Via brother Doug on Facebook:
Mr. Franklin would have approved this meme.
Category Archives: Politics
Quote of the day—Per Bylund
Government’s track record in creating public goods that are of actual value to people and that do not waste resources is nothing short of dismal. Then add the public choice aspect to the whole thing, that politicians have their own interests and therefore may not pursue the public good even if they know it. The assumption that government will fix the economy and increase our standard of living beyond what entrepreneurs can do is unbearably naïve.
I do not think these problems matter much to proponents of MMT, however. Because it is not a theory of how the economy works and so does not concern itself with worldly things like production, innovation, entrepreneurship, scarcity (other than as potentially causing inflation), or time. It is a pseudoreligious conviction that anything is possible and that the one and only solution is always Glorious Government.
Per Bylund
September 14, 2021
The Political Alchemy Called Modern Monetary Theory
[This article is the best explanation I have read on why MMT cannot work.
Some of big takeaways not outlined in the quote above:
- Government creation of currency is not the same as creating money.
- Government spending diverts resources from meeting the demands of the public markets.
- Reducing the production of goods and services in the market result in inflation.
- Idle/unused resources are sometime idle/unused for a good reason and are best left that way for now.
Previous critiques have left me somewhat unconvinced. I was certain MMT was fatally flawed, but I couldn’t find the clear flaws and conclusively prove to myself it was a terrible disaster in the making I was certain it had to be. This article was a huge help to me.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Jim Bovard
The FBI’s power and federal legitimacy are far more tenuous than Washington recognizes. Beyond the nation’s big cities and the coastlines, federal authority hinges largely on the consent of local citizens. Once that consent vanishes, FBI agents are left to sit in their cars eating their lunches all by themselves. But plenty of pundits and congressmen still clamor for the government to confiscate everyone’s guns or forcibly inject their children. If the feds came in and started shooting mountain men who refused to surrender their firearms, they would likely quickly find themselves in a worse plight than Custer at the Little Big Horn.
Jim Bovard
September 27, 2021
He Thought I Was an Undercover Fed
[Consent of the governed is a concept in our country’s founding documents. With a nearly $30 Trillion debt, incredible overreach of the U.S. Constitution’s limits, and blatant violation of our specific enumerated rights, it is long past time to revoke consent.—Joe]
$1 trillion platinum coins
There’s a loophole in the law that prescribes the types of coins that can legally be minted in the US, and it would allow the Treasury Department to mint a $1 trillion platinum coin, deposit it at the Federal Reserve, and then continue paying its bills as normal. This simple solution would let Congress sidestep what Rep. Bill Foster of Illinois told Insider was a “silly rule that we make up for ourselves,” which requires Congress to vote on raising the debt ceiling every time the US reaches the borrowing limit.
It’s an idea New York Rep. Jerry Nadler has long promoted. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Tuesday that Nadler raised the possibility of minting the coin in a meeting with Democrats to bypass the partisan fights on raising the debt limit. In 2013, when Republicans were refusing to raise the limit under President Barack Obama, Nadler told Insider that he was disappointed the Obama administration would rule out “one of the very few bargaining chips it has,” referring to minting the coin.
.Oh, yeah, now I remember:
I’m sure it will turn out different this time. After all, this is just a few coins distributed only to the Federal Reserve. That makes it totally different, right?
It would be more honest if they made the coins out of lead. But honesty is not their strong suit.
These people can’t be so ignorant and/or stupid so as to believe this is anything other than a means to destroying the nation. This must be a deliberate plan of destruction.
I hope they enjoy their trials.
Quote of the day—Kevin Sorbo @ksorbs
We should have left our guns for the Australians not the taliban.
Kevin Sorbo @ksorbs
Tweeted on September 26, 2021
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Quote of the day—JPFO
The tyranny of BATFE must end. It’s corrupt purpose is self-evident: You would never consider leading the Aviation Administration with people afraid to fly—you pick pilots, aircraft designers, industry leaders, so the industry can flourish. By proposing an agency head who hates the industry under its thumb, it’s obvious what feds seek—not protection of our property and rights.
