Several quick reads of interest. I recommend you go read them all.
First up, Michelle Malkin has a piece over at Townhall.com entitled Screw Up, Move Up, Cover Up: The Fast and Furious Edition. If you have been following Sipsey Street Irregulars and the War on Guns, Notes from the resistance, you know all of this. Melson has been removed as the head of the ATF, and a number of Fast and Furious perpetrators have been given what appear to be promotions. The news here is that Michelle Malkin writes for a more general audience of conservatives and TEA partiers, who may not follow the gun blogs. The word is seeping out.
Also today, AWR Hawkins has a piece, again at Townhall.com entitled Barack Obama: Above the Law or just Lawless? Several people have warned that this President is blatantly, and deliberately lawless. I would note that there are several other things Hawkins has left out. None the less, for a general audience who may not always be aware, to have it appear in a forum like Townhall is very helpful in getting the word out.
Finally, Jeffrey Toobin of the NY Times has a piece in the New Yorker on Clarence Thomas entitled Partners. Ok, so this one is not a quick read, but go read it anyway. It gives voice to what I have always thought, that far from being stupid, as is often supposed by the Left, Thomas is an intellectual giant and leader of the conservatives on the Court. I have not always agreed with Thomas's rulings, but I find his rulings compelling. His writing shares with the best literature the ability at once to say a great deal in simple prose. So, why is Toobin letting everyone know now that Thomas has been quietly building a case against government over reach, and for an original understanding of the Constitution? I think because he is alerting his Leftist readers that somehow or another, Thomas will have to be forced to recuse himself when ObamaCare comes before the court.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Is Perry Establishment, or TEA Party Favorite
The American Thinker had an article yesterday, that hints at "the troubles" coming our way, but posits a fairly optimistic outcome for Elections 2012. The title of the article is What Liberals Fear More than Obama Losing, by Geoffrey P. Hunt, whose opening paragraph held much promise:
In any case, since he is in the race, let's have a look at Rick Perry. His official campaign website is here. The things Rick Perry is saying here mostly seem to be things that I can live with. Perry vows to repeal ObamaCare, cut spending, and cut taxes. What I don't see is that he would get rid of any departments, no matter how Unconstitutional those departments may be. For example, the Department of Education gives out billions for things that are not even on the Congress's to-do list. Then there are departments like DHS. DHS, in Obama's hands threatens to become a secret police force. We don't (or didn't) have those sorts of things in America. And what about repealing the unPatriot Act? What about eliminating thousands of regulations that stifle business and job creation every day? No mention of any of that.
On the other side, if Jeff Greenfield's scare mongering is any indication, I could live with Top 10 Things Governor Rick Perry Doesn't Want You to Know About Him. Of course, that is just some red meat thrown at the left, so I discount a lot of what I read there. But if what a lot of the MSM is saying and writing about him may not be true, they have definitely telegraphed that this guy is both electable, and has truly conservative ideas. They are afraid of Rick Perry, which elevates him in my eyes.
What about Rick Perry's record on guns? You can tell a lot about a politician's position on other issues by his position on guns. Perry apparently has a concealed carry license, but then reputedly so do Senators Boxer and Schumer. That doesn't mean they are all for you having a gun. Keep in mind the liberals ability to simultaneously hold two opposing points of view. Rick Perry opposed the recent efforts of the ATF to illegally grab more power by making the four Southwestern States report multiple sales of long guns to the Fed. Good. He has reportedly stated that if a person has a concealed carry license, he should be allowed to carry pretty much anywhere. Not bad. Licensing concealed carry is a good first step (as the Left always says.) In the generational culture war to keep our guns and bear them, we eventually want Constitutional carry everywhere.
In today's American Thinker, J. Robert Smith has an article which says that Romney plans to scare seniors about Social Security and Medicare. But Perry's plans, as I understand them now, seem quite modest. If we had done them back in 2004, we might not have had the current recession, or it might not have been as bad as it has been.
The primary election season is designed to put the candidates in the fire, and see if they survive. It needs to be as spread out as possible. As voters, we need the time to ask questions, and get answers, assuming the candidate doesn't simply lie to the nation. If Perry scares the Dems, that is just fine. If he scares the so called Repub establishment, that is good too. The debt ceiling fiasco shows that the establishment Republicans are not listening to the voters either. Perhaps a Perry candidacy is the two by four we need to smack them up beside the head.
Good so far, but then it devolves into puff piece for Rick Perry. I say puff piece because everyone knows campaign rhetoric is designed more to rally the base than to actually indicate what a candidate would really do if elected.
The left are now wringing their hands fearing their agenda is overripe, blaming everyone else for their own spoiled pickling. While Obama's sinking prospects for re-election are disquieting, the real source of liberals' despair is their sudden, unexpected realization that the progressive agenda is dead in its tracks and will likely be in full retreat after 2012.
The tipping point provoking the libs' worst nightmare was contained in Rick Perry's speech announcing his candidacy to be the Republican nominee for president. Perry proclaimed his mission was not to make government more accountable, effective, or efficient -- that's standard issue bromide from populist reformers. No, Perry was bold enough, and as his critics will assert reckless, to suggest government should be irrelevant -- his words "as inconsequential to your lives as possible."Frankly, I don't like being railroaded into selecting someone before I can take the measure of the man (or woman, because these days a lot of women are showing more gumption than the men), and this is feeling like 2000 all over again. That year, George Bush announced, and seeming took a victory lap before being nominated by acclimation. His talk of being a "compassionate conservative" had heads scratching all over. You see, those of us who call ourselves conservative think of ourselves as truly compassionate. We want to teach all men to fish, whereas the phony compassion of liberalism just wants to give people a fish and let it go. True compassion however, takes more time and effort, and requires a change in the other persons heart, so I can understand liberals disdain for it. In any case, we just thought it was a marketing ploy, and a clever one at that. Shrewd, Mr. Rove, very shrewd. But it turned out that "compassionate conservatism" was actually code for "more of the same liberalism." What kept us voting for Bush was the thought of AlGore, of John Kerry (he served in Vietnam) was so off putting, that we held our collective nose and voted for him anyway.
In any case, since he is in the race, let's have a look at Rick Perry. His official campaign website is here. The things Rick Perry is saying here mostly seem to be things that I can live with. Perry vows to repeal ObamaCare, cut spending, and cut taxes. What I don't see is that he would get rid of any departments, no matter how Unconstitutional those departments may be. For example, the Department of Education gives out billions for things that are not even on the Congress's to-do list. Then there are departments like DHS. DHS, in Obama's hands threatens to become a secret police force. We don't (or didn't) have those sorts of things in America. And what about repealing the unPatriot Act? What about eliminating thousands of regulations that stifle business and job creation every day? No mention of any of that.
On the other side, if Jeff Greenfield's scare mongering is any indication, I could live with Top 10 Things Governor Rick Perry Doesn't Want You to Know About Him. Of course, that is just some red meat thrown at the left, so I discount a lot of what I read there. But if what a lot of the MSM is saying and writing about him may not be true, they have definitely telegraphed that this guy is both electable, and has truly conservative ideas. They are afraid of Rick Perry, which elevates him in my eyes.
What about Rick Perry's record on guns? You can tell a lot about a politician's position on other issues by his position on guns. Perry apparently has a concealed carry license, but then reputedly so do Senators Boxer and Schumer. That doesn't mean they are all for you having a gun. Keep in mind the liberals ability to simultaneously hold two opposing points of view. Rick Perry opposed the recent efforts of the ATF to illegally grab more power by making the four Southwestern States report multiple sales of long guns to the Fed. Good. He has reportedly stated that if a person has a concealed carry license, he should be allowed to carry pretty much anywhere. Not bad. Licensing concealed carry is a good first step (as the Left always says.) In the generational culture war to keep our guns and bear them, we eventually want Constitutional carry everywhere.
In today's American Thinker, J. Robert Smith has an article which says that Romney plans to scare seniors about Social Security and Medicare. But Perry's plans, as I understand them now, seem quite modest. If we had done them back in 2004, we might not have had the current recession, or it might not have been as bad as it has been.
The primary election season is designed to put the candidates in the fire, and see if they survive. It needs to be as spread out as possible. As voters, we need the time to ask questions, and get answers, assuming the candidate doesn't simply lie to the nation. If Perry scares the Dems, that is just fine. If he scares the so called Repub establishment, that is good too. The debt ceiling fiasco shows that the establishment Republicans are not listening to the voters either. Perhaps a Perry candidacy is the two by four we need to smack them up beside the head.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Going Nowhere Fast
For some strange reason that defies pinning down, the Left in this country seems to be in love with the idea of high speed rail. They don't love it enough to ride it themselves, mind you, but it seems to feed their sense of noblesse oblige. They often cavil on about the poor and minorities, two groups of human shields behind which the Left often retreats. But in this year of our Lord 2011, it is the rare individual who has need of a car, but can not get at least temporary use of one. Most times either a neighbor, friend, or family member has a car and will take them wherever they need to go. Then there are the Watermelons (green on the outside, red in the middle) who don't own a car in order to save Gaia from the ravages of people driving gas guzzling cars. But these types are often rather affluent and can afford to rent for the occasional trips. Enterprise Rental even advertises that they will come and pick you up! Perhaps it is simply the love affair limosine liberals have with everything European, and high speed trains are memories they all have of their youths spent traveling the continent. Whatever it is, they are willing to spend huge amounts of other people's money on rail systems that don't make sense to anyone not caught up in the religion that has become of "environmentalism."
So, it was with some amusement that I read in the American Thinker today an article by Kirk W. Kelson on California's attempt to prop up the high speed rail movement in an article entitled I Already Own a Bullet Train. Kelson writes that California wants to build a bullet train to run between Frseno and Buttonwillow, two destinations one can imagine having a huge demand that is unmet by traditional transportation alternatives. To give you a taste for Mr. Kelson's writing style, a quote or two:
Consider a Reason Magazine article from 2009 entitled Oberstar Misleads on Light Rail by Robert Poole. Poole finds that for construction costs alone a typical freeway costs $40-60 million per mile. A huge amount, to be certain. But rail costs an average of $124 million per mile. When you consider that the highway will carry 150,000 people per day versus the rail, which carries only 25,000, you realize that it is not even close. Based on the above, any transportation engineer would opt for highways. But there is more. The costs to operate the rail system is a constant drain, and if passengers do not show up as expected, the fixed costs will eat the system up. Highways, on the other hand, represent sunk costs to be sure, but there is no need to continue accruing costs to use it. There is also the fact that the highway, once built, can carry not only passenger, but trucks and commercial vehicles as well. In other words, a highway is a more versatile tool for transportation than is high speed rail.
