Category Archives: Politics

Error by Anti-Gun SCOTUS Justices

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#2A TERRIBLE ERROR BY ANTI-GUN SCOTUS JUSTICES. Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake. In today’s Cargill/bump stock opinion, the below statement from Sotomayor/Kagan/Jackson will have major implications for AR-15 ban cases. Their dissent reads: “Within a matter of minutes, using several hundred rounds of ammunition, the [Vegas] shooter killed 58 people and wounded over 500. He did so by affixing bump stocks to COMMONLY AVAILABLE, SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLES.” In my view, this is a devastating legal admission by the left that AR-15s are “in common use” and cannot be banned under Heller/Bruen.

Mark W. Smith/#2A Scholar @fourboxesdiner
Posted on X, June 14, 2024

While I think it is an error on their part, I don’t think the legal implications are as clear cut as Smith implies. His claim presumes the justices will be consistent with previous writings. I could easily see Sotomayor/Kagan/Jackson saying “in common use” when they see that to their advantage as in the bump stock case. If the guns are in common use and easily simulate fully automatic firearms, then commonly available is a bad thing. In a future case, involving an “assault weapon” ban, claiming they cannot be consider in common use because they are less than 5%* of all guns in the U.S. It is “whatever is needed to justify my conclusions”, not what the word of law says, or what I said yesterday.

But, the important thing is that we should celebrate the elimination of the bump stock ban and the slap down on the ATF claiming they can rewrite the law. This is a great precedent and will be useful in many other cases.

In related news, I received a text message from lawyer friend Mike B.:

I find it charming that Sotomayor explains how to bump fire an AR-15 in her dissent. How far we’ve come.

* I asked Copilot, “What percentage of all firearms in the U.S. are of a type similar to the AR-15?” Copilot responded with:

As of the data available, AR-15s and similar semi-automatic rifles, often referred to as Modern Sporting Rifles, account for an estimated 19.8 million units1. Considering the total number of firearms in civilian possession in the U.S. is around 434 million, AR-15 style rifles make up approximately 4.6% of all firearms in the country. This percentage is based on the figures indicating that about 30.2% of gun owners, which is about 24.6 million people, reported owning an AR-15 or similarly styled rifle2. It’s important to note that these numbers are estimates and the actual figures may vary. The AR-15 style rifles have seen a significant increase in production over the years, rising from around one percent of all firearms produced in the early 1990s to almost a quarter in 20203.

Never mind that Copilot’s logic is faulty**. I can’t imagine those justices really care anyway.

** if 24.6 million people own AR-15s, the total number of AR-15 should be at something closer (or greater than) 24.6 million, I think it is unlikely there are 4.8 million people sharing ownership of a rifle which is not canceled out by millions of others owning two (or ten) AR-15s.

Risks of Socialized Health Care

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Thanks to the NHS, all taxpayers are stakeholders in the wider health of our nation. This involvement should make us less tolerant of any section of society creating a healthcare burden through any promotion of ignorance.

Jamie Blackett
June 11, 2024
Vegans are slowly killing themselves (msn.com)

This is just one of the problems with socialized health care. Your “ignorance” becomes the business of the government. And if they decide your decisions about your body are “ignorant” then they claim the moral and legal authority to override your decisions.

The worst case scenario is, of course, when they decide your continued existence it not worth the cost of keeping you alive. But there are lots of other situations where things get ugly. Forced use of insufficiently tested drugs or vaccines. Denial of use of unapproved procedures or medicine even when the patient has nothing to loose.

I realize there are problems with a completely free market, but Jefferson has it right:

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty
than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Thomas Jefferson
December 23, 1791
From Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 23 December 1791 (archives.gov)

Patience, Luck, and Principles or Burnings at the Stake

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A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long
oppressions of enormous public debt…If the game runs sometime against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.

Thomas Jefferson
June 4, 1798
Letter to John Taylor, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson p. 1050.

Witches have taken power again. I’m not certain patience, luck, and principles will prevail this time but I dread the burnings at the stake.

What To Do With President Biden?

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Gen. Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, a noted German military officer and opponent of Adolf Hitler, is said to have categorized leaders on their intelligence and industriousness, noting:

“I divide my officers into four classes as follows: the clever, the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each officer always possesses two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can, under certain circumstances, be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.”

Applying von Hammerstein-Equord’s classification to contemporary politics, some critics argue that Biden, in his current state, fits in the “stupid and lazy” category. This combination, while not ideal, allows for the possibility of stage management by staff, competent or otherwise. Though our system of government expects a vigorous executive — as Alexander Hamilton noted in Federalist 70, “energy in the executive is the leading character in the definition of good government.” Today, we have no energy in the White House. 

