I could never have even imagined this

Via email from Chet we have Progressives Gone Wild:

… a growing trend in Seattle: municipal employees increasingly seeing their work as part of a broader agenda of radical social change. Over the past five years, the City of Seattle has rapidly added personnel under the auspices of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Christopher Peguero, for example, manager of the equity program at Seattle City Light, views his role as much more than providing reliable electricity to utility customers. As Peguero explained in a recent interview on the City of Seattle blog, public utilities can be instrumental in the fight against white supremacy. “Race is most central to addressing institutional oppression since it is central to historical inequity in the United States,” he says. “I feel that an inclusive model is the only way that we will ever reach collective liberation from institutional oppression.”

There are several more examples but I particularly like this one:

The Seattle Public Schools’ Ethnic Studies Task Force has launched a new math curriculum based on the idea that the “Western” model of instruction has “[disenfranchised] people and communities of color” and legitimized “systems that contribute to poverty and slave labor.” To fight this injustice, the task force argues, schools must transition “from individualistic to collectivist thinking” and implement a new math curriculum that will “liberate people and communities of color.”

This is like something out of Atlas Shrugged or “The Crazy Years” as described in some of Robert Heinlein’s books. Stuff that was just too crazy to actually ever be real. But as I’ve heard people say before, “Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.”

I could never have even imagined this on my own for a fictional story. I think this is a sign I should move back to Idaho. I would rather they build their utopia without me and my tax contributions.

Quote of the day—Michael Z. Williamson

Keep calm. Spread the word.  Agitate against such outrages. Buy more guns.  Buy them legally. Buy them privately if you can.  Buy more, more, and yet more. There’s always the risk we’ll reach the point where America tips over. But that’s a chance we’ll have to take.

Because if it’s impossible for the government to seize 300 million weapons (the lowball estimate), it’s way more than four times as impossible for them to seize 1.2 billion.

Michael Z. Williamson
December 15, 2019
The Virginia Debacle, Summarized (And Why You Should Buy More Guns)
[There is more than a little truth to this. But a gun properly buried in the woods and practically impossible to confiscate might as well be in government hands or destroyed. Just one gun, and enough ammunition, in the hands of someone skilled, able, and willing to use it will be of far more use that a thousand guns hidden and unused.

Attend Boomershoot 2020 (sign up here). Learn what your gun can do at a distance, increase your skill, have the confidence to use it if you really need to, and have a whole lot of fun doing it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Christopher Knight

“Resist!” is screamed by media personalities and celebrities and politicians who in a sane world would never win a race for city lieutenant sanitation commissioner.  They betray ignorance of what real dictatorship is, as they dare ascribe the gravitas of 1989’s righteous rebellions upon their own crusade.

When I consider Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and Jerry Nadler maneuvering for impeachment of President Donald Trump, it is with some dark bewilderment.  They have no idea what disaster they are courting for themselves and their allies.  It will not end well for them.


Out of desperation Ceausescu promised higher salaries and student aid.  But Ceausescu had woefully mis-gauged the frustrations of the people amassed before him in Bucharest.  The moment his decades of control evaporated was chronicled on worldwide television.  Nicolai and Elena Ceausescu promptly fled the palace by helicopter and were soon captured.

December 25, 1989 was not a Merry Christmas for the Ceausescus. Found guilty by a drumhead trial of crimes against the Romanian people, Nicolai and Elena were immediately thrown against the wall – literally – and shot dead.  Images of their shattered bodies were broadcast around the globe.

So far as analogies go, the comforts and careers of the petty tyrants in Washington may soon be just as crumbled.  Our own would-be overlords would do well to be mindful of that.

Christopher Knight
December 10, 2019
The Fall of the Deep State and 1989’s Fall of Communism
[It’s easy to draw parallels to present day. And after Knight is done it’s simpler than painting by numbers.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Greta Thunberg

Unfortunately, we probably already know the outcome. World leaders are still trying to run away from their responsibilities but we have to make sure they cannot do that.

We will make sure that we put them against the wall and they will have to do their job to protect our futures.

Greta Thunberg
December 13, 2019
Greta Thunberg tells cheering crowd ‘we will make sure we put world leaders against the wall’ if they do not tackle global warming as she attends climate protest in Turin
[This is consistent with much of the political left throughout the 20th Century. But usually they do not publicly announce this until they have consolidated more political power than what this 16 year old has. I attribute the poor judgement to her youth.

