First they came for gun owners...

Often enough we find ourselves preaching to the choir.  I, frankly, would never have thought of using the comparison made by Paul Curry in his article at Townhall.com today entitled Let's Give Red Flag Laws A Try With Abortion. That's because I don't consider abortion to be a moral choice, let alone being a Constitutional right. Nevertheless, by assuming that abortion is a Constitutional right, he gives himself a chance to speak to those who might be liberal gun grabbers and might not have thought that their favored "Constitutional right" might be similarly restricted.

This past October, Stephen Nichols, an 84-year-old Korean War veteran, former police officer, and current school crossing guard, was the victim of the flawed fed flag law mentality. Mr. Nichols’ offense? He was overheard, and misquoted, by a waitress in an Oak Bluff, MA, diner. Mr. Nichols, speaking with a friend, complained of the local school’s security officers leaving for coffee while the school children were unattended. Mr. Nichols complained that anybody could “shoot up the school” while security officers took breaks. Subsequently, and on the word of the waitress who overheard his statement, Mr. Nichols had his licensed and registered firearms seized and was immediately fired from his position as a crossing guard. Mr. Nichols had his 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendment rights essentially revoked.

If we assume, for the sake of argument, that Mr. Nichols’ accuser acted in good faith, what does his predicament say about the potential for people acting in bad faith? How many ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, ex-husbands, or ex-wives can easily abuse red flag laws? How many constitutional rights are red flag law proponents willing to submit to arbitrary review by judges? What if red flag laws were applied to other situations of life or death, say abortion? Proponents of red flags laws regarding 2nd Amendment rights argue, absent evidence, that without them someone may die. If we applied the same reasoning to abortion rights, absent red flag laws for abortion, someone will die.

Note that the emphasis is mine. But the question is a reasonable one. You may not agree with my Second Amendment rights, but then, how will you feel if your so-called abortion rights are similarly restricted by a judge on the say so of some member of the public who doesn't know you, or your situation.  How about an eaves dropping waiter who overhears a portion of what you say and then filters it through his own prejudices and then reports it to a judge, who then issues an ex parte order against your abortion. Suddenly, at 5 am you are awakened to a SWAT team delivering a  judicial order with deadly force.

It is also not too far to think that perhaps the purpose of red flag laws against firearm owners are intended to set a precedent that may be used later to eliminate  or negate the rest of the Bill of Rights.  Firearm owners are a minority.  But then, so are all the other people for whom the Constitution protects their rights.  The smallest minority is one, but even that one has certain unalienable rights.  Even if you do not particularly agree with firearm owners, you should understand that if we do not all hang together, surely we will all hang apart.

Martin Neimoller (read about him here) was a Lutheran Pastor who came to understand the Nazi regime as a dictatorship. He is credited with the famous quote "First they came for the communists, but I wasn't a communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Jews ...then they came for me" In the United States, Neimoller might have made his quotation read "First they came for gun owners, but I wasn't a gun owner, so said nothing."

Think about it.

The Stoic Way of Life

If we are to bring back any sanity in the politics and the culture of America, it is true that more of us will have to begin acting like the adults we are.  We are going to have to face facts, not wishful thinking.  We are going to have to understand reality on the ground, and not posit things as the "should be" according to our own sense of fairness.  We are going to have to regain the "stiff upper lip," that characterized generations past.

That is the topic of today's post, based on the article by John Dale Dunn over at the American Thinker entitled The Stoic Philosophy Can Fix This Mess. Dunn writes:

Vice Admiral James B Stockdale was a naval fighter pilot about to be redeployed to Viet Nam War when he took graduate studies at Stanford, and became immersed in the philosophy of Stoicism, that helped him deal with his hardships when he was shot down, then held a prisoner for 7 years, becoming the Commanding Officer of the American prisoners at the Hanoi Hilton. He was one of the most revered and honored Naval Aviators of all time, recipient of the Medal of Honor.