But while the president’s vacuous passivity can be navigated with a degree of difficulty, Vice President Kamala Harris’s vigorous foolishness is a bigger threat. This perspective, along with Harris’s historically low approval ratings, is likely why the Biden cabinet hesitates to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Biden from office — they’re stuck with no good options.

But even were Newsom to replace Biden on the Democratic ticket, America remains under grave threat from the dangers of a mentally declining president.

Chuck DeVore
June 11, 2024
Biden’s mental decline jeopardizes national security. Democrats have one card left to play (msn.com)

Interesting observations. I have observed all those types in co-worker over the years. The stupid and industrious were the most annoying. I called them “enthusiastically stupid”.

On Hunter Biden’s Conviction

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“No single action can solve the entirety of a gun violence epidemic,” he said. “But together, our efforts–your efforts–are saving lives. You can help rally a nation with a sense of urgency and seriousness of purpose. You’re changing the culture. And we’ve proven we can do more than just thoughts and prayers. This is more than thoughts and prayers. You’re changing politics.”

President Biden then departed for his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, where earlier today his son Hunter Biden was found guilty of three gun-related felony charges.

T.J. Muscaro
June 11, 2024
Biden Touts Measures to Curb Gun Violence | The Epoch Times

Oh, the irony… Smile

Some people expect President Biden will pardon his son. If he does, I don’t think it will be until after the election in November. I think a more likely scenario is the appeal will result in some narrow ruling which gives Biden, and only Biden, a pass.

In only the most unlikelist of circumstances will Biden’s appeal result in overturning existing gun law on Second Amendment grounds in such a way that it will benefit the average gun owner.

Also note President Biden claims gun control is saving lives, but they never supply the evidence to back up such claims.

Freedom is a Constant Struggle

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The best way to tell whether someone wants to end American freedom for good is to check how angry he is about the separation of powers in our government. Anyone who says out loud he wishes he could disrupt the system of checks and balances that has prevented tyrannical government overreach for nearly 250 years, is showing that what he really wants is a dictatorship. Of course, they all believe that said dictatorship would be benign to them and vicious to their political opponents, forever. Always an apparatchik, never a kulak!

There’s something in the human psyche that longs for a king to follow. Perhaps it hearkens back to our prehistory, when our little tribe had one chieftain and we just did what he said. Perhaps it’s a subconscious desire to submit, to let someone else worry about the details. It’s a system that may work out okay for small, family-based groups, but it has never produced a nation that respects human rights.

Mo Rockwel
June 6, 2024
Anti-Gun Pols Try to Delegitimize Supreme Court before ’24 Elections – Freedom’s Lodge (freedomslodge.com)

While I think this is accurate and a great point, it is not just a desire for a king. As an alternative path to essentially the same thing, many believe a majority vote is sufficient for the creation of an enforceable law as well. As if 50+% voting to enslave the minority of a population is entirely reasonable.

As pointed out in the quote above the deeper truth is probably that people want someone else to take responsibility for most of their actions. In essence, they yearn to be slaves in return for a promise of the necessities of life. How else do you explain the persistent popularity of socialism and ultimately communism?

Whether it is a tribal leader, a king, or the “central committee”, “Someone” should decide what is best for all of society and force everyone to work together for “the greater good.” The problem is that while this was almost certainly true at the tribe level it does not scale as the group size grows into the thousands, millions, and billions. Religion and then governments came to replace the tribe and mostly solve the scale problems but these create new problems. Here are some hints of how these problems manifest themselves.

I further suspect that because of the evolutionary advantage this gave tribes over individuals it now has some genetic component that can only be overridden by a conscious application of rational thought and examination of historical data. This means there is a constant yearning for the “freedom” of no responsibility and the “comfort” of slavery.

Combine the masses yearning to be told what to do, a few claiming they were born to rule and you have the conditions for tyranny and justification for genocide.

Hence, freedom is a constant struggle.

Gun Rights Politics is Not a Spectator Sport

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Gun rights politics — i.e., defending your Second Amendment — is not a spectator sport. The people determined to destroy your rights play dirty, because in their book the end justifies the means. When you are in a nasty fight, expect somebody to accuse you of hitting “below the belt.”

Your response can be a simple: “Well, I didn’t think there was anything down there I was going to hurt.”

Dave Workman
April 26, 2024
Confront The Lies (jpfo.org)

The end justify their lies. It is part of their culture.