It would appear that after saying this she received some coaching from someone wiser than her:

Yesterday I said we must hold our leaders accountable and unfortunately said “put them against the wall”. That’s Swenglish: “att ställa någon mot väggen” (to put someone against the wall) means to hold someone accountable. That’s what happens when you improvise speeches in a second language. But of course I apologise if anyone misunderstood this. I can not enough express the fact that I – as well as the entire school strike movement- are against any possible form of violence. It goes without saying but I say it anyway.

Any native Swedish speaker out there that can verify or refute this claim?—Joe]

Quote of the day—Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D.

The radical liberal mind is trapped in his bitter cynicism because he suffered certain kinds of neglect, deprivation and abuse at an early age and has had as a consequence to deny, as if they don’t exist, whole realms of human experience, because awareness of those realms is emotionally painful beyond his tolerance. He has not had as an infant and toddler the deeply formative benefits of engagement, love, tenderness, protection and empathy that would allow him to understand and participate happily in the human benevolence that is everywhere available to him as an adult.

To the radical liberal who is blind to an entire realm of interpersonal experience, and who distorts the realities of spontaneous cooperation in every community where freedom prevails, America and Trump are devils that must be stopped from destroying the world. The radical liberal and the Trump-deranged individual see only the projections onto others of their own inner badness, greed, predation, exclusion, prejudice, bigotry, envy, jealousy and exploitative impulses. They don’t see, beyond Trump’s personality faults, his goodwill for America, his generosity toward veterans and other Americans, his grandiose but effective identification with the greatness of America. The dysfunctional families which radical liberals and Trump-deranged sufferers come from are the source of their projections of badness onto our country. What they see in present-day America are transference versions of their own early traumas.

Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D.
September 30, 2019
Psychiatrist: Trump Derangement Syndrome is real – and serious
[As stated in SJWs Always Lie, They lie, they double down, and they project. This psychiatrist claims he know why they do this:

Perhaps. But I would like to see the raw data he used to arrive at his conclusions.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Libby Emmons and Barrett Wilson

This is what being unhinged looks like—being so sure of your correctness that you demand affirmation. The use of violence to revolt against lawful elections is only done by people who don’t care about free and fair elections. Britain is not a rogue state where sham elections are held. It’s a cornerstone democratic nation.

Libby Emmons and Barrett Wilson
December 13, 2019
Democracy Is Alive And Well Despite The Media’s Best Efforts
[The political left only consider the democratic process as valid as long as it is making progress in their direction. When “progress” slows or reverses they bring out the violence.

Respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeffrey Folks

The problem for the liberal is that most people do not want to be transformed.  They want life to be better but not qualitatively different.  It is only the liberal, or the “progressive,” as he prefers to be called today, who welcomes revolution and relishes the violent tactics necessary to bring it about.  For the progressive, it is an article of faith that the masses will resist change and must be forced to swallow it.

This is a crucial difficulty, and it gives rise to all sorts of persuasion, nudging, compulsion, and outright violence.  If the masses don’t know what’s good for them, they must be made to change.

Jeffrey Folks
February 24, 2018
Leftists versus the People
[As we are seeing both here and most recently and vividly in London. Voting is what they advocate for when they think they will win. Violence is always there as plan B.

Respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Fritz Edmunds

If plastic water bottles are okay, but plastic bags are banned, — you might live in a nation (state) that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots WE DO LIVE IN SUCH A DUMB COUNTRY!!

If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for entering and remaining in the country illegally — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or to take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you MUST show your identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book and rent a video, but not to vote for who runs the government — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If the government wants to prevent stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines that hold more than ten rounds, but gives twenty F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If, in the nation’s largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not one 24-ounce soda, because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If an 80-year-old woman who is confined to a wheelchair or a three-year-old girl can be strip-searched by the TSA at the airport, but a woman in a burka or a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is “cute” but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government regulation and intrusion while not working is rewarded with Food Stamps, WIC checks, Medicaid benefits, subsidized housing, and free cell phones — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big-screen TV, while your neighbor buys iPhones, time shares, a wall-sized do-it-all plasma screen TV and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If being stripped of your Constitutional right to defend yourself makes you more “safe” according to the government — you might live in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

THINK BEFORE YOU VOTE IN ALL UPCOMING ELECTIONS. MOST OF THE IDIOTS RUNNING THIS COUNTRY SAY ONE THING AND DO THE OPPOSITE KNOWING THAT THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED THEM IN DO NOT PAY ATTENTION

Fritz Edmunds
February 3, 2013
Channeling Jeff Foxworthy In a Country Founded by Geniuses and Run By Idiots (the link is dead as of December 12, 2019)
[This has been attributed to Jeff Foxworthy but that is probably incorrect.

