Public opinion wins wars.
Dwight David Eisenhower
1890-1969
General
34th President of the United States
[This is particular true in the war we are fighting against the anti-freedom bigots on the repressive gun laws in this country. — Joe]
Category Archives: Politics
Brady bunch CEO resigns?
According to David Hardy at Arms and the Law quoting Daphne Retter, Congressional Quarterly Staff, CQ Today, October 19, 2005:
“It’s not an easy job to get up every day and duke it out with the gun lobby,” Michael Barnes, president and CEO of the Brady Campaign and Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said Tuesday, “but it’s very important.”
Barnes resigned this week.
I have been unable to verify the resignation. There is nothing I could find on the Brady Campaign nor the Brady Center websites about it. Still, it is quite plausible. They have been running up an impressive string of losses in recent years. The “assault weapon” ban expired without a battle. The passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms bill (I commented on this yesterday) just bit a big chunk out of their mission statement. They have lost numerous court cases. FL passed the law that affirms innocent people can meet force with force and all the Brady bunch could do was whine about it. And then the press wasn’t as sympathetic to them as they would normally expect:
Workers for a gun-control group protesting a new law that they say could put Florida tourists in harm’s way got a mixed reaction at Orlando International Airport on Thursday.
At least one visitor admonished workers for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence for what she called a manipulation of the truth.
“It burns me up that they twist stuff around to misinform the public,” said Tamryn Hunter, who was catching a flight back to Pittsburgh when she ran into the workers handing out leaflets warning about the law.
The paper even included this picture of Ms. Hunter showing that she isn’t someone you would consider the stereotypical NRA member.
We must not let these wins cause us to go into celebration mode and neglect what we really have to do. We must drive these anti-freedom bigots into political extinction. As Chris(?) Knox said in a Firearms Coalition Alert email I received last night:
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. The game, God willing, is never over.
Quote of the day–Harry S Truman
At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.
One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of the minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.
I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.
Harry S Truman
Message to Congress
Later known as Truman Doctrine
March 12, 1947
Quote of the day–Frederick Taylor
…almost twenty-one hundred American aircraft were to be found over central and eastern Germany around the middle of that day. For the German population on the ground, it must have seemed that the sky was black with machines that meant them harm.
…
The entire First Division would deliver 678.3 tons of HE (“general purpose”) bombs and 400 tons of incendiaries.
Frederick Taylor
From his book: Dresden, Tuesday, February 13, 1945
Chapter 23: Ash Wednesday
Quote of the day–Doug Huffman
Man is constantly struggling with moral issues. Those who claim to know the most about these issues are nearly always the ones who know the least.
Doug Huffman
[Nearly all government “help” falls into this category. Gun control, health care, welfare, etc. People try to make a “moral” case out of it and mess up the results. — Joe]
Quote of the day–Rachel R. Alexander
Abortion Simile
Hmmm. I wonder what would happen if you’d remove liberals from their life support system of government grants and welfare programs. Do you think they could make it? If it’s proven they could not, would it be OK to abort them from society?
Rachel R. Alexander
Microsoft’s Left vs. Right Discussion alias
Tuesday, April 04, 1995 11:02AM
Patient choice is damaging hospitals
From Britain:
NHS WARDS, departments and even entire hospitals may be forced to close under the latest health reforms designed to extend patient choice, the Government is warned today.
In a damning report, the Audit Commission says the new funding method, where money follows the patient, is destabilising the NHS and fuelling the current financial crisis.
Instead of increasing choice it could have the opposite effect, with services going to the wall unless the payment system is radically reformed, says the commission. It also cautions that critical services essential to support emergency admissions could close down in some hospitals because of the failure to attract patient referrals.
The system of “payment by results” was brought in by the Government for foundation trusts in 2004-05 to improve choice and efficiency in the NHS and is now being extended to all trusts. Commission insiders gave warning that if foundation trusts, the top- performing hospitals, were finding the system difficult to operate it would create turbulence when extended nationwide.
Under the system hospitals charge a fixed price for an operation, which is agreed nationally, and claim the money back according to the number of patients treated.
