Quote of the day—Michael Shellenberger

There’s just a lot of progressive buyer’s remorse right now.

Michael Shellenberger
December 16, 2021
Urban liberals rethink guns and policing amid crime spike on their doorstep
[But will this result in ‘progressive’ politicians being introduced to tar, feathers, and one-way tickets out of town on wooden rails? I’m inclined to go with public trials. But with the current administration in Washington that will not be happening so unless the supply chain for tar, feathers, and rails is broken the tar and feathers route is the most likely, while still extremely improbable.

Noting short of something of similar magnitude will allow us to recover the free exercise of our rights via a legislative path. I’m still betting on the courts.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Debbie Mizrahie

I’ve always been anti-gun. But I am right now in the process of getting myself shooting lessons because I now understand that there may be a need for me to know how to defend myself and my family. We’re living in fear.

Debbie Mizrahie
Beverly Hills
December 9, 2021
Beverly Hills residents arming themselves with guns in wake of violence
[Ms. Mizrahie, welcome to the right side of history!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lyle

Like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, they reside in a land of make-believe, and if you don’t play along with them they’ll hate you for challenging their fantasy. It’s hard enough to maintain character in a land of make-believe without people trying to ruin your entire imaginary world by rudely inserting images of reality. You’re a bully, even a destroyer of worlds (of Neverland), in their minds.

They know perfectly well that their world is imaginary but, like normal children playing, they enjoy living in that imaginary world. It’s a beautiful and wonderful place in which they are the heroes. Therefore they consider it cruel of anyone to ruin their game.

The signal, the proof, that they know their world is imaginary is that they get very emotional when you challenge the game. Because they’re putting creative effort into playing make-believe it hurts them to be reminded of reality. The emotion comes from your breaking down that which they’ve carefully and delicately built up in their imaginations. It’s as though they’ve painted a nice picture and they’re standing there enjoying it, and then you come along and mess it all up and kick over the easel. That makes you an ogre. They have to get rid of you or else the game, all of wonderful Neverland, and their place in it, is ruined altogether.

Lyle
Comment to Quote of the day—Rachel Sillcocks
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rachel Sillcocks

It’s not about the fact that we are anti-police. It is about the fact that we do not allow weapons in our restaurant. We were uncomfortable, and we asked them to leave. It has nothing to do that they were officers. It has everything to do that they were carrying guns.

Rachel Sillcocks
December 4, 2021
San Francisco restaurant owner explains why police officers denied service
[This is what happens when people have messed up wiring in their brain and think inanimate objects are more indicative of behavior than the people in control of the objects. This is what they think of gun ownership. You magically become good or evil based on the existence or absence of certain types of inanimate objects in your possession. This is undeniable prejudice.

I can understand the impulse for non-discrimination legislation to protect gun owners access to public accommodations. I can also understand the impulse for police officers to be slow to respond.

They have since said they made a mistake and apologized. I’m sure the 1.0 average Yelp score had nothing to do with it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brandon Smith

My position has always been that the Federal Reserve is not a banking institution on a mission to protect American financial interests. Rather, I believe the Fed is an ideological suicide bomber waiting to blow itself up and deliberately derail or destroy the American economy at the right moment. My position has also long been that the bankers would need a cover event to hide their calculated economic attack, otherwise they would take full blame for the resulting disaster.

Brandon Smith
December 4, 2021
Mainstream Economists Are Struggling To Hide The Incoming Economic Collapse
[There is a lot of good stuff in this article. This claim isn’t part of the good stuff.

If the claim were true then the creators of the Fed have been waiting over 100 years to detonate their bomb, right?

Or, I suppose, it could be the Fed has somewhat recently been taken over by the suicide bombers without a single defection from the conspirators or underlings.

Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. I say there is far from sufficient evidence to support this claim.

It could be that past, present, and future actions will be mostly consistent with this hypothesis but have a different true intent. Sort of a like a lie that snowballs as the liar has to lie more and more to cover up the original lie. Then witnesses require silencing to hide the vast number of lies. The original lie wasn’t intended to result in murder, but that is where the slippery slope led. I could believe that sort of thing is what has happened.