It would appear this is just as true now as it was almost seven years ago.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dean Weingarten

Preventing a murder or suicide committed with a particular method is *not* a compelling governmental interest, because it is not clear if prohibiting one method will do anything to lower murders or suicides generally. It is arguable that prohibiting one method will lead to the rise of other methods. If preventing one method does not lower the overall rate, resources have been wasted and liberties narrowed to no effect. Thus, singling out one method becomes a matter of choice and preference.

Using the Orwellian phrases of Progressives is one of the easiest ways to lose an argument with them. If you cede to them the ability to define the words and terms of the language used, they win, mostly by default.

Dean Weingarten
December 8, 2019
”Preventing Gun Violence” is not a Compelling Governmental Interest
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Justin Anderson

Sales have definitely been brisk, especially of small, concealable handguns. We also saw a spike in sales of tactical rifles like AR-15s and AK-47s, for which I think we can confidently thank Beto O’Rourke.

Justin Anderson
Marketing director for Hyatt Guns in Charlotte, North Carolina
December 4, 2019
ATF: 423M guns in America, 1.2 per person, 8.1B rounds of ammunition a year
[If the anti-gun people want there to be fewer guns in circulation the best way for them to accomplish that is to stop trying to ban and/or restrict gun sales.

Using other information from the article, I’ll leave following as a exercises for the reader:

  • Calculate the percentage (worst case using reasonably valid assumptions) of the total number of guns used in a murder or violent crime each year.
  • Calculate the percentage (worst case using reasonably valid assumptions) of the total number of rounds of ammunition used in a murder or violent crime each year.

And more directly related to the Anderson quote, the anti-gun people should ask themselves, “Are all these people buying the guns that we plan to confiscate just really stupid? Or, are they planning to shoot the people advocating for confiscation?”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ben Joseph Woods

The legal precedent we would set by allowing the legislature to selectively ignore enumerated rights at will is the same mindset that 150 years ago lead this country into a civil war.

Ben Joseph Woods
December 5, 2019
Pubic comment to Fairfax County Virginia on debate regarding becoming a 2nd Amendment Sanctuary county.


[The part quoted above starts at 5:38 in the video. The previous minutes are definitely worth listening to.—Joe]

Quote of the day—James Howard Kunstler

What is the Democratic Party today? Well, it’s the cheerleading squad for “seventeen” government agencies that add up to the craftily-labeled “intel community,” a warm-and-fuzzy coalition of snoops, false witnesses, rogue lawfare cadres, seditionists, and bad-faith artists working sedulously to hide their previous misdeeds with ever-fresh ones. They’re the party against free speech, the party against due process of law, the party determined to provoke war with Russia. They’re the party of sexual confusion, sexual hysteria, and sexual conflict, the party of kangaroo courts, cancel culture, erasing boundaries (including national borders), and of making up rules for all that as they go along — like the Nazis and Soviets used to do. The ideas and policies they advocate are so comprehensively crazy that their old support of slavery looks quaintly straightforward in comparison.

James Howard Kunstler
December 6, 2019
A Fraught Moment
[Harsh! But fair.

Via email from Chet.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brad Smith

The pressure to put data centers in more countries is giving rise to what is rapidly becoming one of the world’s most important human rights issues. With everyone’s personal information stored in the cloud, an authoritarian regime bent on broad surveillances can unleash draconian demands to monitor not only what people are communicating, but even what they are reading and watching online. And armed with this knowledge, governments can prosecute, persecute, or even execute those individuals they consider threats.

This is a fundamental fact of life that everyone in works in the tech sector needs to remember every day.

