Category Archives: Quote of the Day

Quote of the day—Sensing Online

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That is where we are: politics in America is the literally religious-type quest for power – and for nothing else at all. We are way past (I say years past) the times when effective, enduring compromise was possible. It is not.

I do not see any way to reverse this. I am reminded of a disease I read of some time ago, that once it becomes symptomatic, it is too late to treat it. I think that politically that is where we are now. It seems clear to me that we no longer live in the “United” States of America, and I see no way to regain that.

The question is whether the United States will survive in its present form, or will some kind of dissolution come to pass. Personally, I am not optimistic.

Sensing Online
March 22, 2021
The Priesthood of Politicism Offers Only Damnation
[I’m probably more optimistic than this. But a good case can be made for a pessimistic outcome as well.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib)

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Policing in our country is inherently & intentionally racist.


…

No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be reformed.

Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib)
Tweeted on April 12, 2021
[It’s not as stupid as you might think at first thought. Thieves and robbers are the natural allies of socialists and communists. They all steal from (and murder) capitalists. Elimination of the restraints on such criminals enables the destruction of people and property.

This was extraordinarily well demonstrated in the USSR. Tlaib and gang are just using an slightly updated playbook from 1917 Russia.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl

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My colleagues and I are working hard to protect the 2nd Amendment. One measure I’ve taken is cosponsoring the Gun Owner Registration Information Protection (GRIP) Act, which would put an end to these two sweeping gun control measures. The GRIP Act would clarify existing law prohibiting the federal government from storing information acquired during the firearms background check process. Additionally, it would clarify the prohibition on the use of any federal funding by states or local entities for the storage or listing of sensitive, personal information related to the legal ownership or possession of firearms.

Jerry Carl
U.S. Representative Alabama’s First Congressional District
April 12, 2021
Carl: The fight to protect the 2nd Amendment
[Even if successful this would hardly “protect the 2nd Amendment”. It would be little more than a gesture in the correct direction.

This is not to say that Rep. Carl and his colleagues are enemies of the 2nd Amendment or even that they do not understand the problem or are not doing the best they can given the current situation.

But what is ultimately going to be required is the repeal of thousands of the laws that infringe the 2nd Amendment and the prosecution of those in government who have, or conspired to, violate our rights. Sure, it would have an extremely low chance of passage at the Federal level today, but how about introducing legislation providing for the funding of Federal law enforcement and prosecutors to investigate and prosecute state officials who have advocated for, passed, and enforced some of the most egregious gun control laws?

Just introducing such legislation will move the Overton Window and be a “shot across the bow” of the current course of gun grabbers.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Chris Harris

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Essentially, a safe space for the anatomically challenged.

Chris Harris
April 6, 2021
Facebook comment to Weber County Commission declares ‘Second Amendment sanctuary’.
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

H/T to Jonathan Sullivan for the pointer.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Charles Hugh Smith

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The lesson of China’s Cultural Revolution in my view is that once the lid blows off, everything that was linear (predictable) goes non-linear (unpredictable, fragmented, contingent, emergent, prone to extremes, uncontrollable). If America experiences a Cultural Revolution, the outcome won’t lend itself to tidiness or predictability.

To use an analogy from previous blog posts, if the pendulum is pushed to an extreme, when it’s released, it will reach an equivalent extreme (minus a bit of friction) at the opposite end. That could be an unexpected but entirely foreseeable Cultural Revolution.

Those who claim that can’t happen in America are safely outside the pressure cooker, protected by a delusional confidence that since I’m doing great, everyone is doing great. Since real political agency is no longer allowed, then the pressure will find release outside the political system. It’s just Wetware 1.0 running defaults few recognize.

Charles Hugh Smith
April 9, 2021
Is a Cultural Revolution Brewing in America?
[Interesting hypothesis.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Doc. Block @MedicPlastic

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By nominating the man responsible for Waco, President Biden is sending a message.

He will kill you and your family by burning you alive, just to get your guns.

Doc. Block @MedicPlastic
Tweeted on April 7, 2021
[H/T to Robb Allen.

