When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I’m beginning to believe it.
Clarence Darrow
[With the pond scum we have available for choices this November Darrow could have been speaking about 2008 instead of sometime 60 or 70 years ago.–Joe]
So says the Newtster, pretty well verifying what I’ve suspected for a long time– that Gingrich either never really got it, or he’s just tired of the fight and wants the DC culture to be nice to him once in a while.
Others have tried to get this across, so it’s old news, but I’ll give it another go: As one who upholds the founding principles of the U.S., I could not give a rat’s behind if someone running for office is a black, white, Asian, Hispanic, one-armed female homosexual midget named Butch Hussein Ahmadinejad. If that person has a track record of strenuously upholding and defending the founding principles of this country, she has my vote. I do not care about personality (except she has to be a confident fighter or nothing’s going to improve). I do not care about looks, I don’t care about slick marketing or any of that BS. She’s got my vote. This is why Reagan won two landslides- he tried to uphold the founding principles of this country. He understood and embraced those principles and (and this is key) he was therefore capable of articulating them. He was far from perfect, but he did it better than any president in my lifetime, even with a solid Democrat majority in both Houses, and that’s why he was popular. It’s also why he was, and is, so hated and maligned by the Left (clue: You cannot embrace America’s founding principles and expect to get along with the Left. They will never, ever tolerate you, so if you’re going to do it, expect to be attacked ruthlessly. Ruthless attacks, however, can go both ways).
If you think it is a matter of hero worship, or cult of personality, etc., you are not capable of understanding Reagan’s success.
Therefore, to say that the era of Reagan is over is to say that the era of upholding America’s founding principles is over– that we are to abandon our principles in favor of “getting along” with those who would further undermine them. No, Little Grasshopper– let them feel they must strive to “get along” with us in order to stay in the game. It’s a choice.
Now we have three conservative-hating, anti-Constitution leftists remaining in the presidential race– two calling themselves Democrats and one calling himself a Republican, so this election no longer interests me.
To anyone else who wants my vote; it’s really easy– Just show the track record stated above. For now, I will vote on state and local issues. (Yeah, I know– I could vote for Paul, but…)
Our neighbours are so snobby – they call us the ‘Shameless’ family and say that we ought to go out to work. But how can we work when we have all these children to look after?
Sue McFadden
March 2008
Grandmother in a family where not one member has worked in three generations.
Raised on welfare, the ‘Why Bother?’ generation that doesn’t want to work
[H/T to Ben Cunningham and Say Uncle. My answer to her question would be that no one would eat if they didn’t work and the problem of “all these children” would be solved. Either they would never have been born or they would be adopted by someone who was able to feed them.
My personal experience with welfare recipients is congruent with the article. Most people accepting handouts do so because of the choices they made and continue to make. They become experts in the field of public assistance.–Joe]
Xenia’s boyfriend, John, pointed out to me the MP3s of debate on the recent New York gun bans. I mentioned the .50 caliber ban in my QOTD the other day.
From reading the bill one would assume they were totally ignorant of guns. But as I listened to the debate I found they carefully and accurately informed the sponser and others that rifled shotguns would be covered by this poorly written bill. The sponsor said it wouldn’t. When pushed on this the sponsor changed the subject. When asked “How many crimes were committed with .50 caliber rifles?” And again she repeatedly changed the subject. The truth does not matter to these bigots.
Listen for yourself.
Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.
Milton Friedman
[I’m tempted to claim that the statement would be more accurate if “mismanagement of” were removed from the above statement. However, my respect for Mr. Friedman is such that I am hesitant to make that claim without his concurrence.–Joe]
The messed up thing about taxes is you don’t ‘pay’ taxes. The government TAKES them. You get your check and money is GONE! It was not an option! That ain’t a payment, that’s a JACK! I been TAX JACKED!…[The] worst part about it, we pay taxes for [stuff] we don’t even use….Why are black people paying Social Security? I won’t get the money till I’m 65….Meanwhile, the average black man dies at 54. Hypertension, high blood pressure, police….I used to work at McDonald’s making minimum wage….I would get $200 a week and they would take out $50 in taxes. That’s a lot of money if you only making $200….What do you get with that $50? All the free street light in the world. As far as I am concerned, give everybody a candle. Just give me back my $50.