Brad Smith
President and chief legal officer of Microsoft
September 2019
Page 45 in Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age


[One of Barb’s brother-in-laws recommended this book to me a few days ago as we were having a discussion about privacy and security.

I’m only about 20% of the way through the book but I’m really enjoying it. What I’m hearing matches the general tone of the culture when I worked at Microsoft. They take customer privacy seriously.

They have a team of about 50 people that work full time to respond to government requests and push back if the request is out of line with the law. They have promised to go to court rather than comply with requests that don’t have the warrants and documentation all in order. And they have gone to court numerous times. Smith claims they win in court 90% of the time.

I don’t know the details of the level of cooperation my current employer and the government have but I know that on the security side of things we take things very seriously. I also know that, IIRC, we have about 100 full time people who deal with government requests for information. I’ve talked with some of them and they too seem to believe it’s critical to keep the government on the straight and narrow.

I only see the criminal side of things but if we know or suspect customer personal information has been compromised, by either insider or outsiders, we put a stop to it as quickly as possible. And in the past year or two I’ve been seeing names of the people we chased end up in the news as being arrested, prosecuted, and convicted. None of them have been government officials, but that’s probably a little too much to expect.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Glenda T. Goode

When your opponent is self energizing as far as creating disrespect in a society there is no sense egging them on. By letting them continue the process they will eventually take it too far.

Know what the democrats do is self serving and destined to either a tyrannical socialist state or their extinction . Either way, this dispute will not go on forever.

Glenda T. Goode
December 5, 2019
Comment to Truth.
[When stated as “forever” she is absolutely correct. But the heat death of the universe is a long time from now. I suspect she really meant sometime before that. But similar disputes have persisted for hundreds of years. For example we have more than one religion in the world with some pretty nasty conflicts between some of them.

One could make the case the Democrats are engaged in one last epic struggle before they implode in the 2020 election and go the way of the Whig party. The Whig party was originally formed around the hate of President Andrew Jackson and it’s easy to make the case this is what the Democrats have done with a name replacement. But just six years ago people were making the case the Republican/Tea party would disappear for similar reasons. It, obviously, didn’t happen.

But yet there certainly have been high tension disputes between competing political parties which have been decisively settled. The most obvious one is the one between Republicans and Democrats which was settled in 1866 when the Democrats also attempted an insurrection.

I hope the current insurrection is settled soon, against the insurrectionist Democrats, and with less bloodshed than the previous insurrection.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Joseph O’Sullivan

Extending gun-free zones to include child care centers. Banning high-capacity magazines. Creating a licensing system for ammunition sellers.

With the Washington Legislature starting back up in January, gun-safety advocates, led by the Alliance for Gun Responsibility, are planning a fresh push to pass new firearms restrictions.

Joseph O’Sullivan
November 22, 2019
Gun-free zones, licenses for ammo dealers: Gun-safety advocates reveal agenda for Washington state
[“Gun-safety advocates”? The NRA is a gun safety advocate organization with thousands of gun safety instructors nationwide. It is unlikely these people have ever even taken a gun safety class let alone taught such a class or advocated for anything other than restrictions on the specific enumerated right of the people to keep and bear arms.

The deceptive language is intentional and very telling. They know they cannot succeed without deliberate deception and lies. It’s part of their culture.

Respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Josh Horwitz

As I said this morning, the gun lobby has told us for years that guns will keep us free. That simply is not true. The reality is that gun violence confines where we go, how we worship, what we do, and how we live.

Guns do not make us free — they bring death, violence, and injustice.

Josh Horwitz
December 2, 2019
Email.
[Tell that to the people of Cambodia, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hong Kong, North Korea, Poland, Venezuela, and probably dozens of other countries where tyrannical governments inflicted death, violence, and injustice upon their own citizens.

But Horwitz interest in the facts only extends to the point he can conceal and ignore them in an effort to further his agenda.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Trump is a Sociopath @sharcat12

Those 53% of Republicans probably don’t even know who Lincoln was and they would kiss Trump’s feet if he asked them to.

Trump is a Sociopath @sharcat12
November 30, 2019
[This is in response to a tweet which said:

Democrats sure better nominate someone we’re excited about.

53% of Republicans polled think Donald Trump is a better President than Abraham Lincoln.

We sure as fuck better be energized and unified.

