Hans Fiene is a Lutheran pastor and a great story teller as well. At The Federalist he tells us Why Infanticide Isn't A Bridge Too Far For Many Abortion Supporters. I have written about this a number of times. Abortion and infanticide are ancient pagan sins that we thought the Christian world had eliminated, only to have it come roaring back in the modern age. Fiene tells us a story, a parable about why this might be: The Parable of the Burning Building.
In the parable, a party goer is on the first floor attending a party when Captain Fire Crier barges into the room and tells them to jump out the window before the fire spreads. Being afraid to jump while it is only a 5 foot drop, the party goer goes up a floor. But Captain Fire Crier again interupts the party to announce the fire is now on their floor and they should jump. But now the drop is 15 feet and the party goer is even more afraid. So he escapes to the third floor, where you can imagine what happens next. Eventually, the party goer finds himself 100 floors up, and all hope of jumping has been lost. He is clearly doomed.
After relating how this parable fits to the pro choice movement, Fiene introduces Jesus's parable of the Prodigal Son. It turns out that it is never to late to repent, while you yet are alive. To repent means to rethink, and to appeal to God for Divine Mercy and Grace. If you are pro choice, now is the time to rethink your position and pray to God for his Mercy. God doesn't want you to be burned in the fire that sin lit. Pray with me now Psalm 51:
Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I acknowledge my transgressions,
And my sin is always before me.
4 Against You, You only, have I sinned,
And done this evil in Your sight—
That You may be found just [a]when You speak,
And blameless when You judge.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.
6 Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,
And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me hear joy and gladness,
That the bones You have broken may rejoice.
9 Hide Your face from my sins,
And blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from Your presence,
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
And rethink you position on abortion and infanticide. The life you save may be your own.
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Saturday, February 16, 2019
A better explanation to David Drake
A fellow blogger, David Drake, made a comment to the post Finally Somebody Recognizes that People Make The Difference that upon further consideration deserves an expanded explication. My response to David was, while accurate, perhaps a little short. So, here goes:
David said
The first group consist of what Col. Jeff Cooper called "hoplophobes," people who fear guns. There are people who fear the loud noise, have never had guns around them, and fear what they do not understand. Many of these people only know guns from what they see on television and the movies. Such depictions are notoriously inaccurate and untrustworthy. They have the notion that guns are more powerful than they actually are. They believe that guns can fire faster, farther, and do more damage than is actually possible. Sometimes it is possible to educate these people, but it only happens when they themselves seek such education. People like this are most susceptible to anti gun messages.
There are others who believe the world shouldn't require us to go about armed. I can't disagree with this position. But reality tells a different story. The truth is that violence happens where and when you least expect it. The average criminal may not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but they know to wait until you are distracted, or not paying attention to situational awareness to pounce. They also pick their targets where they are least likely to have armed opposition. Until the lion lies down with the lamb, and swords are beaten into plowshares, men (and women) with weapons will be needed. At the moment, and for the foreseeable future, guns will be the most effective tools.
There are also people who do not feel they can, or should bear the burden of carrying a weapon. People tell me they know themselves to be too volatile, that they fear they will become enraged and "snap." Of course each person should make his own decisions for himself. My own experience is that once I started carrying a gun, I began keeping my emotions in tighter check precisely because I was carrying potentially lethal force, and that force should only be used in the gravest extreme.
I am likely to encounter a number of such people on a daily basis. Most are harmless, having a live and let live attitude. Most do not think twice about guns from month to month unless something happens like the Parkland shooting.. They tsk tsk at the events, perhaps cry for the parents of the dead or wounded, and move on with their lives. If somebody suggests shortly after an incident, they are on board with the "do something" crowd, which explains why we have 23,000 gun laws in the country. None of these laws, of course, do anything other than forcing the law abiding to jump through extra hoops. Criminals, are by definition, atr not law abiding, so these laws mean nothing to them.
