently, leaving out the middle man as it does.

Lyle @ UltiMAK
July 31, 2009
Comment to Fearsome firearms or crap for brains?
[But the “man in the middle” is the main beneficiary and may, in fact, be the entire point of the theft.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Will Rogers

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This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

Will Rogers
[Well, I certainly feel that way. But apparently it’s not a universal feeling because we still have a Congress that has sessions.–Joe]

A little bird told me

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We shouldn’t worry about the Thune Amendment failing last week. Soon there will be something better than Thune’s Amendment and more likely to get passed.

Tell your Brady Campaign friends (do they have friends?) it’s their turn to stock up. Gun owners have been emptying the shelves of guns and ammo and now it’s their turn to empty the shelves–of Depends.

Quote of the day–John Longenecker

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All gun control seeks to obfuscate your authority over violence against you or another. All gun control seeks to obfuscate the legal authority of a whole community. All gun control challenges our supreme authority over our servants.

John Longenecker
July 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW: Lethal Logic by Henigan, Part II.
[What kind of person allows their servants to tell them only servants are allowed to own guns? Such servants need to be dismissed.–Joe]

Mike Lux report

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A few days ago I reported I might have a chance to ask Mike Lux a a question or two. I got my chance last week and reported via Twitter here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The Twitter posts are below, indented, and in italics:

At the meeting room to hear Mike Lux speak. He should show up in a few minutes. Wearing my Rearden Steel t-shirt. World War Z on my Zune.

Rearden Steel is a little obscure. But it has a very significant meaning. I chose that shirt very deliberately. I’m pretty sure it was lost on everyone at the meeting but it made me smile.

World War Z just happened to be what was next in my queue for listening material but I thought it appropriate listening when about to subject myself to such a “progressive”.

Lux says, “I believe the economy is fundamentally broken.” “We are on the verge of a great change if we embrace it.”

He talked of great moments in history such as the 1930s with the “New Deal” and the 1960s with the “Great Society” and civil rights legislation. He was disappointed with the Clinton administration that they didn’t seem to have an real direction or make any progress. Now we have a chance to make some progress if we can just get our act together.

I still get a chill going through me when I think about this. Could it be our financial crisis was very deliberately brought on to make it more likely that socialism will be accepted by U.S. citizens? I had sort of half thought that this might be the last straw and people would have their complete fill of socialism and embrace the free market and our constitution as a result of our current situation. Can’t people see that the Obama administration is only making things worse? Or will they be convinced that only he and socialism can save them?

Brrrrr… the chills that gives me.

He talked for quite a while about all the Bill of Rights violations by the Bush administration and expressed some concern President Obama wasn’t moving fast enough to correct them.

I asked him to address his concerns over BOR violations by conservatives versus progressives ignoring the 2A and 10th.

I was the last person called upon. There were to be no more questions after mine.

His response was, “We just have a different interpretation of the BOR.”

He also said the the government has the “right” to “invest” in the economy and “reform” health care via regulating of interstate commerce.

I corrected him on rights versus powers and he said he didn’t know the difference.

Wow, just wow. He thinks mandated health care falls under the regulation of interstate commerce? I think that justification was lost on nearly everyone in the room. After this and my little email exchange with Senator Patty Murray how can a “progressive” claim to have any concern for the BOR or the constitution? How can they claim to have any principles?

I am not worthy

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I have two reasons for making this post.

1) He’s wrong. Robb is a smart guy and almost always comes up with the correct answer after a few milliseconds of deep thought. I’ve seen him in action and was impressed. But this time he is wrong. And we all know that if someone on the Internet is wrong you have to do something about it.

Sure, I am pretty proud of my letter and post to Senator Murray, but it was simple and easy for me. My brain takes everything literally. It takes effort for me to translate what people say into what they mean. For example; If someone were to say “It’s a piece of cake”, “Drier than a popcorn fart”, or “Finer than frog hair” I have do a little mental translation. I have to think about the image given and try to fit it into the context, find out it fails, then search for alternate meanings before I know what they meant. When Senator Murray wrote, “Legislation to regulate the use of firearms is and should remain primarily a state issue.” I took that literally and applied it to her known position on gun control and it was like she had written she had walked home from Mars last night or a T-Rex had eaten her brain shortly after she was born. It just didn’t make any sense and it was blindingly obvious she didn’t mean what she wrote.