Stockdale in his writings and his speeches made his case for the value of Stoicism, a moral and ethical philosophy originating with Seneca the younger, a Roman in the first Century AD, and with the teachings and writings of Epictetus, a Greek Slave brought to Rome, who was a teacher and scholar, and then with the last of the good Roman Emperors, Marcus Aurelius (2nd century AD).

Please read the whole article. Note that I am not advocating we do not fight the evil that is overtaking our country. On the contrary, I think we need to fight, and more importantly, to win. But we can be bitter, or we can be happy warriors. I think it is important to be the happy warriors. For one thing, being happy drives the Left out of their minds.

I hope everyone had a good thanksgiving, and indeed, that all my readers were thankful for everything the Lord has given us.  It is too easy to take our lives for granted.  But an attitude of gratitude can go a long way toward making us less anxious.

We Will All Be Made To Care

Today at the American Thinker Fletch Daniels has an article entitled The Democratic Cold War on Christianity is Heating Up. The day is coming when all will be required to say to God, "I am with you" or "I am against you." The Left is forcing this, and Christians will be made to suffer for their beliefs. But Daniels, for the sake of publication in the American Thinker makes the article about politics and the electorate:

One of the great unknowns in terms of the future electorate is the effect the Democrats’ increasingly radical anti-faith stance will have on its voting coalition.

Black and Hispanic Democrats tend to be far more religious than the white Democrats who are driving the party’s agenda. Will this alliance hold as the party increasingly kowtows to vocal anti-Christian Marxists? Will these voters start to defect as Democrats intensify their open war on people of faith?

These questions arose this week when the sad story emerged that Chick-fil-A would no longer support three mainstream Christian-based charities; the Salvation Army, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Paul Anderson Youth Home, all under the auspices that they are anti-LGBTQ.

While all that may be true, the real story is that the Left doesn't care about the LGBTQxyz people, nor does it have any compassion for these gender confused people. The Left sees this as a spear, and a wedge to drive between people pitting Christian against Christian, brother against brother and sister against sister. You will be made to care!

Any public person, group, company or church that identifies as Christian will be forced to take a stand on the question of whether or not they celebrate the LGBTQ lifestyle regardless of whether they want to or not, even if they barely care about the issue. That’s the plan. Because the Bible presents a clear position that is counter to the prevailing culture, it is an easy avenue of attack. The hate on this issue is one-sided. Christian theology teaches to love the sinner while hating the sin. Anti-Christian leftists practice hating the Christian while celebrating the sin. Christian unwillingness to celebrate the sin is the offense that cannot be overlooked.

A front-page article in USA Today noted that the Methodist church is about to split over this issue. Naturally, the article was sympathetic towards the LGBTQ movement and disparaging of Bible-believing Christians. But, churches that reject Biblical teaching have nothing left to stand on, for if some verses are untrue, then all of them can be cast into the fire. Churches that make these compromises become just another reflection of the dominant culture, salt that has lost its saltiness, which is indeed the point of the attacks.

Everyone, each individual, will be made to decide; whether I am on the side of God, or I am on the side of the culture, which unfortunately is on the side of The Evil One. For God is not on the side of men. God IS, and we must walk with him, not the other way around.

Mrs. PolyKahr once asked me how I became so radical. I told her that in truth, I have always believed these things. But as one by one my beliefs came under fierce attack, and I was forced to defend them, I went through a process of testing my beliefs against the arguments arrayed against them. Sometimes I changed beliefs, but that only made me more, in her words, "radical." That is because I found the arguments on the other side wanting.  They lacked truth.  Like all men though, I often come up short of my own beliefs, which requires me to pray for forgiveness and also strength and guidance.  Amen.

An Eclectic Post

Today's post will be necessarily short to allow you, gentle readers, to instead pursue the linked articles.  Reading all the linked articles, however, will take about an hour of your time, but the education is well worth it.