By trying to put people in charge who detest America’s 120 million gun owners, the federal government shows its disdain for the Bill of Rights. Can you imagine if this industry that supplies us with arms and keeps us all safe had people in government they could trust? No? Of course not, all the more reason to scrap this unconstitutional gang of criminals. We do not need hostile anti-rights partisans associated with the ungun cabal like the Bradys, Giffords, Bloomberg astroturf Moms. That’s like asking landlubbers to be lifeguards.
JPFO
September 24, 2021
WHAT IS THE LOGIC OF HAVING A FEDERAL AGENCY LED BY PEOPLE WHO WANT THE INDUSTRY TO DIE?
[It is a rhetorical question. Of course everyone knows what the logic is.
This latest insult of nominating David Chipman as the head of the ATF should go in the evidence file to be used at their trials.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Brandon Smith
Eventually tyranny has to put boots on the ground. A totalitarian system can function for a time on color of law and implied threats, but it will crumble unless it is able to establish a physical presence of force. Once those jackboots touch soil in a visible way and the agents of the state try to expand oppressive measures, rebels then have a free hand to disrupt them or bring them down. But this only works if there are objectives and enough decentralization to prevent misdirection of the movement.
Brandon Smith
September 22, 2021
Organizing Patriots In The Face Of Government Informants And False Flags
[Interesting post and associated comments.
See also my Boots on the ground blog post.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Michael Walsh
Loosening our bounds to reality is attractive also because calling things by whatever names serves our immediate purpose liberates us from the hard work of understanding things not of our making, and gives us the illusion of mastery over our environment. It is especially attractive to those who have power over others, because it frees them from having to persuade the rest of humanity. For society’s mob of lazy under-performers, pleasing the leaders is an easier way of securing one’s place than competing for merit. Anyhow: intellectual/moral deterioration has ever been an easier sell than the hard acquisition of skills and virtues.
Michael Walsh
September 22, 2021
The Prince: Angelo Codevilla, 1943-2021
[The redefining, or perhaps it’s better called undefining, of words is a source of great irritation to me. Words mean things. And when people start ignoring the true meanings of words we no longer have a basis of communication. Such people might as well use a few grunts and snorts rather than multisyllable words.—Joe]
Quote of the day—neo
These lies have a function that is similar to what was going on with the Soviets – the lie as mockery and insult and sadistic tease. In that regard, obvious lying is a feature, not a bug, and it helps that the lie is absurd. It’s a show of power meant for the opposition to view, a way to say, “we can state any stupidity we want as truth, things both you and I know are ridiculous, and will we say it with a straight face to illustrate the extent of our power over you. We don’t have to pretend to make sense. We’re in control and you’re not. We are laughing at you.”
That’s the point we have reached.
neo
September 21, 2021
The Biden administration: lying with impunity
[I want to say, “Maybe, but I think there is a better chance that they really believe their own untruths.”
I’m not nearly confident enough of that claim to say it with any certainty. I fear she is 100% right.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Accountability @Nocte_Insanire
Do not be confused. YOU are the carbon they want to reduce.
Accountability @Nocte_Insanire
Tweeted on September 19, 2021
[They’re not wrong. A good case could be made for this assertion.—Joe]
Marge Greene should attend Boomershoot
I hope she “triggers” all the right people:
Boomershoot appears to be a good match for her public persona.
Quote of the day—Kevin D. Williamson
Gun control is not about gun crime — gun control is about gun culture.
…
That culture-war mentality produces a great deal of sloppy thinking and ignorant commentary. Consider the case of Gail Collins in Thursday’s New York Times. Collins is hopping mad about gun shows, about which she seems to know . . . not a whole lot. “Yeah,” she writes — really, “yeah” — “right now one easy way to buy a gun without having anyone check to see if you have a history of criminal convictions, mental illness or a domestic violence restraining order is to just plunk down some cash at a gun show.”