She had just came up with a justification for doing what she wanted to do. She apparently gives no thought to principals, philosophy, or the Constitution. She just votes the way she feels. Pointing that out to her was fun but it took nearly no effort on my part. I do that sort of thing all the time.

You should see what I do when I’m given a specification to review at work. My co-workers laugh at me when I point things out to them but they also thank me and keep sending me specifications to review. Barb says they shouldn’t encourage me because she has to live with me. Apparently having someone point out all their errors and contradictions starts to get tiresome after a few decades. I can’t imagine why. I figure it is just the price she has to pay to approach perfection. But somehow she doesn’t see it that way.

Robb said it was, “Snark that even Tam should find inspiring”. I’m sorry, but I can’t even come within ranging distance to Tamara. She puts together disparate ideas together in incredibly novel ways. She connects things that I couldn’t imagine connecting and makes the joining totally seamless and completely appropriate. I couldn’t do the stuff she does if my life depended on it. What sort of brain can do that? I can imagine writing a computer program to do what I do. But what sort of algorithm would do things like the following?

When I design my dream home, it’s not going to be visitable by a SEAL team with air support, much less a lone individual in a wheelchair; I’m thinking barbed wire and tiger pits, not ramps and braille on the doorbell. It’s not that I have a problem with visitors gimpier than myself; it’s visitors in general that make me want to release the hounds.

“Avon lady in the wire! Blow your claymores!”

Visita-what?

Or:

In his article, Westen proudly displays his passport from Bizarroland, a place superficially similar to planet Earth, but where drooling idiots with hearts full of hate run amok absent guidance from their spiritual and intellectual betters in politics and academe.

 …

I was waiting for the lizardoids to show up around paragraph seven or so and symbolically rape Gaia while carrying off Al Gore to be a slave on their homeworld, Karlrovia.

*sniff* It’s a thing of beauty.

That just can’t be the result of a mere mortal.

I am not worthy to be in the same plane of existence as Tam let alone be an inspiration for her.

2) I’ll bet you forgot there were two reasons. I didn’t. My brain wouldn’t let me.

There aren’t many things I fear, but being a snark target for Tam is one of those. I rank it worse than a 0300 SWAT team visit but not as bad as being burned alive or The Wrath of Barb.

I just want Tam to know that she doesn’t need to take me down a notch or two just because Sharp as a Marble Robb made a mistake.

Response from Senator Murray

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At least I had fun. I wonder if she and her staff will enjoy reading my response as much as I did writing it:

From: Senator Murray
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 9:30 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Response from Senator Murray

Dear Mr. Huffman:

Thank you for writing to me regarding S. Amdt. 1618, Senator Thune (R-SD)’s amendment to provide for uniform reciprocity for concealed weapon possession across the country.  It is good to hear from you.

Senator Thune’s amendment would allow gun owner with a right to carry concealed weapon in one state the right to carry a concealed weapon across the United States.  Like you, I am concerned about the level of violence in this country, and its effect on our families and communities.  Legislation to regulate the use of firearms is and should remain primarily a state issue.  I believe that our national crime-fighting strategy should include reasonable measures to control firearms that strike a balance between reducing street crime and maintaining individuals’ rights.

As a U.S. Senator, I have supported common-sense measures to reduce or restrict gun violence while posing the least possible inconvenience to law-abiding gun owners.  Please know that as the Senate considers this and other firearms legislation, I will keep your concerns regarding this important issue in mind.  If you would like to know more about my work in the Senate, please feel free to sign up for my updates at http://murray.senate.gov/updates.  Thank you again for writing, and please keep in touch.

I hope all is well in Kirkland.

 

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 9:58 PM
To: Senator Murray
Subject: RE: Response from Senator Murray

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this important issue.