I find it interesting so many people on the left think insults are an effective response to serious thought they disagree with. Simple things for simple minds I guess.

But of course one should never underestimate the power of simple, powerful, and absurdly stupid concepts to persuade the masses. Never forget that The Communist Manifesto was simplistic, filled with absurdities, claimed communists are intellectual superiors, and persuaded millions to murder hundreds of millions of innocent people.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kathy Zhu @PoliticalKathy

Racists are a problem.
White people are not.

Homophobes are a problem.
Straight people are not.

Sexists are a problem.
Men are not.

White supremacists are a problem.
Trump supporters are not.

Violence is a problem.
Guns are not.

Kathy Zhu @PoliticalKathy
Tweeted on August 7, 2019
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Are reeducation camps next?

Via email from Chet:

CNN: Trump Is Leader Of “Destructive Cult”; Using “Mind Control” On Americans

Stelter and guest say Trump supporters need ‘deprogramming’

The pair then remarkably suggested that Trump supporters need to be ‘deprogrammed’ by breaking them out of their ‘bubbles’.

Could there be a better example of the pot calling the kettle black?

The real cult is happening at CNN, where for four years talking heads and presenters have completely obsessed themselves with opposing anything Trump says or does, as well as a plethora of things he doesn’t say or do.

63 million Americans are definitely not part of a mind controlled cult. However, a few thousand CNN viewers certainly seem to be.

You knew there had to a reason why they don’t want you to have firearms. It makes it more difficult to herd you into the reeducation camps.

Quote of the day—Mike Elgan

An increasing number of societal “privileges” related to transportation, accommodations, communications, and the rates we pay for services (like insurance) are either controlled by technology companies or affected by how we use technology services. And Silicon Valley’s rules for being allowed to use their services are getting stricter.

If current trends hold, it’s possible that in the future a majority of misdemeanors and even some felonies will be punished not by Washington, D.C., but by Silicon Valley. It’s a slippery slope away from democracy and toward corporatocracy.

In other words, in the future, law enforcement may be determined less by the Constitution and legal code, and more by end-user license agreements.

Mike Elgan
August 6, 2019
Uh-oh: Silicon Valley is building a Chinese-style social credit system
[Via email from Chet.

I had a incident with the Boomershoot website and Google that lasted weeks (they claimed it was a phishing website) before I finally got them to stop showing a red screen when people visited using Chrome. The security certificate (https) is still suspended because of this and I need to get that fixed soon. It cost them virtually nothing to do that and it cost me many hours and who knows how much loss of traffic and reputation.

As further evidence of this line of thinking, people have made suggestions that banks should cut off credit card processing and other financial services from stores that sell certain types (as a prelude to all types) of firearms:

…assault weapons would be eliminated from virtually every firearms store in America because otherwise the sellers would be cut off from the credit card system.

Of course PayPal, Square, Stripe and Apple Pay already completely ban the sale of firearms via their services.

I’m not sure what the proper response to this sort of thing is. In principle, I’m against government telling how to run their businesses. Let the free market decide. But sometimes the outcome doesn’t seem just. Restaurants, apartment owners, and hotels refusing to do business with people with black skin is one such example. The free market response seemed inadequate to remedy the problem.

I’m in the process of moving to a different credit card processor for Boomershoot even though PayPal was much easier and cheaper. But even with many people reducing or ceasing their use of PayPal because of their anti-gun policies it doesn’t appear to be suffering any.

It’s wasn’t exactly a legal restrictions so it’s tempting to say this type of thing is an appropriate response:

Top Louisiana officials have blocked two large bank corporations from participating in a road financing plan due to their gun control regulations.

Perhaps. But it hasn’t seemed to been effective, it is a form of government telling a business how they should operate, and the banks could probably easily retaliate with greater effect against those states.

What would seem to me to be the best approach is for the corporate officers to be prosecuted via 18 UCS 241. It’s not telling them how to do business. It’s prosecution for attempting to deny people their specific enumerated rights. Yes, it’s walking a very narrow, perhaps imaginary, line. It wouldn’t take very long for banks to revise their business practices if a few banks lost all of their upper management to life sentences in prison.

That’s not going to happen in the next few years so what should be done in the mean time? Is there anything more we can do than attempt boycotts and document their crimes?—Joe]