First up is John Dale Dunn's article from yesterday at the American Thinker entitled The Biological Challenge to Darwin. Dunn points in turn to a book by a Dr. Marcos Eberlin and to commentary by Dr. Ronald Cherry. Dunn:

Dr. Cherry provided me with a commentary titled “Zero Probability for Self-Generated Life” that I found compelling and worth summarizing and discussing for the many who are interested in the debate on the origination of life and the appearances of species of life, the question—does the Darwin Theory of Origin of Species hold up to modern scientific analysis that includes the microanatomy and microphysiology as well as the active complex biochemistry of the magic that is a living cell?

The life functions of a single human cell, as described by Dr. Cherry, are far more complex than the world's most capable supercomputer, and impossible for man to duplicate using non-living materials due to the complexity and the sub-microscopic size and fragility of biochemical and cellular elements that are critical to the development of more complicated functional living things, but also that provide for maintaining the survival of the “lesser” forms of cellular life. The complexity and rapidity of life-requiring DNA transcription into messenger RNA, and then ribosomal translation into enzymes and proteins of structure and function challenges human understanding.

Dunn's article provides some very strong evidence for an intelligent creator. Is it proof of God? Well, no, I don't think that it can be "proof" of the existence of God. To believe in God, and his plan of salvation for mankind requires faith. There will never be proof this side of the physical death. Naturally, I do not believe myself to be able to discern the "Will of God," but I do believe the Bible sets forth that Will. It is for me to have faith, hope in things unseen.  Please first go read Dunn's article.

Next up, also at the American Thinker today is Janice Shaw Crouse's article entitled Attorney General Barr Stands Athwart History, of course echoing the famous quote by William F. Buckley. Barr has given two speeches, one at Notre Dame and the other to the Federalist Society within the last two weeks.

The speech given at Notre Dame had to do with the place of religious liberty and indeed faith in the public square as envisioned by the Founders.  In that speech he points out that as fallen men, we need restraints.  As society has become more secular, self restraints have loosened, requiring more governmental restraints.  But governmental restraints are inferior to self restraints because these are one size fits all.  But go read Barr's speech.

Finally, also go read his speech at the Federalist society.  He points out that both Congress and the Courts have encroached on the power of the Executive.  As I have pointed out in the past, Congress has delegated its power to legislate to the three-letter agencies.  But that is not what the framers wanted.  Instead, the legislature should legislate.  The Executive should perform those functions for which an executive is most needed, such as foreign relations and the defense of the nation against a foreign enemy.  Again, go read the linked speech to the Federalist Society.

Boys get access to girls locker room

Today I want to highlight a story from the Daily Wire by Matt Walsh in which a an Illinois School District voted to allow biological boys into the girl's locker room. No mention is made of it, but I suspect that the boy who brought suit to force this was backed by powerful forces. But that really shouldn't have made a difference. The vote was morally wrong. It was also wrong on purely utilitarian grounds. Face it, it was just wrong.

Also please watch the Matt Welsh Show at the bottom of the article.  Matt tells us how he really feels.  Of course, Walsh feels compassion for these gender confused boys, right up until they want to have access to the girls's bathroom and locker room.  There's a reason boys and girls are traditionally separated and it is not because we are trying to protect the boys from the girls.

I have also watched as so called trans-women, who were men or boys, have taken championships in women's sports.  To me, this represents an unintended consequence of feminist arguments that claim there is no difference between men and women.  Of course we all know that is not true.  So every time I hear women complain, I want to say "I told you so."

But this is more serious.  As Walsh points out, the District could have done a number of things that would have preserved girls' privacy.   That they did not can only indicate either that they are ignorant, or evil.  I vote for evil.

Chick-Fil-A Surrenders To LGBTQXYZetc Mob

I've got to run today, but I recommend you read the following post from Matt Walsh today at the Daily Wire entitled Chick-Fil-A Just Caved To The Rage Mob. They're About To Learn The Hard Way That Surrendering Never Pays.

