Historic

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A few minutes ago the price of gold reached a new high in relation to the U.S. dollar. Or, one could be equally accurate to say that the U.S. dollar reached a new low relative to gold. Click for a higher resolution version:

GoldHistory

In the mid to late 1990’s gold was selling for $300/ounce. I was making more money than I am now (contracting work for Microsoft with unlimited amounts of overtime allowed at 1.5X base rate) and bought a few ounces. But most of my money went into paying down the house mortgage and putting a new roof on it. And then half of that, which wasn’t very much to begin with, went to my ex-wife in the divorce. I wish I had bought more now. It would be worth a lot more than what the house appreciation was.

Gold surging is generally an indicator of troubling times which certainly describes 2020. But what is interesting now is that vaccine trials are looking pretty good and the economy is doing okay considering the circumstances. But yet, the price of gold continues to climb. I suspect the huge surge in the “printing” of money is a major contributor.

We live in interesting times. This year will be one for the history books.

Quote of the day—Glaeser and Shleifer

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By differentially taxing different groups of voters, the incumbent leader can encourage emigration of one of the groups, and maximize the share of the voters who support him. While benefiting the incumbent, these taxes may actually impoverish the area and make both groups worse off.

Edward L. Glaeser and Andrei Shleifer
2013
JLEO, V21 N1 1T he Curley Effect: The Economics of Shaping the Electorate
[Via a comment by Richard in regard to Cascading failures in policing where he said:

Look up the Curley Effect. This was perfected by Coleman Young, mayor of, you guessed it, Detroit

I haven’t read the whole paper yet. The Appendix looks particularly interesting. It starts with:

ProofsOfPropositions

I was going to make a big blog post after reading this paper and several others on the topic address the current situation in Seattle, Portland, and other cities, then extrapolate the concepts to corporate cultures. I didn’t get around to it because I worked late on some work stuff then one of my daughters called and we talked for quite a while. Maybe tomorrow.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rawhide Wraith@olddustyghost

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Democrats want to eliminate the electoral college, the Senate, the 1st amendment, the 2nd amendment for sure, and the rest of the constitution, our borders, citizenship, carbon based fuels, cars, cows.

And the first step in their scheme is to eliminate Trump.

We better fight like hell or those of us who aren’t shot during the disarmament or who don’t starve when fuel and food are eliminated are going to be slaves.

Rawhide Wraith@olddustyghost
Tooted on September 28, 2019
[There’s far too much truth in this.—Joe]

A reasonable idea

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I had read this earlier in the day but it didn’t occur to me to reinforce it with a link from my own blog until it was suggested via email from John H.

No In-Person GRPC But You Can Still Support The Second Amendment Foundation

Why can’t the U.S. be more like England?

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Ever since I can remember anti-gun people have used England as an example of how guns should be regulated/banned. Here is what you get, UK Knife Crime Hits Record High, Murder Surges in Khan’s London

Knife crime in England and Wales reached a historic high in the year leading up to the end of March, as murders climb again in Sadiq Khan’s London.

…

London Assembly Member David Kurten said in response to the surge in crime: “There must be an end to politically correct policing — more stop & search, more arrests of burglars and violent gang members, less hassling people for having the wrong opinions.”

Former Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney added: “All this while London’s dismal Mayor, Sadiq Khan, orders an urgent review into… ‘racist’ statues.”

The proportion of crimes actually being solved in England and Wales also fell to a record low, with just 7 per cent of criminal acts resulting in a court appearance for a suspect, down from 8 per cent last year and 16 per cent in 2014-15 when such records began to be compiled.

The Home Office report said that the fall represented some 33,460 fewer offences resulting in a criminal charge or court summons compared to the year prior. The number of sexual offences that resulted in charges fell from 5.2 per cent two years ago to just 3.2 per cent last year.

The number of rapes that ended in prosecution was just 1.4 per cent.

This is why we have the Second Amendment.

Just say, “No!” to gun control.

Cascading failures in policing

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I recently had an opportunity to play a card I had been holding for a few weeks. I waited until a former Seattle police officer I know grumbled* again about his current job. So I asked, “I’ll bet you really wish you still had your old job back at the Seattle Police department.

This triggered a five minute monologue which began with “Absolutely not!” on the consequences of the political situation in regards to police in general and Seattle and surrounding areas in specific. He described it as “cascading failures”. Here is a synopsis of what he told me:

As of a couple years ago there were about 1350 people in SPD which was considered significantly understaffed. This number included support staff and rookies patrol officers up through to the captain level.