While it’s plausible, perhaps even certain, President Biden is unaware he is sending this particular message. But that message has certainly been sent.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Frank J. Fleming @IMAO_

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Are ghost guns guns useable by ghosts or guns that allow you to shoot ghosts? Because that makes a big difference in whether I want them banned or not.

Frank J. Fleming @IMAO_
Tweeted on April 8, 2021
[As pointed out by Shawn Slipknotyk @slipknotyk06, there is another possibility which should be considered. Perhaps a ghost gun is a gun that shoot ghosts out the barrel.

I think we need to move very slowly on this whole ghost gun banning thing. There are constitutional questions as well. Surely if the guns are for ghosts of U.S. citizens then such a law would be unconstitutional. And if the ghosts were “undocumented immigrants”, once they are in this country don’t they have the same rights to gun ownership as citizen ghosts?—Joe]

Quote of the day—Glenn Harlan Reynolds

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Looking at the FBI’s record, it’s hard not to conclude that it is far better at pursuing press and political opponents than at actually keeping us safe. It’s enough to make you wish those TV shows were fact and the FBI we actually have fiction.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds
April 1, 2021
The FBI is very good at woke politics, not so good at catching killers
[Agreed.

Mr. Reynolds enumerates a number of humorous as well as deadly serious FBI mishandled, if not malicious, investigations. He didn’t even get to the two incidents I consider the most serious of FBI misbehaviors. These are known as “Ruby Ridge” and the “Waco massacre”. I find it very telling these FBI murderers still have not been brought to justice.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Joe Biden

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I’m the only one who has ever got them passed, man. The only gun control legislation that’s ever passed is mine. It’s going to happen again.

Joe Biden
POTUS
March 28, 2021
Biden Confident That Senate Will Approve Gun Control Legislation
[I know that Biden has been in politics for a long time but I didn’t realize he had the seniority to be a major player in the infringement of civil rights with NFA34. That’s truly impressive.

And I thought Senator Feinstein and Representative Schumer were authoring and pushing the evil Brady Bill and “Assault Weapon” ban legislation instead of Biden. I guess it must be the Alzheimer’s clouding my brain again such that I remember that wrong.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dinesh D’Souza

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If “woke” banks won’t do business with us, then people like me—political conservatives, mainstream Republicans—will have to have our own banks. If “woke” companies won’t sell to us, we’ll have to have our own merchandizing sector. If “woke” digital platforms won’t carry our views, we’ll have to make our own, and if—as in the case of Parler—there is a coordinated strike to take them down, we’ll have to restore our networks in a manner completely secure from such dangers.

This past weekend, my wife and I watched the movie “The Green Book.” In it, we saw a white and black man driving through the segregated South, where blacks basically lived in their own world—their own banks, restaurants, barbershops, and public lavatories and water fountains—and all because the whites flatly refused to do business with them.

It struck Debbie and me with the force of epiphany that this is where we seem to be heading. De facto segregation, not de jure segregation. And segregation not based on race but based on political viewpoint. It might seem overdramatic to say that Republicans and conservatives are the new blacks, but Republicans and conservatives are now treated in “woke” America with the same derision, contempt, and second-class citizenship that blacks were in the first part of the previous century.

Dinesh D’Souza
March 29, 2021
My Experience With ‘Woke’ Corporations
[Perhaps he was exaggerating some when he says they just now had the epiphany. If not, then he is a little slow on the uptake. It was obvious to me, and I posted about it, regarding the treatment of gun owners in 2006.

Still, better late than never and he has a much larger audience than I do.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Zuckerman, Chung, and Farrell

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Wall Street is sifting through the aftermath of the biggest single-firm meltdown since the financial crisis. Mr. Hwang alone lost approximately $8 billion in 10 days, a person familiar with the matter said, in what traders and investors say was one of the fastest losses of such a large sum they had ever seen.

The firm’s implosion has rippled through the financial world, eroding tens of billions of dollars from the shares of media conglomerates and investment banks.