One interesting law that exists in some jurisdictions is a law that requires registration of handguns. No less a body than the Supreme Court has ruled in U.S. vs Haynes, 1968 that criminals may not be forced to register their guns because of the Fifth Amendment right not to self incriminate. Yet theoretically, criminals are the very ones we should be catching with such laws. If we can't stop criminals, what's the point?
This brings us to the second group of anti gun people. This group consists of politicians and their paid lobbying groups such as Every Town for Gun Safety and Mom's Demand Action. Every Town and the Demanding Moms are largely funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, with assists from billionaires George Soros and Tom Steyer. They have few paid members, but they make a loud noise. On the other side, you have the NRA which is funded by the dues and donations from its 5 million members, the Gun Owners of America, with an additional 1,5 million members, and a host of state level groups like Grass Roots North Carolina. Gun rights groups do not have billionaire sugar daddies, so everything they do whether is is lobbying with the legislature, or manning booths at gun shows, is done by volunteers. Politicians pay attention when someone volunteers to give up a day's pay, and travels at their own expense to speak with them about gun bills currently in the works. That is why the NRA and similar groups are so powerful.
The real danger however comes from politicians. A lot of politicians have an exaggerated sense of their own importance and have a huge urge to tell others what to do. Writer Stella Morabito has coined the term "self-supremacy" which seems to fit fairly well. These people believe themselves to be part of an elite club of people who know what is wrong with the world and how to fix it. If they have to ram their prescriptions down our throats, they are going to do it. See Obamacare.
People with guns potentially stand in their way. That is why the Democrat party has become the anti gun party. In order to impose its socialist agenda it needs to have first eliminated the potential for an armed revolt against its machinations. They aren't worried about criminals with guns, because criminals do not act in concert with other criminals to over throw their oppressors. Instead, they figure out how to get around their oppressors. Often, this involves bribes, "plumba o plata," take the money or the lead. But at its heart socialism is just a criminal organization whose purpose is to enrich those at the top by stealing from those below, and wrapped in a pretty facade so no one notices.
The founding fathers had studied the Bible, law, and history. They were keenly aware of other forms of government and how they failed. They had tried living under a confederation of the sovereign states, but that system was too weak. After the Constitutional Convention, there was considerable debate among the Federalists and the Anitfederalists. In the end, the Federalists won the day by promising a Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights became the first 10 Amendments to the new Constitution. The Second Amendment was designed to keep us safe from both foreign invaders and from domestic tyrants. This explains the socialists hatred of the Second Amendment, because they fear that it may be used against them. When a judge enjoins an statutory or Constitutional exercise of the President's power, it looks all nice and legal like. But in fact it directly contravenes the law. In this way they hope to "sneak" up on the American people when they are not looking. When they the deep state refuses to apply the laws to one party while throwing the book at the other, that contravenes the law. The Second Amendment is a last resort, a doomsday provision, if all else fails to preserve our rights, our life, liberty, and property under the law.
But the Second Amendment can only work if we routinely flex it and exercise it. We the people should be armed with the same armaments as the police and military. The balance of fire power should be on the peoples side. The other thing we need to do is remain vigilant.
Update:
In a related post, Alan Korwin has an article at Townhall.com entitled Background Checks Are...Wrong. Korwin:
David said
I will never understand why schools, grade K-12; are so frightened to have someone on the school property who is trained on how to handle guns & trained in self-defense; and who passes all the background checks. It has to be "PC". I can't think of any other reason. Am I missing something? Is there something I'm NOT following?I responded that the anti gun movement consists of people who fear guns, and people who want to control you and me. Let's expand on these two classes of people.
The first group consist of what Col. Jeff Cooper called "hoplophobes," people who fear guns. There are people who fear the loud noise, have never had guns around them, and fear what they do not understand. Many of these people only know guns from what they see on television and the movies. Such depictions are notoriously inaccurate and untrustworthy. They have the notion that guns are more powerful than they actually are. They believe that guns can fire faster, farther, and do more damage than is actually possible. Sometimes it is possible to educate these people, but it only happens when they themselves seek such education. People like this are most susceptible to anti gun messages.