Since you are of the opinion that legislation to regulate the use of firearms is, and should remain, primarily a state issue I presume I can count on your support of efforts to remove firearm regulations at the Federal level. I would like to suggest you introduce legislation to undo the continuing infringement of our rights inflicted by the following Federal firearms laws:

• National Firearms Act of 1934
• Gun Control Act of 1968
• The Hughes Amendment
• The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act

Once those are infringements have been successfully resolved I will be glad to provide you with a list of other Federal firearms laws that need to be eliminated as well.

Since you are opposed to Federal regulation of firearms I cannot help but conclude you are also opposed to any new Federal firearm regulations. I was concerned that you might be considered a supporter of a new ban on “assault weapons” or think there was some utility in restricting both the First and Second Amendments by some law that claims to “close the gun show loophole”. As I’m sure you know there is no such thing as a “gun show loophole”. All Federal laws that are applicable at a gun shop are also applicable at gun shows.

Thank you for your support. I will be sharing your email and my response on my blog and with my friends at NRA-ILA. This will allow other Washington State gun owners know what a good friend they have in you and for the NRA-ILA people to start a dialog with you to begin getting some relief from the stifling and bewildering array of Federal gun laws.

If you meet any resistance in your efforts to roll back the infringements on the Second Amendment I would like to suggest you ask them Just One Question:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

I’ve been asking that question of gun-control supports for several years now without once getting a defendable answer.

Regards,

Joe Huffman
—–
https://blog.joehuffman.org/
http://www.boomershoot.org/
http://www.modernballistics.com/

For those of you that don’t know the Honorable Senator Patty Murray, I don’t think there has ever been a piece of gun control legislation that she didn’t support.

And just as an FYI, I Bcc’d my contact at NRA-ILA.

I saw another piece of email she sent someone else on the same topic that is even more hilarious. I’m working to get permission to blog about it as well.

National concealed carry reciprocity

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I’m a little surprised by the stiff resistence put up by the bigots on the Thune Amendment. Here and here are just two of many, many examples of PSH.

I’m also a little surprised our side hasn’t been defending a little stronger or that the bigots don’t realize what they are setting themselves up for.

How is this any different than states having different criteria for marriage and divorce. Some states allow people to marry as young as 14. Others don’t. Some states require blood tests or waiting periods. Others don’t. Yet each state must recognized the marriage licenses of all the other states.

How is this any different than states having different criteria for drivers license?

And don’t both sides realize that nearly the same arguements can be used by the other side if the discussion was about homosexual marriage?

If the anti-gun Democrats were smart they would agree to vote for it if homosexual marriage licenses were recognized nationwide as well. Sort of a poison pill for the more conservative types.

I think that would make the fights far more interesting. Popcorn anyone? I think Roberta has some.

Nationalized health care

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Nationalizing our health care system doesn’t just fail my Jews in the Attic Test, it’s bad for your health as well.

See also:

Barb works in the medical profession and I would tell you what she thinks of government involvement in health care but I try to keep the language here acceptable for polite society.

Questions for Mike Lux?

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I’ll be soon be attending an meeting where Mike Lux will be speaking. I probably will get a chance to ask a question or maybe two. Do you have any questions for him?

His bio:

Mike Lux is the co-founder and CEO of Progressive Strategies. Since starting the company, Mike has launched a number of important projects, including American Family Voices, an issue advocacy group working on pocketbook issues for American families; and the Progressive Donor Network, which works to coordinate a network of individual donors, issue advocacy groups, and top flight political consultants and strategists.

Mike’s recent projects have garnered a considerable amount of media coverage in The Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, National Journal, The New Republic and Miami Herald, and have provoked numerous attacks by Rush Limbaugh and other right wing media figures, as well as an “expose” by William Buckley’s National Review Magazine.

In addition to those projects, Mike serves on the boards of several important organizations, including the Arca Foundation. In addition to serving on the board, Mike was also a co-founder of Americans United for Change, Center for Progressive Leadership, Grassroots Democrats, Progressive Majority, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, and Women’s Voices/Women Vote. He also played a role in helping launch the Center for American Progress and Air America.