This is what Chick-fil-A will now learn the hard way, as have so many before them: You cannot appease the mob. It doesn’t matter if you give them what they want. It doesn’t matter if you fall to your feet, confess your sins, and beg forgiveness. All your self-abdication will do is empower and encourage your critics. They will not forgive you (not that Chick-fil-A needed forgiveness). This is an age of scalp-claiming, not mercy. Now they will happily take yours, celebrate the victory, and move on to the next target. You aren’t their friend now, or their ally. You’re just a trophy on their shelf. Congratulations, Chick-fil-A.

Oh well. Popeyes is better anyway.

The Santa Clarita Shooting Happened In Another Gun Free Zone

Cam Edwards at the website Bearing Arms has a post analyzing the latest school shooting in Santa Clarita, California. The killer was a 16 year old, who at the time of the writing survived the self inflicted head wound, no doubt meant to kill himself as well. A hat tip to David Hardy if the website Of Arms And The Law for pointing me to the post. The first thing to note is that California has every gun control wish list on its books, including Red Flag laws. They didn't stop the attack. Also, note that a person 16 year of age can not legally own a weapon, and yet, he had one.

Cam Edwards post can be found at Bearing Arms under the title Details Emerge In Santa Clarita Shooting, But Democrats Don't Wait For Facts. As an example of not waiting for facts to emerge, or even noticing that none of the proposals currently on the books would have made a difference at all:

Meanwhile, gun control activists like Shannon Watts from Moms Demand Action are trying to pin the blame on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, with the hashtag #MassacreMitch trending on Twitter. What gun control law passed by the House would have prevented this attack? It doesn’t matter. As long as they can try to blame Republicans or “the gun lobby” for a shooting that happened in a state with the most restrictive gun control laws in the country and a government that’s completely controlled by Democrats, they will.

The truth is, the person responsible for this shooting shot himself in the head after trying to murder his classmates. I don’t know or care what this 16-year old’s political beliefs are. Neither Democrats nor Republicans are to blame for today’s shooting. However, it’s a fact that you can have universal background checks, a ten day waiting period on firearms purchases, background checks on ammunition purchases, an “assault weapons” ban, microstamping, a “high capacity” magazine ban, red flag laws, “safe storage” laws, age restrictions on purchasing firearms, and dozens of other gun control laws and still have an attack like this happen.

And, of course, the gun grabbers know that more laws won't stop the killing. These school shootings and others like it are an excuse to disarm you and me.

Without Rights, What Do You Do When You Are In The Minority

Jeffery T. Brown writes yesterday at The American Thinker in an article entitled Natural Rights Versus Political Rights about the impending Socialist government that it seems our neighbors plan to impose on us. He has every reason to be worried. The fall of Virginia to the socialists, and the obvious glee with which the racist Governor Ralph Northam announced his plans to disarm Virginia residents tells us much. Perhaps when the Constitution is respected by those elected to office, one doesn't need a defensive weapon. But Socialists do not respect the Constitution because they deny the premises on which it is based.

A headline I read this weekend proclaimed that Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, the Klan-hood-wearing gent formerly known at VMI as “Coonman,” was “working on” possible gun confiscation in Virginia now that money on the Left has successfully buried his racism and bought the legislature for their party. Aside from the obvious commentary about what happens when Democrats obtain power, the headline suggests a far deeper problem confronting our country. It is only a matter of time before anti-constitutional forces seize control of the Senate, or perhaps the White House, and when they do, what historically American citizens consider to be unalienable rights will suddenly disappear. The coming purge of natural rights is inevitable.

When we talk about natural rights, non-fascistic Americans understand this to be what is embodied in Bill of Rights, which are declarations enshrined to protect the individual from the tyranny of the government. These rights are considered innate natural rights, which vest in a person because of his humanity, rather than his political loyalties or beliefs. They are unalienable because they derive from that humanity, rather than one’s fear of or allegiance to a political party or government. Political rights, however, are what immoral politicians have empowered themselves to grant, and “rescind,” depending on whom the rights benefit. When it appears politically advantageous to gift a new right, meaning to manufacture a preference to benefit a political faction or interest group, regardless of the will of the general population, then that “right” will suddenly materialize to reward political fealty or to buy favor. When a politician or political mob believes that their opponents must be punished, then those same politicians will cancel natural rights that protect the equality and liberty of the citizens who are their enemies.