There are others who believe the world shouldn't require us to go about armed. I can't disagree with this position. But reality tells a different story. The truth is that violence happens where and when you least expect it. The average criminal may not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but they know to wait until you are distracted, or not paying attention to situational awareness to pounce. They also pick their targets where they are least likely to have armed opposition. Until the lion lies down with the lamb, and swords are beaten into plowshares, men (and women) with weapons will be needed. At the moment, and for the foreseeable future, guns will be the most effective tools.
There are also people who do not feel they can, or should bear the burden of carrying a weapon. People tell me they know themselves to be too volatile, that they fear they will become enraged and "snap." Of course each person should make his own decisions for himself. My own experience is that once I started carrying a gun, I began keeping my emotions in tighter check precisely because I was carrying potentially lethal force, and that force should only be used in the gravest extreme.
I am likely to encounter a number of such people on a daily basis. Most are harmless, having a live and let live attitude. Most do not think twice about guns from month to month unless something happens like the Parkland shooting.. They tsk tsk at the events, perhaps cry for the parents of the dead or wounded, and move on with their lives. If somebody suggests shortly after an incident, they are on board with the "do something" crowd, which explains why we have 23,000 gun laws in the country. None of these laws, of course, do anything other than forcing the law abiding to jump through extra hoops. Criminals, are by definition, atr not law abiding, so these laws mean nothing to them.
One interesting law that exists in some jurisdictions is a law that requires registration of handguns. No less a body than the Supreme Court has ruled in U.S. vs Haynes, 1968 that criminals may not be forced to register their guns because of the Fifth Amendment right not to self incriminate. Yet theoretically, criminals are the very ones we should be catching with such laws. If we can't stop criminals, what's the point?
This brings us to the second group of anti gun people. This group consists of politicians and their paid lobbying groups such as Every Town for Gun Safety and Mom's Demand Action. Every Town and the Demanding Moms are largely funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, with assists from billionaires George Soros and Tom Steyer. They have few paid members, but they make a loud noise. On the other side, you have the NRA which is funded by the dues and donations from its 5 million members, the Gun Owners of America, with an additional 1,5 million members, and a host of state level groups like Grass Roots North Carolina. Gun rights groups do not have billionaire sugar daddies, so everything they do whether is is lobbying with the legislature, or manning booths at gun shows, is done by volunteers. Politicians pay attention when someone volunteers to give up a day's pay, and travels at their own expense to speak with them about gun bills currently in the works. That is why the NRA and similar groups are so powerful.
The real danger however comes from politicians. A lot of politicians have an exaggerated sense of their own importance and have a huge urge to tell others what to do. Writer Stella Morabito has coined the term "self-supremacy" which seems to fit fairly well. These people believe themselves to be part of an elite club of people who know what is wrong with the world and how to fix it. If they have to ram their prescriptions down our throats, they are going to do it. See Obamacare.
People with guns potentially stand in their way. That is why the Democrat party has become the anti gun party. In order to impose its socialist agenda it needs to have first eliminated the potential for an armed revolt against its machinations. They aren't worried about criminals with guns, because criminals do not act in concert with other criminals to over throw their oppressors. Instead, they figure out how to get around their oppressors. Often, this involves bribes, "plumba o plata," take the money or the lead. But at its heart socialism is just a criminal organization whose purpose is to enrich those at the top by stealing from those below, and wrapped in a pretty facade so no one notices.
The founding fathers had studied the Bible, law, and history. They were keenly aware of other forms of government and how they failed. They had tried living under a confederation of the sovereign states, but that system was too weak. After the Constitutional Convention, there was considerable debate among the Federalists and the Anitfederalists. In the end, the Federalists won the day by promising a Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights became the first 10 Amendments to the new Constitution. The Second Amendment was designed to keep us safe from both foreign invaders and from domestic tyrants. This explains the socialists hatred of the Second Amendment, because they fear that it may be used against them. When a judge enjoins an statutory or Constitutional exercise of the President's power, it looks all nice and legal like. But in fact it directly contravenes the law. In this way they hope to "sneak" up on the American people when they are not looking. When they the deep state refuses to apply the laws to one party while throwing the book at the other, that contravenes the law. The Second Amendment is a last resort, a doomsday provision, if all else fails to preserve our rights, our life, liberty, and property under the law.