Efficient, well-managed hospitals are expected to make a profit from the set price, which includes the costs of equipment and staff overheads. But weaker, inefficient hospitals risk exceeding the “tariff” and falling further into debt.
…
The NHS is already facing a £254 million deficit, despite record funding A survey by the BMA last month found 385 of the 530 primary care, acute, mental health and community NHS trusts in England had deficits totalling £2.4 billion The Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Trust has a deficit of £30 million St George’s Healthcare Trust in London is losing 60 beds, trying to reduce a £24.5million overspend
I love the way they spin the situation, “patient choice is damaging hospitals.” It’s as if the patients should see to the well being of the hospitals rather than the other way around.
Although they probably are not as rigid as the laws of physics and certainly not as well known there are basic laws of economics the advocates of socialized medicine think they can violate without consequences. They are wrong and/or ignorant. They are now paying the price of their delusions and/or ignorance.
New Jersey Police–The law doesn’t apply to us
I’ve heard some absolutely atrocious stories about New Jersey police before. Some were so far out that I was more than a little skeptical even if the teller had an excellent reputation for honesty and claimed first hand experience. All that doubt has now been erased:
Clocked at 95 MPH in the 65 MPH zone, the convoy of about a dozen vehicles was asked to pull over by Augusta County, Virginia Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Roane. Six of the New Jersey police sped away without stopping.
“We’re not above the law,” Roane said in an interview with WHSV-TV. “We have to obey the speed limits. We cannot run emergency equipment when there’s no emergency.”
In what was described as an initially hostile stop, Roane politely asked the New Jersey officers to turn off their lights and slow down. The Passaic officers claimed that returning from helping with Hurricane Katrina rescue duties gave them the right to speed.
“We just had guys down there for the last 14 days… helping our brothers in blue,” Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale said in a recorded telephone call to Roane after the incident. “You know what? You need to get off of that highway, pal, and wake up and learn what law enforcement is all about — supporting each other.”
“It’s a disgrace,” Speziale said of Roane’s conduct. “If you think that that’s not a disgrace, you should take the badge off your shirt and throw it in the garbage.”
It is unlikely that ordinary motorists returning from equally hazardous volunteer rescue efforts would receive the same courtesy. Under Virginia law, it is illegal to operate emergency lights when there is no emergency. Moreover, driving 80 MPH on any highway is considered reckless driving and carries a sentence of 12 months in jail, a $2500 fine, a six-month license suspension and possible car confiscation (VA code § 46.2-862).
And from TheNewspaper.com
Other police officials agree with Speziale that police should be exempt from the laws binding other citizens.
See also:
And yet some people will tell you we don’t need an individual right to keep and bear arms. When the private citizen is disarmed the police, and government in general, develop an attitude that is unacceptable in a free society. New Jersey is a prime example of this.
Had I, with the data currently available to me, been the sheriff in Virginia I would have put them all in jail and put out a warrant for arrest of their chief and attempted to extradite him for aiding and abetting.
Update: Another report indicates the rogue cops did more than just speed and ignore the local police:
For nearly 200 miles, New York and New Jersey police also wreaked havoc from morning until night by forcing motorists from their lanes as well as by tying up traffic.
I-81 motorcyclist Dick Graham recalls a speeding New Jersey caravan that remained in his sights only for seconds during a morning ride north of Roanoke.
“I look in my mirror and, good God and low and behold, the horizon was red” with police lights, said the Fishersville resident and chief executive officer of Augusta Medical Center.
…
“I had my cruiser going 70 [mph], and they just blew right past us,” Graham said. “It was just a whole snake of them. It looked like a NASCAR race where they draft each other” bumper to bumper.
…
The News Virginian, through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, obtained transcripts of five 911 calls to Virginia State Police dispatchers.
One call shows that the convoy broke up by the time it neared Augusta County. A splinter group continued to force motorists off the road while passing through the Raphine stretch of I-81, though.
Said one caller at 10:25 a.m.: “Coming northbound 81. Should be at the 204 [mile marker] now. There are three New Jersey sheriffs’ offices vehicles … and apparently they’re using their emergency equipment to get people to move out of their way.”