In the late 1990’s, Mike was Senior Vice President for Political Action at People For the American Way (PFAW), and the PFAW Foundation. He oversaw lobbying and legal advocacy, field operations, state and regional offices, voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts. He helped launch the PFAW PAC and the PFAW Voters Alliance in 1997. He was also responsible for coalition building with other organizations and interest groups.

Before joining People For the American Way, from January 1993 to mid-1995, Mike served as Special Assistant to President Clinton for Public Liaison in the White House, where his role on health care and budget issues involved working closely with a wide range of constituency groups including labor, seniors, churches, disability groups, businesses, health care providers, trial lawyers, consumer groups and farm groups. He organized the first clergy breakfast, the first state opinion leader’s days, and the first bill signing ceremony of the Clinton presidency. Lux served in the 1992 campaign war room, the 1993 budget war room and the 1994 health care war room (being one of only two people to serve in all three); and was the person who organized the coalition to fight the school lunch cuts the Republicans were pushing in 1995, the first issue they were soundly defeated on after taking control of Congress.

Prior to his service at the White House, Mike served as Constituency Director on both the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign and the presidential transition team. In the 1988 cycle, Mike was a member of the senior staff for the Biden and Simon presidential campaigns. In the 1984 cycle, he played a major volunteer role in the Iowa Mondale campaign.

With a diverse breadth of experience, Mike has an extensive background in the consulting, labor and consumer advocacy worlds. He was a partner and cofounder of the Chicago-based political consulting firm, The Strategy Group; served as Executive Vice President, PAC director and chief lobbyist for the Iowa AFL-CIO in the early 1990s; and worked as Executive Director of the Iowa Citizen Action Network.

In July of 2007, Mike Lux launched OpenLeft.com with prominent bloggers Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers. OpenLeft.com is a news, analysis and action website dedicated toward building a progressive governing majority in America. OpenLeft.com connects establishment progressive groups with outsider activists in conversations and a variety of projects to build a progressive governing majority and furthering progressive policy.

In November of 2008, Mike was named to the Obama-Biden Transition Team. In that role, he served as an advisor to the Public Liaison on dealings with the progressive community and has helped shape the office of Public Liaison based on his past experience working on the Clinton-Gore Transition, as well as in the White House.

On January 14, 2009, Lux released his first book, The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be. Lux’s book was published by Wiley Publishing.

Quote of the day–H. Ray Golenor

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Some people so treasure the truth that they use it with great economy.

H. Ray Golenor
[I got this from someone else I traded quote databases with and I don’t know if this guy even exists. There are numerous references to this same quote by the same guy, but nothing else that I could see in a quick web search. One has to wonder if politicians made him “disappear” or something.–Joe]

Managing Us Verses Protecting Our Rights – mutually exclusive concepts

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This is for J H.  He and Joe were discussing statistics related to gun restriction in comments here.

This line of argument, taken by itself, is to say nothing of human rights, the right to live being most fundamental and the right to self defense going hand in hand with the right to live.

If we are to leave out any discussion of rights, and focus purely on how people get injured or how they die in accidents and crimes as a means of determining and justifying laws, then we’d start by banning the wheel.  Swimming pools, access to rivers and lakes, etc., and stairs would be ahead of guns in private hands as a focus of legislative restriction.  Somewhere in between would be legal restrictions on unprotected sex and leaving the home while ill.  But that would be government thinking of the people in the same way that a farmer thinks of his cattle.

It is when we look at guns in the hands of governments that we find mass death, numbering in the tens of millions, and there you find the primary purpose of our second amendment– defense or deterrence against tyranny, or more to the point it should be seen as defense of human rights by those who hold those rights (we the people).  Who then should look at whom as property?  Keeping our servants in government (our cattle) properly de-horned is, historically, the more important concern if we are to have any sort of owner/property relationships with one another.

Once we’ve accepted the Nanny State as the ideal form of government, all bets are off anyway, and arguing figures and statistics alone is to fight the battle on your enemy’s chosen ground.  Even being wrong in their figures, your enemy has won by deciding the terms of battle.  People are in fact injured and killed through the use of or involvement with guns in private hands.  That is a fact.  Hence the Nanny State will find an excuse to restrict them if that’s what they want and if they feel safe in doing it.