But the Second Amendment can only work if we routinely flex it and exercise it. We the people should be armed with the same armaments as the police and military. The balance of fire power should be on the peoples side. The other thing we need to do is remain vigilant.
Update:
In a related post, Alan Korwin has an article at Townhall.com entitled Background Checks Are...Wrong. Korwin:
If you’re terrified of guns, or if you want all power to collect and reside in the hands of “the authorities,” then background checks are not the wrong thing. Background checks are a tool for control over the population. But they don’t control crime. They don’t even address crime. Democrats know this, or should.
These checks are something the organizers of this free country could not even imagine, much less sanction. Your acquisition of power (firearms) is supposed to stand totally apart from government reach. But that’s philosophical, too deep for many modern citizens. It’s hopelessly arcane for typical public school or even recent college grads.Korwin is often brutally honest. But the time has past for saving hurt feelings. We must be brutally honest to wake people up to the danger.
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Finally, Somebody Recognizes that People Make the Difference
One school, Manatee School for the Arts, in Manatee County, Florida has actually done the right thing. According to the website Bearing Arms a Florida School Hires Combat Vet(eran)s To Protect Students. I have argued that violence can happen at any place at any time. While some have come to this conclusion based on statistical studies, my observations are based on the Christian understanding of man as fallen creature. The free will we have only allows us to do evil. Our only hope is in the Lord. But Tom Knighton makes this explicit also:
So,since students can not defend themselves against and armed attacker, the best thing is allowing teachers who want to shoulder the burden to carry concealed to protect the students under their care. But this school decided to hire combat vets. I would take that too as opposed to having the school wide open for anyone to just walk in and start shooting up the place:
* Note that college students are a different matter entirely. Students who are at least 21, and pass a background check should be old enough to carry on campus. However, as I remember those days myself, I couldn't afford a gun, much less the belt, holster, and training needed to carry. But legislatures who make blanket bans are doing a disservice to students and their parents. However, that is a different story for a different blog post.
You never know when violence is going to erupt, especially when you’re talking about a mass shooting. They happen seemingly at random and in unexpected places. They’re not happening in inner-city schools with gang problems, for example. They’re happening in places where you don’t expect the wholesale slaughter of innocent people.It thus becomes imperative that people willing to shoulder that burden should carry as frequently as the law allows, but the law should allow them to carry pretty much everywhere. That is why many gu trainers say that you should carry every where all the time. Violence occurs when and where you least expect it to happen. Besides, criminals certainly carry everywhere. But high school students are of course a different matter. Students shouldn't be carrying guns to school every day because a number of them do not have the maturity yet to carry them responsibly.*
So,since students can not defend themselves against and armed attacker, the best thing is allowing teachers who want to shoulder the burden to carry concealed to protect the students under their care. But this school decided to hire combat vets. I would take that too as opposed to having the school wide open for anyone to just walk in and start shooting up the place:
First, you take veterans and give them a renewed purpose. Transitioning from military to civilian life isn’t easy, even without seeing the horrors of war, so something like this is likely to help a great deal.
Second, you put guns in the hands of people you know aren’t going to hide outside if shots start to fly. These are people who have seen the elephant already. They’ve already been through the crucible of combat.The adage that "guns save lives" is as flawed as the notion than guns kill. Every sheriff's deputy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school had a gun. The shooter also had a gun. It is not the instrumentality that takes action, or not. It is the people themselves and their intent. Guns are just tools, no more, no less. Choosing people who have been through actual combat, have faced down the evil and survived is a pretty smart step. People make the difference, the tools they carry are a secondary issue.
* Note that college students are a different matter entirely. Students who are at least 21, and pass a background check should be old enough to carry on campus. However, as I remember those days myself, I couldn't afford a gun, much less the belt, holster, and training needed to carry. But legislatures who make blanket bans are doing a disservice to students and their parents. However, that is a different story for a different blog post.