Perhaps these are some of the reasons the State of Florida opted out of the Administration's offer of $2 billion of federal grant money to build a high speed rail line between Tampa and Orlando. In a NY Times article on February 16th, Governor Rick Scott rejected federal funds because:
Of course, it wouldn't be this way if a company could make money by providing luxury services to passengers willing to pay the costs. But nobody is. The last privately owned passenger trains died out in the 1950s. I remember riding on one of the last runs of the Akron, Canton, and Youngstown line as a small child, with my mother. Now passenger trains are all subsidized. The employees see patrons of these lines not as the source of their jobs, but as bothersome customers that they are required to serve. The actual source of their jobs is from government handouts, and they would have those jobs whether anyone rode the train or not. But therein lies the nut in the shell-if a company could make money providing passenger trains, it would be providing them. The fact that they can not should be a cautionary signal to lovers of high speed rail, who have a fiduciary responsibility to spend the taxpayers money wisely.
So, it was with some amusement that I read in the American Thinker today an article by Kirk W. Kelson on California's attempt to prop up the high speed rail movement in an article entitled I Already Own a Bullet Train. Kelson writes that California wants to build a bullet train to run between Frseno and Buttonwillow, two destinations one can imagine having a huge demand that is unmet by traditional transportation alternatives. To give you a taste for Mr. Kelson's writing style, a quote or two:
If you're of a mind someday to whisk conveniently between Fresno and Buttonwillow -- and, hey, who doesn't daydream about that? -- California will have you covered. Traveling 220 miles per hour (mph), you'll get from "nowhere" to "nowhere" in a brisk 30 minutes.Of course, Mr. Kelson owns a Jaguire, which is capable of speeds far in excess of the limits usually placed on highway driving. All that is needed is a willingness to face the consequences. But in his snarky way, Kelson has a point: namely that for the amount of funds expended on high speed rail lines that go from nowhere to nowhere, and which often require a car to drive you to your actual destination, building another lane of highway may be the answer.
You're right: "nowhere" is a harsh way to describe two hardworking towns in a valley better known as the "Food Basket of the World." But I'm just quoting one-time representative, former California State Assemblyman Rusty Areais, who snivels that "'[n]owhere' will never share the relative prosperity of this state until we do something about its relative isolation" (audio). According to Rusty, racing through "nowhere" at 220 mph will finally put "nowhere" on the map. Don't blink denizens of Merced. "Your" "share" of California's "prosperity" just whizzed by.
Consider a Reason Magazine article from 2009 entitled Oberstar Misleads on Light Rail by Robert Poole. Poole finds that for construction costs alone a typical freeway costs $40-60 million per mile. A huge amount, to be certain. But rail costs an average of $124 million per mile. When you consider that the highway will carry 150,000 people per day versus the rail, which carries only 25,000, you realize that it is not even close. Based on the above, any transportation engineer would opt for highways. But there is more. The costs to operate the rail system is a constant drain, and if passengers do not show up as expected, the fixed costs will eat the system up. Highways, on the other hand, represent sunk costs to be sure, but there is no need to continue accruing costs to use it. There is also the fact that the highway, once built, can carry not only passenger, but trucks and commercial vehicles as well. In other words, a highway is a more versatile tool for transportation than is high speed rail.
Perhaps these are some of the reasons the State of Florida opted out of the Administration's offer of $2 billion of federal grant money to build a high speed rail line between Tampa and Orlando. In a NY Times article on February 16th, Governor Rick Scott rejected federal funds because:
Mr. Scott said at a news conference in Tallahassee on Wednesday that cost overruns related to the Tampa-to-Orlando line could leave Florida taxpayers stuck with a $3 billion tab. Further, he said that if the state deemed the project too costly after having started construction, it would be required to return the $2.4 billion to the federal government. He also said he believed that estimates of riders and revenue for the rail line were too optimistic, and that state taxpayers would have been left to pay for subsidies to keep the line running because it would be unable to pay for itself.Look, I like trains. Trains have a certain romance about them that evokes an era of luxury with sleeping cars, and restaurant cars that served exotic gourmet dishes to pampered patrons. The names of famous trains live on in songs and fiction. But, as Mrs. PolyKahr found out recently, that era is gone. Now, a grumpy conductor takes your ticket, and you are lucky to get a rather poor meal cafeteria style served by people who definitely thinks they are doing you a favor. You get better fair from a microwave meal at home. Or, for that matter, from any of the road side restaurants that dot our freeways.
Of course, it wouldn't be this way if a company could make money by providing luxury services to passengers willing to pay the costs. But nobody is. The last privately owned passenger trains died out in the 1950s. I remember riding on one of the last runs of the Akron, Canton, and Youngstown line as a small child, with my mother. Now passenger trains are all subsidized. The employees see patrons of these lines not as the source of their jobs, but as bothersome customers that they are required to serve. The actual source of their jobs is from government handouts, and they would have those jobs whether anyone rode the train or not. But therein lies the nut in the shell-if a company could make money providing passenger trains, it would be providing them. The fact that they can not should be a cautionary signal to lovers of high speed rail, who have a fiduciary responsibility to spend the taxpayers money wisely.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
This and That
I am still here, despite Hurricane Irene. As it turned out, the Category 4 storm that blew out of the Bahamas hit the coast of North Carolina at 7:30 am today as a Category 1. We here in Raleigh have had rain and wind most of the day, but it is less than I have often experienced from mere thunderstorms. Mrs. PolyKahr and I took the grandkids to a birthday party today, tempting fate it would seem. But they had a wonderful time, and we met a few new people that we liked. So, all worked out well.
The grandmother of the little girl having the party is from Brazil. We talked for a while, and she mentioned that a lot of Brazilians who came for the economic opportunity are going back because there are jobs to be had in Brazil. I am of two minds on this: First, if the only reason they came is for a job, and the incomparable worth of American Citizenship (Brazilians come here legally by and large) is so worthless, then it is just as well they go. Secondly, I am literally embarrased that Brazil would be seen as a better place to be than the United States. The United States is the only land that could have produced the countless Thomas Edisons and Henry Fords who did not start off rich, but grew rich because they produced a product that others wanted to buy. How sad. Instead of celebrating these people, and holding them out as great examples, our current crop of politicians makes veritable criminals of those who produce, while writing the rules to favor Wall Street banksters and hedge fund managers.
Changing topics, I noticed in my blog stats, that I had a number of readers from Isreal. Welcome. I normally have readers from all over the United States, brought here by the Liberty Sphere and Eternity Road. To both Anthony Martin and Francis Porretto, thankyou. Both blogs are great reads. As for those Isreal readers, I would hope you would comment from time to time to let me know what you find of interest. I stand with Isreal in this very dangerous time we all face together.
Changing again, the Goofball Wormening hoax continues to go off the rails, with CERN announcing that cosmic rays are at least responsible for half of the warming experieced during the twentieth century. You can read about it at the American Thinker here. I have always thought that there was something wrong with the theory, even before I knew much about it. If CO2 is the cause of Goofball Wormening, then how to explain the huge variation seen in the earths climate over geological time? For most of that time, man wasn't even around, let alone driving around in SUVs. How can that be explained? Of course, the warmistas never even tried. Perhaps it is a moronic question, but it still deserves to be answered. But to answer it would lead the "scientists" necessarily to posit that goofball wormening might, just might, be caused by something else. That something else turns out to be solar activity.
Thats all for now.
The grandmother of the little girl having the party is from Brazil. We talked for a while, and she mentioned that a lot of Brazilians who came for the economic opportunity are going back because there are jobs to be had in Brazil. I am of two minds on this: First, if the only reason they came is for a job, and the incomparable worth of American Citizenship (Brazilians come here legally by and large) is so worthless, then it is just as well they go. Secondly, I am literally embarrased that Brazil would be seen as a better place to be than the United States. The United States is the only land that could have produced the countless Thomas Edisons and Henry Fords who did not start off rich, but grew rich because they produced a product that others wanted to buy. How sad. Instead of celebrating these people, and holding them out as great examples, our current crop of politicians makes veritable criminals of those who produce, while writing the rules to favor Wall Street banksters and hedge fund managers.
Changing topics, I noticed in my blog stats, that I had a number of readers from Isreal. Welcome. I normally have readers from all over the United States, brought here by the Liberty Sphere and Eternity Road. To both Anthony Martin and Francis Porretto, thankyou. Both blogs are great reads. As for those Isreal readers, I would hope you would comment from time to time to let me know what you find of interest. I stand with Isreal in this very dangerous time we all face together.
Changing again, the Goofball Wormening hoax continues to go off the rails, with CERN announcing that cosmic rays are at least responsible for half of the warming experieced during the twentieth century. You can read about it at the American Thinker here. I have always thought that there was something wrong with the theory, even before I knew much about it. If CO2 is the cause of Goofball Wormening, then how to explain the huge variation seen in the earths climate over geological time? For most of that time, man wasn't even around, let alone driving around in SUVs. How can that be explained? Of course, the warmistas never even tried. Perhaps it is a moronic question, but it still deserves to be answered. But to answer it would lead the "scientists" necessarily to posit that goofball wormening might, just might, be caused by something else. That something else turns out to be solar activity.
Thats all for now.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
An Open Letter to a Friend
Dear Mickey,
I much appreciated the opportunity to work with you Monday. You are a good colleague and friend and I enjoy chatting with you whenever possible. Mickey, you have a good heart, with good conservative instincts, and you are generally aware, something I can not say about a lot of people. You listen to Glenn Beck and to Rush Limbaugh. Here are some other sources you may not have been aware of, that tell you some of the unlawful and Unconstitutional things Obama is doing under the radar. The MSM certainly won't point these things out, and even Fox News doesn't get into this stuff in great detail. So, as a start, check out Gulag Bound. Also check out the Sipsey Street Irregulars where Mike Vanderboegh presents the Hannity expose on the Fast and Furious affair. The Obama administration has also issued regulations that would force the purchasers of multiple long guns in the 4 Southwestern States to register those purchases, something that the law strictly forbids. He has gone to war without Congressional approval (and Congress sits there like a potted plant.) There is more, much more. A dictator behaves in this fashion, not the president of a republic.
