Category Archives: Quote of the Day

Quote of the day—Lee Reiners

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Crypto enthusiasts call me a Luddite, statist, technophobe or worse. Asset bubbles are maintained by a common narrative, and anyone who dares question it must be attacked. But a growing chorus is pointing out the emperor has no clothes.

Lee Reiners
May 25, 2021
Ban Cryptocurrency to Fight Ransomware
[I’m certainly no fan of cryptocurrency. I might even concede that banning it would put a serious dent in ransomware. But I am very reluctant to advocate a ban on it. Doesn’t the First Amendment protect it?

When I first heard of Bitcoin I was rather enthused about it until I discovered it wasn’t completely anonymous. Anonymous financial transactions are a critical component of a free society. Anonymous financial transactions with anyone in the world who has access to a computer would solve a lot of freedom issues. To the best of my knowledge all anonymous financial transactions still, and will in the foreseeable future, require a physical exchange.

Hence, I am inclined to agree with Reiners:

It isn’t obvious that cryptocurrency provides any benefit at all beyond the chance to make a quick buck. I have been studying the crypto market since its inception, and I have yet to identify a single task or process that crypto makes easier, better, cheaper or faster. Don’t take my word for it. Ask any friend why he owns cryptocurrency, and the answer will invariably be “to make money.” In other words, speculation.

With all the above in mind what I would like to see is the natural death via a loss of faith in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general such that it can’t be used for criminal acts.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Francisco

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Write that down and pin it to the corkboard in your office.
It will turn out to be one of the greatest understatements you will have ever made.

Not that quantum computing will not produce many absolutely amazing positive results, it will, but the view of them will be obscured by all the smoking craters QC causes.

Francisco
May 25, 2021
Comment to Quantum computing as a threat to Bitcoin
[I’m currently of the opinion the positive results will be on par with the smoking craters. But I’m not knowledgable enough on the subject to claim any expertise.

We live in interesting times.—Joe]

Incrementalism

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In Texas:

A measure allowing Texans to carry a firearm without a license is on the brink of becoming a law after the state Senate on Monday approved the bill, sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott, who has pledged to sign the Republican-championed legislation into law.

The bill makes legal what gun rights advocates have dubbed “constitutional carry,” or permitless carry. It would allow Texans over the age of 21 to carry a firearm without first obtaining a license as long as they are not barred by state or federal law from doing so. Under current law, Texans are generally required to have a license to carry a handgun either openly or concealed.

More than a dozen other states have similar laws on the books.

It wasn’t that long ago that Texas finally stopped infringing upon the rights of people who wished to openly carry a firearm. And it was in 1995 which concealed carry was legalized (this last link has a great history of the incrementalism of concealed carry laws in the entire country).

Now Texans will soon have constitutional carry.

At least for concealed carry of firearms the pragmatic incrementalism has worked. The principled approach of all or nothing does not have appeared to significantly contributed to our nationwide success in restoring this fundamental right.

Quote of the day—Christopher F. Rufo @realchrisrufo

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I learned about racism, slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, and the Trail of Tears in my K-12 education. I never learned about the Holodomor, Cultural Revolution, and 100 million dead from global communism. American schools haven’t “whitewashed” history; they’ve “redwashed” it.

Christopher F. Rufo @realchrisrufo
Tweeted on May 24, 2021
[Via daughter Jaime.

It’s been a long time since I looked at school history book but I suspect this is a valid point.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jim Rickards

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There is some part of the DNA, I don’t have it but some people do, where they just wake up in the morning and they just want to tell people what to do… You do this, do that, etc.

And there’s no end to it. Even if you agree they will have something else. I’m kinda like, just get on your bike and do what you like. I try to leave people alone.

The point being … something like COVID becomes a platform and a perfect cover and a perfect excuse for the inner neo fascist in people all over the world and those in political positions. And they cannot resist the opportunity to boss people around. And the way you do this, it’s tried and true, you put people in fear. You make people very, very, fearful. You tell them they are going to die if they don’t listen to you.

Jim Rickards
May 5, 2021

[Via The New Great Depression, with Jim Rickards.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Ry

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Joe – Stood in the caldera.

Videos later.

Unexplainably awesome.

Ry
Postcard from May 2021
[I received the postcard yesterday:

image

image

I watched the video a few days ago:

The beginning is, “That’s kind of cool.”

At one minute, “Oh! This is more interesting.”