Monday, February 11, 2019
The Red, White, and Blue New Deal
Once again, Kurt Schlichter has hits the nail on the head with his post entitled How About a Red, White, and Blue New Deal? at Townhall.com today.
Schlichter's Red, White and Blue New Deal is rather simple:
Schilchter is his usual self, so expect a lot of sarcasm and irony in this piece, but it is well worth the your time to read.
One thing to think about as you consider the Green New Deal is that if these proposals made anyone more prosperous, don't you think someone would be doing them already without being forced by the government? Whenever the government forces you to do something, you can bet that it is not what you want to do, nor is it in your best interest to do it. Does the government, for example, have to subsidize McDonald's? No? Then why does the government have to subsidize these other things if not precisely because nobody is going to pay for them. And why won't people pay for them? because they can't make money.
Support your own damn self and leave me the hell alone.This has been the battle cry all along: leave me alone! You do what you want, but leave me alone. Of course, Leftists can not leave anyone alone because their whole reason for being is to bother everyone else. These people are hollow, and miserable themselves, and so derive meaning by making others as miserable as they are.
Schilchter is his usual self, so expect a lot of sarcasm and irony in this piece, but it is well worth the your time to read.
One thing to think about as you consider the Green New Deal is that if these proposals made anyone more prosperous, don't you think someone would be doing them already without being forced by the government? Whenever the government forces you to do something, you can bet that it is not what you want to do, nor is it in your best interest to do it. Does the government, for example, have to subsidize McDonald's? No? Then why does the government have to subsidize these other things if not precisely because nobody is going to pay for them. And why won't people pay for them? because they can't make money.
Support your own damn self and leave me the hell aloneThat pretty well sums it up.
Saturday, February 9, 2019
The Green New Deal: Pure Evil
By now, you have no doubt heard of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (AOC's for short) "Green New Deal." If you live in reality as apposed to fantasy land, you have probably had a good giggle if not a huge guffaw. It is the engineering equivalent of proposing to hang a roof from "sky hooks." Don't laugh. Air has friction, right? That is why things coming in from space burn up in earth's atmosphere. In theory, the friction on a long enough object should retard that object so that you could hang a roof structure on such "sky hooks." The problem is that any material massive enough to hold a up a roof has too much weight such that gravity would overcome the air friction. So while one can imagine a sky hook working, it is a practical impossibility, along with the perpetual motion machine and Ayn Rand's magic machine that generates power in Atlas Shrugged.
Two articles to consider, of the many I have read so far are by Ben Shapiro and David Harsanyi. Shapiro's, at the Daily Wire is entitled AOC's Green New Deal Proposal is One of the Stupidest Documents Ever Written. While the original proposal is no longer available Shapiro preserves it in this document. The second piece is by David Harsanyi at the Federalist entitled The 10 Most Insane Requirements of The Green New Deal. Read both articles.
I have contended that the intent of many so called environmentalists is to ratchet us back to the technological advancements of the 17th or 18th centuries. Environmentalist claim that isn't so, they just want some regulation because...the reasons vary...but usually boil down to the idea that people... not them of course... but other people, are just too stupid to handle sophisticated technology. Their fear is the fear that drove Mary Shelley to write about Frankenstein's Monster. It is the fear that causes people to believe in the Malthusian prediction. Like Chicken Little, they run about screaming the sky is falling and we're all going to die unless we do what they say.
I myself have had a good chuckle over the proposal. It is ludicrous, and the fact that it came out from a Congresswoman is almost unbelievable. But don't make the mistake of dismissing The Green New Deal, or of dismissing AOC. I do not know if AOC actually believes much of what she says, including her socialist pronouncements, or she just sees this as a pose to get her to more power. I have seen too many things that derive from the Socialist/Communist/Facsist/Progressive agenda come to pass to dismiss this. The welfare state was a New Deal idea that was not fully implemented until 1965 with Johnson's Great Society. Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring came out in 1962. while it had a kernel of truth, the main premise was hog wash, yet by 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency was born, and has been a bane of our existence ever since. Having a single payer universal healthcare system like England's NIH was a wet dream of the Democrats since 1948, and they are closing in on it now.