When God is acknowledged, then natural rights are unalienable. When government is god, then rights are the property of the government. After all, if God is merely imaginary, then so too is the supremacy of the human being as He created it because, as far as totalitarian fascists are concerned, He didn’t. It’s useful to recognize that socialism is atheistic, to help understand how they devalue life. If we can deny the divinity of God, we can devalue His creations, so that they are nothing more than pawns to be used and expended for the gain of those who would rule them. If human life has no natural value, because it is not of the divine, then there is nothing lost when it is extinguished. This is true no matter the stage of life of the one to be canceled. If human life has political value, however, then its value lies in its capacity for exploitation.

There is a reason Leftists constantly refer to our system of government as a "democracy." It's not that they are in love with the idea of democracy; quite the contrary. But in a pure democracy, your neighbor can vote away your rights. Now, anyone is free to give up his own rights. Anyone is free to sell himself into slavery. But what he is not free to do is to give up YOUR rights, or to sell YOU into slavery.  That is the reason our system of government is actually designed as a Constitutional republic.  The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights in particular was set up to place certain natural rights off limits, and out of the reach of the your neighbor, or of power hungry politicians who know better than you how to live your life.

The idea that your neighbor can vote your rights away is also known as "collectivism," because rather than having individual rights which are off limits of infringement,  everyone is collectively at the mercy of the majority.  If you are in the majority, no doubt this seems reasonable.  But sooner or later, everyone finds themselves on the side of the minority.  What happens then?

Thus, when the Supreme Court decided for our entire country that human life is garbage while it is in the womb, the decision gave a prize to the left’s political supporters, but literally led to the political sacrifice of millions of human beings. “So what,” they tell us, “those aren’t human lives.” Indeed, as the same Governor Northam informed us during a radio interview concerning post-birth “abortion,” it isn’t even a human life when out of the womb and breathing on its own, unless the mother who sought its death says it is. Thus, the right to live will be granted to the child or taken from it by someone whom circumstance has placed in a position of superior power. Rights pass only through those who pretend to own and grant them, you see. They are political, not natural.

So, while many Christians believe that abortion is murder, they are forced to pay for thise procedures through their healthcare insurance as well as through their taxes. This is collectivism Similarly,

...concerning advocating confiscation of the tools of self-defense, the same political party has already previously operated on the premise that these sub-humans, whose utility lay in their role as servants and pawns, should never be allowed to defend themselves from their enslavers, who later became their political oppressors. The southern Democrats were fully aware that what they intended to do to their former possessions would get them shot, if their chattel had the unalienable right to arm and defend themselves. Thus, their political slaves were denied the Second Amendment. Then as now, those in power can only see the natural right of self-defense as dangerous if they are already aware that they intend to do things for which someone would justifiably have a right to shoot them.

The sad thing is that our Constitutional Republic, with its Bill of Rights allows each of us to live and let live. We may agree to disagree with our neighbors because we are assured that our neighbor can not take away our own rights. Socialism, or whatever collectivist system you call it, makes you and your neighbor enemies. There can be no peace in such a system because everyone finds him or herself in a minority.

Update: I noted today that more Canadians read my posts than people in the U.S. Not sure what is attracting you to the blog, but welcome.

Update 2:  Alan Korwin has another piece which makes the same point, only more pointedly.  His article can be found at They've Gone Too Far. The money quote is:

What I haven’t done is consider the dire threat politicians present to the nation, when they stoke the flames of revolution by doing precisely what the British did that got us there those many years ago. They have announced they’re coming for our guns. It is not subtle. It is not limited. It is not allowed.

