The Good New at Christmas

 This may be my last post before Christmas.  Op tempo (operations tempo) has increased here at beautiful PolyKahr Estates as Christmas approaches.  And because we are anticipated the anniversary of the birth of our LORD in the flesh we naturally turn to more spiritual things.  So, it is interesting that Richard Rail has a piece at the American Thinker entitled Who be you? that speaks to our most important identity: our relationship with God.

Rail takes as his starting point a previous post by J. B. Shurk entitled Who Are You?

A while back, J.B. Shurk had an interesting item where he discussed a five-point plan to achieve “a sense of peace” in this life. It’s worth the read. I was enamored of the title, “And Who Are You?”

This — Hanukkah and Christmas — is a particularly cogent time of year to consider this question, since it grapples with issues that almost inevitably turn spiritual. That’s helpful, since we may drift away from what matters most, and thinking about the spiritual can put us back on the right road.

So who are you? This question arose in a comical way in Acts 19:13. “Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon possessed. ... One day the evil spirit answered them. ‘Jesus I know and Paul I know about, but who are you?’” We’re not told how the Jews answered.

Commonly, we think of ourselves in terms of what we do. Welder. Writer. Teacher. But those are attributes we develop as we go. Similar are the roles we fill along the way. Father. Aunt. These stations accrue as we move through life, but only superficially do they answer who we are.

I submit that we are our beliefs, which inform our actions, which become the attributes and roles (the adjectives, you might say) that limn our lives. Together these form our relationship with God. Beliefs x Actions = Relationship with God. BA=R. All nice and mathematical-looking.

Jesus came into the world and told us that we too could be sons (and daughters) of the God of creation. His mission was to die for our sins, a sacrificial lamb, so that we, though sinful beings, might be seen by God as blameless. What Good News! It makes all our politics and the day-to-day troubles pale in comparison. Our true purpose is to be imagers of God in the world.  There is nothing more important that to cling to this one Truth and build our relationship with Him.

The Attitude that Needs to Change

 Tom Knighton at Townhall.com has an article entitled This is the Attitude That Needs to Change on Guns. What attitude is that, you ask? The notion that if you make it more difficult for legal gun owners to access guns, somehow it will make it equally more difficult for illegal gun possesors. Sadly, that is not the case.

The problem that Aiken has, though, is a poor understanding of things, and he's got fewer excuses than most.

"If we make it too easy to get guns, the wrong people will get them. I know because my niece was killed by someone who got a gun despite the laws I literally just said would prevent it."

I don't mean to pick on Aiken, but his attitude about guns is far too common.

The problem is that people legitimately believe that gun control works and that if we make it harder for law-abiding citizens to get firearms then criminals will have an even harder time getting them. That's simply not true. We know it's not because the Department of Justice itself has looked at where the guns come from and it's not from lawful gun sales. Most of them come via theft or buying a stolen gun from someone else.

How are you going to regulate that?

Exactly so. People who are going to commit crimes with a gun are hardly going to be disuaded by laws preventing them from accessing a gun. It is the very definition of a criminal and an outlaw. Laws will never stop a criminal, because they do not care about laws. Period.

Gun Grabbers Dance in the Blood of Their Victims

 J. B. Shurk has an article today at the American Thinker entitled Dismantling the Bill of Rights Is No Solution. The first right written about in Shurk's piece is the Second Amendment because that is the one currently under attack due to the recent Wisconsin School Shooting.

After the recent school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin, the usual suspects immediately called for more “gun control.” Joe Biden’s White House released a statement demanding these additional infringements upon Americans’ Second Amendment rights: “Universal background checks. A national red flag law. A ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.” (The president conveniently ignored reports that the teenaged attacker used a 9mm pistol.) Democrat Congressman Mark Pocan insists that gun manufacturers be held responsible for the school shooter’s violence. Disgraced former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe (who was rewarded for leaking classified information and lying to federal agents) wants “legislation that changes the context of gun ownership” in the United States and new requirements that “eliminate the ability” of Americans “to purchase guns without a background check.”

So the departing president wants executive authority to determine which Americans enjoy Second Amendment protections. The congressman from Wisconsin wants to hold manufacturers criminally and civilly liable for the misdeeds of others. And the former acting director of the FBI wants to fundamentally transform the “context of gun ownership.” What part of “shall not be infringed” do they not understand?