At two minutes, “OH! THAT! IS! AWESOME!”

Watch full screen with the volume up a bit.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Benobos @BenGreggTang

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Ban all semi-automatic firearms with removable magazines or internal magazines greater than 10 rounds.

Benobos @BenGreggTang
Tweeted on May 20, 2021
[The tweet is now deleted or at least hidden. I have to wonder why. Did he change his mind or just didn’t want to confront reality?

Regardless of the reason don’t ever let anyone get away with saying “No one wants to take your guns.”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kurt Schlichter

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Mock the media. There is no institution with a more inflated sense of itself than the press – that smug self-satisfaction is one of the things that helps make up for the crummy pay (though most young journalists today are rich kids whose birthing parent and daddy subsidize them). Your refusal to pretend that these oafs deserve respect causes them no end of fussy fury. So, refuse.

The media hates you. You owe it nothing. Give it nothing, except your contempt.

Kurt Schlichter
May 17, 2021
The Media Hates You And Is Shocked That You Hate It Back
[Good advice.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kirstie Alley

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You can be cooking meth and sleeping with hookers, but as long as, apparently, you didn’t vote for Trump. I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone a bit with the whole concept of it.

Kirstie Alley
May 19, 2021
Kirstie Alley opens up about backlash she received for Trump support: ‘Blackballing situation’
[I’m not going to post it here because it is so incredibly horrible, but the picture of Alley they used tells us what the publisher thinks of people who voted for Trump. This is what they think of people of people who do not agree with their politics.

“Twilight Zone”? Yeah. It’s sort of like that. But if you have read a little about genocides you will quickly realize what we are seeing isn’t just something from a television series writer’s imagination. This could easily be history in the making.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Roger L. Simon

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As Tal Bachman notes at Steynonline, it’s now our state religion, a state religion in a country that—constitutionally and for good reason—isn’t supposed to have one.

But “Wokism” is yet more than that, too. It’s a mass psychosis similar to many that have arisen throughout history when the masses followed leaders who, in their zeal or self-interest, took them to disastrous ends.

Roger L. Simon
May 9, 2021
How ‘Woke’ May Be Leading Us to Civil War
[See yesterday’s QOTD as well.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tal Bachman

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Wokism is now the official state religion of the United States of America.

By constitutional standards, this means something has gone wrong. The United States isn’t supposed to have a state religion. The First Amendment specifically prohibits the establishment of a state religion. Yet it now has one, and its name is Wokism.

Tal Bachman
May 7, 2021
We Have Met the Enemy, part II
[And as everyone should well know Theocracies are some of the most dangerous forms of government known. Combined with socialism/communism, as this one is, and the deadliness is indisputable.

Take appropriate action.—Joe]

Quote of the day—NY Mom RN ANP FNP RPAC @NYMom16

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You can’t hunt with those guns. It’s just ridiculous. Not meant for hunting & totally stinks for size & accuracy. Rambo wannabe guns. More likely to make up for micro dicks. People killers only. No skilled hunter would ever use such a piece of crap gun. Says alot about the owner

NY Mom RN ANP FNP RPAC @NYMom16
Tweeted on May 10, 2021
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

We have SCOTUS decisions and factual evidence. They have ignorance and childish insults. Take advantage of this.

Via a tweet from In Chains @InChainsInJail.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Karl Popper

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Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

Karl Popper
1945
The Open Society and Its Enemies
[See also Paradox of tolerance.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays

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Either national debt is not a real problem or our government knows there is an asteroid the size of Mars heading directly towards Earth so it doesn’t matter.

I have to believe one of those things is true. Otherwise we are governed by morons.

Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays
Tweeted on May 12, 2021
[There are many more than those three options. The most obvious and likely are:

  • Our politicians are evil.
  • Our politicians are evil and/or morons.
  • Our politicians believe what morons and/or evil people tell them.

Prepare accordingly.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jonathan Evans @MrJonathanEvans

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Every #2A fuck who won’t acknowledge that the guns are the problem is complicit in a culture that forces parents and kids and partners and friends to live in fear. So just to be clear: fuck those horrible fucks

Jonathan Evans @MrJonathanEvans
Tweeted on May 9, 2021
[He sounds nice.

Well, actually, he sounds ignorant and/or evil.