You asked why I thought he was doing all this, and destroying the economy. I told you I thought it was deliberate. Obama is doing his best to destroy the United States of America, and he is getting a lot of help from Congress and the MSM. "Why?" is a harder question. I believe that it is deliberate, because if it were mere bungling, surely he would sometimes muddle in our favor. What I believe, is that Obama is a Marxist. What flavor of Marxist isn't really important. Whether he is Communist, Socialist, or Fascist doesn't really matter, because they all lead back to the same thing, a Marxist dictatorship. For more information on that read this National Review Online article by Stanley Kurtz. Also check out his book Radical In Chief.
For a Fascist Obama, look at the GM and Chrysler fiasco. He totally subverted normal bankruptcy laws, kicked the bond holders of those companies under the bus, and turned General Motors into Government Motors. The Fascist part was where, instead of outright nationalizing the company, he made himself a major partner in the firm. I remember seeing Obama saying that the Federal government would now honor GM warranties. Riiiight. Obama should have let GM go bankrupt, and Chrysler too. That would have been the lawful thing to do, but I think he was looking for a test case. If he could get away without anyone raising a fuss, he would move on to more and more egregious examples. As for his purely Socialist side, look no further than ObamaCare. A lot of people warned us about what it would mean if we passed ObamaCare. We came close to defeating it. But Harry Reid pulled that stunt to make it a budget bill where he only needed 51 votes instead of 60. And right on time, they are trying to control our food.
But all that still doesn't really answer the question of "why?" I have a working theory about that, though I can not prove it. Before Marx, there was no name for the capitalist system. It was just the way business that were successful operated. Marx came along and presented as new some very old ideas, a bit of class warfare and hatred for the other, and created a very powerful economic and political philosophy-if your idea is to gain power. It appeals to the non achievers, to the ne're do wells, to the lazy and the incompetent, the criminal. Unfortunately, that segment of society makes up a lot of people. Because unexamined, the Marxist appeal is so great, it will always be with us. Standing against the Marxist economy, which always fails, was the United States with its more or less free market economy. The United States, by its very existence, put the lie to the Socialist economies every day. No wonder they hate us.
Interestingly, I believe Obama may be a true believer, one who has drunk the koolaid and truly believes his own hype. But what about the others? How do they benefit from the wheels coming off the wagon? First, lets clarify terms. True believers as I said, are those who have bought the theory hook, line, and sinker. They are the holders of a secret knowledge not available to the average schmuck. They honestly believe that in working daily to bring about their Utopian dreams, that they are bringing about a better world, carrying fire from the gods, where the lion will lie down with the lamb, and man will not fight anymore. Everyone will have all he needs, and we will all live in peace. I can almost hear the choir tuning up with Kumbayah Of course, since such beliefs can not stand up to penetrating scrutiny, they quickly resort to calling us racists, or haters, or terrorists, or whatever the latest group of people are for whom they regularly hold their little two minute hates. Some in this group also constitute what Lenin called the useful idiots. Useful idiots are those that parrot the latest talking points (yes, the left really does have talking points! It's not just a term or art.) People like Paul Krugman I would place in this category. Stalin had Walter Duranty at the NY Times to cover up his atrocities, while Obama it seems has the entire press. But people like Reid and Pelosi are in it for the power. Lenin and Stalin were in it for the power. Lenin didn't believe all that stuff, he just used it to gain a power base that allowed him to take power from the Czar, and keep it by murdering and brutalizing huge numbers of his own people. So, we have the true believers, the useful idiots, and the power trippers.
So, who is who and how do they benefit? I believe that Obama is a true believer, but will not discount that he is a power tripper with unusually good acting skills. He seems to be trying to settle scores with the American people as a whole for imagined sins against "his people." Of course, if "his people" are black Americans, they are taking the brunt of his economic warfare. Reid, Pelosi, and others in Congress I am convinced hope to share in some of Obama's power, but they also hope to generate enough wealth to insulate themselves and their families from the storm that will inevitably rock the U. S. when the sh*t hits the fan. How did Barney Frank, for example, become so rich on a Congressman's salary? Answer that, and you will know why many go along with the administration. That pretty much covers the Democratic leadership. Most of the back benchers in that party go along because they want to keep riding the gravy train. As for the Republicans, the leadership of the Republican party today would have been Democrats several generations ago. They are moderates, who believe that less of what ails us may be all it takes to avoid melt down. But they have nothing against the disease, except that it is killing us. They will serve as unwitting useful idiots until such time as they are no longer needed. I fear the Democrats have utter contempt for John Boehner and company, or they would be trying to remove him.
Now for the other side. Obama, and various party leaders like Kerry, Pelosi, Schumer, and others, have been out talking on topics to the press. In every case, the out and out, bald faced, wouldn't fool a five year old lies is maddening, and breath taking. What do they hope to accomplish? One can easily see through such fabrications. My conclusion is that they think it no longer matters. Whatever "it" is, it's in the bag. Let me close with this. Senator Lautenberg had a proposal to deny people on the "no fly" list guns. Nobody knows how you get on the no fly list, who is on it now, or how you get off. You or I are not allowed to see the "no fly" list. Apparently the criteria are pretty loose, and any Federal agent can put anybody's name on the list at any time with no due process. Meanwhile Janet Napolitano's DHS is busy putting out official notices to police departments and such that TEA party folks, people who believe in the Constitution, conservatives like you and I, are terrorists. We are to be watched, spied upon, our every move suspicious. We might find ourselves unwittingly on the "no fly" list, and would know it because we don't fly. Had Lautenberg's bill passed (and I think it might someday) we could suddenly find that our Constitutionally guaranteed rights are abridge without due process for the crime of disagreeing with the Obama administration. It's one thing to disagree with an administration, and quite another when such disagreement makes you a criminal. Get ready.
Yours truly,
PolyKahr
Update: For a slightly different take on Obama, see News Flavor where a supposed White House insider slings dirt on Obama. In this take, Obama is an empty suit, controlled by others behind the scenes. Who these "others" are is not said, though one can think of several names. Also note that we don't know who the "Insider" is, and ultimately have no way of knowing if what he says is true, or if he even said it. But it is an interesting data point. In any case, the message is largely the same-get ready.
For a different take altogether, see Sultan Knish. This is a good read anytime.
I much appreciated the opportunity to work with you Monday. You are a good colleague and friend and I enjoy chatting with you whenever possible. Mickey, you have a good heart, with good conservative instincts, and you are generally aware, something I can not say about a lot of people. You listen to Glenn Beck and to Rush Limbaugh. Here are some other sources you may not have been aware of, that tell you some of the unlawful and Unconstitutional things Obama is doing under the radar. The MSM certainly won't point these things out, and even Fox News doesn't get into this stuff in great detail. So, as a start, check out Gulag Bound. Also check out the Sipsey Street Irregulars where Mike Vanderboegh presents the Hannity expose on the Fast and Furious affair. The Obama administration has also issued regulations that would force the purchasers of multiple long guns in the 4 Southwestern States to register those purchases, something that the law strictly forbids. He has gone to war without Congressional approval (and Congress sits there like a potted plant.) There is more, much more. A dictator behaves in this fashion, not the president of a republic.
You asked why I thought he was doing all this, and destroying the economy. I told you I thought it was deliberate. Obama is doing his best to destroy the United States of America, and he is getting a lot of help from Congress and the MSM. "Why?" is a harder question. I believe that it is deliberate, because if it were mere bungling, surely he would sometimes muddle in our favor. What I believe, is that Obama is a Marxist. What flavor of Marxist isn't really important. Whether he is Communist, Socialist, or Fascist doesn't really matter, because they all lead back to the same thing, a Marxist dictatorship. For more information on that read this National Review Online article by Stanley Kurtz. Also check out his book Radical In Chief.
For a Fascist Obama, look at the GM and Chrysler fiasco. He totally subverted normal bankruptcy laws, kicked the bond holders of those companies under the bus, and turned General Motors into Government Motors. The Fascist part was where, instead of outright nationalizing the company, he made himself a major partner in the firm. I remember seeing Obama saying that the Federal government would now honor GM warranties. Riiiight. Obama should have let GM go bankrupt, and Chrysler too. That would have been the lawful thing to do, but I think he was looking for a test case. If he could get away without anyone raising a fuss, he would move on to more and more egregious examples. As for his purely Socialist side, look no further than ObamaCare. A lot of people warned us about what it would mean if we passed ObamaCare. We came close to defeating it. But Harry Reid pulled that stunt to make it a budget bill where he only needed 51 votes instead of 60. And right on time, they are trying to control our food.
But all that still doesn't really answer the question of "why?" I have a working theory about that, though I can not prove it. Before Marx, there was no name for the capitalist system. It was just the way business that were successful operated. Marx came along and presented as new some very old ideas, a bit of class warfare and hatred for the other, and created a very powerful economic and political philosophy-if your idea is to gain power. It appeals to the non achievers, to the ne're do wells, to the lazy and the incompetent, the criminal. Unfortunately, that segment of society makes up a lot of people. Because unexamined, the Marxist appeal is so great, it will always be with us. Standing against the Marxist economy, which always fails, was the United States with its more or less free market economy. The United States, by its very existence, put the lie to the Socialist economies every day. No wonder they hate us.