The true winning argument is that the state has no legitimate jurisdiction over any behavior or possession that in itself does not violate the rights of other people.  If I have a gun in my pocket I haven’t violated any other person’s rights by that fact alone.  If I haul off and smack someone at random in the head with a baseball bat, it is not the fault of the state for allowing free, un-restricted access to baseball bats.  It is I who would have committed a crime by violating the rights of another person, for which I would rightly be held accountable.  In attempting to restrict generally the access to baseball bats as a result of my crime, the state would be perpetrating tyranny by way of making victims out of innocent persons.  We call that sort of behavior “prior restraint”– restraining someone in some way prior to them having threatened or done anything wrong to anyone.

It is well and good to point out the stupidity of arms restrictions, and how their effects are virtually always counter to the stated goal of making people safer, but those issues are a distant secondary to the issues of human rights.  Otherwise we’d be confiscating automobiles, banning certain sports, et al.  Without human rights as the fundamental principle guiding our policies, the totalitarian state is an inevitability.

Isn’t it About Time…

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…that a movie was made, paralleling “Reefer Madness” exactly, scene for scene, gesture for gesture, line for line including the dramatic introduction, merely substituting “marihuana” for guns?  Yes, I believe it is.  An NRA agent arrives in town, starts promoting guns, and all hell breaks loose.  “Gun Madness”.

If you haven’t seen the 1930s movie “Reefer Madness”, by all means do watch.  It’s not only illustrative of what the totalitarians have been up to for generations, it’s a real hoot, especially considering that those who made it were trying very hard to appear serious.  I can picture Di Fi standing before the concerned parents at the school meeting, eyes glaring, finger pointing at the camera…

Hmm..you don’t suppose the VPC or other anti-gun groups could be talked into providing some of the funding?

What’s the real reason?

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Sometime in the mid ’90s Alan Gottlieb spoke to the Microsoft Gun Club (now called the Gun Club @ Microsoft) and I asked him, “From the evasive words they use it’s clear the anti-gun politicians know gun control doesn’t make people safer. So what is the real reason they advocate more gun control?” He answered, “It depends on the politician. Some want to change the culture to one of dependence on government. Others just hate guns. And we have sometimes joked that because of the high number of criminals in his district Chuck Schumer was just voting to protect his constituents.”

Perhaps it wasn’t really that much of a joke. Apparently the intent of the Sullivan Act was to protect the criminals:

New York state Sen. Timothy Sullivan, a corrupt Tammany Hall politician, represented New York’s Red Hook district. Commercial travelers passing through the district would be relieved of their valuables by armed robbers. In order to protect themselves and their property, travelers armed themselves. This raised the risk of, and reduced the profit from, robbery. Sullivan’s outlaw constituents demanded that Sullivan introduce a law that would prohibit concealed carry of pistols, blackjacks and daggers, thus reducing the risk to robbers from armed victims.

The criminals, of course, were already breaking the law and had no intention of being deterred by the Sullivan Act from their business activity of armed robbery. Thus, the effect of the Sullivan Act was precisely what the criminals intended. It made their life of crime easier.

As the first successful gun-control advocates were criminals, I have often wondered what agenda lies behind the well-organized and propagandistic gun-control organizations and their donors and sponsors in the United States today. The propaganda issued by these organizations consists of transparent lies.

By advocating more gun control Chuck Schumer and Carolyn McCarthy are just continuing the fine tradition of New York politics.

Quote of the day–Mark R. Levin

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So distant is America today from it’s founding principles that it is difficult to precisely describe the nature of American government. It is not strictly a constitutional republic, because the Constitution has been and continues to be easily altered by a judicial oligarchy that mostly enforces, if not expands, the Statist’s agenda. It is not strictly a representative republic, because so many edits are produced by a maze of administrative departments that are unknown to the public and detached from its sentiment. It is not strictly a Federal republic, because the states that gave the central government life now live at its behest. What, then, is it? It is a society steadily transitioning toward statism.

Mark R. Levin
Page 192, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto
[H/T to Kevin who inspired me with this quote to get the book.–Joe]

What could possibly go wrong?