Thanks for being clear Mr. Evans. I expect someone will now put you on their “naughty” list.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tom Knighton

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People are constantly going on and on about how we have too many guns, but then they say they don’t want to take our guns. They fail to address guns in criminal hands but instead focus on those firearms being sold lawfully.


With this story, desperate to try and link increased gun sales to school violence, it’s almost sad. You’d think that people would understand that correlation doesn’t equal causation, yet they don’t. Then again, they still think gun control works.

Tom Knighton
May 9, 2021
Media Continues Meltdown Over Gun Sale Surge
[For certain definitions of “works” gun control does work:

But I don’t think that is what Knighton was referring to.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Dean Weingarten

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Once you internalize the decision to be unarmed, arguments on the other side become understandable. The voluntarily unarmed people we are attempting to understand are those who have moved from the decision to be unarmed, to the policy statement “guns are bad”.

Armed people have a power advantage over unarmed people. People do not want others to have a power advantage over them. It makes them uncomfortable. To prevent this, the voluntarily unarmed often want everyone else to be unarmed.

It is why many who are voluntarily unarmed dislike concealed carry, but violently abhor open carry. Open carry presents them with a reality they cannot easily ignore. It destroys their comfortable fantasy.

Dean Weingarten
May 5, 2021
Learn to Think like Someone who Chose to be Unarmed
[That last paragraph seems particularly insightful to me. The observation that they violently abhor open carry rings true. I had casually wondered why they get so upset about open carry by one out of a thousand or 10 thousand when, on average, about one out of every 50 people they meet on the sidewalk is a carrying concealed firearm. The hypothesis that open carry destroys their comfortable fantasy seems reasonable.

Now I wonder if this might be something we can use to our advantage. Destruction of their fantasy might be a good thing, but yet I can easily see open carry being something that unites and activates them.

My initial analysis is that widespread open carry is probably counter productive until we have a solid SCOTUS decision saying the right of the people to keep and bear arms includes carry in public. I could probably be persuaded otherwise.

Please present your arguments and let’s discuss.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan M. Gottlieb

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This is a humongous loss for anti-gun Democrat State Attorneys General. They consistently attack Second Amendment rights any way they can.

This legal debacle was led by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson who became famous for suing the Trump administration in a series of partisan legal actions that cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

SAF and Defense Distributed look forward to sharing technical firearms information with millions of interested people on the Internet.

Alan M. Gottlieb
April 29, 2021
NINTH CIRCUIT VACATES INJUNCTION IN 3-D PRINTING CASE, TELLS LOWER COURT TO DISMISS
[This is incrementalism at work for us.

The proposed new regulations on “ghost guns” (page 21) will not nullify this ruling:

…nothing in this rule would restrict persons not otherwise prohibited from possessing firearms from making their own firearms at home without markings solely for personal use (not for sale or distribution) in accordance with Federal, State, and local law.

As long as parts are available for AR-15 repairs, AR-15 lower receivers can be made to subvert bans on common sporting rifles. Thank SAF.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Benjamin Fearnow

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A new ABC News/Washington Post poll released Tuesday from among more than 1,000 U.S. adults found that Americans overall are less supportive of new gun control legislations than they were just three years ago. People between the ages of 18-29 saw the sharpest decline in backing for new weapons laws, with fewer than half now saying new legislation is needed to reduce the risk of future mass shootings or to block “red flag” buyers.

In April 2018, the last time the ABC/Washington Post survey was conducted on this issue, 65 percent of these young Americans said they support gun control laws. That percentage is now 45.

Benjamin Fearnow
April 28, 2021
Americans Under 30 Have Rapidly Turned Against Gun Control Laws, Poll Finds
[It frequently takes a while but reality does have a way of making itself known.

And what’s with this name, “Fearnow”? Apparently it’s real.—Joe]

Quote of the day—J.D. Tuccille

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There really are limits to how much governments can spend without inflicting pain on the people suffering under their mismanagement. Not that the people elected to Congress and the White House have shown any signs of comprehension or concern.

Given that these are people capable of running for public office without feeling any apparent sense of shame, is it possible that they’re just too stupid to understand our reports? you can imagine CBO economists asking one another as they tossed around the idea for the recent infographic. Does anybody have any crayons?

J.D. Tuccille
May 5, 2021
Looming Budget Catastrophe in Pictures So Simple Even Congress Can Understand
[There is at least one other alternative not mentioned in the article or by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). That alternative is that the economic destruction of our country is intentional.—Joe]