This is — and this part still matters! — not true.
…
Because this is a culture-war issue rather than a crime-reduction issue, Collins apparently has not bothered thinking much about the most obvious and most relevant question: Are guns bought at gun shows a significant contributor to crime?
Kevin D. Williamson
September 16, 2021
Gun-Control Laws Aren’t about Preventing Crimes
[The obvious and relevant questions are also inconvenient for people such as Collins. Other questions not mentioned by Williamson include, “Do you realize you are advocating for infringements on a specific enumerated right?” And, “Are you aware that conspiracy to infringe upon rights is a serious Federal crime?”
Perhaps such questions will come up at their trials.—Joe]
Complacency
Via email:
I write once in a great while when something hits me that I think you might be interested in putting in the blog, or just doing research on…
today is one of those days. Usually I comment on the blog as “The Patriarch”22 years ago, my father passed (no, not 22 years ago today). A veteran of WWII, he brought home a bunch of weapons – a couple of Mauser 8mm bolt action rifles, and a single shot .22, which was apparently used for training on the Mauser.
And Walther P-38. Matching serial numbers, and holster (it was found with a German Medical officers uniform).
When he passed, I got the pistol, and one of the Mausers. Having hit a few rough times financially, I decided that I’d offer the pistol to my brother. My brother has been hunting and fishing and general outdoors kind of guy (more so than I am, sadly, for many reasons) We struck a deal and he said “ship it to me”. This should have been my first clue.
I informed him that the law won’t allow me to ship it directly to him, so unless he wanted to drive from MN to Seattle, he needed to find an FFL to transfer it through. This apparently surprised him. So he sends me the address of a dealer. Then I explained to him that I needed a copy of their FFL (for the shipper to verify the address), and why. I called them, and they promptly got my that.
Now it gets even more interesting. The FFL is asking for *my* FFL, but it’s not required, when shipping from WA, to ship through an FFL< only TO an FFL… which they researched and agreed with me about. So, I ship it to them.
My brother goes to pick it up – I offhandedly mentioned that he would need to fill out the 4473 and do the NICS … a couple hours later he texts me and says that they informed him that he needed a permit to purchase. He was way upset because he is moving at the end of the month and it will take time to get this permit.
I told him I thought it was weird he needed a permit to purchase when he wasn’t actually purchasing, and that this was weird because I thought WA firearm laws were wacky…
I was biting my tongue because I wanted to go on a rant about voting and getting people in gov’t that would respect the 2nd amendment, etc… but he wasn’t in the right frame of mind.
I was just a bit surprised that he hadn’t done the research first.
Anyway, it would seem that there are a lot of owners out there that are a bit complacent. Not aware of what is going on in the halls of government.
Use it or not.
“The Patriarch”
I fear far too many gun owners don’t have a sufficient clue as to what is going on in many of the states. I’ve essentially given up on the legislatures and am betting (with thousands of dollars in donations each year to SAF and FPC) on the courts to reverse the infringements.
Quote of the day—Zachary Faria
The surge in new gun owners could have a political impact that lasts far longer than the pandemic and the surge in homicides that inspired it.
Between January 2019 and April 2021, approximately 7.5 million people became first-time gun owners. Nearly 50% of them were women. More than 40% are black or Latino. This is bad news for the gun control movement and, perhaps in the long term, for the Democratic Party.
…
Gun control, despite polling well as a collection of general platitudes, is already a losing issue throughout the country. Each time someone becomes a first-time gun owner, the chances of passing the strict gun control measures that the gun control movement and the majority of the Democratic Party want to see implemented go down. The pandemic will go away, and homicides will decline — but this will continue to shape our gun control politics for years to come.