Interestingly, I believe Obama may be a true believer, one who has drunk the koolaid and truly believes his own hype. But what about the others? How do they benefit from the wheels coming off the wagon? First, lets clarify terms. True believers as I said, are those who have bought the theory hook, line, and sinker. They are the holders of a secret knowledge not available to the average schmuck. They honestly believe that in working daily to bring about their Utopian dreams, that they are bringing about a better world, carrying fire from the gods, where the lion will lie down with the lamb, and man will not fight anymore. Everyone will have all he needs, and we will all live in peace. I can almost hear the choir tuning up with Kumbayah Of course, since such beliefs can not stand up to penetrating scrutiny, they quickly resort to calling us racists, or haters, or terrorists, or whatever the latest group of people are for whom they regularly hold their little two minute hates. Some in this group also constitute what Lenin called the useful idiots. Useful idiots are those that parrot the latest talking points (yes, the left really does have talking points! It's not just a term or art.) People like Paul Krugman I would place in this category. Stalin had Walter Duranty at the NY Times to cover up his atrocities, while Obama it seems has the entire press. But people like Reid and Pelosi are in it for the power. Lenin and Stalin were in it for the power. Lenin didn't believe all that stuff, he just used it to gain a power base that allowed him to take power from the Czar, and keep it by murdering and brutalizing huge numbers of his own people. So, we have the true believers, the useful idiots, and the power trippers.
So, who is who and how do they benefit? I believe that Obama is a true believer, but will not discount that he is a power tripper with unusually good acting skills. He seems to be trying to settle scores with the American people as a whole for imagined sins against "his people." Of course, if "his people" are black Americans, they are taking the brunt of his economic warfare. Reid, Pelosi, and others in Congress I am convinced hope to share in some of Obama's power, but they also hope to generate enough wealth to insulate themselves and their families from the storm that will inevitably rock the U. S. when the sh*t hits the fan. How did Barney Frank, for example, become so rich on a Congressman's salary? Answer that, and you will know why many go along with the administration. That pretty much covers the Democratic leadership. Most of the back benchers in that party go along because they want to keep riding the gravy train. As for the Republicans, the leadership of the Republican party today would have been Democrats several generations ago. They are moderates, who believe that less of what ails us may be all it takes to avoid melt down. But they have nothing against the disease, except that it is killing us. They will serve as unwitting useful idiots until such time as they are no longer needed. I fear the Democrats have utter contempt for John Boehner and company, or they would be trying to remove him.
Now for the other side. Obama, and various party leaders like Kerry, Pelosi, Schumer, and others, have been out talking on topics to the press. In every case, the out and out, bald faced, wouldn't fool a five year old lies is maddening, and breath taking. What do they hope to accomplish? One can easily see through such fabrications. My conclusion is that they think it no longer matters. Whatever "it" is, it's in the bag. Let me close with this. Senator Lautenberg had a proposal to deny people on the "no fly" list guns. Nobody knows how you get on the no fly list, who is on it now, or how you get off. You or I are not allowed to see the "no fly" list. Apparently the criteria are pretty loose, and any Federal agent can put anybody's name on the list at any time with no due process. Meanwhile Janet Napolitano's DHS is busy putting out official notices to police departments and such that TEA party folks, people who believe in the Constitution, conservatives like you and I, are terrorists. We are to be watched, spied upon, our every move suspicious. We might find ourselves unwittingly on the "no fly" list, and would know it because we don't fly. Had Lautenberg's bill passed (and I think it might someday) we could suddenly find that our Constitutionally guaranteed rights are abridge without due process for the crime of disagreeing with the Obama administration. It's one thing to disagree with an administration, and quite another when such disagreement makes you a criminal. Get ready.
Yours truly,
PolyKahr
Update: For a slightly different take on Obama, see News Flavor where a supposed White House insider slings dirt on Obama. In this take, Obama is an empty suit, controlled by others behind the scenes. Who these "others" are is not said, though one can think of several names. Also note that we don't know who the "Insider" is, and ultimately have no way of knowing if what he says is true, or if he even said it. But it is an interesting data point. In any case, the message is largely the same-get ready.
For a different take altogether, see Sultan Knish. This is a good read anytime.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
"If it Bleeds, it Leads" Unless there is a good Sex Scandal
The writer of this piece of reporting at the American Thinker today gives a very generous, extremely magnanimous take on why the MSM has failed to cover the Fast and Furious scandal, otherwise known as Gunwalker. In this piece, M. Catherine Evans claims Politicians Sex Drives Trump High Level Government Crime. Really? Take a look. Ms. Evans actually does take the media to task, but then gives them an out by claiming that a sex scandal will always trump murder and mayhem with the public. It is true that sex sells, but so does violence.
Does the fact that hundreds of people in Mexico, and an as yet untold number of Americans were killed, on our own soil, by guns which were deliberately allowed to walk into the hands of drug cartels by an agency of our own Federal government, with the knowledge of at least Eric Holder and some of his assistants, not really count as news? What happened to the adage "if it bleeds it leads?" I am not talking here about theoretically having blood on their hands. I am talking here about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) actually breaking both U.S. and Mexican laws (presumably to enforce the law) to create a bloodbath with guns that could be shown to come from U. S. gun dealers to prop up a political agenda to again ban so called "assault weapons." These are indictable crimes! Yet no one has been indicted, or tried. No one has had to fall on their sword. The MSM has barely mentioned it, and the public barely knows it happened.
While the law breakers are trying to claim that they just made a mistake, the truth is that many are experienced law enforcement and prosecutors. They knew exactly what they were doing, they knew the likely outcome, but deemed lives to be a cost they were willing to pay for a political agenda. The least we can do is require them to pay something more.
Does the fact that hundreds of people in Mexico, and an as yet untold number of Americans were killed, on our own soil, by guns which were deliberately allowed to walk into the hands of drug cartels by an agency of our own Federal government, with the knowledge of at least Eric Holder and some of his assistants, not really count as news? What happened to the adage "if it bleeds it leads?" I am not talking here about theoretically having blood on their hands. I am talking here about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) actually breaking both U.S. and Mexican laws (presumably to enforce the law) to create a bloodbath with guns that could be shown to come from U. S. gun dealers to prop up a political agenda to again ban so called "assault weapons." These are indictable crimes! Yet no one has been indicted, or tried. No one has had to fall on their sword. The MSM has barely mentioned it, and the public barely knows it happened.
While the law breakers are trying to claim that they just made a mistake, the truth is that many are experienced law enforcement and prosecutors. They knew exactly what they were doing, they knew the likely outcome, but deemed lives to be a cost they were willing to pay for a political agenda. The least we can do is require them to pay something more.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The Morality of Gun Control
Caught an interesting piece over at the Buckeye Firearms site entitled It's the Criminals, Stupid-Man is dead after City of Cleveland fails to get violent felon off the streets by Ken Hanson, Esq. Hat tip to Keep and Bear Arms for pointing me to this site. I recommend every read the whole article, though the title says everything you need to know.
Now, putting aside that the City of Cleveland is run by a gang of leftwing ideologues who have more sympathy with people like Mr. Lesure than the do with the average, hardworking and taxpaying American, this article points up the entire problem with telling people where, and when, and how they may carry defensive weapons, or if they may carry them at all. It is not the average person on the street you need to worry about. It's the criminal, stupid.
Many people do not know this, and are shocked to discover, but the police do not in fact have any duty to protect individual citizens. You can read about it here. Indeed, how the citizen who was, at the time, the main means of defense of both himself and his family became a "vigilante" who should not take the law into his own hands is just one more way in which our natural rights have been perverted over the years. But it points up the moral problem various governments have when they try to restrict any citizen from carrying a weapon, either concealed or openly. How can a government morally say that a citizen may not carry, or can only carry with permission, and then disavow the responsibility for that citizen's death if it is not natural? Indeed, how can a restaurant that serves alcohol put up a sign that says "no guns" and then not be responsible for the safety of everyone in that restaurant? How can an employer say to someone they may not carry, and then not provide security for their safety.
Now, before I get a bunch of hate mail from hoplaphobes saying I want to give guns to every newborn as soon as he leaves the hospital, and train them to shoot before they can walk (there is a prone position, isn't there?) I do realize that going into some of these places is entirely voluntary. You don't need to visit a restaurant, and if you do, you take the risks the owner imposes. But working has been determined, (by the Left interestingly enough,) to not really be a choice. That was the basis for no smoking bans in bars and restaurants. Bartenders and waitresses were subjected to second hand smoke their entire shifts, day after day. These people couldn't decide that they would rather work elsewhere. Or was it that you felt they were to stupid to make the right decisions for them? But I digress from the topic at hand. Governments, on the other hand, are not voluntary, and the sovereign nature of governments makes suing them for negligence or dereliction of duty problematic. It is even difficult to sue based on a government acting illegally.
Of course, what I am saying here ultimately has nothing to do with law, or "justice" as we know it in this lifetime. I am speaking of morality. When I read about instances of citizens living in places like Cleveland, where everything is done to discourage citizens from exercising their rights, and then find they are killed by a criminal who should be behind bars, but isn't, I ask myself by what moral right do they act? Our Constitution recognized the right to keep and bear arms for all citizens. What gives these people the right to overturn the Constitution and say otherwise? And while the law may have nothing to do with such morality, surely the closer it cleaves to that standard, the better it would be for everyone.
Now, putting aside that the City of Cleveland is run by a gang of leftwing ideologues who have more sympathy with people like Mr. Lesure than the do with the average, hardworking and taxpaying American, this article points up the entire problem with telling people where, and when, and how they may carry defensive weapons, or if they may carry them at all. It is not the average person on the street you need to worry about. It's the criminal, stupid.
Many people do not know this, and are shocked to discover, but the police do not in fact have any duty to protect individual citizens. You can read about it here. Indeed, how the citizen who was, at the time, the main means of defense of both himself and his family became a "vigilante" who should not take the law into his own hands is just one more way in which our natural rights have been perverted over the years. But it points up the moral problem various governments have when they try to restrict any citizen from carrying a weapon, either concealed or openly. How can a government morally say that a citizen may not carry, or can only carry with permission, and then disavow the responsibility for that citizen's death if it is not natural? Indeed, how can a restaurant that serves alcohol put up a sign that says "no guns" and then not be responsible for the safety of everyone in that restaurant? How can an employer say to someone they may not carry, and then not provide security for their safety.