No, don't dismiss The Green New Deal. It is a classic misdirection that keeps everyone arguing about climate and "saving the planet" while what it really does is take away freedom and choice. So, for instance, by getting rid of airplanes, it eliminates one choice for long distance travel. By getting rid of internal combustion engines it gets rid of one of the most used modes of short distance travel. Constricting choices for energy to wind and solar severely restricts our choices of when to do things, and how we do them. That is ultimately the goal of all these socialist proposals, to control you and me, while giving them power and wealth. Wealth is normally earned by producing a product people want. These people couldn't produce their way out of a paper bag, so they have to resort to finding a way to con you out of your wealth, thereby constricting what you can do. It is pure evil.
Two articles to consider, of the many I have read so far are by Ben Shapiro and David Harsanyi. Shapiro's, at the Daily Wire is entitled AOC's Green New Deal Proposal is One of the Stupidest Documents Ever Written. While the original proposal is no longer available Shapiro preserves it in this document. The second piece is by David Harsanyi at the Federalist entitled The 10 Most Insane Requirements of The Green New Deal. Read both articles.
I have contended that the intent of many so called environmentalists is to ratchet us back to the technological advancements of the 17th or 18th centuries. Environmentalist claim that isn't so, they just want some regulation because...the reasons vary...but usually boil down to the idea that people... not them of course... but other people, are just too stupid to handle sophisticated technology. Their fear is the fear that drove Mary Shelley to write about Frankenstein's Monster. It is the fear that causes people to believe in the Malthusian prediction. Like Chicken Little, they run about screaming the sky is falling and we're all going to die unless we do what they say.
I myself have had a good chuckle over the proposal. It is ludicrous, and the fact that it came out from a Congresswoman is almost unbelievable. But don't make the mistake of dismissing The Green New Deal, or of dismissing AOC. I do not know if AOC actually believes much of what she says, including her socialist pronouncements, or she just sees this as a pose to get her to more power. I have seen too many things that derive from the Socialist/Communist/Facsist/Progressive agenda come to pass to dismiss this. The welfare state was a New Deal idea that was not fully implemented until 1965 with Johnson's Great Society. Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring came out in 1962. while it had a kernel of truth, the main premise was hog wash, yet by 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency was born, and has been a bane of our existence ever since. Having a single payer universal healthcare system like England's NIH was a wet dream of the Democrats since 1948, and they are closing in on it now.
No, don't dismiss The Green New Deal. It is a classic misdirection that keeps everyone arguing about climate and "saving the planet" while what it really does is take away freedom and choice. So, for instance, by getting rid of airplanes, it eliminates one choice for long distance travel. By getting rid of internal combustion engines it gets rid of one of the most used modes of short distance travel. Constricting choices for energy to wind and solar severely restricts our choices of when to do things, and how we do them. That is ultimately the goal of all these socialist proposals, to control you and me, while giving them power and wealth. Wealth is normally earned by producing a product people want. These people couldn't produce their way out of a paper bag, so they have to resort to finding a way to con you out of your wealth, thereby constricting what you can do. It is pure evil.
Thursday, February 7, 2019
Tell SJW to Go Pound Sand
Kurt Schlichter has some important advice for Republicans and conservatives: Tell the Social Justice Warriors To Go Pound Sand. It is good advice, so I encourage gentle readers of this blog to go read his article at Townhall.com. Along the way, of course, he also mocks and makes fun of Democrats and that breed of Republican that would rather throw good men and women to the wolves than to fight back. Kurt is right to fight back, because often these SJW outbreaks of hysteria are nothing more than politically timed attempts to tar and feather someone on our side. The fact that it is happening to Democrats today is a popcorn worthy event.