SPD is currently losing hundreds of people via retirement and them finding different jobs. Officers that have 20+ years on the job can’t take their pensions yet (I think he said they have to be 53 years old before they can do that) but they can quit and still get their full pension when they do cross the age threshold. Replacements are nearly impossible to get. Not because of defunding, but because no one wants those jobs. Detectives and other high skill areas are especially hard hit because those are the people most likely to have 20+ years on the job.

Some skill areas have mutual aid packs with surrounding areas. But while the surrounding areas have not had as severe political stress as SPD they have been affected. The mutual aid packs increase the stress on the surrounding areas and is causing people to leave their law enforcement positions there as well. It’s a cascading system of failure that affects the entire area.

Even some rural counties are pushing people out of law enforcement. One such country recently removed all U.S. flags from their patrol cars. This was to avoid offending anyone.**

SPD is rapidly approaching the situation where when you call 911 the only time someone will show up is if there is a life and death situation.

I’m now extrapolating from his observations.

If the police only show up for life and death situations and detectives are among the skills sets hardest hit by personal shortages then law enforcement protection of property is going to asymptotically approach zero. If a cold body with no obvious signs of foul play and/or no hot leads is found it will essentially ignored. Even clear murder cases will have low closure rates. Assault and battery will be ignored. Without justice for the victims of violent crimes and reduced odds of being punished self administered “justice” will become common.

These cascading law enforcement failures will trigger other cascading failures. This is city killer type stuff. Seattle is highly dependent upon high tech money. Most of those jobs can be performed by people 100s of miles away as easily as they can be performed by people within commuting distance. People and companies will leave the immediate area in droves. The property values, and all tax bases will crash. City services of all types will suffer. This could create Detroit like conditions within a few years.

* I think, overall, he actually likes his job. He just likes to grumble about things.

** I expect the people insisting the flags be removed are bewildered as to how the police could have a “real” issue with this. This probably extends to at least some of my readers.

A significant number police are former, and even current reserve, military. The U.S. flag is more than a piece of red, white, and blue colored cloth to members of the U.S. military. I have never been in the military and I only sort of understood this. A former Army Ranger described the depth of that meaning when he told me that if he were on the jury of someone accused of murdering a person who was burning a U.S. flag he would not vote to convict even if there numerous witnesses and video of the event, fingerprints in the neck bruises, and matching shoe prints in the blood. He wouldn’t kill someone burning a U.S. flag. But he could understand why someone would.

Science proves leftists are not normal people

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From Correlates of discriminatory behavior:

Left-wing prejudice, however, does not manifest itself in discrimination against minorities. Rather it tends to be against white people. Additionally, conservatism appears to be becoming less of a predictor of anti-black bias of some sort, whereas the left wing version of prejudice may be becoming stronger. A somewhat small study of 88 students in a Californian university tested the effects of ideology on consequentialism, particularly when said consequentialism is racially based (Uhlmann et al., 2009). The researchers had the students report their political orientation on a scale basis. They gave the students two of the same moral dilemma, the Trolley problem, but with the race of the people in it being flipped. Some participants had to make the following decision: kill one white person or 100 black people; other students had to make this decision: kill one black person or 100 white people. Liberals were more likely to endorse consequentialism, meaning kill one person for the sake of 100 people, when the person being killed was white. Conservatism had no effect on this distinction.

Some other studies show similar results. Tetlock et al. (2000) showed liberals felt non-whites shouldn’t pay more for home insurance for living in a high-risk area but they were neutral when asked if whites should. And Goldberg (2019) shows white liberals are the only group which has an in-group distaste.

goldberg-2019

As people have been saying for many years now, it’s a mental disorder. These people just aren’t right in the head.

Via Milo Yiannopoulos @m.

Sign of the times

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Via Milo Yiannopoulos @m:

ModernEvolution

Nice!

Evolution in action. There are scenarios where we see Darwin awards being handed out with similar pedigrees in the next few years.

What are the odds?

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The gun owner rights community has been frustrated by SCOTUS not accepting any significant 2nd Amendment cases other than NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS v. CITY OF NEW YORK, NEW YORK in 10 years. And that case which was declared moot four months ago when the city and the state changed the law once the court accept the case.