Now, before I get a bunch of hate mail from hoplaphobes saying I want to give guns to every newborn as soon as he leaves the hospital, and train them to shoot before they can walk (there is a prone position, isn't there?) I do realize that going into some of these places is entirely voluntary. You don't need to visit a restaurant, and if you do, you take the risks the owner imposes. But working has been determined, (by the Left interestingly enough,) to not really be a choice. That was the basis for no smoking bans in bars and restaurants. Bartenders and waitresses were subjected to second hand smoke their entire shifts, day after day. These people couldn't decide that they would rather work elsewhere. Or was it that you felt they were to stupid to make the right decisions for them? But I digress from the topic at hand. Governments, on the other hand, are not voluntary, and the sovereign nature of governments makes suing them for negligence or dereliction of duty problematic. It is even difficult to sue based on a government acting illegally.
Of course, what I am saying here ultimately has nothing to do with law, or "justice" as we know it in this lifetime. I am speaking of morality. When I read about instances of citizens living in places like Cleveland, where everything is done to discourage citizens from exercising their rights, and then find they are killed by a criminal who should be behind bars, but isn't, I ask myself by what moral right do they act? Our Constitution recognized the right to keep and bear arms for all citizens. What gives these people the right to overturn the Constitution and say otherwise? And while the law may have nothing to do with such morality, surely the closer it cleaves to that standard, the better it would be for everyone.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Governments Have Blood On Their Hands
I received the following e-mail from Philip Van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizen's Defense League about how the Virginia law allowing Concealed Carry in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol has worked after its first year. I will have more to say on the other side.
First, I want to thank both Mark Bowes, and the Richmond Times Dispatch for running a fair article on the subject. Too often we see articles where we gun owners know that factual evidence in favor of guns has either been grossly distorted, or the article includes out and out lies to make gun owners look bad, and that could have been easily countered had the writer bothered to check.
Part of being fair is telling both sides in context. In this case, the article tells there were only two incidents, out of 250,000 concealed permit holders in Virginia. That amounts to 0.00080%. Not exactly a crime spree. In the case of the guy who got sloppy drunk and threatened a waitress, do you really think a law might have stopped him? In any case, the man was punished, which is how the law should work.
Second, there is the case of North Carolina. All of the States bordering on North Carolina now have some form of carry in restaurants that serve alcohol, except South Carolina. But they are working on it down there. Even Ohio now has restaurant carry. In every case, of course, you may not carry while drinking, which is a more restrictive than for drivers. In every State, a person can have a blood alcohol level of up to 0.07 and not be legally drunk driving. But for gun carriers, the standard is that you can't drink, period. There is no "reason" why the legislature has not allowed carry in restaurants the serve alcohol in North Carolina, but there has been plenty of "emotion." Most of the hysteria has been generated by a series of editorials making claims of shootouts over undercooked tuna, and of blood running between the tables. As in Virginia, this is all they've got. There is no evidence, nothing to point to. But the editorials did manage to cow the North Carolina Senate. While we saw the same editorials in Virginia newspapers before the votes in Virginia, their legislature is apparently made of sterner stuff.
There are already laws on the books making both murder and assault crimes. Yet these crimes happen with dreadful regularity. While guns may be excellent tools to use in the commission of such crimes, a look at Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics reveal that absent a gun, other weapons will be used. Indeed, in South Africa, which has a tremendously high homicide rate, and very strict gun control, homicides are not committed with guns by and large. Yet they are still committed in numbers that make the United States look like a childrens' picnic. The instrumentalities that people find to kill each other are baffling in their ingeniousness, from knives to machetes, to hammers, to screwdrivers, to pantie hose to bare hands. The list is hardly all inclusive. Would you ban all these things from restaurants that serve alcohol? If not, why not? What about automobiles? Should waitresses take the keys of those they serve alcohol to so as not to allow them to drink and drive? If not, why not, in the interests of being consistent. Note too that all of these potential instruments of death are safe in the hands of someone who has no intent to use them for murder and assault.
All of the above has so far dealt with statistics, looking at the pragmatic effects of banning the mere possession of an instrument in certain circumstances. Now we come to the principled argument. The idea here is that there is some level of lawlessness committed by others that justifies restricting the rights of the law abiding. Within our system of law, there is no basis for the practice. The idea of punishing the whole class for the acts of one or two miscreants comes from our youth. When little Johnny throws a spit ball at the teacher while her back is turned, she naturally asks who did it. When nobody volunteers, she sentences the entire class to extra homework. It didn't seem fair then, and among adults it is a loathsome notion. Every one of us has been granted the right to defend him or herself by virtue of our birth, and for most of history, we had only ourselves to do it. It is an ancient right that goes back to beginning our our species, and was recognized in law by the Bible, by the Romans, and reaffirmed by the English Common law and by the U. S. Constitution. By making laws which infringe on that right, Governments take on the moral responsibility for defending us from criminals, even as they evade that responsibility by declaring themselves sovereign. In essence, the Government that makes such laws has the blood of innocent victims on its hands. Let us hope the NC Senate can find the fortitude to buck the newspapers and pass restaurant carry in North Carolina.
BREAKING: I will be talking about this article on Armed American Radio with Mark Walters tonight, Sunday, August 14th at 9:30 PM. You can catch the show, which is on from 8 PM to 11 PM on http://armedamericanradio.org/listen-live-2/ ]
Last week I was interviewed by Mark Bowes, a reporter with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He was investigating what affect the repeal of the ban on carrying concealed handguns into restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages has had in its first year.
Basically the result was as predicted by VCDL and other pro-liberty organizations for years now - there were no shootouts over undercooked tuna with other patrons diving for cover AND some violent crimes committed in restaurants, in fact, declined.
All that whining and fear mongering by the other side was proven to be nothing but their usual paranoid fantasies. Every time VCDL tries to expand the rights of gun owners in any direction, it is always the same "end-of-the-world" prophecies from liberty-haters. And they are methodically proven wrong each and every time.
That's the only play they have in their playbook, so we'll see it again next year as VCDL keeps moving the ball forward.
Unfortunately things weren't perfect. There were two incidents in the first year involving permit holders. One was where a permit holder who, in trying to pay for a beer, proceeded to shoot himself in the leg as he pulled money from a pocket that was shared with his concealed gun. He won't find any sympathy from me on a variety of fronts, including breaking the law and putting a handgun that probably was not holstered into a pocket full of other items. At least the only person who was hurt was the permit holder.
The other incident was an intoxicated permit holder who intentionally drew attention to the outline of a concealed handgun in his pocket, leaving the waitress feeling threatened. There is no excuse for that kind of behavior, so, again, I have no sympathy.
While these two events were frustrating, one has to look at them in perspective - there are almost 1/4 MILLION permit holders in Virginia! Neither event was a violent crime, but more along the lines of foolishness with some stupidity thrown in for good measure. No innocents were hurt and the law worked, as both permit holders were punished.
Here is the article, WITH A POLL. I have inserted a few comments in the story:
From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: http://tinyurl.com/3svxsns
Gun crimes drop at Virginia bars and restaurants
By Mark Bowes
Virginia's bars and restaurants did not turn into shooting galleries as some had feared during the first year of a new state law that allows patrons with permits to carry concealed guns into alcohol-serving businesses, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found.
The number of major crimes involving firearms at bars and restaurants statewide declined 5.2 percent from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, compared with the fiscal year before the law went into effect, according to crime data compiled by Virginia State Police at the newspaper's request.
And overall, the crimes that occurred during the law's first year were relatively minor, and few of the incidents appeared to involve gun owners with concealed-carry permits, the analysis found.
A total of 145 reported crimes with guns occurred in Virginia bars and restaurants in fiscal 2010-11, or eight fewer than the 153 incidents in fiscal 2009-10. State police track all murders, non-negligent manslaughters, aggravated assaults, forcible sex crimes and robberies in more than two dozen categories, including "bars/nightclubs" and "restaurants."
"The numbers basically just confirm what we've said would happen if the General Assembly changed the law," said Philip Van Cleave, president of the pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League, which strongly lobbied for the law's change that made Virginia one of 43 states to allow concealed guns in restaurants that serve alcohol. "It's sort of a big yawn. So from my point of view, none of this is surprising."
"Keep in mind," Van Cleave added, "what the other side was saying — that this was going to be a blood bath, that restaurants will be dangerous and people will stop going. But there was nothing to base the fear-mongering on."
State Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, who was a strong opponent of the law, said it's not clear what conclusions can be drawn from just a year's worth of data.
"Most folks obey the law, and that's a good thing," said McEachin, who remains staunchly opposed. "But I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that just like drinking and driving doesn't mix, guns and drinking don't mix." [PVC: People drink and drive legally all the time. Being intoxicated is the issue. Hopefully the good Senator has actually read the law he is speaking about and understands that it prohibits drinking while carrying concealed with a CHP, making his sweeping generalization nonsensical.]
David Rittgers, an attorney and decorated former Army special forces officer who is now a legal policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the growing number of states that are adopting concealed-carry measures like Virginia's have seen no appreciable rise — and in some cases a decline — in violent crime.
Rittgers said.
Rittgers said states that have enacted such concealed-carry legislation — "even when they've done some relatively restrictive provisions upfront" — have relaxed those over time "because of the lack of violent incidents that might be connected with persons carrying concealed (weapons) with a permit."
* * * * *
At The Times-Dispatch's request, state police pulled from their computerized database all major crimes at bars and restaurants reported by local law-enforcement agencies across Virginia for two successive fiscal years. The Times-Dispatch then contacted more than a dozen police departments in Virginia for more detailed information on all aggravated assaults, homicides and sexual assaults involving firearms at those businesses.
Reported robberies were not analyzed because they tend to involve premeditated crimes by perpetrators openly displaying guns, and many of the affected businesses are chain restaurants that don't serve alcohol.
Only two fatal shootings occurred during the last fiscal year — one outside a Petersburg nightclub and the other at a Radford restaurant — but neither involved concealed-gun permit holders. And only two of the 18 aggravated assaults reported could be linked definitively to concealed-carry holders.
Several other cases appear to have involved hidden guns, but the suspects either didn't have a concealed permit, or they fled the scene before they could be identified and arrested.
One of the few unambiguous cases of a concealed-gun permit holder breaking the law occurred on July 28, 2010 — 27 days after the law became active — at a deli in York County. In that case, a patron who had been drinking heavily with a gun concealed in his pocket allegedly sexually harassed a female waitress and, at one point, placed his hand over his hidden gun so the waitress could see its outline.