Sometimes it’s too tempting to take the easy way out for the short term benefit when the long term consequences are murky. I believe that is far more likely than a “suicide bomber” conspiracy.—Joe]

Shortages create a market for fraud

The verdict is in:

A verdict was reached in the Jussie Smollett criminal trial Thursday, nearly three years after he told police two Trump-loving bigots beat him up, tied a noose around his neck and doused him in bleach on a blistering night in January 2019.

The hate crime Smollett claimed he suffered sparked international outrage, and then disgust, when police said he made the whole thing up.

This isn’t the only fake hate crime in recent years.

This is to be expected. Whenever the market demand is greater than the supply there will be criminals taking advantage of the situation and supplying fake goods.

Quote of the day—sacrebleu14 / SA Hinchcliffe @sacrebleu141

What part do you not understand that Human Rights, including the Right of Self Determination which Self Defense is integral, are not negotiable

sacrebleu14 / SA Hinchcliffe @sacrebleu141
Tweeted on December 4, 2021 in response to this tweet which is this meme:
MarxRKBA
[Yes, sacrebleu14 misunderstood.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jed Babbin

The liberals’ insistence that the law, the trial, and its outcome are tainted by racism is risible. But, to them, it has to be true because they have only two frames of reference, racism, and gun control. The accusation of racism was a major theme in the 2020 election and will be in the future — probably with less success — because that’s one of only two issues that the Democrats and the media care about.

Jed Babbin
November 21, 2021
Rittenhouse, Racism, and Gun Control
Dems don’t have too many cards left to play these days, just their two obsessions.

[The last sentence is overstating things a little bit. They also seem to care about increasing restrictions on carbon emissions, forced vaccinations, forced mask usage, and reduced restrictions on abortions.

But the sentiment of the first part of the quote resonates well with my understanding of the issue.—Joe]

Inflation

The U.S. isn’t the only place with inflation these days. Turkey is on track to have inflation somewhere between 20% and 40% this year. Other countries are interesting as well. The top 20 are:

Country  Last   Previous 
Venezuela     1,575.0     1,946.0
Sudan        366.0        388.0
Lebanon        174.0        144.0
Syria        139.0        134.0
Suriname          69.5          59.8
Zimbabwe          58.4          54.5
Argentina          52.1          52.5
Iran          35.7          39.2
Ethiopia          33.0          34.2
Angola          26.9          26.6
Turkey          21.3          19.9
Zambia          19.3          21.1
Nigeria          16.0          16.6
Guinea          12.7          13.1
Georgia          12.5          12.8
Kyrgyzstan          12.5          13.5
Sierra Leone          11.6          10.9
Pakistan          11.5             9.2
Ghana          11.0          10.6
Haiti          10.9          12.2

The US. is in 58th place with 6.2%. At least those are the “official” numbers. As the Reason article notes the official numbers and what is really happening don’t necessarily agree.

“Interesting” things happen with high inflation. There are numerous examples of hyper inflation (defined as greater than or equal to 50% per month) for individual countries. You might want to read up on them. But there will be new books required if it goes global.

The consequences of government responses to COVID, such as reduced production and “free money” make inflation worse. With yet another variant/excuse to adversely affect the economy we might get to read some of those new books on inflation in a year or two. Assuming, of course, we can afford the cost of the paper or electricity to charge your Kindle.

Quote of the day—Cal Thomas

If confronted by someone seeking to loot, destroy your business, or kill you, would you see your armed self as the best defense, or would you call 911, hoping the police will show up in time, if at all? Or would you be glad that a Kyle Rittenhouse is patrolling your streets like a neighborhood watchman, doing the job the police are unable, or reluctant to do?

Cal Thomas
November 27, 2021
Cal Thomas: The Rittenhouse verdict
[I think a bit more context is necessary to correctly answer these questions. I would be inclined to give the police a couple of free passes until it was clear they weren’t going to do their job. I would then reevaluate the situation.