Republicans Need to Fight Now, Or Learn To Wear Their Chains

Sheriff David Clarke (retired)  has let the Congressional Republicans have it with both barrels.  I could not agree more.  Like Clarke, while I do not admire much about the Democrats, I do admire their fighting spirit and their ability to stick together.  They defend so much that is indefensible, I have to wonder at their sense of dissociation.  In normal settings, one would think such people must be clinically insane.

Sheriff Clarke writes today at Townhall.com in an article entitled Dear GOP in Congress: Put Up or Shut Up. He points out that what the Democrats are doing is not gentlemanly, but bare knuckles street fighting. The GOP needs to take off the white gloves and fight the same way.

I give credit where credit is due. I don’t admire much about the Democrat Party but I do admire their ability to fight. They never quit—they never stop advancing, and even when they are on defense like they were for two years after the 2016 election with no power in Washington D.C., they kept the pressure on the GOP.

...snip...

In politics, once you win, you have to follow it up by winning at legislation and winning political arguments in the court of public opinion. You must always be advancing. There is no holding on as was the plan of the Republican National Committee in the 2018 midterms. They hunkered down and hoped the slaughter would be minimal. It was worse than that. It was an old-fashioned butt whooping. They went from being on offense to now having to play defense in the House of Representatives. California nearly wiped out the GOP, winning congressional seats long held by Republicans. The Democrats know how to play defense. The GOP does not. On defense, they still try to get along with the left. For so-called intelligent people, they haven’t figured out that there is no getting along with the left. They left wants to kill us, figuratively and literally. Ask Steve Scalise and anybody violently attacked by the goons from Antifa.

Here is how the GOP played on offense when they controlled the House and Senate. Speaker Ryan failed to call the USMCA for approval. Trump signed it on Nov. 30, 2018, with more than enough time to get it done before Nancy Pelosi took the gavel from the GOP. Many on the Republican side forget that. They did not make the tax cuts permanent; they failed to deal with immigration or pass national concealed carry reciprocity. They fought Trump’s attempts at border wall funding, and failed to get an infrastructure bill to the President’s desk. Now they want to blame Pelosi for not bringing these crucial pieces of legislation for a vote? Please.

The promises being made by the Democrats to secure votes make it perfectly clear that those who disagree will be destroyed. Republicans either need to fight, or learn to wear their chains. Please read the whole thing, and ponder.

Now That The Lie Is Out Of The Bag...

The Mason-Dixon line has moved.  Virginia has become a blue state, and it is rare for a blue state to turn red again.  I am saddened more than I can say.  Oh, You Bet Virginia Democrats Are Putting Gun Rights In The Crosshairs according to Matt Vespa at Townhall.com Go read the whole article.

We used to travel to Northern Virginia because, of course, we have friends who live there. We took our guns. Naturally. But I never crossed into Maryland. Virginia was American occupied America; Maryland, not so much.  But now, Virginia has fallen. Already, the roads are suffering. Infrastructure is failing, as it always does in blue states. And of course, the new Democrat majority will go after guns. Of course. Leftists don't want anyone who might be able to dissent. They absolutely want to tell you how to live, how to spend your money, that is what money they will allow you to keep. They want to tell you what to eat, what medical services you can get, and when you are no longer of use to them. they want to tell you to go home and die.

Which brings us to The Nazism Of Democrat Gun Control by Rich Logis and Scott Newmark at The American Thinker. Once again, let me point out that Fascism is an ideology of the Left. Whereas Communism is an ideology featuring state ownership of the means of production, Fascism doesn't try to nationalize industries. Rather, Fascism leaves the owners in nominal ownership of the industries. Instead, like the mafia, Fascists become not so silent partners, telling the owners what to make, and how to make it, how much, how many people to make it with, and where and to whom they can sell it.

The authors make the point that the Democrats and the Nazis have much in common. Like the Nazis before them, the Democrats have been hiding behind the lie that they really didn't want to take away your guns. They just wanted to make society safer by taking guns out of the hands of certain "at risk" people. Except, of course, that somehow each step along the way the solution has always fallen on the legal gun owners, rather than on the criminals.