Quarterly Debt Interest Payments of $1 Trillion

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Dimon recently stated that stagflation was unavoidable for the United States. Therefore, he predicted that high inflation and unemployment would be a massive concern for the country. That is a dire statement, as the employment figures have been a stabilizing factor in the US economy amid its two-year inflation fight.

The pressure of these impending realities is only made more concerning with government spending continuing to grow. The US quarterly debt interest payment has recently surpassed the $1 trillion mark. That details the incredible global concern regarding the continued viability of the US dollar as a reserve asset.

Joshua Ramos
May 30, 2024
BRICS: JPMorgan Forecasts Unavoidable Crisis for the US Dollar (watcher.guru)

See also U.S. Reacts To BRICS De-Dollarization Agenda.

And don’t forget the country is adding $1 Trillion in Debt Every 100 Days as well.

We live in interesting times. Prepare appropriately.

Why Do People Support Socialism?

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Via Tamera on Gab:

image

While not entirely true, there is a lot of truth in this.

Bullet Wordcraft

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Today the currency is in dollars. Soon it could be in bullets. With the threat being hyper-velocity instead of hyper-inflation.

MTHead
June 1, 2024
Comment to Hyper Inflation May Be Avoided.

It will take more to convince me this is plausible in the near future. But I like the wordcraft.

And I want an underground bunker in Idaho just in case.

Censorship Warning

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It is foolish and naive to believe that censorship will be “temporary” or “restricted.” Once a government succeeds in establishing a Ministry of Truth and dictating what can and cannot be said, it will inevitably use these powers to silence any genuine opposition. When governments arrogate to themselves the power to determine what is true and what is false, they open the door to tyranny. It is a slippery slope that leads inexorably to the suppression of dissent and the erosion of democracy. Until recently, this was a point of consensus among liberals and conservatives alike. It appears that is no longer the case.

Paulo Figueiredo
May 24, 2024
Lula’s Brazil: A Cautionary Tale For Free Speech In The West

Emphasis in the original.

Canada, England, and don’t forget: Joe Biden’s Disinformation Board Likened to Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ – Newsweek. See also: Quote of the day—Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke | The View From North Central Idaho.

And that doesn’t even count all the private “censorship” by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc.. We are in some dark times.

Prepare appropriately.

Hyper Inflation May Be Avoided

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This contrarian sees a strong consensus around the notion that hyper-inflation is the inevitable end-game of nation-states / central banks issuing fiat currencies, i.e. currencies that are not restrained by being pegged to tangible assets such as gold reserves. The temptation to issue (via “printing” or borrowing new currency into existence by selling sovereign bonds) more currency becomes irresistible to politicians and central bankers alike. as the means to mollify every constituency, from elites to the military to commoners dependent on state-funded bread and circuses.

This unrestrained creation of new money far in excess of the expansion of goods and services (i.e. the real economy) devalues the currency, as “all the new money chases too few goods and services.” Gresham’s law kicks in–bad money drives good money out of circulation–as precious metals, fine art, gemstones, etc. are hoarded and the depreciating currency is spent as fast as possible before its purchasing power declines even further.

The Cantillon Effect also kicks in: those closest to the spigot of new money get first dibs on converting the depreciating currency into tangible goods, leaving the non-elites to sweep up the “trickle-down” shreds left as the currency loses purchasing power daily.

The consensus holds that there is no way to stop this decay of purchasing power to near-zero, i.e. hyper-inflation, once it starts. As in a Greek tragedy, the fatal flaw of the protagonist–in this case, fiat currency–leads inevitably to its destruction.

In the real world, things having to do with money tend to occur because they benefit powerful interests. This leads us to ask of hyper-inflation: cui bono, to whose benefit? Exactly which powerful interests benefit when a currency’s purchasing power plummets to near-zero?

Charlies Hugh Smith
May 27, 2024
Of Two Minds – Is Hyper-Inflation that Destroys a Currency a “Solution”?

Emphasis in the original.

I found his alternate version of things may turn out intriguing. But as I read his post I became more and more concerned with the question, if things will go a different way because of the “powerful interests” will steer it to something to their advantage, then why has there ever been hyperinflation? Wouldn’t those “powerful interests” have taken those previous (except perhaps the first example of hyperinflation) instances down a different path?

Still, something other than hyperinflation as the reset button is something to consider and prepare for.

California’s New Tax on Gun is Based on Lies

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As a professor who studies the economics of violence and illicit trades at the University of San Diego’s Kroc School of Peace Studies, I think this law could have important ramifications.