I still claim, “We have SCOTUS decisions, they have childish insult.” But that claim has been vigorously disputed:

You talk about SCOTUS decisions. At this point SCOTUS is firmly anti-gun. They stand by idly as the states run all over it.

The courts are NOT on our side Joe. They are either openly hostile at most or do not care. So stop using that fucking excuse. In less than four years they will siding with the government when the government just bans all guns With mandatory buyback or simply door-to-door confiscation.

THEY are the ones that will have court victories. They have far more than we do right now. Banning of private gun sales? Legal. Banning open and concealed carry? Legal. Banning magazine capacity? Legal. Banning entire classifications of firearms? Legal. Banning all semi automatic rifles? Legal. Confiscating all rifles? Legal.

And these are things that have already happened. So no, Joe. They have the court decisions. We have nothing. I will not be surprised when the Supreme Court overturns Heller And McDonald.

There’s some truth to that. But it’s not entirely true. And I’m of the opinion it can be considered mostly false. Let me explain.

First there is the “strictly speaking” definition of words argument. The court refusing to hear as case is not a court decision. It does not make precedent such that they would have to overturn the “decision” as some later time if a substantially similar case was brought to the court. So, “strictly speaking”, I’m pretty certain, we have all the SCOTUS decisions on our side for at least the last 20 years.

Agreed, that’s not at all that comforting when it takes months to buy a gun in D.C, “red flag” laws are showing up all over the country such that your guns can be taken away from you based on a false allegation and you have to prove your innocent to get them back, common firearms and magazine capacities are outlawed, you can’t purchase a handgun in a different state, you and/or your guns have to be registered, you need permission from the FBI to transfer ownership, you have to be 21 years old to purchase a firearm, and hundreds of other infringements which would not be tolerated if you were buying a book or even getting an abortion.

So, with that concession, I’ll go on to the next argument.

What are the odds we will get soon get a SCOTUS which will take a 2nd Amendment case and throw out a bunch of the laws infringing our rights? As nearly everyone in the community knows it’s about Justices Roberts and Ginsberg.

Roberts has long been a point of speculation and even evidence of being subject of outside influence on important cases. If, as some people have suggested, Roberts is impeached due to his poor decisions then a replacement justice with a character similar to Thomas or Kavanaugh would fix the problem. I put those odds at about 2% and dismiss them as unimportant as a stand alone event.

It’s also possible, as has been suggested many times, that there are people with black mail evidence. The one elaborated on at the link is just one of the figurative suggestions. More plausible ones involve a possibly illegal/irregular adoption. Discovery of such a blackmailer could lead to impeachment and/or elimination of that threat and subsequent better alignment with the constitution. I see these odds as a little better, say 5% and also don’t place much hope in it.

But since these two outcomes are essentially independent of each other the odds of one or the other coming true can be estimated at about 7%. It’s not great but I wouldn’t bet my life on a game of Russian Roulette with those odds. And of course you have to take into account that scenario is conditioned on the Roberts removal scenario is resolved while Trump is in office and Republicans hold the Senate. That conditional reduces the likelihood to insignificance again.

We are left with the Ginsberg replacement scenario. For years people have been wishing her a long and healthy retirement starting “tomorrow”. But the reality probably is, as friend Mike B. told me a few weeks ago, “She has made it clear the only way she will leave the court is in a hearse.”

That said, the odds of that happening appear to be noticeably increasing every few months. Again, the significance of her leaving the court is conditioned on Trump being in office and a Republican controlled senate at the time it happens.

Let’s estimate some numbers and see what we come up with for odds of that happening.

There are two scenarios of primary interest for each of two variables. 1) Does Ginsberg leave the court before or after the end of this year? And 2) Does Trump get reelected and do Republican hold the senate or not? I claim Trump and Republicans holding the Senate are correlated strongly enough that they can be considered a single event rather than somewhat independent.

I claim that the Ginsberg variable and the Trump/Senate variable are independent and hence the probabilities calculations are further reducing the complexity of the probability calculation.

If Ginsberg leaves SCOTUS by the end of the year (realistically say, the middle of November) my bet is that Trump will appoint a replacement and the Senate will consent regardless of the election results.

You might protest that that’s too short of time and the Democrats will protest too much. Really? The Democrats have been screaming obscenities at Trump and Republicans since the evening of November 8th, 2016. If Trump and/or the Republican senate lose this election my bet is they will rush the candidate through just as payback for all the abuse they have taken for the last four years. I say that with an estimated probability of 0.75.