There could be situations, much later in the timeline, where I would give people a pass for taking the action to the derelict and/or malicious politicians failing to do their job.—Joe]

Quote of the day—John Hinderaker

I am not sure how liberals expected the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial to go. Anyone who had seen the videos of Rittenhouse’s interactions with the men who were chasing him, striking him and trying to kill him knew that he had a strong case of self-defense. But apparently the fact that Rittenhouse has a defense–and is so bold as to assert it!–came as a surprise to the Left.

John Hinderaker
November 12, 2021
RITTENHOUSE TRIAL BRINGS OUT THE CRAZY
[I don’t think it’s “surprise”. I think it’s indignation. It’s all about political currency. Violence is the political currency of the left. Non-leftists should stay in their lane and rely on the police. And since they had essentially neutered the police during this “summer of love” they expected, nay, they deserved an open field of operation. Someone dares to put out a fire they started? That is intolerable and must be punished. That Rittenhouse didn’t accept his well deserved beating was a gross violation of their expected rules of engagement. He had to guilty of something. He shouldn’t have even been there.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Hugo Gurdon

Righting the listing ship of state requires that we once again recognize that process, tedious though it may be to political hotheads, is more important than temporary victories and defeats on policy. The idea that results alone are important is the same as saying might makes right. It is the maxim of bullies and tyrants. It is not the political philosophy on which America long stood and should still stand.

Hugo Gurdon
November 17, 2021
Damn the evidence, convict the white supremacist
[+1.—Joe]

James D. Zirin of The Hill is a liar

It starts with the headline and continues nearly non-stop with the lies:

A miscarriage of justice in Kenosha

The unimaginable has occurred. Kyle Rittenhouse, the admitted killer of two men and maimer of a third, has been acquitted on all counts.

It certainly was imaginable to me and millions of others. After the videos came out it was crystal clear to anyone who had a glimmer of knowledge about the use of lethal force in self defense. The author is a former federal prosecutor and cannot possibly claim ignorance of the law.

On Aug. 25, 2020, Rittenhouse armed himself with a borrowed AR-15-style assault rifle loaded with full metal jacket armor-penetrating ammunition and marched into downtown Kenosha, Wis.

FMJ bullets are not “armor-penetrating”.

An AR-15 is the same kind of gun, in design and function, that our troops carry in the field. But Rittenhouse from the evidence had never undergone any training, military or otherwise, in the use and operation of the deadly weapon, which was illegally purchased and given to him by a friend.

It is not the same kind of gun and does not function the same as any rifle used by any military in at least the last 60 years.

As a (formerly) certified firearms instructor I can say with 100% certainty this was not the first time Rittenhouse had used a firearm. Some people, and I agree with this, say:

Based on the videos I’ve seen Rittenhouse is one of the best weapons handlers under pressure I’ve ever seen.

This was not an untrained person.

The gun was not illegal purchased. There was nothing illegal in any of the transfers of that firearm.

One shot might have qualified as self-defense, but four shots, it would appear, doth a murder make.

False. This was drilled into my General Defensive Handgun classmates and I back in ‘97:

If it ever becomes times to shoot someone, do they need to be shot a little? Or a lot?  If that time comes you should shoot early and often — until the threat is over.  If you shoot a “set”, such as a double tap, you may stop shooting too soon.

Zirin is a former attorney. Having watched the trial we can conclude his education must have been suitably refreshed. That he still claims such falsehoods is evidence of deliberate lies.

Although his second victim, Anthony Huber, was “armed” only with a skateboard, Rittenhouse claimed he shot him dead because he believed Huber was threatening his life.

Rittenhouse was on the ground and Huber hit him in the head with the skateboard. This is clearly lethal force. You are legally allowed, and I would say morally obligated, to defend innocent life using lethal force when confronted with lethal force by your attackers. Zirin learned this in the trial as well because he quoted the judge saying essentially the same thing. The only question here is, “What is the objective of these lies by Zirin?”

The trial was highlighted by emotional and illuminating testimony from Rittenhouse himself, who wept as he protested that he had acted in self-defense when he fatally shot Rosenbaum not once but four times. Rosenbaum had thrown a plastic bag at him and chased him.