Gregory Zuckerman, Juliet Chung, and Maureen Farrell
April 1, 2021
[I”m reminded of Understanding Complexity  by Scott E. Page and similar content in RIckards’ books The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System and The New Great Depression: Winners and Losers in a Post-Pandemic World

The hidden interconnectedness of entities, the unpredictable tipping points,the emergent behavior, etc. The fragility of a critical component of all modern human society could be exposed and shattered in less than a week.

I doubt that this event is “the big one” but it reminds us there could be, and probably is, such a big one hidden in the non-linear, mostly opaque, complex, world financial system. And it probably is just a matter of time before the system implodes.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ron DeSanti

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It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply be able to participate in normal society.

Ron DeSanti
Florida Governor
March 29, 2021
Gov. DeSantis to Take Executive Emergency Action Against Vaccine Passports
[If internal passports hadn’t been so widely misused in the 20th Century I could see why people, in general, might think they were a good idea. As it is I can’t imagine why anyone other than tyrants and those ignorant of history could think they are a good idea.

I glad at least one politician has a clue.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kurt Vonnegut

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THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law.
They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking
than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the
211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the
United States Handicapper General.

Kurt Vonnegut
October 1961
Harrison Bergeron
[I had read this short story sometime long ago but I can’t really say when. A private post on Facebook caused me to go looking for it.

While the story has elements of truth in the trajectory predicted I don’t think this is in our future. I expect before things go much further something more like a USSR dystopia or a forceful reset to something resembling a meritocracy is far more likely. And I expect to see the outcome long before 2081.

But still, it puts into words the unarticulated fears many of us have.—Joe]

Quote of the day—James Rickards

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The Federal Reserve does not understand that money creation can be an irreversible process. At a certain point, confidence in money can be lost, and there is no way to reconstitute it; an entirely new system must rise in its place. A new international monetary system will rise from the ashes of the old dollar system, just as the dollar system rose from the ashes of the British Commonwealth at Bretton Woods in 1944, even before the flames of the Second World War had been extinguished.

…

When the inevitable crash came, the losses were not apportioned to those responsible—the banks and bondholders—but were passed on to the public through federal finance. From 2009 to 2012, the U.S. Treasury ran a $5 trillion cumulative deficit, and the Federal Reserve printed $1.2 trillion of new money. Similar deficit and money-printing programs were launched around the world, as derivatives creation by banks continued unabated. Only a portion of the private debt defaults were written off.
The bankers’ jobs and bonuses were preserved, but nothing was achieved for the benefit of citizens. A private debt problem had been replaced with public debt larger than the private debt had ever been. These debts are unpayable in real terms, and defaults will soon follow. The defaults by smaller nations like Greece, Cyprus, and Argentina will be through nonpayment of bonds and losses for bank depositors. Defaults for larger nations such as the United States will come from across-the-board inflation that will steal from savers, depositors, and bondholders alike.

James Rickards
2014
The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System
[I mentioned this book a month ago and said, after consuming about 25% of it, that it is a good book. I have finished the book and I stand by that assertion.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rob Skjonsberg

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Liberals being offended, by pretty much everything these days, is predictable.

Rob Skjonsberg
Chief of Staff to South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds.
March 25, 2021
Rounds’ response to Biden’s proposed assault weapon ban gets national attention
[It’s interesting how people buy into this “offended” crap.

At work they are going through all software and documentation to remove references to “White Lists” and “Black Lists”. And the code revision control systems are going to have references to “master” branch changed to “main” branch. I’m glad my boss didn’t ask me to do it and instead asked the intern.

A week or two ago I had a more or less mandatory meeting, involving some large number of people, to go over the changes and why they were important. I politely listened and didn’t say anything.

What really struck me* was they said when they finish with this effort they won’t be done. They will just be getting started. The next item on the agenda will be to remove “grandfathered” from, well, everything I guess. Apparently that is offensive ageism or something. They reported after that they will be hunting for reasons to be offended on behalf of the LGBTQ community.

If the USSR and other communist examples are any clue the purity tests will only level out when the death and Gulag incarceration rates get to the point where society is collapsing.