After making a comment the waitress construed as a threat, the man left but was stopped a short time later by police. They recovered a .380-caliber pistol from his pants pocket and charged him with driving under the influence, brandishing a firearm and carrying a concealed weapon.
He was charged with the latter offense — even though he had a permit to carry the gun — because he had been drinking in the deli while in possession of a concealed firearm. The law forbids concealed-gun permit holders to drink alcohol while they are inside bars and restaurants with guns hidden from view. Patrons who legally carry firearms openly into bars and restaurants can drink freely.
Authorities confiscated the man's concealed-gun permit, but the brandishing and concealed weapon charges were eventually withdrawn by prosecutors. He was convicted of driving while drunk.
In another case closer to home, a Hopewell man with a concealed-carry permit was arrested in June after police said he brandished a gun in the parking lot of a chain restaurant after a verbal dispute escalated into a fight among several patrons. No shots were fired, but punches were thrown.
Although the man pulled a concealed weapon during the fight, the new law didn't really apply because the restaurant where the incident occurred doesn't serve alcohol. The man was convicted last month of brandishing the gun — which he appealed — and a malicious-wounding charge was certified to a Hopewell grand jury.
Aside from the two homicides, the only assault that resulted in a person being shot occurred in February outside a Virginia Beach restaurant and bar. The shooting followed an altercation inside the restaurant. Several unknown men were asked to leave, and the victim was shot and wounded as he walked toward a male in an adjacent parking lot, police said.
But because the suspect was never identified and arrested, police don't know whether the shooter was carrying a concealed gun or whether he had a permit to carry it.
* * * * *
Tom Lisk, a lobbyist who represents the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association, still believes it's a bad idea to mix alcohol and firearms, and he says the crime numbers essentially affirm his initial position on the issue.
"We acknowledged during the legislative debate that the vast majority of individuals that hold concealed-weapons permits are indeed law-abiding citizens, and most would not cause any problem," Lisk said. "But at the same time, we also advocated that they in fact were human beings, and some small number would probably be the source of some problem because you're mixing alcohol and firearms. [PVC: Yet, hypocritically, the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association has no problem with mixing alcohol with drivers. I've never seem them lobby to keep drivers with concealed car keys from being able to drink in restaurants.]
"And I think that's pretty much borne out by what we've seen," added Lisk, citing the York case as an example. "This was a law-abiding citizen that got a permit, but yet he went in and broke the law by drinking while carrying a concealed firearm." [PVC: And the legal system punished him for doing so. That's how the law is supposed to work in America.]
Lisk also cited another incident publicized last year that involved a concealed-permit holder who accidentally shot himself in the thigh at a Lynchburg restaurant. The gun discharged after the man apparently reached into his pocket to pay the bartender for a beer. He was convicted of recklessly handing a firearm, ordered to pay a $500 fine and lost his concealed-carry permit for a year. His gun was confiscated.
While the new law has not led to rampant crime or "random bloodshed in restaurants," Lisk said, "certainly we've seen a few incidences of permit holders using bad judgment — drinking and then, in unfortunate circumstances … shooting themselves or accosting a waitress. So I think in that respect our concerns have been validated." [PVC: So let's punish 250,000 people who did nothing wrong last year then, Tom?]
McEachin echoed that view.
"I promise you that the waitress that had the gun brandished at her by someone who was drunk and sexually aggressive — to her that was a serious offense," he said. "And when someone gives themselves a self-inflicted wound, that just underscores the fact that guns and drinking don't mix. I don't know if there's anything disproven by those numbers." [PVC: Someday McEachin will actually read the law and be shocked to find out that it prohibits drinking while carrying concealed. I'm not holding my breath, however.]
Rittgers said once concealed-carry laws come into effect, the fears associated with such measures generally are not realized and fade. "None of those predictions, frankly, have come to pass," he said.
A certain amount of unreasonable fear is associated with guns generally because they are used by criminals in committing crimes, Rittgers said. But concealed-carry holders, who Rittgers said tend be more law-abiding that the general citizenry, "are willing to go through the background checks and the training that is often required" for the permit.
Van Cleave believes he and other supporters of the law deserve an apology — especially those who "screamed the end of the world was coming with this."
"At some point," Van Cleave said, "it would be nice to have some of them admit that they were wrong, that they didn't see any of the horrible things that they thought were going to happen." [PVC: I know, I know - the other side lives to shamelessly fear monger to get their way. But that doesn't mean we should let them get away with it unscathed.]
First, I want to thank both Mark Bowes, and the Richmond Times Dispatch for running a fair article on the subject. Too often we see articles where we gun owners know that factual evidence in favor of guns has either been grossly distorted, or the article includes out and out lies to make gun owners look bad, and that could have been easily countered had the writer bothered to check.
Part of being fair is telling both sides in context. In this case, the article tells there were only two incidents, out of 250,000 concealed permit holders in Virginia. That amounts to 0.00080%. Not exactly a crime spree. In the case of the guy who got sloppy drunk and threatened a waitress, do you really think a law might have stopped him? In any case, the man was punished, which is how the law should work.
Second, there is the case of North Carolina. All of the States bordering on North Carolina now have some form of carry in restaurants that serve alcohol, except South Carolina. But they are working on it down there. Even Ohio now has restaurant carry. In every case, of course, you may not carry while drinking, which is a more restrictive than for drivers. In every State, a person can have a blood alcohol level of up to 0.07 and not be legally drunk driving. But for gun carriers, the standard is that you can't drink, period. There is no "reason" why the legislature has not allowed carry in restaurants the serve alcohol in North Carolina, but there has been plenty of "emotion." Most of the hysteria has been generated by a series of editorials making claims of shootouts over undercooked tuna, and of blood running between the tables. As in Virginia, this is all they've got. There is no evidence, nothing to point to. But the editorials did manage to cow the North Carolina Senate. While we saw the same editorials in Virginia newspapers before the votes in Virginia, their legislature is apparently made of sterner stuff.
There are already laws on the books making both murder and assault crimes. Yet these crimes happen with dreadful regularity. While guns may be excellent tools to use in the commission of such crimes, a look at Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics reveal that absent a gun, other weapons will be used. Indeed, in South Africa, which has a tremendously high homicide rate, and very strict gun control, homicides are not committed with guns by and large. Yet they are still committed in numbers that make the United States look like a childrens' picnic. The instrumentalities that people find to kill each other are baffling in their ingeniousness, from knives to machetes, to hammers, to screwdrivers, to pantie hose to bare hands. The list is hardly all inclusive. Would you ban all these things from restaurants that serve alcohol? If not, why not? What about automobiles? Should waitresses take the keys of those they serve alcohol to so as not to allow them to drink and drive? If not, why not, in the interests of being consistent. Note too that all of these potential instruments of death are safe in the hands of someone who has no intent to use them for murder and assault.
All of the above has so far dealt with statistics, looking at the pragmatic effects of banning the mere possession of an instrument in certain circumstances. Now we come to the principled argument. The idea here is that there is some level of lawlessness committed by others that justifies restricting the rights of the law abiding. Within our system of law, there is no basis for the practice. The idea of punishing the whole class for the acts of one or two miscreants comes from our youth. When little Johnny throws a spit ball at the teacher while her back is turned, she naturally asks who did it. When nobody volunteers, she sentences the entire class to extra homework. It didn't seem fair then, and among adults it is a loathsome notion. Every one of us has been granted the right to defend him or herself by virtue of our birth, and for most of history, we had only ourselves to do it. It is an ancient right that goes back to beginning our our species, and was recognized in law by the Bible, by the Romans, and reaffirmed by the English Common law and by the U. S. Constitution. By making laws which infringe on that right, Governments take on the moral responsibility for defending us from criminals, even as they evade that responsibility by declaring themselves sovereign. In essence, the Government that makes such laws has the blood of innocent victims on its hands. Let us hope the NC Senate can find the fortitude to buck the newspapers and pass restaurant carry in North Carolina.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
So, This is "Civilized Society"
How's that working out for you?
Melanie Phillips has a piece up blaming the Liberals in England for the riots at How the Liberals Ruined Britain. Of course, you must understand that while political labels such as "Liberal" and "Conservative" are the same words as used in the United States, the groups are not exactly analogous. In particular, "Conservative" in Britain means pretty much what it says, while in America, Conservatives wish to maintain the great leap forward in freedom and liberty of the individual represented by our Constitution, and would be more analogous to Libertarians. In any case, Phillips makes a number of good points. Children, boys especially, need fathers to show them how to be men, because most of what children learn is by example. To that end, society should encourage two parent households wherever possible. The schools, creation of victimhood and victimcrats, welfare and the entitlement society, nonjudgementalism, multiculturalism, are all destructive policies that need to change.
Here is another: The disarmament of the law abiding citizens, and the denial of the ancient right to self defense. I have written some time ago that the gun is civilization, in Why the Gun is Civilization. Once again, a hat tip to Marko at the Munchkin Wrangler for saying it much better than I could. Essentially, in any conflict, if both parties are armed, they must come to a reasonable understanding between them. Neither can be forced. In a disarmed society, the strong, the younger, the more ruthless will always "win" no matter the merits of their position. Interestingly, open handed methods, or the sword, while representing a step up from being totally disarmed, require many years to master, and a good deal of physical fitness that may be denied to some as they age or because of injuries or disease. But you can master the basic essentials of the gun in an hour at the range.
After reading the above, and reading the link, you will no doubt find it laughable that Rebecca Peters, former Director of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) always referred to her disarmed societies as "civilized society." Peters apparently had some odd notions of what "civilized" means. If the land that sits in the place of the formerly Great Britain is an example of a "civilized society," is it any wonder that most Americans reject that in favor of keeping their guns? If those riots come here, most Americans want to be able to defend themselves and their property as the Koreans did in the L.A. riots.
America is traveling down the same road that has brought ruin to the British, but we have a chance to repent and again listen to Rudyard Kiplings Gods of the Copybook Headings, but we still want to keep our guns, just in case...
Update Saturday, 13 August 2011: Jan LaRue has a piece touching on this same topic at American Thinker entitled Bats the way it is for unarmed Britons. Go take a look.