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I was talking with a pro-gun lobbyist recently and he suggested a possible solution to a weakness the bigots are trying to exploit:

Under the proposed legislation, to carry concealed weapons people need only meet the minimum requirements of federal law to possess a gun, be permitted in their home state to carry a concealed weapon, and abide by a state’s concealed carry location restrictions. For example, Alaska allows adult residents to carry a concealed weapon without a license, background check, or training as long as they are allowed to possess a gun under weak Alaska gun laws – even if they have committed repeated violent misdemeanors or have committed misdemeanor sex offenses against minors.  This legislation would force the other 47 states that allow concealed carrying to allow many Alaskan violent misdemeanants to carry concealed guns in their state, even if a state completely bans gun possession by such persons.

This same sort of thing is why Nevada stopped recognizing Utah carry permits.

His proposed solution would be for states to create a two tier concealed carry license system. Tier 1 would be whatever the State thought was appropriate for their need. If that was a lifetime permit, no training requirement, and you had a detectable pulse, then fine. Tier 2 would have a set of requirements which was the union of the most stringent requirements of all the other states. Hence if Nevada required four hours of training, and Texas required eight hours (pulling numbers out of the air) then the training requirement for a tier 2 CWP from State X would be eight hours. Similar things for other requirements on license duration, age restrictions, etc.

This could be a win for both people that want to carry and the state that issues the tier 2 permit. You would have to get just one permit to carry in all the states that recognize out of state permits. And the state would be in a position to have a decent revenue stream because they were “selling a valuable product”.

Is there a downside to this scheme? Sure, the 2nd Amendment should be my carry permit. But we aren’t there yet. But this would be one step closer to being able to carry nationwide with far less effort. When you can and do carry in all states we can then more easily demonstrate the bigots are just blowing smoke and we can work on reducing the most onerous restrictions in the unfriendly states and making “tier 1” in the friendly states be “Vermont Carry”.

Is there some unintended consequence that might come out of this and come back to bite us?

This is an Idaho gun owner?

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Yesterday I came across a letter from a supposed Idaho gun owner that really has me wondering. Is this some sort of Brady revenge for Mary McFate? Are they having people send out fake letters? Or is just some old guy with the early signs of Alzheimer’s?

July 8, 2009

The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy                  The honorable Jeff Sessions
Chairman                                                        Ranking Member
U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary   U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary
224 Dirksen Senate Office Building           152 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510                              Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Sessions:

I am writing to express strong disagreement with the National Rifle Associations’ (NRA) views on Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States. NRA concerns were sent to you in a letter from Executive Director Chris Cox dated July 7, 2009.

I am a veteran, a manufacturing firm executive and a gun owner. I own three pistols, two riles and a shotgun. I enjoy hunting, target shooting, and the feeling of safety that guns provide.

I have lost respect and trust in NRA to deal with gun matters in America and encourage you to ignore their advice about Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation.

NRA characterizes the firearms issue through the narrow toilet-paper tubes of fear that ‘liberals’ with an anti-gun agenda will take away our guns. The reality is that illegal and improper use, storage, or transfer of guns is a significant problem in America. I strongly support gun ownership but come down on the side of organizational and personal responsibility and competence with respect to guns. Guns are dangerous.

When I was a youth and through my 30s I was an NRA member, looked forward to my American Rifleman magazine, and counted on NRA to help keep ‘gun control’ a private, not government matter. NRA provided hunter and sportsman skills, safety, property rights, and firearm maintenance training for many years; however, NRA’s emphasis has become political, not around firearm competence and responsibility. When I was a Boy Scout assistant scoutmaster, NRA was not there for my sons and other boys in the troop so I was forced to arrange gun safety and skills training through off-duty police. Here in Idaho where I live there are no NRA basic firearm training programs even though this is a great outdoor sports state.

I have high respect for Judge Sotomayor. If I were able to question at her confirmation hearing, here are some I would like to ask:

  • Do you believe that gun ownership in America carries responsibility by the owner to be competent in the storage, handling, maintenance, and use of the owned firearms?
  • Do you think that the ‘well regulated militia’ language in the second amendment implies that private gun owners should be trained and certified perhaps as automobile drivers are tested for knowledge, skill, and abilities?
  • Should gun ownership carry insurance requirements for liability and health damages caused by the gun owner?