The proximate cause of the SJW outrage machine going into high gear is the "discovery" of Virginia governor Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook page showing Northam either wearing blackface or a KKK robe. The year was 1984, around the same time that the movie Blazing Saddles was came out. Blazing Saddles was Mel Brooks' classic anti-racist spoof that included references to a number of serious Westerns and a few WWII movies. It was and is hilarious, and should be studied by students for all time along with of course Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Schlichter is correct that people can change in 30 years. People can grow up and become responsible adults.
The problem for both Northam and the SJW outrage machine is that their outrage is focused on the wrong things. Blackface? So? He was young and stupid, and young and stupid people do stupid things. What should spin up this crowd is that he defended...no endorsed...infanticide in the present. But no one was upset about that, which tells you everything you need to know about the SJW.
Schlichter closes with this:
The proximate cause of the SJW outrage machine going into high gear is the "discovery" of Virginia governor Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook page showing Northam either wearing blackface or a KKK robe. The year was 1984, around the same time that the movie Blazing Saddles was came out. Blazing Saddles was Mel Brooks' classic anti-racist spoof that included references to a number of serious Westerns and a few WWII movies. It was and is hilarious, and should be studied by students for all time along with of course Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Schlichter is correct that people can change in 30 years. People can grow up and become responsible adults.
The problem for both Northam and the SJW outrage machine is that their outrage is focused on the wrong things. Blackface? So? He was young and stupid, and young and stupid people do stupid things. What should spin up this crowd is that he defended...no endorsed...infanticide in the present. But no one was upset about that, which tells you everything you need to know about the SJW.
Schlichter closes with this:
But that’s rare. And it does not include someone who decades ago did something silly, stupid, offensive, or even ugly, that did not hurt anyone, and who has subsequently demonstrated nothing showing low character. People make mistakes. They change and grow-up. We conservatives are supposed to be the ideology based upon real world experience, which includes changing and growing, unlike the totalitarian thought police of the left who savor the opportunity to spin themselves into a social media mob.
So let the Democrat autophagy begin. Your Virginia governor is a garbage person who did garbage things and told garbage lies not only about the garbage things he did – he was merely honoring Michael Jackson, folks – but about his GOP opponents. Let them eat their own. Perhaps they will learn through pain to be better people. Perhaps they will simply devour themselves. Hey, it’s all good.
But we Republicans should be different. We should be a party both of standards and forgiveness, of perspective and judgment, not of cowardly concessions to mobs out to crucify Catholic kids for smirkcrimes in the face of drum-beating fake ‘Nam vets.
The next time the SJWs come to us with some ridiculous demand to sacrifice one of our own on their altar of arbitrary outrage, we should tell them to put on their pounding gear and head to the beach.
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
You be the judge
Despite countless articles point out how unjust these new "Red Flag" laws are, they keep popping up like summer mushrooms in the cow pasture. It seems everywhere the cows drop a steaming pile of excrement, there you will find a bill waiting to be pushed.
Today's bill comes from North Dakota, where a local newspaper, the Minot Daily News has an article entitled People Targeted by Red Flag Laws Would Have to Pay for Their Own Defense. Tom Knighton at Bearing Arms makes some good points. For instance, he points out, as does the article at the Minot Daily News that if you are targeted, you must prove a negative, that you are not dangerous. Interestingly, I suspect most people are, in fact, dangerous. Is a wild cat dangerous? A rattlesnake? Of course. And people are natural predators as well. What makes a person not dangerous is how closely one hews to God's laws concerning murder of another human being.
In this case, the law is framed as a "civil proceeding," but then prosecutors are encouraged to help a person file a complaint against a target. But the target himself has to pay to defend himself. In a civil case, the court assumes the plaintiffs case is correct, and the jury has to decide if the defendant has proven the plaintiff wrong. This is backassword. Since so called Red Flag laws are taking away a persons Constitutionally protected civil rights, the law should come under the criminal statutes, where one must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a target is likely to commit murder. Is that a more difficult thing to prove? Of course, but what is the point of the Bill of Rights if one can run roughshod over any right one wishes.