The next call logged by State Police came from the Augusta County 911 center, which apparently also had tracked the convoy via I-81 motorists.
“Did you get the BOL [Be On the Lookout] for three New Jersey police cars running lights and sirens on the interstate?” an Augusta County dispatcher asked.
“Yes, we did,” replied a State Police dispatcher.
…
Though the caravan extended for 80 cars, one state trooper reported, some motorists complained of smaller groups of New York police that refused to yield the right of way to traffic for nearly 100 miles.
Said one caller: “There are four New York police cars running side-by-side with flashers on. … They are not letting traffic go by, going approximately 50 to 55 mph.”
New York police also hogged the road to the point of forcing others cars out of the way.
“The four New York police vehicles … just cut me off,” the driver said. “They have the right lane blocked and won’t let anyone around them.”
The dispatcher taking this called listed the caller as “very upset.”
Emergency calls seem to trace this convoy for roughly 88 miles. One call comes at 11:07 p.m. from a tractor-trailer driver warning of the resulting traffic jam crawling through Blacksburg at 30 mph.
“Yes … I’m driving an 18-wheeler here on Interstate 81 going north at Exit 130,” the tractor-trailer driver said. “Um, we’ve just about had several wrecks here because of New York State Police and I guess New Jersey police vehicles are blocking both lanes and letting nobody pass.”
Cops, as group, don’t get that out of control where the people they serve exercise their right to keep and bear arms.
Quote of the day–Frederick Bastiat
The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.
Frederick Bastiat
Air America and friends
I want to build on the The Quote of the Day for today a bit. I suspect more than just an avoidance of truth. It’s has to do with data selection and basic assumptions. To the best of my knowledge there isn’t an Air America radio station within my reception range here in North Central Idaho. While I was in the Seattle area last week I spent several hours listening to it. I concluded they have a completely different set of assumptions about the world, and perhaps reality, that are currently inaccessible to me. “Bush is evil and stupid” seemed to be a basic tenet. “The war in Iraq is wrong, we must leave as soon as possible” was another. Another basic assumption appears to be “control things not people”.
No evidence presented or examples given. Just building on those assumptions. In another example I just read an editorial which had these two paragraphs:
I don’t mind that Bush is not a man of great intellect. I do mind that he effectively has taken the American public down to his simplistic level. Too many people buy a faulty link between Sept. 11 and Iraq. Too many people think that winning in Iraq will have any impact on the security of Americans at home.
…
At present the danger is from al-Qaida. That can change. The Unibomber was not driven by religious fervor, nor was Timothy McVeigh. The war on terror should focus on access to the tools of terrorism. That would require stringent controls on the sale of materials that can end up in bombs. That would require monitoring who purchases those materials. Wouldn’t it make more sense to monitor those individuals rather than people with Middle Eastern surnames who borrow books from libraries? Books are not incendiary devices.
In the first paragraph no data is given to lead one to believe Bush is “not a man of great intellect” or that he works on a simplistic level. if you wanted to ignore all the funding of terrorism that Saddam engaged in you still don’t have to have a link between 9-11 and Iraq to think converting a repressive dictatorship into a representative democracy is the right thing to do. And what about drawing all the Muslim extremists to a common location to do battle with our troops rather than in our shopping malls, subways, and sports stadiums? What about providing a “shining beacon”? What about destroying the extremist Muslim culture? Don’t these guys get it? Or is it they don’t want to get it? It seems to me that he is the one working at a very simplistic level.
In the second paragraph he isn’t even consistent with himself. Information is a tool of terrorism. Doing research on the layout of a city subway, the construction details of a skyscraper, or how to make explosives and poisons from household materials is just as important to the terrorist as the physical materials. I’ll grant him that we shouldn’t be monitoring people’s reading materials. But nether should we require stringent controls on steel nails, fingernail polish remover, and hair bleach which can be made into a bomb. This guy complains Bush is simplistic and and he is totally clueless about bomb building as practiced in the mid-east. He mentioned McVeigh and doesn’t realize that the raw ingredients to make ammonium nitrate, the main ingredient McVeigh used, are all in the air we breath and our electrical outlets. Try putting “stringent controls” on that!