That agency, part of the Justice Department, is tasked with making American communities safer.

The ATF focuses on those products because, while legal, they can cause significant harm to society – in the form of drunken driving, for example, or cancer-causing addictions. They also have a common history: All have been associated with criminal organizations seeking to profit from illicit markets.

Alcohol and tobacco products are thus usually subject to state excise taxes. This policy is known as a “Pigouvian tax,” named after 20th-century British economist Arthur Pigou. By making a given product more expensive, such a tax leads people to buy less of it, reducing the harm to society while generating tax revenue that the state can theoretically use to offset those harms that still accrue.

California, for instance, imposes a US$2.87 excise tax on each pack of cigarettes. That tax is higher than the national average but much lower than New York’s $5.35 levy. California also imposed a vaping excise tax of 12.5% in 2021.

Of the three ATF product families, firearms have enjoyed an exemption from California excise taxes. Until now.

Topher L. McDougal
University of San Diego
May 28, 2024
California is about to tax guns more like alcohol and tobacco — and that could make a dent in gun violence (goodgoodgood.co)

Even if you want to ignore the unconstitutional taxing of a protected right, I find the following things very telling:

  • He claims the BATFE has the control of those products because of safety issues. This conveniently ignores the history of starting out under the Department of Treasury because it was all about the taxes on alcohol, tobacco,and NFA firearms.
  • If you read the source article, while tallying all the costs he ignores all the benefits of private firearm ownership.
  • He uses the total number of homicides as a cost while ignoring many of those homicides are justified. Which means each of those justified homicides represent one or more innocent lives saved.
  • He includes all suicides by firearm as a cost, which assumes none of them would have occurred if it had not been for the access to guns. I.E., he is assuming no other means of suicide would have been substituted in any of the cases.

In other words, he is lying by omission.

Of course he lied! You should not be surprised. It is part of their culture.

Good news!

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Supreme Court Unanimously Rules for NRA in Free Speech Case | The Epoch Times

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the National Rifle Association plausibly alleged that a former New York state official violated the First Amendment by pressuring insurance companies to cut ties with the gun rights organization.

“A government official can share her views freely and criticize particular beliefs, and she can do so forcefully in the hopes of persuading others to follow her lead,” Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the majority opinion on May 30.

“In doing so, she can rely on the merits and force of her ideas, the strength of her convictions, and her ability to inspire others. What she cannot do, however, is use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression,” she added.

This isn’t the end of the game. This just means it goes back down to the lower court to go through the trial process.

Of Course They Lied

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I spent an hour putting the data together. If I figured out that guns ownership has an insignificant effect on the murder rate then so did the researchers paid for by anti-gun billionaires. This data means that they knew. It means they lied to please the people who paid them.

Rob Morse
May 26, 2024
See for Yourself if Guns Cause Murder (jpfo.org)

Of course they lied! It is part of their culture.

Revolutionary Honesty is Gone

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I miss the 1970s sometimes. Not just the music. And the sex. And the drugs. I miss the terrorists. The old-school terrorists. Or, OK, maybe not the terrorists, but the revolutionaries who cheered on the terrorists.

I miss the clarity, and the honesty, of that era.

Maybe you’re too young to remember, but, back in the day, you didn’t get all this hemming and hawing about murdering civilians. The terrorists, and the revolutionaries who supported them, were not ashamed of murdering civilians. The Revolution demanded that they murder civilians. Murdering civilians was one of the fundamental strategies of the Revolution.

CJ Hopkins
May 22, 2024
Asymmetric Idiocy – Consent Factory, Inc.

The clarity and honesty has been abandoned because it doesn’t work all that well when you are attempting to sell Communism. They still need to murder lots of innocent people, but saying that up front hurts their sales pitch.

The Stupid Party

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Never ascribe to a conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by unplanned financial self-interest.

Porn is not a Jewish conspiracy to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids, okay?

It’s a market correction for the gap between the male demand for sexual release, and the female supply of desirable and willing partners. You know, a market correction? That thing that happens in the free market? You remember the free market, right?

It’s that thing conservatives praise occasionally, but immediately turn against every time it points out a gap between their ideals and the reality on the ground.

People are just making money selling porn to horny men. That’s all it is.

But what conservatives are never, never asking themselves is, why are there so many horny men around? Why is there such a demand for porn, when it’s transparently obvious that no man in the world prefers porn to an attractive and enthusiastic female partner (or two)?

No, they never ask themselves that question because it’s easier to scold men than to address issues which would require them to take on someone with actual political power.