Melanie Phillips has a piece up blaming the Liberals in England for the riots at How the Liberals Ruined Britain. Of course, you must understand that while political labels such as "Liberal" and "Conservative" are the same words as used in the United States, the groups are not exactly analogous. In particular, "Conservative" in Britain means pretty much what it says, while in America, Conservatives wish to maintain the great leap forward in freedom and liberty of the individual represented by our Constitution, and would be more analogous to Libertarians. In any case, Phillips makes a number of good points. Children, boys especially, need fathers to show them how to be men, because most of what children learn is by example. To that end, society should encourage two parent households wherever possible. The schools, creation of victimhood and victimcrats, welfare and the entitlement society, nonjudgementalism, multiculturalism, are all destructive policies that need to change.
Here is another: The disarmament of the law abiding citizens, and the denial of the ancient right to self defense. I have written some time ago that the gun is civilization, in Why the Gun is Civilization. Once again, a hat tip to Marko at the Munchkin Wrangler for saying it much better than I could. Essentially, in any conflict, if both parties are armed, they must come to a reasonable understanding between them. Neither can be forced. In a disarmed society, the strong, the younger, the more ruthless will always "win" no matter the merits of their position. Interestingly, open handed methods, or the sword, while representing a step up from being totally disarmed, require many years to master, and a good deal of physical fitness that may be denied to some as they age or because of injuries or disease. But you can master the basic essentials of the gun in an hour at the range.
After reading the above, and reading the link, you will no doubt find it laughable that Rebecca Peters, former Director of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) always referred to her disarmed societies as "civilized society." Peters apparently had some odd notions of what "civilized" means. If the land that sits in the place of the formerly Great Britain is an example of a "civilized society," is it any wonder that most Americans reject that in favor of keeping their guns? If those riots come here, most Americans want to be able to defend themselves and their property as the Koreans did in the L.A. riots.
America is traveling down the same road that has brought ruin to the British, but we have a chance to repent and again listen to Rudyard Kiplings Gods of the Copybook Headings, but we still want to keep our guns, just in case...
Update Saturday, 13 August 2011: Jan LaRue has a piece touching on this same topic at American Thinker entitled Bats the way it is for unarmed Britons. Go take a look.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Curiosity
I finally watched "Curiosity" last night. I had recorded the show out of...well...curiosity. The hype leading up to the show said they were going to tell us whether or not God created the universe. I knew, of course, that the likely outcome would be that He did not. My suspicions grew when I noticed how many different channels had the same show at the same time. Gracious, they really wanted to get the message out.
The program was hosted by eminent Professor Stephen Hawking. I had read his history of time, and generally followed along his physics career in a dilettante way. With Stephen Hawking on board, I expected to be challenged to think about my positions, and to have to justify myself. Unfortunately, the thinking and reasoning put forward could be easily knocked down by any high school advanced placement physics student.
Hawking uses significant time during his hour to either assert theories as proven fact, or to reiterate old canards. For example, he posits the existence of something called negative energy. To my knowledge, nobody has proven the existence of negative energy, though its existence is a necessary condition if wormholes actually exist. But then, wormholes are not a proven theory either. Fine, but what does that really have to do with the question at hand?
Hawking also reiterates the idea that the Luddite "church" stands against brave scientists like Hawking, citing the story of Galileo to prove his point. But Galileo wasn't imprisoned for discovering that earth revolved around the sun, or that Jupiter has moons. Rather, what the church could not abide is that Galileo insisted on telling students not only what is, but what it means. In other words, Galileo was invading the church's turf. Galileo was only reluctantly made to recant after he became so outspoken that the church had to do something or risk losing all credibility. He was imprisoned in rather lavish surroundings where he was allowed to continue his work until his death. Not the work of an angry church on the run from science, is it? But Hawking is a physics professor, not a historian, so one can easily let this little slip up pass.
Getting to the heart of the matter, Hawkings basic argument is that at the very beginning of the universe, matter and energy were condensed to an infinitely small point, a black hole of infinite mass compressed into an infinitely small point. You could say that the universe was packed into nothing. You will recall that as something gets closer and closer to a black hole, time slows down, and if the black hole is sufficiently massive, time eventually stops all together. So, at the moment of the big bang, there was no time, and no space (because the two are inextricably linked.) Now, because there was no time, and no space, therefore there could not be a first cause, because God would have no time in which to initiate the first cause. The universe must have created itself.
I kid you not. That is the argument. Nowhere does Hawking see fit to address objections.
This betrays an extremely juvenile notion of what and who God is. It is hard for us to imagine anything outside our universe. For instance, into what did the universe expand? What did God do "before" creating the universe? Both questions are meaningless because they assume that space expanded into space, and that time actually existed. But that does show the difficulty since what we can know is bounded by our known physical laws. Everything else is speculation. Then there is the idea that the universe created itself. How? If you are going to live entirely with the physical laws of the known universe, you will die with them too. By what physical law does the universe suddenly decide to start inflating? Because one of the things we first learn is that a body at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Something had to initiate that force. I am betting it was God. Hawking makes a statement at the beginning of his show that he will prove that there is no God who created us and controls our fate. Of course, I don't believe God controls our fate. We do that, through free will. But God knows what we will do, while at the same time allowing us to choose. Since God can stand outside of time and space, he knows our fate, and what we will choose to do. He doesn't sentence people to hell, but he doesn't force them to choose rightly either. Ultimately, I believe God wants a relationship with each of us, but allows each of us to choose. Why? I have no idea. It is grace beyond all understanding, beyond human reason...I am left speechless.
Professor Hawking could be right, of course. It may be that the universe is a completely random affair, and that our existence here is entirely a matter of luck. If so, it represents one of the cruelest of "jokes," because such a random collection of matter and energy can not actually have the intelligence to make a joke. But you understand. Going from the smallest of particles that make up all matter, to the largest galaxies, the order of the universe becomes less random, more ordered. If one could get "outside" the universe, and see the whole, it would be, I think, unimaginably beautiful. How cruel for Professor Hawking to come this far and think there is nowhere else to go.
It is unfortunate that Professor Hawking has chosen as he has, though there is time to change his mind. I hope you, dear readers, will choose differently.
The program was hosted by eminent Professor Stephen Hawking. I had read his history of time, and generally followed along his physics career in a dilettante way. With Stephen Hawking on board, I expected to be challenged to think about my positions, and to have to justify myself. Unfortunately, the thinking and reasoning put forward could be easily knocked down by any high school advanced placement physics student.
Hawking uses significant time during his hour to either assert theories as proven fact, or to reiterate old canards. For example, he posits the existence of something called negative energy. To my knowledge, nobody has proven the existence of negative energy, though its existence is a necessary condition if wormholes actually exist. But then, wormholes are not a proven theory either. Fine, but what does that really have to do with the question at hand?
Hawking also reiterates the idea that the Luddite "church" stands against brave scientists like Hawking, citing the story of Galileo to prove his point. But Galileo wasn't imprisoned for discovering that earth revolved around the sun, or that Jupiter has moons. Rather, what the church could not abide is that Galileo insisted on telling students not only what is, but what it means. In other words, Galileo was invading the church's turf. Galileo was only reluctantly made to recant after he became so outspoken that the church had to do something or risk losing all credibility. He was imprisoned in rather lavish surroundings where he was allowed to continue his work until his death. Not the work of an angry church on the run from science, is it? But Hawking is a physics professor, not a historian, so one can easily let this little slip up pass.
Getting to the heart of the matter, Hawkings basic argument is that at the very beginning of the universe, matter and energy were condensed to an infinitely small point, a black hole of infinite mass compressed into an infinitely small point. You could say that the universe was packed into nothing. You will recall that as something gets closer and closer to a black hole, time slows down, and if the black hole is sufficiently massive, time eventually stops all together. So, at the moment of the big bang, there was no time, and no space (because the two are inextricably linked.) Now, because there was no time, and no space, therefore there could not be a first cause, because God would have no time in which to initiate the first cause. The universe must have created itself.
I kid you not. That is the argument. Nowhere does Hawking see fit to address objections.
This betrays an extremely juvenile notion of what and who God is. It is hard for us to imagine anything outside our universe. For instance, into what did the universe expand? What did God do "before" creating the universe? Both questions are meaningless because they assume that space expanded into space, and that time actually existed. But that does show the difficulty since what we can know is bounded by our known physical laws. Everything else is speculation. Then there is the idea that the universe created itself. How? If you are going to live entirely with the physical laws of the known universe, you will die with them too. By what physical law does the universe suddenly decide to start inflating? Because one of the things we first learn is that a body at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Something had to initiate that force. I am betting it was God. Hawking makes a statement at the beginning of his show that he will prove that there is no God who created us and controls our fate. Of course, I don't believe God controls our fate. We do that, through free will. But God knows what we will do, while at the same time allowing us to choose. Since God can stand outside of time and space, he knows our fate, and what we will choose to do. He doesn't sentence people to hell, but he doesn't force them to choose rightly either. Ultimately, I believe God wants a relationship with each of us, but allows each of us to choose. Why? I have no idea. It is grace beyond all understanding, beyond human reason...I am left speechless.
Professor Hawking could be right, of course. It may be that the universe is a completely random affair, and that our existence here is entirely a matter of luck. If so, it represents one of the cruelest of "jokes," because such a random collection of matter and energy can not actually have the intelligence to make a joke. But you understand. Going from the smallest of particles that make up all matter, to the largest galaxies, the order of the universe becomes less random, more ordered. If one could get "outside" the universe, and see the whole, it would be, I think, unimaginably beautiful. How cruel for Professor Hawking to come this far and think there is nowhere else to go.
It is unfortunate that Professor Hawking has chosen as he has, though there is time to change his mind. I hope you, dear readers, will choose differently.
Theo Spark: Video: Islam's Greatest Invention#links#links#links#links#links#links
Theo Spark: Video: Islam's Greatest Invention#links#links#links#links#links#links
Theo Spark's site has a history of the "Palistinian" people that is must see. You can find this at times by reading Caroline Glick or other Jewish writers, but you won't find any of this in the MSM. It has been flushed down the memory hole, and in its place has popped the "Palistinian People" and their great desire for a homeland.