Imagine for a moment that there was a Red Flag law on the books pertaining to freedom of the press. Suppose all it required was to be offended by an article to file a Red Flag complaint. Today, being offended seems to be the National Pastime of at least half the population. So, someone reads this article, goes down to the prosecutors office, where he gets help filling out the forms, files the complaint, at which point I receive a summons to court asking me to show cause why I should be allowed to continue publishing this blog. How would I go about it? As for hiring a lawyer, I am a poor retiree.
And there is the point of the article. Such laws fall more heavily on the poor, who often live in more dangerous surroundings. And since the poor includes a fair number of minorities as well, minorities will be impacted more as well. In the article, Mr. Port doesn't say so, but every gun control act that has ever been devised has been aimed precisely at the poor and the minorities. In the Jim Crow South, North Carolina had a law that required a person to pay $5.00 for a pistol permit from the Sheriff of the County of residence before someone could buy a handgun. Now in the 19th Century, $5.00 was a lot of money, and it was no less a tax on a civil right than were the poll taxes charged to vote. But let's say that a black man saved up the pistol permit fee to buy a $25 handgun. Would any sheriff in his right mind have given the black man a permit? That law is still on the books in North Carolina, by the way. Every time the Legislature brings up the idea of repealing this fossil of racism, the Sheriff's association, along with the NAACP and a host of other liberal/leftist organizations raises a hew and cry that there will be blood in the streets if they get rid of a fundamentally racist law.
You be the judge.
Today's bill comes from North Dakota, where a local newspaper, the Minot Daily News has an article entitled People Targeted by Red Flag Laws Would Have to Pay for Their Own Defense. Tom Knighton at Bearing Arms makes some good points. For instance, he points out, as does the article at the Minot Daily News that if you are targeted, you must prove a negative, that you are not dangerous. Interestingly, I suspect most people are, in fact, dangerous. Is a wild cat dangerous? A rattlesnake? Of course. And people are natural predators as well. What makes a person not dangerous is how closely one hews to God's laws concerning murder of another human being.
In this case, the law is framed as a "civil proceeding," but then prosecutors are encouraged to help a person file a complaint against a target. But the target himself has to pay to defend himself. In a civil case, the court assumes the plaintiffs case is correct, and the jury has to decide if the defendant has proven the plaintiff wrong. This is backassword. Since so called Red Flag laws are taking away a persons Constitutionally protected civil rights, the law should come under the criminal statutes, where one must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a target is likely to commit murder. Is that a more difficult thing to prove? Of course, but what is the point of the Bill of Rights if one can run roughshod over any right one wishes.
Imagine for a moment that there was a Red Flag law on the books pertaining to freedom of the press. Suppose all it required was to be offended by an article to file a Red Flag complaint. Today, being offended seems to be the National Pastime of at least half the population. So, someone reads this article, goes down to the prosecutors office, where he gets help filling out the forms, files the complaint, at which point I receive a summons to court asking me to show cause why I should be allowed to continue publishing this blog. How would I go about it? As for hiring a lawyer, I am a poor retiree.
And there is the point of the article. Such laws fall more heavily on the poor, who often live in more dangerous surroundings. And since the poor includes a fair number of minorities as well, minorities will be impacted more as well. In the article, Mr. Port doesn't say so, but every gun control act that has ever been devised has been aimed precisely at the poor and the minorities. In the Jim Crow South, North Carolina had a law that required a person to pay $5.00 for a pistol permit from the Sheriff of the County of residence before someone could buy a handgun. Now in the 19th Century, $5.00 was a lot of money, and it was no less a tax on a civil right than were the poll taxes charged to vote. But let's say that a black man saved up the pistol permit fee to buy a $25 handgun. Would any sheriff in his right mind have given the black man a permit? That law is still on the books in North Carolina, by the way. Every time the Legislature brings up the idea of repealing this fossil of racism, the Sheriff's association, along with the NAACP and a host of other liberal/leftist organizations raises a hew and cry that there will be blood in the streets if they get rid of a fundamentally racist law.
You be the judge.
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