Chris Rock
Via Tempus Fugit
[Even after having my employer take out an extra $600 a month for all of last year we found out yesterday we need to pay several thousand more today. Our accountant said, “Please don’t shoot the messenger.” Barb is pissed at the government. And I’m thinking, “Just wait until they pay off everyone else’s mortgages and our health care is free.”–Joe]
As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.
Albert Einstein
[With all due respect to Einstein’s insight into physics I must point out his insight into human nature and politics was lacking. We are currently at war not a sovereign nation but a group of religious fanatics that barely recognize national boundaries and have essentially zero in the way of “great power” as defined by modern military metrics. And war has existed, and still does, when the “nations” are nothing more than large tribes equipped with spears, bows, and arrows.
The lesson to be learned from this is that however brilliant someone is in one field of endeavor that is no indication of their ability to contribute in another area. One’s reputation in any given area must be earned.–Joe]
In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable.
Winston Churchill
Speaking of Montgomery.
[Barb and I got the History Channel series on Churchill on DVD via NetFlix and are in the middle of watching the part about WWII. Churchill did have a way with words. Not a lot of energy when he spoke but he certainly used his words well.–Joe]
Robert Novak tells us of the tap dance Obama is doing with gun rights. I learned a couple things. I didn’t know that he taught constitutional law for 10 years. And I didn’t know this:
Obama’s dance on gun rights is part of his evolution from a radical young state legislator a few years ago. He was recorded in a 1996 questionnaire as advocating a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns (a position since disavowed). He was on the board of the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, which takes an aggressive gun control position, and in 2000 considered becoming its full-time president. In 2006, he voted with an 84 to 16 majority (and against Clinton) to prohibit confiscation of firearms during an emergency, but that is his only pro-gun vote in Springfield or Washington.
He was on the board of the Joyce Foundation and considered becoming its full-time president? And now he wants to be the President of the United States?
That’s far worse than the fox guarding the hen house, giving an alcoholic the keys to the liquor store, or giving teenagers whiskey and the keys to a sports car. It is every bit as bad as giving a Democrat politician taxpayer money and power.
I’d never heard of Jim Pontillo. I found him through a link on Jewish World Review. Liberalism’s Tragic Soul is a long post, but there are a lot of very quotable statements in it:
…you are victim to the liberal propaganda which suggests CEOs are big all controlling evil despots who can set policy and control the population at their whim. CEOs in a truly capitalist society are the biggest slaves of the planet. They are enslaved to the whims of the market—to you and me.
That one reminds me of a good friend, who opened a retail store in a small village that had a two-store monopoly. The two stores had been price-fixing for years. My friend saw this monopoly, correctly, as an opportunity. He did his homework and found out he could provide goods at vastly lower prices and still make a good profit. So long as his property rights were protected against coercion and other forms of force, he could do a nice business and in the process he’d be giving every resident of this little village a raise, in effect, by lowering the prices on all the goods they needed. He did just that, and has done very well for many years. That’s the value of a free market right there, in microcosm. There can be no lasting, anti-consumer monopoly in a free market, since anyone taking undue advantage of the consumer is merely creating an opportunity for their competitors. That is, unless government steps in and screws it all up.
The next time you get into an argument about freedom with a liberal, the freedom they profess to defend, the freedom that conservatives venture to usurp with their fascist beliefs, ask them what freedom they are talking about. Is it the freedom to possess firearms to protect ourselves if government fails to, or the freedom to keep most of the money we earn, or the freedom to speak candidly about religion, or the freedom to provide the best for our families; or is it the freedom to hand our lives over to some elected official where he will decide what is best for us…
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.
Ronald Reagan
[“Best” doesn’t necessarily mean brightest. It can also mean ethical. Now think about how much time the current presidential candidates have spent in government versus private business.
Reagan was right.–Joe]
Via a tip from the Apex of the Triangle of Death I discovered Kansas is considering allowing private citizens to possess suppressors, machine guns, and short barreled shotguns again. Here are some articles on it:
Here is the existing law. Here is the House bill that quietly repeals it. Here is the Senate Bill with which it must be reconciled.
The Kansas House approved this bill by a vote of 105-18!
And speaking of pack animals and conforming with the herd, this is from another news story on the Kansas class III issue:
The House gave final approval to a bill allowing dealers, manufacturers and private citizens to own machine guns, which would bring Kansas in line with all but a handful of states.