I can only conclude that these people live in a different reality. A simplistic, ignorant reality where Muslim extremists don’t want to kill you if you don’t convert to Islam. A reality where Mommy (as opposed to Big Brother) government can put childproof locks on the “kitchen cupboards” so the “children” don’t hurt themselves or others. The reality is that to retain the freedoms we desire we must seek out and imprison or kill the individuals that desire to harm us. The only tools of terrorism that restrictions upon make any sense reside between the ears of the terrorists. It is those tools that must be physically controlled or destroyed. And although I initially had many doubts about going into Iraq, even in hindsight, I think it was the best course of action.
So what of the liberals and Air America’s basic assumptions? Are they simply projecting their simplistic limitations onto their “enemies”? Perhaps that’s part of it. But I think it goes beyond that. There appears to be more and more evidence that since Muslim terrorists want to destroy capitalism they must be on the side of righteousness. The “liberals” are in so many ways nothing but haters of capitalism. I believe they are thinking in terms of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Never mind that the enemy of your enemy would have you giving up music, praying to Mecca multiple times per day, and killing homosexuals. It appears to me it is more important to them that Republican control of government be destroyed than our freedom be retained. Not that Republicans are any great friend of freedom. I too utilize the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” rationalization. Bush is the enemy of Muslim extremists who would kill me if they could because I will not adhere to their belief system. I will not convert. The only available alternatives I see are a genocide of hundreds of millions or something very similar to what Bush is implementing. I’m going with the Bush solution. Air America and their ilk fall into the category of “the enemy of my friend is my enemy.” I rejoice at the news of their failures and scandals.
Quote of the day–Paul Kirchner
Watching the unfolding political debate, it occurs to me that liberals feel the same way about truth that Dracula feels about sunlight.
Paul Kirchner
From Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries
Vol. 3, No. 5
31 March 1995
The specter of death for socialism
The UK Times Online uses the headline Leap in life expectancy brings a scare for pension forecasters. But it’s the socialists that really need to be scared:
ACTUARIES admitted yesterday that they were scared to predict firmly how long humans would live in the future, after releasing new figures showing that survival rates improved by more than 30 per cent in just eight years.
Figures from the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI), part of the actuarial profession, showed that the mortality rate for men aged 65 in 2002 was 29 per cent better than in 1994, while life expectancy for women improved 33 per cent in the same period.
…
There is also concern over the growing cost of public sector pensions, which has doubled to £500 billion in just over ten years. Sir Digby Jones, the Director-General of the CBI, this week warned the Labour Party conference that “little has been done to address public sector provision in the face of people living longer and healthier lives”.
A socialist society of the future is going to be faced with some hard choices. As health care technology improves people live longer and it seems the costs invariable increase as well. This is a double whammy for the socialist. They will be increasing unable to provide for both pensions and the health care of the elderly at the expense of the working class. As I have pointed out in previous posts a common solution to the inevitable fixed budget is to ration health care. In effect what this does is decrease the quality and the length of life for the people that are more deserving of a longer and better life–the people that contributed the most to society by being productive. Faced with that penalty productive people have less incentive to be productive. This decreased incentive results is less productivity and society as a whole suffers. The more socialistic a society the less productive it becomes and the less able it is to compete in a global market. As our human life expectancy improves socialism faces it’s death.
Quote of the day–Albert Einstein
Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.
Albert Einstein
[This is one of the major claims of F. A. Hayek’s book The Road to Serfdom. I have no reason to doubt it and this “invariable rule” is a major factor in my opposition to socialism. — Joe]
2nd Amendment monument
Jeff at Alphecca reports about an article in the Detroit Free Press:
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A plaque honoring the right to bear arms would be placed near the state Capitol under legislation approved Wednesday by the state House.
The House voted 108-0 to send the Senate a bill that would require the Michigan Capitol Park Commission to place the plaque near the Capitol or in the adjacent mall area. The plaque would be installed once enough private money is collected for a foundation to which it could be attached.