Look, when a man hits puberty, he starts getting horny. He can hold off doing anything about that for a little while, because he’s young, easily indoctrinated, and he’s still figuring it all out anyway. But pretty soon, he’s going to be driven to do something about that, and not all the lectures about sin that you can muster are going to stop him.

So why are men turning to pornography?

Because sex with a preferable partner is unavailable to them. Duh.

Conservatives uttered not a peep when boomers fucked the economy so no one could afford to buy a home, or raise children, until their late twenties or early thirties. Conservatives uttered not a peep when women wanted to leave the home and compete in the workforce, delaying marriage to build their careers. Conservatives uttered not a peep when women wanted to stop cooking food, and remained silent when the stores filled with pre-packaged factory slop made from processed corn and soybeans, and packed with sugar, causing an obesity epidemic.

Conservatives actively opposed availability of contraceptives at every opportunity, and refused to compromise at all on abortion.

Conservatives sat idly by while feminists took over the culture and taught women to hold men in contempt.

And on and on it went, until now, we’re reduced to landscape where only the top 5% of women are as attractive as the average woman of 50 years ago, and only the top 5% of men are desired, admired, or respected by women at all, and things have gotten so bad that young men will pay for naked pictures of attractive women because that is the closest they can get to the real thing, and conservatives’ solution is… scold young men some more? Ban porn?

Great.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Because attacking the supply side worked sooooo well with drugs, didn’t it?

Conservatives are so goddamn dumb that they spent decade after decade fighting a “war on drugs” that they could never win, while ignoring the leftists quietly gutting the economy and fucking up everyone’s quality of life.

Thereby ensuring an ever-increasing supply of people so frustrated and miserable that porn and fentanyl sounded like an improvement over their daily lives.

Conservatives, please have this tattooed on your foreheads, backwards, so you can read it every morning in the mirror:

Demand creates supply. Supply does not create demand.

If you want to get rid of something, you must reduce the demand for it. If you want to get rid of the demand for something unhealthy, you must supply sufficient quantities of a superior alternative which is healthy.

A healthy society must have a healthy and available outlet for all human appetites, or it will cease to be a healthy society.

I swear, if you guys had spent half the energy fighting income taxes, socialism, feminism, government entitlements, and the erosion of the American quality of life that you spent on porn, abortion, and men in dresses pretending to be women, then you would have a lot less to cry about right now.

But you didn’t wanna upset women or boomers, and you didn’t want to cut federal spending, and you certainly didn’t want to confront the crass material appetites of human nature instead of retreating and burying your nose in a bible instead.

So now you are the Stupid Party. Which still makes you superior to the Evil Party, for all the good that does us.

But every two years, I’m still left with the unexciting choice between Stupid Party and Delusional Party, and things aren’t getting any better.

You’re nice guys, you really are. Your hearts are in the right place. I just wish your brains were in the right place, too.

Devon Eriksen @Devon_Eriksen_
Posted on X May 23, 2024

Giga Idaho

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The Greater Idaho project is cool and all but have you heard of Giga Idaho?

Image

Dale Stark @DaleStarkA10
Post May 22, 2024 on X.

I am willing to listen, but I need to be convinced on this.

Via a post by Chuck Petras @Chuck_Petras.

Interesting Perspective

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Right now, this very moment is a very complicated time for gun violence prevention activists because with Biden in the White House, the media does not want to aid us in demanding stronger gun reforms because whatever Joe Biden does is suddenly the right thing to do.

When Donald Trump was the president, calling for an assault weapons ban and saying that the measures that he was putting in place were not nearly enough was a very popular opinion. Now if you’re calling for an assault weapons ban, suddenly you’re just an angry leftist who will never be happy with anything.

Cameron Kasky
May 12, 2024
Parkland activist says achieving gun reform harder under Biden because everyone wanted to ‘stick it to old orange man’ (yahoo.com)

Sometimes it is easy to believe that your political team is disorganized, ineffective, lazy, corrupt, and/or uncaring about your primary political objectives. It is good to know that your political opponents have the same belief about their team.

There is a good chance both set of beliefs are valid.

Sign It and Spread the Word

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Do you remember Judge Abena Darkeh? She is the judge who said,

Do not bring the Second Amendment into this courtroom. It doesn’t exist here. So you can’t argue Second Amendment. This is New York.

There is now a Change.org petition to demand her removal from her position. She should be prosecuted and sent to prison, but taking a baby step is better than nothing at all.

Sign it and spread the word.