My bet is that Ginsberg will take her hearse ride in less than four years from now. I say that with an estimated probability of 0.95. For ease of computation let’s just say it’s a certainty with the slack taken up by the chance Roberts or another “problem” justice is replaced in the next four years.

In order for the anti-gun forces to win SCOTUS Ginsberg has to show a pulse until the end of the year AND they need to defeat Trump. This makes the probability of them winning SCOTUS very easy to compute. It’s the simple multiplication of the two probabilities.

This leads to some very interesting results. Suppose the probabilities are 0.70 that Trump loses and 0.70 that Ginsburg “wins” in 2020. The probability of a gun owner SCOTUS loss is 0.49. Yes, the odds are slightly with us even if the Trump only has a 30% chance of winning the election and there is only a 30% chance of Ginsberg taking her hearse ride.

Just for the sake of more examples, so you can easily follow along at home, if the odds are 0.5 and 0.5 then the gun owner odds of a loss are down to 0.25. If the odds are 0.5 of a Trump loss and 0.7 of a Ginsberg win in 2020 gun owners are at 0.35 chance of a loss. Drop in your estimates and see what you come up with.

My estimates are a 0.25 chance of a Trump/Senate loss. I don’t believe the polls are any more accurate than they were in 2016. The enthusiasm/turnout seen at the political rallies in 2008, 20012, and 2016 were excellent predictors of who would win. I expect the same will be true in 2020. I think Trump has enough enthusiasm he can beat the margin of fraud with a 0.75 chance. Also, every day the riots go on and Democrats don’t lift a finger to stop them, let alone appear to encourage them, the more likely it is that Trump and Republicans will win.

I give Ginsberg a 0.5 chance of holding on through the end of the year.

This results in a 0.13 chance of a gun owner loss of SCOTUS. In other words, I believe we have a 0.87 chance of getting a SCOTUS friendly to gun owners within the next four years.

I have been hesitant to elaborate on this because, and Glenn Reynolds says, “Don’t get cocky kid.” There are things gun owners must do to increase/maintain those odds. But it’s important people not get depressed/demoralized too.

I want this to be a call to help win a fight which is quite winnable. Please find ways to support a continued Republican Senate and a Trump presidency. NRA-ILA can help you support pro-gun candidates even if you don’t want to give money to the NRA.

With the caveat that this is a probability, not a certainty, I still say we have SCOTUS decisions on our side, we will continue to have SCOTUS decisions on our side, and our opposition has childish insults.

Quote of the day—J. KB

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When enough blue-collar workers get canceled because they are too busy doing their hard and valuable to society jobs to bother with the sensitivities of the latest update from the grievance studies departments of the academic elite, they will get together and build a fucking killdozer and the pushback will be diesel-powered.

J. KB
June 29, 2020
When you’ve lost the Atlantic…
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Bleeding Heart Liberal Marine @zaharako

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Anytime “AR-15” is trending, it triggers an intense reaction from the micro-penis community. Can’t wait for Trump to lose in November so all these morons have to hide in their survival bunkers again. Like the cowards they are.

Bleeding Heart Liberal Marine @zaharako
Tweeted on July 12, 2020
[It’s another Markley’s Law Monday!

SCOTUS decisions versus childish insults and delusions… hmm… I’m going to side with SCOTUS.—Joe]

Just exercising their rights

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Via KOMO News:

A large group of demonstrators gathered in downtown Seattle Sunday afternoon.

The group gathered at West Lake Center for an Abolish ICE rally and then starting marching around downtown.

Seattle Police say they have received reports of property damage and looting.

Windows of the Starbucks at E Denny Way and Broadway East were seen smashed out as well as the windows of Victrola Coffee Roasters at 3rd Avenue and Pine Street. The Seattle Municipal Court Building was also vandalized.

I used to work across the corner from West Lake Center. Third and Pine is part of Mugme Street.

Watch the KOMO News video via the link at the top of this post. The reporter seems almost surprised the “demonstrators” exercising their First Amendment rights threatened them if they were to exercise their right to film them on a public street.

Here is some of the pictures (I have cropped some of them for better illustration of my point) they took of the “demonstrators” First Amendment activities:

FirstAmendment0

FirstAmendment1

FirstAmendment2

FirstAmendment3

FirstAmendment4

They need to stop calling them “demonstrators” and “protestors”. Call them what they are. They are criminals and terrorists.

