And now we’re at a point, politically, where there are three candidates running who have a realistic shot at the Presidency, and I wouldn’t urinate on any of them if their hair was on fire.
Where the hell is the space colony they promised me when I was a child, watching men leave bootprints and tire tracks in the lunar dust? Where is my new frontier, my place to go to so that I may live free?
Kevin Baker
That’s 35 in Dog Years
[That’s me on a “down” day.–Joe]
This is a post I made on thehighroad.org in response to the same question:
No victim, no crime.
The tool does not matter. For those who think the tool does matter, please read on:
My sister and her three year old daughter were stabbed and strangled to death back in 1977 in their own home.
The weapons were a kitchen knife and a shoestring.
Are you seriously going to argue that since no gun was used, this was somehow less of a crime than it would have been if a gun had been used?
Upon reading of this crime, how many of you thought, “Oh, thank goodness he didn’t use a gun. That would have been really bad.”?
I’m guessing no one would think that. Ever.
And how many of you thought, “What if she’d been able to defend herself?”
I’ve asked myself that a thousand times.
I submit that the only reason we’re even talking about this is because of the nuttiness we’ve been subjected to all our lives. For some reason it is hard to resist when we’ve grown up with it and so many people around us, people we respect even, have embraced the the false premise that says gun control equals crime control.
It’s time to say, “Enough already. We do not accept the premises of gun laws. We can see for ourselves that, no matter how ‘reasonable’ they may sound when promoted by politicians, their effects have run counter to their stated purposes.”
As for making it illegal for criminals to have guns; How’s it been working? Uh, criminals don’t obey the laws, remember? Gun laws do not apply to them.
“Gun control” is about one thing– controlling the law abiding. The Framers knew it. Why aren’t we teaching it?
And so it comes down to education.
As for the “under aged”: Parenting, anyone? And the same thing applies here as to criminals– the good kids will obey their parents and the laws. The bad ones will have guns, just as easily as they have drugs and alcohol.
A gun law is nothing more than a government enforced monopoly, reserving guns for criminal use only.
When are we actually going to enforce the Constitution, and protect it against all enemies, foreign and domestic? That’s my question.
As Oleg put it, regarding politicians: What do they have in mind, that they would prefer us unable to resist aggression?
What, indeed.
What would you do if you were given a time machine and a scoped rifle? Or would you want a scoped rifle to go with the time machine?
In the science fiction short story The Return of William Proxmire Proxmire doesn’t want a scoped rifle–he wants a syringe full of antibiotics and he is “gunning” for Robert Heinlein. I loved this story. It articulates the fantasy of changing history via what Niven claims, perhaps rightly so, the common fantasy assassinating some horrendously evil person before they had a chance to do their evil. It put the twist on that fantasy that perhaps you could change history in remarkably good ways by doing some small act of good as well.
Barb and I have been watching The Nazis: A Warning from History. This presentation casts doubts on my fantasy of going back in time to assassinate Hitler. And it makes me a little more sympathetic to all the people I read about in Plotting Hitler’s Death: The Story of German Resistance who had the opportunity but then failed to follow through because they didn’t have all their plans in order about what to do after Hitler was dead. Some of them spent months debating what type of government (a parliament? A representative democracy? Or perhaps even install a King?) would they put in place after they had successfully killed Hitler. My frustration with them boiled down to “just kill the SOB and worry about the details later”. But perhaps it wasn’t so simple.
In the The Nazis they claim Hitler wasn’t the dictator with a finely detailed plan we, or at least I, thought he was. Hitler had the broad goals of expanding the geographical territory and economic power of the “Germanic people”. Yes, many people blamed the Jews for the poor outcome of Germany in WWI and Jews as a scapegoat were a useful tool to motivate people. But in many ways Hitler was very lazy and let his subordinates do pretty much whatever they wanted. He had obtained great power through his gift of rhetoric and ambitious people sought access to that power. These power seekers put great effort into trying to please him. Hitler didn’t command them to commit all the great atrocities. They devised and implemented them in an attempt to please him and obtain still more wealth and power. If they furthered the broad goals of more territory and power for the Germans then Hitler did not interfere and they obtained the resources to further their work.
The above is background for the questions posed in the first two sentences of this post. If you could change history with a little nudge (what is one bullet into the brain of Gefreiter Hitler during the middle of WWI in the big scheme of things?) what would that nudge be?
Books such as Because They Hate, Hatred’s Kingdom, Preachers of Hate, The Truth About Muhammad, and Infidel put Muhammad on my list. And because Barb and I just finished Genghis Khan he would get some “special attention”. Both of these butchers could perhaps be better “nudged” with something other than “a scoped rifle”.
The introduction of the principles of scientific inquire and a little schooling might have changed Muhammad into something much more compatible with civilized society. And certainly the Arabs had the talent and even a strong tendency for pursuing science instead of superstition. Could the education of the illiterate Mohammad have made the desired difference?
And what of Genghis Khan? Was the poisoning of his father by a neighboring tribe, the resulting dissolution his tribe and him being hunted and marked for death as the eldest son of the dead tribal leader the motivation for his climb to power? Could his father have been warned about the poison and the results in the following decades been much different?
But the books Free to Choose, Freedomnomics, The Big Three in Economics and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal have influenced me the most. I am inclined to go with the “scoped rifle” approach for dealing with Rousseau, Marx, Hegel, and Engels. These were brilliant men of ideas and persuasion that influenced and enabled Hitler, Stalin, and scores of other brutal dictators to kill hundreds of millions of people and enslave billions more right up through the present day. Perhaps this graphic from Kevin will make it more clear as to why these people are at the top of my list:
Political tags–such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, conservative, and so forth–are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.
Lazarus Long
A character in Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein
From Page 47 in The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
[This correct division of political philosophy explains why so many people are dissatisfied with the current set of political candidates for U.S. President. In essence all the candidates are on the same side of the aisle.
My reason for using this quote today will become more apparent after reading my next post.–Joe]
Why should democracy rise against bribery? It is itself a form of wholesale bribery. In place of a government with a fixed purpose and a visible goal, it sets up a government that is a mere function of the mob’s vagaries. Its security depends wholly upon providing satisfactory bribes for the prehensile minorities that constitute the mob . . . the very head of the state, having no title to his office save that which lies in the popular will, is forced to haggle and bargain like the lowliest office seeker.
H.L. Mencken
[Think about it; Elections are bribery in both directions. The people who seek and win elections are those willing to engage in bribery and are best at it. Do not expect politicians to be honest. The system discriminates against honest politicians. This is just one more reason why our government is (theoretically) and should be limited by strictly enumerated powers.–Joe]
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]