Category Archives: Quote of the Day

Quote of the day—Brad Smith

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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

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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—Robert A. Heinlein

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Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That’s a personal evaluation only. But gunfighting has a strong biological use. We do not have enough things to kill off the weak and the stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both. It’s a good thing.

Robert A Heinlein
1942
Beyond this Horizon
[This is the longer version of the famous quote. For my comments on this observation see my previous posting of the short version.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Joseph O’Sullivan

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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

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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—Miranda Yaver @mirandayaver

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If you’re a white dude who’s doubling down on the necessity of possessing AR-15s, I’m making some anatomical assumptions about you.

Miranda Yaver @mirandayaver
Tweeted on September 1, 2019
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

The “white dude” is an new racist twist on Markley’s Law I haven’t seen before.

Congratulations Ms. Yaver! You have found a new low in the race to the bottom for childish insults to denigrate those who exercise their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Trump is a Sociopath @sharcat12

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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—dennis @pourteaux

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Hong Kong is making me rethink my position on gun rights. Perhaps it’s best for common people to have access to firearms to counterbalance an over-reaching government. Gun violence is terrible, but systemic state violence also must be deterred.

dennis @pourteaux
Tweeted on November 20, 2019
[Duh!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alexandria Times

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No civilian in the United States should own a gun that fires 20, or even five, rounds a second. Those are military weapons, period. We are confident that George Washington, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin did not have private ownership of military assault rifles in mind when they signed the U.S. Constitution.

Alexandria Times
July 11, 2019
Our View: Guns aren’t the whole problem
[What a collection of fail packed into three sentences.

  • Their “confidence” is irrelevant to the truth. Determining truth from falsity is difficult. But even the most stupid know that confidence is not a good indicator. Hence, one must conclude they are deliberately lying.
  • Revolvers can five, or more, rounds per second. The first revolver was invented in about 1680. So, these lying bozos want to restrict firearm technology to that which existed about 100 years prior to the birth of our nation.
  • As SCOTUS pointed out in United States v. Miller 59 S.Ct. 816(1939), military weapons are expressly protected by the 2nd Amendment.
  • Washington, Madison, and Franklin did sign the U.S. Constitution. But it did not explicitly address the right to keep and bear arms. Madison was important in drafting and getting the Bill of Rights (and thereby the 2nd Amendment) ratified. It
    is claimed Washington did not contribute to the content or express a public
    opinion about it.     I’m unable to find any indication Franklin was a contributor and he died over a year and a half before it was ratified.
  • Regardless of the contribution by the three, they all knew private cannons and warships were used in the revolutionary war. Yet there are no exemptions for protection of them in the Bill of Rights.

The Alexandria Times is either displaying their ignorance and/or deliberately lying to the public. Respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—MJ‏ @morganisawizard

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libertarianism is respecting property rights and owning more guns than you say you do on paper

it’s also appearing to be extremely terrible at driving boats

MJ‏ @morganisawizard
Tweeted on November 23 and November 24 2019
[The grammar and punctuation is, at best, strained. But the concepts expressed have significant merit.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kathy Zhu @PoliticalKathy

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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]

Quote of the day—Gabrielle Blair @designmom

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There are far better ways to protect your family than a gun. Get a life insurance policy.

Gabrielle Blair @designmom
Tweeted on November 24, 2019
[If true, that also means there are far better ways to protect family from mass shooters and home invasions than gun control. Just get a life insurance policy.

This is what they think of you. You are nothing more than a source of income to your family.

I think she has crap for brains.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tayacan

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In order to obtain the maximum results from psychological operations in guerilla warfare, each combatant must be highly motivated to engage in propaganda face to face, to the same degree that he is motivated to fight.

Tayacan
1984
Sanitized Copy of CIA’s Psychological Operations in Guerilla Warfare
[Confrontation is what the political left does. If we are to win we must do the same.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeffrey Folks

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At its heart, liberalism is a gnostic religion, and the essence of that religion is the believer’s faith that he possesses the means of changing the world for the better. The belief that the world must be changed requires there to be a mass of individuals whose lives are in need of change. Following this logic, it is the liberal, not those deplorables in need of change, who knows what must be changed. For liberals, there must be a mass of people in need of this knowledge for life to make sense.