Personally, I stand with Isreal. When your making preparations, think about your Jewish friends too.
Theo Spark's site has a history of the "Palistinian" people that is must see. You can find this at times by reading Caroline Glick or other Jewish writers, but you won't find any of this in the MSM. It has been flushed down the memory hole, and in its place has popped the "Palistinian People" and their great desire for a homeland.
Personally, I stand with Isreal. When your making preparations, think about your Jewish friends too.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Hard History Coming, Redux
In the first instance, some years ago, I was a guest at the lovely Maine lakeside lodge of a relative of a college roommate. At the conclusion of a perfectly pleasant dinner in which the conversation was not at all political, my host asked quite unexpectedly what I thought of (then) president George W. Bush. I said I loved him. (And I do. I think that he is a decent gentlemen who tried in every way to perform his responsibilities honestly, no small matter in such a thoroughly base age in which he was unremittingly slanderously vilified.)
My host rose red-faced from his seat, and smashed his fist on the table, shouting, "How could you be so close minded?" As I recall, I could only laugh at the absurdity of his response. His wife , a proper hostess, tried to smooth it over, but I had seen first hand the tyrannical face behind the mask of a liberal urbanite. I had not raised the matter. I had merely answered honestly and succinctly his question in a way he found intolerable simply because my short reply so challenged his own views that all decent, educated people shared his opinion. Hold a different opinion and you are by definition "close minded."
I have been subjected to similar outbursts, though less polite. I have seen liberals reduced to sputtering unprintable words tossed my way when I pressed the argument with facts that clearly refuted the current liberal theory du jour. What I haven't done is convince anybody to rethink his or her ideas. That would have been too much. But in the violence of such outbursts, one can easily see that more thuggish Leftists will not give up power without a fight.
You are aware of the routine use of censorship to silence debate from the right on many of the issues of the day. The Left uses cat calls of "racism" "terrorist" or "hater" and other other scurrilous characterizations to keep the Right from raising the arguments in the first place. If one suggests that perhaps welfare needs to be pared down to those that truly need it, one is both a racists and a hater. If one suggests means testing for Medicare and Social Security, one obviously wants to throw grandma over the cliff. At universities, Leftist students regularly shout down Ann Coulter or David Horowitz. In Canada, speaking opinions not sanctioned by the Left has been criminalized, and there have been calls to do the same in this country. So, it was with some consternation that I listened to Senator John Kerry telling the press to just not print certain points of view:
While I remain skeptical that the so-called debt ceiling deal represents anything other than the Republicans and Tea party being rolled again by wiley Democrats, Feldman finds some bright spots. In Feldman's formulation, we have shifted the debate away from more and bigger government programs, and toward cutting programs and balanced budgets. Economic conditions are sure to worsen. The stock market, to date propped up by government bail outs and stimulus, can no longer hold its value and is declining. The rush to precious metals can not be covered up by the happy face media. The Keynesian's have shot their wad, and have nothing left. Meanwhile, the fact the George Soros is buy gold tells us something about what he REALLY believes, and when push comes to shove, Soros believes in hard currency and power.
Add to the irony of rank unscientific dogmatists posing as free thinkers, a huge dose of arrogance, and you get John F . Kerry, intellectual poseur , font of internationalist elitist conventional wisdom and avatar of effete snobbery, saying stuff like this:
SEN. JOHN KERRY: "And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely. The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it's exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual."
Obviously, the struggle is another generational fight, in which we on the side of personal freedom are going to have to remain ever vigilant, and polite but aggressive if we are to win. It is a fight to the finish with the Left, and is winner take all.
New freshman Senator Marco Rubio of Florida seems to get it in the floor speech he delivered if Joseph Ashby is to be believed in a piece at the American Thinker yesterday entitled Marco Rubio's House Divided Speech. Ashby likens it to Lincoln's speech on slavery in which he famously said that a house divided can not stand. Similarly, Rubio points out that the two visions of America currently dividing the nation can not coexist forever. On the one hand are those who see government as the source of prosperity and who have no philosophical difficulty taking from those who produce wealth to give to those who do not. On the other are those who view the private sector as the proper sphere for creating wealth. These people view equal opportunity, and equal protection of the laws as more important than equal outcomes. Go read the whole article, and consider again that this will eventually involve a fight.
I was at the Raleigh Gun Show yesterday, volunteering at the Grass Roots North Carolina table. During a lull, I was speaking to one of the other men working there about the debt ceiling debate, the Gunwalker hearings, and other political issues. He, of course, is a politically aware individual. He expressed similar opinions to mine that we had been played in the debt deal, and that Gunwalker represented our own government breaking its own laws. Then he said that a bloody civil war was likely in the future, that it was the last thing he wanted to see, but he did not see a way out of it.
Hmmmm.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Hard History Coming
I have been getting reoriented since my return on Sunday. But things continue to be busy around PolyKahr Estates, so I have had limited time. One thing I have been paying some attention to is the debt ceiling debate, in which our "brave" Republicans have once again capitulated and given the Left what it wants for a mess of pottage. So, it was with interest that I noted that my friend, fellow blogger, and Conservative Examiner, Anthony Martin posted a piece on Saturday entitled Why Bloody Civil War is Inevitable. Go read the whole piece, including the links. I'll wait. Then read the Curmudgeon Emeritus's post at Eternity Road entitled The Short Route to Chaos. Notice some similarities?
On Sunday, Anthony had to publish again to make clear he was not calling for civil war, but felt in was inevitable. You can read that here. I was particularly disgusted by the comments left by on the Examiner site by "Glenn Wright" who frankly looked to be a troll trying to provoke someone...anyone... into careless words that he could take and say "See, see! They are plotting to overthrow the government!" Today I read at the Summer Patriot, Winter Soldier site the following:
On guns, to take one issue, we have caved, and capitulated our way to where we were back in the 1990s, when the concealed carry movement really got rolling. If gun rights activists became radicalized, it was because it was only by being radical that they made any progress regaining our former rights. I remember GCA 68, though I was in high school at the time. All the wise men recommended appeasing the mad men because society was coming apart, "riots everywhere you know, we can't let them have guns too. It's only a small infringement on our rights, after all. Who knows what they will do." But once they got GCA 68, there were further demands, always more demands to "compromise" and "be reasonable" yet again. But we began to see that we were not being asked to compromise, but to capitulate, and we began to follow Jesse Helms advice:
The great majority of Americans consider themselves some brand of conservative, while only 20 percent consider themselves Leftists. Typical of conservatives, they have been slow to react to the foreign invasion of a European philosophy called Marxism. It has not helped that the Marxist have hidden themselves behind false flags and innocuous sounding names. But America is waking up, at the 11th hour. It appears that the Left is currently in control of all the cards. We just have ourselves, our faith and our guns. So be it. Our side is through capitulating. With Jesse Helms, we say "Compromise, hell..." Of course, that will not satisfy the mad men. They have taken everything else, but the want our freedom and liberty too. So, yes, there will be bloody civil war. I am not calling for it, I just don't see any way to stop it, barring a miracle. Don't shoot the messenger.
On Sunday, Anthony had to publish again to make clear he was not calling for civil war, but felt in was inevitable. You can read that here. I was particularly disgusted by the comments left by on the Examiner site by "Glenn Wright" who frankly looked to be a troll trying to provoke someone...anyone... into careless words that he could take and say "See, see! They are plotting to overthrow the government!" Today I read at the Summer Patriot, Winter Soldier site the following:
it seems to me inevitable that we fight them. it is because they are our enemies, as surely as vladimir putin, as sure as ahmadinejad. we owe them no apology for our views, and we should back away from them not one iota, and give them not one peppercorn's consideration.There are, in fact, many other sites where one will find expressions like this. To a man or woman, all express the fear that a civil war is inevitable because otherwise, liberty will be wiped out on the face of the earth. In a former time, one could emigrate to America. But now there is no place to run. Those who desire freedom to live their lives without some dictator telling them at every turn what he will and will not allow, will have no choice but to stand and fight, or accept slavery for themselves and their children, grand children, and all future generations. For too long, liberty loving individuals have been giving up ground to the loony Left. It is as if we were in a primitive tribe who gives into mad man rather than provoke him, because nobody knows what he will do next.
On guns, to take one issue, we have caved, and capitulated our way to where we were back in the 1990s, when the concealed carry movement really got rolling. If gun rights activists became radicalized, it was because it was only by being radical that they made any progress regaining our former rights. I remember GCA 68, though I was in high school at the time. All the wise men recommended appeasing the mad men because society was coming apart, "riots everywhere you know, we can't let them have guns too. It's only a small infringement on our rights, after all. Who knows what they will do." But once they got GCA 68, there were further demands, always more demands to "compromise" and "be reasonable" yet again. But we began to see that we were not being asked to compromise, but to capitulate, and we began to follow Jesse Helms advice:
“Compromise, hell! … If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?”"By any means necessary" is not just a slogan, but a modus operandus with the Left. It was telling to me that one of the guests interviewed on Andrew Napolitano's show, Freedom Watch, Friday let slip the remarkable statement that they needed to cut a deal to raise the debt ceiling because they feared Obama would actually not send out Social Security checks or pay the troops! If true, the President can be said not to be merely fear mongering, but committing economic terrorism on vulnerable Americans. And what does that say about who cares more about grandma? The "we care more" party is willing to hold Grandma hostage until they get their debt ceiling raised, because spending more is all that counts with them!
The great majority of Americans consider themselves some brand of conservative, while only 20 percent consider themselves Leftists. Typical of conservatives, they have been slow to react to the foreign invasion of a European philosophy called Marxism. It has not helped that the Marxist have hidden themselves behind false flags and innocuous sounding names. But America is waking up, at the 11th hour. It appears that the Left is currently in control of all the cards. We just have ourselves, our faith and our guns. So be it. Our side is through capitulating. With Jesse Helms, we say "Compromise, hell..." Of course, that will not satisfy the mad men. They have taken everything else, but the want our freedom and liberty too. So, yes, there will be bloody civil war. I am not calling for it, I just don't see any way to stop it, barring a miracle. Don't shoot the messenger.
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