Category Archives: Quote of the Day

Quote of the day–Mac Johnson

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But the deeper reason behind the hysteria over the decision is that for decades the left has been able to make the Constitution into whatever it wanted. The actual words did not matter. When words — even just 27 words — mean exactly what they say, then the power to dictate law from a “living” Constitution disappears and liberals are reduced to trying to persuade people that they are right — a daunting task. When a court can decide that the 2nd Amendment must be respected, the left is on a slippery slope indeed. Who knows what amendment might be rediscovered next? Personally, I vote for the 10th. Regardless, if the trend is allowed to continue, it will be a disaster for the dictatorial left. Thus, I predict the decision will be appealed.

Mac Johnson
Court Rediscovers 2nd Amendment, Liberals Fear Other ‘Rights’ May Soon be Found
March 15, 2007
[And, as was recently reported and commented on in various places, Johnson was correct in his prediction–it was appealed.–Joe]

Quote of the day–dragonwolf

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Sadly enough, overthrowing the government is exactly what this country needs.

[…]

As George Orwell put it in 1984 – “If there was hope, it must lie in the proles…”

dragonwolf
September 1, 2007
The New Revolution
[This is at least part of why we are winning the war against gun control. The left hates Bush to such an extreme they are thinking of an armed rebellion. They then realized bans on guns are an impediment.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Neil deGrasse Tyson

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When people believe a tale that conflicts with self-checkable evidence it tells me that people undervalue the role of evidence in forming an internal belief system. Why this is so is not clear but it enables many people to hold fast to ideas and notions based purely on supposition.

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
[This is a good book. It’s especially entertaining when he lets lose with a rant. But, back on point, I believe the reason is very clear. People believe what they want to believe. It’s rare that people will believe the evidence when it is contrary to a position they have invested in. That investment can be of any type including political and emotional, as well as financial. Belief in god(s), gun control, communism, and (redundancy alert) the Democrat party are prime examples. Chris Phillips encapsulated the appropriate conclusion and cure with much wider application than he originally suggested. Although he never discussed it with me I believe that conclusion was based on the basic truth of investing in your beliefs tends to close your thinking. See also When Prophecy Fails and Cognitive dissonance.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John Crook

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Guns and puberty are a dangerous mix. Targeting juniors increases the likelihood of gun addiction.

John Crook
Gun Control Australia’s president (see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia)

Shooters turn recruiters to keep young guns firing
[Does he also have a problem with juniors getting “addicted” to books, stamp collecting, chess, tennis, golf, baseball, football, or basketball? Or is maybe he just has a problem with freedom. One could make a wise ass remark about the guy’s last name, but I won’t.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Clayton Cramer

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A politician has to wear a mask that hides who he is really is–to be different people to different interest groups–in order to get elected. For a lot of homosexuals, unless they choose to be open about it, they also have to wear a mask that hides who they really are. Perhaps all these gay politicians are the consequence of people who get used to wearing a mask about their sexuality–and find it very easy to then leapfrog into politics, a career that does not require, but certainly encourages equivocation, shading the truth, and flat-out lies.

None of this would matter if Craig had either been discreet, or intelligent. But he managed to fail on both counts with this stunt in Minneapolis, and made all of this relevant.

Clayton Cramer
August 29, 2007
I Just Noticed That Larry Craig’s Three Kids Are All Adopted
[I disagree with a lot of Cramer opinions about gays, but I think he has it right this time.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Esther Dyson

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Few influential people involved with the Internet claim that it is a good in and of itself. It is a powerful tool for solving social problems, just as it is a tool for making money, finding lost relatives, receiving medical advice, or, come to that, trading instructions for making bombs.

Esther Dyson
[The gist of this can be said of virtually all technology (including firearms and explosives) and many other things such as free speech. Technology can used for both good and evil. It’s the user not the technology that is important. As with most bigots the anti-gun people are very narrow minded and can’t or refuse to see the big picture. Even pointing out analogies such as this fail on most of them. The most typical response I get when trying to make this point is, “But we are talking about guns!” as if they were the equivalent of letting cobras roam around in your home. Guns do not have minds and actions of their own. They are tools of the individuals in possession of them. Among other things firearms are used for recreation, to protect innocent life, and the much more rare, taking of innocent life.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John Gilmore

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What if we could build a society where the information was never collected?  Where you could pay to rent a video without leaving a credit card number or a bank number?  Where you could prove you’re certified to drive without ever giving your name?  Where you could send and receive messages without revealing your physical location, like an electronic post office box?

That’s the kind of society I want to build.  I want a guarantee – with physics and mathematics, not with laws – that we can give ourselves things like real privacy of personal communications.  Encryption strong enough that even the NSA can’t break it.  We already know how.  But we’re not applying it.  We also need better protocols for mobile communication that can’t be tracked.

John Gilmore
A transcript of remarks given at the First Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy, March 28,1991

Quote of the day–John Perry Barlow

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Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.

John Perry Barlow
[Tell this to every person that tells you laws are the proper solution to privacy issues.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Laura Washington

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If I had my way, the gun lobby would be looking at three yards and a cloud of dust. Let’s get organized and shove tougher gun policies right down their throats.

Laura Washington (novakevans@aol.com)
Gun lovers disarm control advocates
[As Ry once said, “Ah, the voice of reason.” No data to convince people “tougher gun policies” would make anyone safer. Just shove it “right down their throats”. But, what do you expect of a bigot? Uncle deals with her as well.

Update: Kevin wrote her a nice, but long (it was Kevin, what do you expect?), email and she responded. It was all very civil and nice.–Joe]

Quote of the day–David Niedrauer

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The argument for gun control has always been based more on utopian visions than empirical facts. That, and the left simply does not trust an armed citizenry.