There’s not enough kneeling you can do

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As I’ve said before appeasement doesn’t work:

This afternoon, in broad daylight, this happened in downtown Seattle:

And as Joni Job @jj_talking said this afternoon:

“There’s not enough kneeling you can do.” I like that.

4th of July visit to Idaho

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Over the 4th of July weekend Barb and I visited Idaho. The plan was to visit Elk Butte Lookout, watch the fireworks show in Orofino, and maybe do some hiking. We drove over on the 3rd, fixed the weather station at Boomershoot shooting line, inspected the top of the shipping container at Boomershoot Mecca, and did a few other odds and ends before checking in at the Konkolville motel in Orofino.

Continue reading →

Quote of the day—Cam Edwards

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If those academics are actually interested in addressing the issue of violent crime, as opposed to trying to demonize gun owners who are 2A activists, they should delve into the subculture of gun ownership that doesn’t care about the law; criminals who use firearms in the commission of violent crimes. The fact that the team from Boston University doesn’t even acknowledge that subculture is just more proof that this study is nothing more than a junk science attempt to vilify those gun owners who are lobbying lawmakers and speaking out against threats to their Second Amendment rights.

Cam Edwards
July 11, 2020
New “Study” On Gun Culture Really An Attack On 2A Activism
[Via email from JPFO.

One of the excerpts from the article Edwards gives special attention is this one:

Those of us in public health must acknowledge the positive aspects of that culture and stop blaming law-abiding gun owners for the problem of firearm violence,” he says. “Instead, we need to address one very specific aspect of gun culture that the NRA has created that does not represent the overwhelming number of gun owners in this country

According to the “researchers” the “aspect of gun culture that the NRA has created“ and needs to be addressed is “Second Amendment activism”.

Really! How interesting.

Am I missing some interpretation in this?

First off, they have it just backward on the causation. They didn’t bother to do much research or they would have known about the NRA Revolt at Cincinnati in 1977 where the members of the NRA told the leadership activism was required.

Would they think people advocating for support of the right to freely associate and assemble also are a group of people someone “needs to address”? If so then they should be writing papers on the Black Lives Matter activists which people “need to address” instead of non-violent people using the legislative and judicial systems to protect specific enumerated rights.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Charles MacKay

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Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

Charles MacKay
1852
Preface to Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds
[Via Jeffrey A. Tucker When Will the Madness End?

I haven’t read the book yet but I have it on my phone and it is next in my queue.

The current mass delusion has interesting parallels to the late 1960’s and early 1970’s with the hijacking of claims of racism against blacks by white Marxists. Read about it in America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence Days of Rage. Many of the people who lived through that gradually came to their senses and were perplexed how they could have believed the stuff they were so certain of.

I haven’t read any books on it but I’ve read some newspaper clippings from the 1930’s about socialism/communism being openly viewed with great popularity in our country. Again, within a relatively short period of years, such views were strongly disavowed and even suppressed by government action.

That such cycles into madness have occurred before, and our country recovered, gives me hope that we can recover from this cycle into a political hell as well.—Joe]

Quote of the day—MTHead

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The morons at Brady still think if they can get a law passed, everyone is going to just obey it?

When everyone with a gun knows no one else is obeying the law? Imagine their surprise when we start playing Cowboys and Communist!

Were going to defeat Trump and pass a law! And that’s going to stop radical Hadji’s from making suppressed 22’s and assassinating people! It’s like watching Special Olympics Politics.

MTHead
July 11, 2020
Comment to Lies and deception—It’s their culture
[“…playing Cowboys and Communists” got a laugh from me.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays

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This presidential election will be a choice between systems we know from experience always succeed versus systems we know from experience always fail. Guess which one young people favor by a majority.

Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays
Tweeted on July 10, 2020
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Got Doubt @GotDoubt

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Capitalism is all about inequity. Communism is about equity. By its nature, capitalism is racist, sexist, discriminatory vs religion, creed and behavior other than greed. It’s easily observed that race and wealth are linked. Capitalism abuses the minority.

Got Doubt @GotDoubt
Tweeted on July 10, 2020
[If we ran the numbers I wouldn’t be surprised if communism actually does achieve a closer approximation to equality of outcome. Hundreds of millions of people are equally dead because of communism.

