You guys are scary smart.
Larry Weeks
From Brownell’s while at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous 2007 referring to us bloggers who were listening to him tell us about their new magazines.
[Yes, there were a lot of very smart people there. Almost intimidatingly smart.–Joe]
Democracy is that form of government where everyone gets what the majority deserves.
James Dale Davidson
False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutory pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the path to truth is often at the same time opened.
Charles Darwin
[Think of how much mileage the bigots get with the erronous studies about a firearm being 43 times more likely to blah, blah, blah… versus some opinion piece in a newpaper.–Joe]
We also need real control of identification. We need the right to be anonymous while exercising all other rights. So that even with our photos, our fingerprints and our DNA profile, they can’t link our communication and trade and financial activities to our person.
Now I’m not talking about lack of accountability here, at all. We must be accountable to the people we communicate with. We must be accountable to the people we trade with. And the technology must be built to enforce that. But we must not be accountable to THE PUBLIC for who we talk to, or who we buy and sell from.
John Gilmore
A transcript of remarks given at the First Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy, March 28,1991
[Another way of saying this is that government control of financial and communication identification fails my Jews in the Attic Test.–Joe]
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
Albert Einstein
Deadly face is no substitute for due process.
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Another Poster Child for the NRA
October 7, 2007 at 22:34:36
[Yeah, it was a typo. But even correcting that it’s still a pathetic attempt at rational thought. She gets her facts wrong, she has no idea what the rules and laws are for the use of deadly force, and she reaches irrational conclusions. As Uncle said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much stupid in one place.”–Joe]
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
Mohandas Gandhi
[I thought of this after reading of the tragic shooting of all the people in Wisconsin yesterday. Just because one cop goes nuts and starts shooting innocent people doesn’t mean all cops should have their guns taken away from them.–Joe]
Advertisement: The most truthful part of a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson
[Apparently problems with the mainstream media are nothing new. One might conclude that the problem will never be solved. Perhaps the best that can be done is to provide alternate outlets exposing the problems. The great thing about the Internet is that the barrier to entry is so low.–Joe]
Update: What Kevin said.
De inimico non loquaris sed cogites
Do not wish ill for your enemy … plan it.
Jack L. Patterson
Baltimore, MD
June 20, 2007
[There are others that have used this as their .sig line but Patterson has used it more than any other that I can find. I have been unable to find the originator.
I’m thinking of the anti-gun bigots at the moment…–Joe]
What good would it have been to know the names of Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber, or the DC snipers before they were arrested? Palestinian suicide bombers generally have no history of terrorism. The goal is here is to know someone’s intentions, and their identity has very little to do with that.
And there are security benefits in having a variety of different ID documents. A single national ID is an exceedingly valuable document, and accordingly there’s greater incentive to forge it. There is more security in alert guards paying attention to subtle social cues than bored minimum-wage guards blindly checking IDs.
That’s why, when someone asks me to rate the security of a national ID card on a scale of one to 10, I can’t give an answer. It doesn’t even belong on a scale.
Bruce Schneier
April 1, 2004
A National ID Card Wouldn’t Make Us Safer
[See also my web pages on National ID Card Flaws.–Joe]
But it’s no wonder we are concerned about privacy, because we are all “lawbreakers”, We all break the law, but few of us are criminals. The problem is that simply attracting the attention of the police is enough to put the best of us at risk, because we break the law all the time and it’s set up to make that happen!
John Gilmore
March 28,1991
A transcript of remarks given at the First Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy
[Remember what Ayn Rand said and Huffman’s rule of firearms law.–Joe]
In winning our Independence, and to make certain that it could never happen again, the Founders wrote that the Citizen was to be SUPREME AUTHORITY, and that our authority was to be backed by force, forever. In their living this reality which they knew could occur in any age, any era, any administration, the reality of life today was that liberty must always be backed by citizen force.
John Longenecker
Original Intent–Citizen As Supreme Authority–Liberty — How American Gun Control Is Adverse To The Public Interest In An Abuse Of Due Process
[There are lots of great quotes in this whitepaper.–Joe]
Syria is shamed and silent. Iran is freaking out in panic. Defenseless enemies are fun.
Dr. Jack Wheeler
Silence in Syria, Panic in Iran
September 25, 2007
[Via David.–Joe]
Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.
Edward R. Murrow
[Something to keep in mind as the candidates fire up their slogan machines for the next election.–Joe]
Two non-partisan, respected federal government agencies recently examined gun controls and found no statistically significant evidence to support their effectiveness. In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed 253 journal articles, 99 books, and 43 government publications evaluating 80 gun-control measures. The researchers could not identify a single gun-control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide, or accidents. A year earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on an independent evaluation of firearms and ammunition bans, restrictions on acquisition, waiting periods, registration, licensing, child access prevention laws, and zero tolerance laws. Conclusion: none of the laws had a meaningful impact on gun violence.
Robert A. Levy
September 27, 2007
The D.C. Gun Ban: Supreme Court Preview
[Via Uncle.–Joe]
Growing up in eastern Kentucky like I did, I’m used to having a few guns around to protect me.
Loretta Lynn
[Not all celebrities are gun grabbers. Add Loretta Lynn to your list of common-sense people.–Joe]
There are hundreds of millions of gun owners in this country, and not one of them will have an accident today. The only misuse of guns comes in environments where there are drugs, alcohol, bad parents, and undisciplined children. Period.
Ted Nugent
I think I probably am spoiled. But that is okay.
Xenia Huffman-Scott
September 27, 2007
[Her sister Kim further noted that Xenia is in fact spoiled rotten–two cavities were discovered today when her teeth were cleaned.–Joe]
For a while I’ve been saying that this whole national ID debate will be irrelevant soon. In the future you won’t have to show ID; they’ll already know who you are.
Bruce Schneier
September 26, 2007
The Technology of Homeland Security
[It was this article that inspired the above comment. My comment to Schneier’s article was:
I used to specialize in biometrics and was underwhelmed at the actual capabilities compared to the marketing hype. And that was with people that weren’t even actively engaged in trying to defeat the technology. If someone really wants to defeat it the odds of success are very close to 100%.
“Novelty” contact lens easily defeat iris scans. Remote fingerprint scanning can be defeated with Band-Aids (or just the sticky tape part of it). More sophisticated/determined people will use contact lens with someone else’s iris pattern and be wearing someone else’s fingerprints.
The bottom line is that for the average person they might be able to know who you are and where you have been. Great information to use against your political opponents and for stalkers with access to the databases but useless for stopping smart and determined criminals.–Joe]
That propaganda is good which leads to success, and that is bad which fails to achieve the desired result. It is not propaganda’s task to be intelligent, its task is to lead to success.
Joseph Goebbels
Fest, The Face of the Third Reich, 90
[Does this remind you of any politicians and/or media outlets in the present day?–Joe]