“I don’t pass judgment on why people want to own anything — Mercedeses, mink coats, diamond rings, fully automatic weapons,” said Rep. Candy Ruff, D-Leavenworth, a sponsor of the measure.
The emphasis is mine.
Americans have a very low tolerance for differentness, whether it’s racial, ethnic, or sexual. Despite our rhetoric about individualism, we are a desperately conforming people.
Martin Duberman
[My QOTD from yesterday was on this same topic. As I was laying in bed last night I had a lot more thoughts on the topic and decided to make a post on the subject. When looking for a QOTD for today this one jumped out at me. I’ll try to get the post out sometime this morning.–Joe]
Seattle and surrounding areas in the Puget Sound are now getting heavy snow. Visibility is only a few blocks as I look out the window of our building here in Redmond.
I’m fairly certain Al Gore would agree with me, and I know Phil does. It’s all because of man caused global warming climate change.
Update: The storm forecast for the Boomershoot site:
OROFINO/GRANGEVILLE REGION-LOWER HELLS CANYON/SALMON RIVER REGION-
132 PM PDT FRI MAR 28 2008
…SNOW ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 5 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 5 AM PDT SATURDAY…
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MISSOULA HAS ISSUED A SNOW ADVISORY…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 5 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 5 AM PDT SATURDAY.
2 TO 5 INCHES OF SNOW ARE EXPECTED FROM LATE THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH SATURDAY MORNING AS A COLD FRONT PASSES THROUGH THE AREA TONIGHT. QUICK BURSTS OF MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOWFALL WILL BE ASSOCIATED WITH THE FRONTAL PASSAGE.
The problem, it seems to me, is this. People are pack animals and they want — need — approval from the herd. So, forcing this one-size-fits-not-nearly-everyone way of life down everyone’s throat is detrimental to everyone. Living a life that doesn’t fit is miserable and that misery plays out in unhappy ways in people’s lives.
Jenny Block
March 27, 2008
Open Relationships: What the World Already Has
[The pack animal observation applies to so many things that bug me about people. It is a huge component of the attacks on freedom. From gay rights and gun control to religious intolerance you will find this urge to conform and to enforce conformity playing a big part.–Joe]
To hear some men talk of the government, you would suppose that Congress was the law of gravitation, and kept the planets in their places.
Wendell Phillips
[I was reminded of this one by BillH’s Hillary Is Delusional post.–Joe]
I’ve written about this several times over the years, but it takes a true scholar to do a superior job of it. A while back, Jonah Goldberg did just that, and Thomas Sowell did a review on Goldgerg’s book:
Fascism, initially recognized as a kindred ideology of the left, has since come down to us defined as being on “the right” — indeed, as representing the farthest right, supposedly further extensions of conservatism.
The next time you hear Leftists throwing the word “Fascist” about like a general epithet, and then hanging it around the necks of capitalists or Jeffersonian liberals, you can correct their rather silly (and I have to think willfully ignorant) error.
Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it.
Richard Lamm
[This quote reminds me of a book I just finished listening to: The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel by Stephen Leeb and Glen Strathy. It has some interesting stuff in it. He claims we are headed for some very bad times, “Unless government does something.” Of course this annoys me a great deal unless he means that government should stop meddling in the free market. Published in 2006 he correctly predicted $100/barrel oil when it was $60 and the DOE was predicting it would return to the $35 to $45 range. He said gold would skyrocket. He is saying that we could even see the collapse of civilization because of the shortage of energy and our large debt.–Joe]
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.
Milton Friedman
Throughout the Heller case I think most hard core gun rights activists have been thinking “Will this help or hurt machine guns? Even if the Supreme Court slaps D.C. down on handguns, rifles, and shotguns will they create a rule or test that slams the door on machine guns becoming commonly available?”
I’ve been, behind the scenes, asking people not to even talk about machine guns in the context of Heller. My thought was that if machine guns are ignored in the Heller decision, then if we do things right after a Heller win we can get some machine gun relief eventually. Obviously it came up in a big way during the oral arguments. Some people have been critical of Gura for “throwing machine guns under the bus” during the oral arguments. I am not one of them. I viewed it as unfortunate collateral damage. We needed to bomb the crap out of D.C. and they were holding machine guns as hostages. It was more important to destroy D.C. now than to try and figure out a way to get the machine guns to safety. We might still be able to resurrect machine guns, they aren’t really dead, just on life support.
Now, via Uncle, I find Gura responds. I agree with him.