Thank you for considering my views.

[Signed]

Laurence P. Gebhardt
1200 Aspen Drive
Pocatello, ID 83204

From reading what I can about this guy (samples are here [in the comments], here, here, here, and here) he has significant liberal tendencies. So this may just be an issue of supporting whatever the Democrats support. I assure you, what he says about the NRA and gun ownership does not represent any of the gun owners I know in Idaho. I know a fair number of gun owners that are unhappy with the NRA but what their problem with the NRA is that they feel the NRA should compromise less and take a stronger stand against unconstitutional and ineffective laws. Just the opposite of this guy. And he has basic facts wrong. Example:

  • He claims “the NRA’s emphasis has become political, not around firearm competence and responsibility”. I’m sure that comes as quite a surprise to:
    • The many thousands of NRA certified instructors
    • The thousands of people that shoot in NRA matches each year
    • The recipients of NRA range grants
    • Thousand and thousands of other people who have personally benefited from the many NRA programs
  • He claims “Here in Idaho where I live there are no NRA basic firearm training programs.” But probably 10% to 20% of the shooters I know in Idaho are NRA certified firearms instructors and regularly put on classes. It’s possible that isn’t true in Pocatello, but I have a tough time believing he even looked for someone that teaches NRA classes in Idaho.

He then goes on to suggest Judge Sotomayor should be asked questions that are totally inappropriate for a judge. They are appropriate for a legislator or someone in the executive branch, but a judge? And the content of the questions are of a type I would expect to be asked by some intern at the Brady Campaign.

This isn’t like any Idaho gun owner I know.

Economic modeling tools

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From the Wall Street Journal:

The economic stimulus plan has created or saved 150,000 jobs since its inception in February, a senior White House Budget Office official said Wednesday.

Rob Nabors, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, told a congressional panel that the jobs figure is based on an economic model used by the Obama administration.

I wonder if that was using the same economic model that generated this graph (from Kevin):

At Microsoft when our tools yield results that even a little bit erratic we investigate and fix them. I would suggest the Obama administration examine their tools but I am suspicious the tools involved are producing the results desired by the administration and they see no need to even investigate–let alone fix them.

Vultures?

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Some people call them vultures. I call them capitalists providing a much needed service. It’s no surprise the people calling them vultures are in San Francisco:

The California IOU has become the prey of so-called vulture investors who hope to profit by buying them on the cheap and redeeming them later.

The idea is that “distressed asset investors” (their nicer name) will pay less than face value to mom-and-pop businesses that receive IOUs but need cash immediately to meet payroll or other expenses. Once the IOUs mature on Oct. 2, the investors will cash them in for their full value plus the 3.75 percent interest the state is offering.

They call the IOU “the prey”? What does that make the state of California? Bambi’s mother? The parents of baby seals? In reality the state is the predator. The state contracted for services and/or goods (or taken excess money in taxes then failed to return the excess as promised) and is now failing to live up to the contract. Had they given IOUs to those that had not provided goods and/or services, such as welfare recipients, I would be less harsh in condemning the state. But to receive something of value and then fail to compensate them as agreed is really unacceptable.

But these people see the state fail to live up to its obligations creating countless victims, the capitalists provide relief to the victims, and then they condemn those providing the relief–that is some sort of insanity. Sometimes I have to conclude that Michael Savage is right on at least one point–Liberalism is a Mental Disorder.

The sad part is that the IOUs are, in essence, a new form of currency. I’m certain the state will soon realize this and start offering to pay in IOUs instead of money. The people, knowing they can sell them for 85% (whatever) of face value will ask for IOUs with face value of $118 for every $100 (85% of 118 is ~100) of goods and/or services. The state will, in a sick, perverted, rationalized sort of way, figure their money mostly problems are solved and not cut back on spending. This will drive the state faster and harder into the financial abyss.

Expect that result to be blamed on “vultures” as well.