The unholy matrimony between the Democratic Party and the Nazis has long been documented. What's utterly shocking is how little Americans know about this history. The Democratic Party is America's original hate group, and Democrats were Nazis before the real Nazis existed. Just like today's Democrats, the Nazis were also anti-white; in Germany's case, the expendables were those deemed to be the weaklings in the pursuit to resurrect a mythological pure Aryan race. The Third Reich's basis for the Holocaust was the belief that certain racial and biological traits made one inferior or superior as a human being. Sound familiar? "I voted for Obama because he's black"; "I voted for Clinton because she's a woman."

. ...and...

After Kristallnacht, what did Hitler say was the justification? Confiscation of illegally owned guns, in response to the assassination of Nazi diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German-born Polish Jew living in Paris.

In his 1971 book Rules for Radicals, Chicago community organizer and Obama and Clinton hero Saul Alinsky coined the phrase "the issue is never the issue."

This is exactly what Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, Reich minister of propaganda of Nazi Germany, employed in their post-Kristallnacht propaganda. Their "issue" was revenge for vom Rath's death, but the actual issue was disarmament of a population they intended to murder or enslave.

You would think that with the Democrats being willing to literally confiscate guns, legally bought and paid for property, that the Republicans would be as staunchly pro-gun as the Democrats are anti-gun. But no, many Republicans as at best squishy on gun rights. Remember that the right to keep and bear arms was written into the Constitution as the Second Amendment. Yet most Democrats, and not a few squishy Republicans want to violate your Second, First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, and they see nothing wrong with doing so. It is as disturbing as it is Un- American.  Oh, and the Supreme Court can be unreliable when it comes to gun rights.

With a year to go before Election Day, we implore you to respectfully correct your politically like-minded friends, relatives, and associates who don't believe that the "it" in "it can't happen here" isn't here. In America, the "it" is alive and well; gun registries and confiscations are but two of the myriad methods Democrats will employ to take our children, money, and freedoms.

You may not want to hear that, but you need to hear it.

Here Is Why They Want To Disarm You

I've got to run today.  I promised Mrs. PolyKahr a trip to the Wegman's Grocery store, so need to get ready to go.  But I wanted to leave you with something so, please read Kurt Schlichter's piece today over at Townhall.com entitled Trump Is Derailing The Elite's Gravy Train. A sample, which really says it all:

...because the elite likes its sexual abuse and its foreign cash and its total lack of accountability to us, the Normals, the people who are supposed to be the ones that our elite is working for. The elite has not learned its lesson. It has not admitted that it sucks and resolved to stop sucking.

Instead, it has doubled down. And if it gets power again, it will act to solve what it sees as the most urgent problem facing America – the fact that we the people have the ability to reject the elite’s utter incompetence and surpassing greed and elect someone with a mandate to burn down the whole rotten edifice.

If the elitists get power again, they are never letting go of it, not without a fight. And now, doesn’t the elite’s obsessive fixation on shutting down conservative dissent, eliminating competing institutions (like religious entities), and disarming law-abiding Americans make a lot more sense?

It's what I have been telling you!

The Diet Wars

Being a portly individual of stout proportions for much of my life, I have studied all kinds of diets.  Most of those either did not work at all, or only worked for a while, then stopped working for various reasons.  The typical diet is a calorie in equals calorie out diet.  According to this theory, the only way to lose weight is to reduce your calorie intake, or exercise more, or both.  A pound of fat, in this theory, is equivalent to 3500 calories.  So, if you can achieve a net negative of 500 calories per day, you will lose 1 pound per week.  But, as we shall see, its is not that simple.  The body has ways of coping that defy this simple mathematical equation. 

Problems with this diet include that it is hard to maintain.  You are hungry all the time on the diet.  Additionally, long term calorie restriction causes your metabolism to slow down, defeating the diet.  It is as if your body is working at cross purposes to maintain your weight.  Since you graze all day, because you are always hungry, it is easy to over eat and blow your diet.