I need to retreat to an underground bunker (I wish!) in Idaho before I get caught and found guilty of wrong think.—Joe]

* Another thing I found very telling was the presentation was of marginal “quality”. The slides had typos and grammar errors. The presentation itself was substandard too. There were lots of hesitation and restarts in the speech patterns. I kept wondering if the person couldn’t do a real job so they were given this task.

Quote of the day—Egon von Greyerz

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In the coming bear market for currencies and bull market for precious metals, gold and silver will not just maintain purchasing power but massively outperform and become the must have investment.

But above all, do not buy gold and silver for speculative purposes. Gold and silver is your insurance against the coming end of a monetary era when all currencies and bubble assets will implode.

Egon von Greyerz
March 24, 2021
WHY BUY GOLD WHEN THERE IS BITCOIN & TESLA
[I’ve been hearing hints of the coming collapse for 20 years now. And “it has to happen soon” since 2008.

And, of course, if you dig just the tiniest bit most people, including this guy, advocating precious metals just so happen to have some precious metals they would love to sell to you.

They may still be right. But I’m very skeptical of those who have some direct gain from people taking their advice.

And everyone who claims gold will “preserve your wealth” seem to gloss over, at best, that Roosevelt banned the private ownership of gold by executive order and got away with it. So, what’s the path to wealth preservation when your wealth is tied up in contraband?—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sebastian

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I feel like most of the politicians are pretty well polarized into one camp or another at this point, just like everybody else, and there’s not a whole lot we’re going to do other than keep some of the more soft pro-2A folks in line. Does arguing with people on social media work? Probably not. I’ve come to the conclusion social media is useful for sharing cat pictures and pictures of your rugrats for the grandparents, and that’s about it. People who spew politics all day on social media are boors, and who wants to be a boor?

Sebastian
March 24, 2021
What Activism Matters Anymore?
[I think this is a valid point.

I think that the best way to be an “activist” these days is to take new shooters to the range and keep them going back. The culture needs to change and the politics will follow.

Boomershoot is coming up in just one month. That is a great exposure to free America. Show them one or all of these videos:

Even if you and your guests just watch you will have a unforgettable experience. Do your part to restore freedom to our nation.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Sean D Sorrentino

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Someone needs to make a cartoon showing a couple dead sheep and wolves moving off in the distance. Perhaps a farmer shouting “We must do something about the wolf threat.” In the next frame a Government Man stands at the door of a suburban house with a pair of pliers explaining that since wolves are dangerous to sheep, he’s going to pull the teeth out of their family Golden Retriever.

Sean D Sorrentino
Posted on Facebook on March 25, 2021
[While accurate and applicable I doubt the majority of people that need to get it would not actually understand. Those anti-gun people that do understand would not care. This is because they know gun control is not about protecting the sheep from wolves. It’s about protecting the Government Man from the farmer and his dog.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kevin Baker

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Progressive Leftism is a religion, with all the attendant characteristics: Dogma, the treatment of heathens, heretics, and apostates, indulgences, all of it. Government is God, legislators are the angels (remember, Satan and his demons were once angels), the “news” media are the clergy, and we proles are the laypeople, the heathens, the apostates and the heretics. And they will drag us, kicking and screaming if necessary, into their promised Utopia.

Or kill us, if they deem us too deplorable to save.

Kevin Baker
February 27, 2021
Immanentize the Eschaton!
[This is entirely consistent with the rise of other leftist states like the USSR, Cambodia, Venezuela, etc..

I hope we can take a less bloody path back to a government respecting the rights of the individual to worship, or not, whatever religion they so chose. But my assessment of the situation is rather grim.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rob Natelson

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Sen. Donovan’s effort to turn back the clock 327 years reminds us that so-called “progressives” are deeply regressive. Constitutional government that protects human freedom is a fairly modern phenomenon. The unlimited government most “progressives” seek is as old as the pharaohs. Scratch the typical “progressive” and you find a hidden totalitarian.

Rob Natelson
March 24, 2021
Leading Colorado Democrat Introduces Bill to Censor Internet Communication
[I don’t see that to do any scratching to discover that. They aren’t bothering to hide these days.—Joe]