Jeffrey Folks
February 24, 2018
Leftists versus the People
[Substitute “leftist” for “liberal” and “socialism/communism” for “liberalism” of course.

It’s a reasonable hypothesis that would appear, in the general case, to fit the available data. If true, we must conclude they despise the very concept of individual rights and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Robert A. Heinlein

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The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom.

Robert A Heinlein
1942
Beyond this Horizon
[This is the same character in the same book which made this famous quote.

Also, from here:
the-police-of-a-state-should-never-be-stronger-or-better-armed-than-the-citizenry

the-police-of-a-state-should-never-be-stronger-or-better-armed-than-the-citizenry1

This should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer of the 20th Century. But somehow many people have not done much observing and/or have no interest in civil freedom.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brandon Steele

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If you’ve taken away that person’s ability to protect themselves, then it’s incumbent on you to protect them.

W.Va. Del. Brandon Steele, (R) 29th
October 14, 2019
W.Va. delegate seeks to hold ‘no-gun zones’ legally liable for shooting injuries
[H/T Glenn Reynolds.

The best defense is a good offense. This would appear to be a good offensive play against the anti-gun people.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ed Driscoll

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The constantly shifting Orwellian language codes are important, because the insider-lingo allows leftists to feel a sense of smug superiority to their fellow man. Or as Jeffrey Folks wrote at the American Thinker last year, “For liberals, the distinction between the ‘dumb masses’ and their enlightened selves renders life meaningful.  Disdain for ordinary folks is not just an ancillary trait of liberalism.  It is fundamental to the its nature.”

Ed Driscoll
November 10, 2019
TESTING THE LIMITS OF THE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARY
[This reminds me of the attitude of the Nazis toward the “inferior races”. See also what I wrote about the Communist Manifesto. The most important part in this context is:

The Communist Manifesto tells its readers that supporters of Communism are the intelligent people. They deserve, are destined to, and the good of all human kind depends on them, being in charge. That they “understand” the benefits of Communism to the bafflement of others is probably proof to them that they are the intellectual superiors of those that think Communism is, at best, prone to abuse.

The political left enables people to feel superior to others. They are told they are more “enlightened”, more “tolerant”, and just better people. If their “inferiors” adapt beliefs and behaviors which close the gap the left must find a new basis to feel superior. It is fundamental to their nature.

Like a spoiled child we must set firm limits and enforce them. The alternative is to climb aboard the crazy train on its way to a special version of hell.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sarah Silverman

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Hunting is the sport of the diminutive penis.

Sarah Silverman @SarahKSilverman
Tweeted on September 3, 2019
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

It is my hypothesis that Ms. Silverman does not have a statistically significant representation of hunter penises in her data set of penis sizes. Furthermore, it is my conjecture, she is exhibiting a classic case of “sour grapes”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Chad Prather

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Anytime someone talks about taking away your ability to defend yourself you’re in danger.

Chad Prather
November 11, 2019
Chad Prather: ‘Anytime someone talks about taking away your ability to defend yourself, you are in danger.’
[And, as frequently pointed out by pkoning:

Never forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anyone has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn’t let him do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians.

Alexander Hope
In the novel “Hope” by Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman.

And there are a lot of people talking about taking away our ability, and even right, to defend ourselves.

Respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Korwin

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It is beyond comprehension—ambitious candidates of an entire party—are campaigning on things the Constitution bans, and getting cheering support.

I certainly don’t advocate violence. On the other hand, like my armed countrymen, I vigorously support self defense and am prepared to act if desperate immediate proximate criminal trouble were to arise, God forbid. I’ve been through intensive training, classes, reading, for decades. I’ve written ten books on the subject—so far.

What I haven’t done is consider the dire threat politicians present to the nation, when they stoke the flames of revolution by doing precisely what the British did that got us there those many years ago. They have announced they’re coming for our guns. It is not subtle. It is not limited. It is not allowed.

Alan Korwin
November 10, 2019
THEY’VE GONE TOO FAR
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]