What really tickles me about this is that they are backing the anti-freedom people into a corner. What are they going to do when confronted with a vote on this? Vote against it? Flat out admit to the public they don’t support the constitution they took an oath to support? Then later support legislation that is anti-freedom even though they voted for a monument supporting that freedom? Their only viable option appears to be to not vote and/or use some sort of weasel words to say the celebrated freedom doesn’t mean what everyone else thinks it means.
Quote of the day–Jeff Cooper
We read a notice from Canada to the effect that “The purpose of anti-gun legislation is to establish criminal supremacy over the citizen by awarding the goblins the status of being the sole armed caste of the population.” The publisher has gone on to state that the time has come to ask ourselves what is behind all this.
Well, we know what motivates the hoplophobe. He simply envies the man who can cope where he, the hoplophobe, cannot. A skilled, armed man lives on a plane of security and contentment different from that of others. This is not egalitarian! The man who cannot cut it, envies, fears and sometimes hates the man who can. This is all very clear, it is just a pity that so many people choose to hide their perfidious motivation behind what they claim to be “crime control.”
Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries
Vol. 5, No. 1
January 1997
Quote of the day–Hermann Goering
Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.
Hermann Goering (1893-1946)
German Nazi leader, air marshal.
Alleged radio broadcast, Summer 1936, on the Four-Year Plan.
[As by the design of the U.S. Constitution power is safest when it is in the hands of the people, not the government. — Joe]
We just enforce it, not obey it
I’ve written about this before. Jeff at Alphecca posted another example:
Leaving a Nashville courtroom yesterday morning, two Metro police officers were greeted by their peers and supporters with handshakes and hugs. A judge had just ruled they were not guilty of illegally taking guns into a downtown nightclub last year.
Personally, I think that they have such a law is wrong. Idaho doesn’t have a law against taking guns into places where alcohol is being served and doesn’t have the type of problems the anti-freedom bigots would whine about if they knew about it. You can’t legally be intoxicated while carrying a concealed weapon and I don’t have a problem with that. Driving and/or shooting while drunk is a bit on the reckless side of things. It’s not consistent with a big ‘L’ Libertarian philosophy but I’m not going to get all bent out of shape over that. I think it is a fair compromise.
An employee of the nightclub noticed that one of the officers was carrying a gun and asked him to leave. Police were called when the officers refused.
…
“There was no authorization for them to be there, nor did supervisors have any knowledge of them being there,” police spokesman Don Aaron said.
It’s a dangerous path to go down. If the police (and other government workers) don’t obey the law on minor stuff it becomes more and more likely they won’t obey the law on major stuff. The mindset becomes one of the laws are for keeping “them” in line. The government workers are the elite for whom the laws were not really intended. I’ve spoken to many liberals and who have a similar elitist mindset. They want restrictions on firearms for the “average” person. The police are the side of the elite who need to be protected from the common person that might want to hurt them. They just don’t seem to get it that more people have been murdered by their own government than by the “common criminals.” Government workers should be held to a higher standard of behavior than the non-government employee, not lower. And the Second Amendment is our last ditch means of enforcing that ethical behavior on an out of control “the law doesn’t apply to us” elitist government.
Quote of the day–Harry Browne
We need to reduce government to just the functions authorized in the Constitution. Then, if you believe that makes the federal government too big or too little, you can work to amend the Constitution to make it more to your liking. But the first step is to establish limits, so that we no longer have unlimited government that the politicians can use for anything they want.
Harry Browne
March 1998
Libertarian Candidate for President in 1996
Quote of the day–Ted Nugent
I believe a self-righteous liberal Democrat with a cause is more dangerous than a Hell’s Angel with an attitude.
Ted Nugent
Quote of the day–Sen. Phil Gramm
Some people say that I have no heart. I am here tonight to tell you that I do have a heart. I have the heart of a liberal…. It’s in a jar on my desk.
Sen. Phil Gramm
1992 Lincoln Dinner at the Middlesex Club in Waltham, Massachusetts
[Something very similar is also attributed to Colorado Sen. John Andrews. — Joe]