Lying by omission. Zirin left out the part about Rosenbaum threating to kill him, then chasing him, and finally attempting to take Rittenhouse’s rifle.

I find it interesting and someone comforting that the poll taken at the end of the article shows I’m not the only one taking issue with this liar:

image

Quote of the day—Kevin Baker

“Democracy Dies in Darkness” is not a warning, but a mission statement to the Left.

Kevin Baker
November 13, 2021
Comment on Facebook.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Michael Snyder

Sooner or later, this is what socialist regimes always do.

They tell us to study hard, get a good job and work as hard as we can.

And then they give our money to people that haven’t done any of those things.

Eventually they run out of other people’s money, and so then they just start wildly creating more.

Unfortunately, every time that this has been tried throughout history it has always ended in disaster, and now it is our turn.

Michael Snyder
November 14, 2021
This Is How They Intend To Get Us To “You Will Own Nothing And Be Happy”
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Noam Shpancer

Mature people use their fire to warm the house rather than burn it down, refrain from assaulting flight attendants, help old ladies cross the street, pack a sandwich for the long road trip, and can take a joke.

Our current cultural climate trends in the opposite direction. Instead of constructive sublimation, we celebrate raw destructive aggression; instead of suppressing dark emotions, we revel in them; instead of preparing for the future, we’re busy destroying it; instead of laughing at ourselves and our shared humanity, we either laugh at the weak or foreswear humor altogether.

In America today, the delicate and complex machinery of democracy is placed in infantile hands. You don’t need a child’s imagination to foresee trouble ahead.

Noam Shpancer, Ph.D.
November 13, 2021

Psychological Immaturity Threatens Our Democracy
Democracy requires psychological maturity, which appears to be in short supply.

[The article does a good job of describing the problem from the viewpoint of a psychologist. I wish he had some suggestions for a solution.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Clif High

Let’s say the ultimate paranoid understanding is this is a collapse of civilization to some degree.  In order to understand this, we should extract ourselves from as many of these failing systems as possible.  If you can extract yourself from the money system as much as possible, the school system and any of these systems because they are all going to fail, and you don’t want to be dragged down by them.  Here’s how bad it’s going to get…

Members of Congress will be rushing out of meetings, heaving their guts out and vomiting all over the hallways because of the emotional shock because of the death of the dollar.  The death of the dollar is not going to be a slow thing.  It will come to the point, probably fairly rapidly, and it might even be in just a couple of weeks because we have this drop dead date on December 3rd.  Anyway … This is the thing to imagine, and that is we are coming to the end of a civilization.

Clif High
November 16, 2021
Collapse of Civilization Coming
[Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.

While I can believe there is a very good chance of economic collapse of the U.S. within the next few years, and I can believe it will be “rapid”, my best guess is that “rapid” will be on the scale of months or possibly weeks.

My “prediction” is based on the time scales seen in other hyper inflation situations.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ryan Chittum

On balance, the press has been a destructive force on this story, from its beginnings in the coverage of the Jacob Blake shooting that set the whole thing off and which we know was justified, to the downplaying of the $50 million in destruction done by rioters in Kenosha, to the libelous portrayal of Rittenhouse and the particulars of what happened. There have been innumerable journalistic disasters in the Trump era, but this is the most blatantly reckless one of them all.

Ryan Chittum
Media critic with the Columbia Journalism Review,
November 21, 2021
Misinformation About Kyle Rittenhouse Case Floods Social Media, TV Networks
[I think Chittum is giving the media too much credit with the claim of “reckless”. With the videos so easily available, with the jury verdict known to everyone, with the claims they make so absurd, I don’t believe they are “reckless”. They are malicious liars.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Colin Wright @SwipeWright

The Left-wing media narrative on the Rittenhouse case is extreme, malicious, and untethered to reality. It is well beyond insane. It would be laughable if it weren’t so utterly frightening.

Colin Wright @SwipeWright
Tweeted on November 20, 2021
[It was my independent conclusion of this (although not articulated nearly as well) that led me to create a new blog category dedicated to exposing their lies.—Joe]