The media’s incessant attacks on the Second Amendment demonstrate clearly their liberal bias against gun ownership.

David Niedrauer
The Media Assault on the Second Amendment
Culture and Media Institute
Eye on Culture, Volume 1, Issue 11
[This just released report, written by a intern, is short but it has some good stuff in it. And the Brady Bunch is on the defensive about it. In the old days they would have just ignored it.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Ted Nugent

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Obama, he’s a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary! You might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.

Ted Nugent
Ted Nugent Threatens to Kill Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton During Vicious Onstage Rant
Rolling Stone
August 24, 2007
[I find Nugent’s statement only worthy of particular note as a bad example for gun owners. But as pointed out by numerous people in the comments to the article Nugent did not threaten to kill anyone. Yet the headline and “The Gun Guys” claim he did threaten to kill them. I guess it’s just another case of the bigots not caring what the truth is.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Dan Rather

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But now, like the US, the UK has a crime problem. And believe it or not, except for murder, theirs is worse than ours.

Dan Rather
June 2000
Britain is capital of crime, says US TV channel
[See also Gun Control’s Twisted Outcome–Restricting firearms has helped make England more crime-ridden than the U.S.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Spider Robinson

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I really did comprehend, intellectually at least, that I was engaged in one of the most profoundly thrilling endeavors in human history.

How conservative can you be if you have jumped off the edge of the solar system?

Do conservative people travel at relativist speeds?

By the end of the first year of our voyage we were already traveling at more than a third of the speed of light. And even though there were no sensory cues at all to confirm that we were all well of it and believed it. And I think I can safely say we all found it more than a little thrilling. By the time we reached turn over in nine more years our velocity was going to peak at a hair frying 0.99794 C.

Does a conservative man race photons?

Joel Johnston
A character in the book Variable Star by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson.
[Johnston is referring to a literal definition of conservative, not the present day political definition. I have another 20 minutes worth of the book to listen to. Both James and I are enjoying it a great deal.–Joe]

Quote of the day–“Dan” in Pennsylvania

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I consider the ownership of arms not only a right, but the duty of a free people to themselves and future generations.

“Dan” in Pennsylvania
Armed America page 60.
[Do your duty.–Joe]

Quote of the day–G. Eric Engstrom

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Dear Jamie,

Money is the root of all evil. A man does need roots.

Remember to dream with your eyes open so you can act on them to make them real.

G. Eric Engstrom
March 23, 2000
Inscription inside the front cover of Renegades of the Empire: How Three Software Warriors Started a Revolution Behind the Walls of Fortress Microsoft
[This inscription was addressed to our son James–who now works at Microsoft. The book is about Eric, Craig Eisler, and Alex St. John. I worked for them when I first started doing contract work for Microsoft in 1995. I’ve known Eric for about 20 years now starting when we both worked for Zortech (they sold a C/C++ compiler for MSDOS and later OS/2 and Windows). While researching this quote, much to my surprise, I discovered Craig is now back at Microsoft.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Traci Hughs

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If we had less guns on the street, more people would be alive today.

Traci Hughs
August 21, 2007
D.C. police spokeswoman
In Study Of Gun Traffic, Va. Stands Out
[She doesn’t address the issue of whether the homicides she is referring to were felonious, justified, or praiseworthy. She doesn’t address the issue of substitution of other weapons as a means of homicide. She doesn’t address the issue of felonious homicides that are committed without a gun that could have been prevented had the victim possessed a gun. And I’ll bet she can’t answer Just One Question. And I don’t think it is a misunderstanding of the English language that throughout the article author, Alison Klein, refers to firearms being seized by law enforcement as being “recovered”. “Recover” means “to bring back to normal position or condition”.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John Perry Barlow

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You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

John Perry Barlow
[Barlow was speaking of the Internet but he just as well could have been talking about the gun culture in our country.–Joe]

Quote of the day–John Gilmore

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The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

John Gilmore
[This, or a similar, quote is often attributed to John Perry Barlow but Barlow gives credit to Gilmore (and here) for at least the concept if not the exact words. Regardless, this point is being hammered into the psyche of the anti-gun bigots. They no longer have their hand on the throttle of information dissemination. Freedom of information is something some people just can’t tolerate.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Mac Johnson

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A number of sources on the left held up for praise in the decision the one dissenting judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson, whose opinion that the gun ban was constitutionally permissible was based on at least two stellar deductions. The first was that since the District of Columbia is not a state (as in “necessary to the security of a free State…”), then the 2nd Amendment did not apply in that part of America. This is a wonderful precedent, not only for the District, but also for America’s other territories such a Puerto Rico.

According to this same logic, Amendments 14, 15, 19, 24 and 26 (among others) do not apply in the District either, which means the District is free to a) deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, b) deny the vote to blacks, c) deny the vote to women, d) institute a poll tax, and e) deny the vote based on age. Clearly, Henderson deserves her new status as a liberal hero.

Mac Johnson
Court Rediscovers 2nd Amendment, Liberals Fear Other ‘Rights’ May Soon be Found
March 15, 2007

Quote of the day–Tim Heyne

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It’s a gun. It’s an instrument of death. It’s the most violent, the most vile instrument of death you could have in your house.

[…]

I’d love to be able to take your hand gun.

Tim Heyne
August 16, 2007
TIM HEYNE TURNS TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH
From VC Reporter


[Just in case there is any doubt about what the anti-gun bigots really think about guns and what their objectives are. I do give this guy a little bit of slack. He was walking with his wife and best friend when all three of them were shot. His friend and wife both died. That would mess up the mind of anyone. It’s ironic though that the best chance of surviving an attack like that would have been if one or more of the three had been armed and now he is trying to prevent others from defending themselves from a similar attack.–Joe]