Zachary Faria
September 17, 2021
The pandemic and the homicide surge will have a lasting effect on our gun control politics
[Help the trend to continue. Take a new shooter to the range.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Chinese Communist Party
We will use nuclear bombs first, We will use nuclear bombs continuously. We will do this until Japan declares unconditional surrender for the second time.
Chinese Communist Party
July 19, 2021
China threatens to nuke Japan over Taiwan in video played on CCP-sanctioned channel
[We live in interesting times.
Prepare appropriately.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Thomas Kendall
You can certainly be assured that they will not win. That’s not at issue. Their entire goal is to lose. If you ever doubted, you’ve had the better part of a year of their stupidity to reflect on. You can quit wondering. They will lose. They want to lose. The only question is who they lose to. They want to lose to China, but I think losing to the radical Islamic world is their consolation prize.
Let’s spoil their day. Let’s make them lose to America.
Thomas Kendall
September 7, 2021
US, AT THE GATE
[Interesting idea. It’s certainly worth considering.—Joe]
Quote of the day—John Yarmuth
We are not broke as a nation. We are not bankrupt. We can’t go bankrupt. We absolutely cannot go bankrupt because we have the power to create as much money as we need to spend to serve the American people.
John Yarmuth
Chairman of the Budget Committee
U.S. Representative (D-KY)
September 9, 2021
Democrat Budget Committee Chairman: ‘We Have Power to Create as Much $$ as We Need to Spend’
[
WATCH
House Democrats argue “we can’t go bankrupt because we have the power to create as much money as we need to spend…”
And he’s serious. pic.twitter.com/LdFpCwGclT
— House Ed & Labor Republicans (@EdLaborGOP) September 9, 2021
This claim will not age well.
If this were true then why not create enough money for every person in the U.S. to have an “universal basic income” of $100K per year? Everyone, if they wanted, could just retire in comfort and live happily ever after. And why stop there? Why not create and distribute enough money for everyone on the planet to comfortably retire?
One has to conclude he is one or more of the following:
- Incredibly Insane.
- Incredibly stupid.
- Incredibly evil.
Prepare appropriately.—Joe]
Quote of the day—J. KB
The Left fights for abortion because abortion is the easiest and lowest hanging fruit of Leftists desire for mass extermination to achieve utopia.
J. KB
September 8, 2021
Why the Left goes all in on Abortion
[This is an interesting hypothesis. I might even be willing to bet that a measurable fraction of leftists falling into this category. But I find it grating to state this in all inclusive terms with such certainty.
I don’t believe J. KB is capable of mind reading or has the raw data to back up this claim. Until data is in and analyzed I will think of it as a hypothesis worthy of testing.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Hank Archer
We wouldn’t have to be Fascists if you deplorables would just do as you’re told!
Hank Archer
September 10, 2021
Comment to Quote of the day—Leana S. Wen
[He was summarizing the position of those in support of a vaccine mandate.
It’s funny because it’s (mostly) true. I’m not sure they are self aware enough to “get it”.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Julius Ruechel
What other social engineering goals can be rolled into your annual booster shot in the future once you are permanently bound to these annual jabs and vaccine passports? In an atmosphere of hysteria, it’s a system ripe for abuse by opportunists, ideologues, power hungry totalitarians, and Malthusian social engineers. The snowball doesn’t have to grow by design. Mission creep happens all on its own once Pandora’s Box is opened to coerced vaccinations and conditional rights. The road to Hell is frequently paved by good intentions… and hysteria.
Julius Ruechel
September 2, 2021
The Snake-Oil Salesmen and the COVID-Zero Con: A Classic Bait-And-Switch for a Lifetime of Booster Shots (Immunity as a Service)
[Via email from Rolf.
I’m far more inclined to believe there is “mission creep” without “design” rather than a well executed grand conspiracy. Not that it makes all that much difference except, perhaps, in the penalty phase of their trials.—Joe]