It is far better that there exist a few hundred billionaires and 10s of thousands of homeless people than 100 million are murdered by their own government each century.

That should be more than sufficient but that’s not the only issue I have with socialism/communism. There is a more fundamental issue I have.

That equality of outcome is presumed as a desirable goal should be challenged whenever it raises its ugly head. Does anyone seriously believe someone who consistently makes extremely poor life choices and ends up homeless, a drug addict, and gravely ill should have the same standard of living as someone who consistently makes good life choices? If so, then I have serious doubts about having sufficient things in common with such a person to enable meaningful communication. They would literally be living in an alternate reality from me.—Joe]

Stalin, Hitler, or McCarthy?

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I’ve been looking at the parallels of the cancel culture, riots, and looting of today in the U.S. to other times and places in history.

Numerous times I’ve mentioned Gulag Archipelago both on this blog and in private conversation with my children and others. The survivors of those times wrote of the truth not being “politically correct” and to speak the truth could result you being “reeducated”, sent to a slave labor camp, or being executed. But, as far as I know, they lacked the riots, thuggish mobs, and looting.

In Nazi Germany the removal of all Jews from government jobs and universities warrants at least a mention. The Brown Shirts, thuggish mobs, and looting ignored by the government certainly are a good match for what we are seeing today in some locations. But the removal of people from their jobs wasn’t because of their political beliefs and/or speech.

After reading Bari Weiss’s letter of resignation from the New York Times (via email from Paul K. and Reason Magazine which has a good article on the topic) another potential parallel was brought to my attention. From Weiss’s letter* (emphasis added):

The paper of record is, more and more, the record of those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people. This is a galaxy in which, to choose just a few recent examples, the Soviet space program is lauded for its “diversity”; the doxxing of teenagers in the name of justice is condoned; and the worst caste systems in human history includes the United States alongside Nazi Germany.

Even now, I am confident that most people at The Times do not hold these views. Yet they are cowed by those who do. Why? Perhaps because they believe the ultimate goal is righteous. Perhaps because they believe that they will be granted protection if they nod along as the coin of our realm—language—is degraded in service to an ever-shifting laundry list of right causes. Perhaps because there are millions of unemployed people in this country and they feel lucky to have a job in a contracting industry.

Or perhaps it is because they know that, nowadays, standing up for principle at the paper does not win plaudits. It puts a target on your back. Too wise to post on Slack, they write to me privately about the “new McCarthyism” that has taken root at the paper of record.

McCarthyism certainly cost a lot of people their jobs (watch The Front, if for nothing other than the credits at the end which are incredibly sobering). And it was about political correctness of a type. But the thuggish mobs, riots, and looting are missing as well as the political persuasion of the villains being anti-Marxist rather than pro-Marist as we have in the circumstances of today.

The fictional dystopia of 1984 could be considered a match in many ways but it takes place deep in the depths of the fierce suppression of speech, written word, and even many thoughts are forbidden. Something closer to our present circumstance and non-fictional is preferable.

I’m left with less than great matches. Sunday evening I suggested to my children they read Gulag Archipelago. Kim eagerly asked for the spelling but Jaime protested that unless it offered a solution then she didn’t want to get even more depressed and upset by our current situation. That’s a valid point. And furthermore, without great parallels how can I shed light on what to expect next or what to suggest as a remedy? And then there are so many variables such as our technology lending itself to vastly superior suppression of free speech than the previous examples. On the other side of that coin is that same technology also can also be a tool for the enabling of free speech and punishment of the evil doers. And, of course, 100s of millions of guns and billions of rounds of ammunition in the possession of the persecuted also is a variable not present in any of the historical scenarios.

The McCarthyism parallel is by far the least tragic of the outcomes, but it is also the worst match so I’m going to dismiss it.

The conclusion am am left with is that the all the reasonably good historical parallels lead to really bad situations. We must do our best to avoid going in that direction.

I keep thinking that with more and more evidence such as Weiss’s letter, the lessons learned from CHAZ/CHOP, and the continuing destruction in other cities, Portland Oregon in particular, that there is a good chance of a political turn around in the November elections. We should work at making a political solution the most likely outcome while ensuring a 2nd Amendment solution is a last resort and crystal clear that if needed it will be used and will be overwhelming successful.

* I intended to extract a paragraph of the letter for a QOTD but nearly every paragraph would have qualified. I would like to suggest you read the entire letter.