The Atkins diet was a step in the right direction, in that it reduced carbohydrates, especially sugars and refined carbohydrates.  Atkins billed the diet as a high protein diet, which is the message a lot of dieters got.  In addition, the Atkins business came up with the "glycemic index" and produced so called "diet foods" that contained sugar alcohols...not good.  Atkins, though was a supposed to be ketogenic diet, and it worked up to a point.  but many people plateaued, and didn't get down to their goal weight.

Next up was the Protein Power diet.  The Protein Power Diet was written by Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades. Protein Power, though, as was made clear by a careful reading of the book, was really a fat diet.  Most of your calories on this diet, if done right, actually come from fats.  Why is it called the Protein Power diet and not the Fat diet?  Because the public had been convinced that eating fat caused a person to become fat.  Why this is so is a story for another time.  The point is that the Protein Power diet was a big step closer.  But it was not the whole story.  Heavy cream, for example, is a fat.  But it is a not the kind of high quality fat that you should be eating.  Additionally, protein consumption raises insulin levels, which shuts off the fat burning mechanism that is indicated by ketosis. Thus meats should be limited, as should whole eggs.  When I eat eggs, I usually have 1 whole egg, and 3 or 5 egg yolks. 

I will get back to Dr. Michael Eades in a moment, but the next evolution in my dietary journey was when I came across Dr. Steven Gundry and his book Plant Paradox.   Gundry further refined the ketogenic diet by noting that many plants produce toxic lectins as a way to protect their offspring from pedators, like us. In his diet he put grains, beans, plants in the nightshade family, and some other off limits. On the other hand, he encouraged the eating of lettuce, cabbages and cruciform vegetables (includes broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts) as well as other vegetables such as sweet potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, fennel, onions, radishes, carrots, garlic, and spices such as pepper corns, curry, and other spices. One can also eat tree nuts such as Macadamias and walnuts all in limited quantities, as well as a nightly dark chocolate. He extols the value of polyphenols for improving your gut health, and recommends copious quantities of olive oil in your daily diet.

Dr. Gundry makes a point that much of our meat supply comes from grain fed animals. Grains are the seeds of grasses, and thus contain a heavy lectin load. Since ruminant animals such as beef are not designed to eat grains, their meat contains the lectins the ruminants ate, and pass those toxins on to those who eat them. The lectins interfere with your gut, causing leaky gut. Leaky gut in turn allows the lectins to get into your bloodstream and cause inflammation throughout your body. And inflammation is the cause of most of the diseases of aging such as arthritic joints, belly fat, as well as many skin conditions.

Dr. Steven Gundry recommends that what meat you do eat be grass fed or in the case of fish, be wild caught.  Gundry also encourages intermittent fasting, or IF. Which brings us back to Dr. Michael Eades and his blog post here.. Dr. Eades has also gotten on the IF bandwagon, pointing out that there is considerable medical evidence of the benefits of IF. Eades has now also recommends against grain fatten beef, preferring grass fed as well.

Interestingly, Eades and Gundry have divergent theories regarding the evolution of man that support their diets. Gundry believes that man evolved to eat a diet rich in certain specific plants, with limited amounts of meat. Eades believes that man evolved to eat animals including hunting, insects, fish and shell fish. Eades points out that until we developed agriculture, the supply of edible plants was pretty thin on the ground. He also notes that plants are not nutritionally dense, which means that we would have had to eat a lot of plants pretty much all day.  Of the two, Eades's theory makes the most sense, especially of you look at the practices of hunter/gatherers today.  On the other hand, I have lost 60 plus pounds so far using Gundry's advice. 

I am not an expert on this topic, though I am a well read dilettante.  I suspect that both Gundry and Eades have found a piece of the puzzle, and in fact while both write about diet from different perspectives, in practice both diets are pretty similar.  So I was sorry to see that Eades lumped Gundry in with obvious calories in/calories out nutritionists.  Both have done incredible work, for which I am grateful.