If you are a gun owner, you are used to calls to dismantle the Second Amendment every time someone misuses a gun and the gun-grabbers dance in the blood of the victims. But this sort of thing happens all the time to the entire Bill of Rights. In theory, our "leaders" swear on the Bible (in other words to God Almighty himself) to protect and defend the Constitution. But they obviously don't mean it.

If we were still a country that took loyalty oaths seriously, it would be worth noting that all three of these men raised their hands and solemnly swore to protect and defend the Bill of Rights. As retired FBI supervisory special agent Arthur P. Meister once wrote, “all public office oaths require true faith and allegiance to principles of lawful authority derived from the Constitution.” An official’s “deference” to the Bill of Rights “must trump all other promises and commitments” precisely because “the public elects, empowers, and allows a select few to govern many.” The U.S. government cannot expect public trust if its officers regularly violate their oaths to the U.S. Constitution. Accordingly, if faith in the U.S. government is historically weak, then government officials should consider their disregard for the Bill of Rights the proximate cause.

Unconstitutional attempts to confiscate Americans’ firearms have become such a regular reaction to mass shootings that lawmakers act as if erasing the Second Amendment were no big deal. “Oh, what’s the harm?” they dismissively suggest on cable television. “It’s just an annoying little right. It was written, like, three centuries ago...by white supremacists! And if it saves even one child, it’s worth it!”

Shurk then takes us on a long discourse on the fact that our current system under the Democrats and particularly under the Biden administration is a two tier system where the people on the "inside" seem to get whatever they want, while the people on the "outside" aren't even given the bare protections afforded in the Constitution. Indeed, the people in charge, who have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution don't seem to have read it at all.

Make no mistake, none of the things Biden is pushing would have stopped any crime. Every wet dream wish of the gun grabbers is just to burden gun owners as much as possible.  The things they want now will never be enough.  And whatever the pathologies suffered by the Wisconsin shooter might be, they are tragic perversions of an unfortunately sick mind. The vast majority of gun owners (some 107 million own guns) did NOT commit a crime and never will. What is the logic here, then, that everyone should be punished for the crimes of the few? By that logic, everyone would be sent to jail whenever someone is robbed. Rather, the logic here is that if they can effectively neuter the Second Amendment, we will all be easier to control. Therein is the real reason.  Not because the care, but to increase their power and control.

Another Frivolous Lawsuit

 Over at the American Thinker today, Eric Utter has a post entitled Biden administration seeks to punish oil companies. The administration is putting its thumbs on the scale seeking to have the Supreme Court sanction a novel theory that oil companies should pay for damages caused by so called "globlal warming."

The Washington Free Beacon recently reported that the Biden administration’s stunningly unjust Department of Justice “quietly weighed in on litigation pending before the Supreme Court this week, siding with liberal cities and states that are seeking to force the nation's largest oil companies to pay billions of dollars in damages for global warming.”

Biden’s Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prelogar, is pushing the Supreme Court to give its imprimatur to the notion that states can make laws mandating that oil companies pay “the costs of global climate change.” Prelogar is also urging SCOTUS to “allow Democratic states to pursue their individual lawsuits against the various companies.”

The Beacon also noted that the lawsuits against the big oil companies “are being assisted by the California law firm Sher Edling, which was founded in 2016 to wage war on oil companies via novel legal methods,” and has “received nearly $14 million in donations wired through the so-called Collective Action Fund for Accountability, a shadowy pass-through group that isn't required to publicly disclose its donors.”

I have pointed out over time that the entire theory of man-made climate change has been thoroughly debunked. Yet it continues because the people behind it see it as a way to take money from you and me and put it in their own pockets. Why work for it, when you can steal it instead? If this were not done under color of law, it would be a crime of the greatest proportions. But what I want to point out here is what Utter also points out: that in fact oil, coal, and natural gas have actually greatly benefited the human race. You would not be reading this, execpt for fossil fuels generating the electricity to send these pixels all over the world.

Let me explain. Any possible “damage” these companies have done to the earth is more than counteracted by the literally incalculable good they have done. Global warming? Petroleum, coal, and natural gas-based energy has prevented countless millions from dying of extreme cold over the past century or more via various, relatively inexpensive, heating systems. Global cooling? Petroleum, coal, and natural gas-based energy has prevented countless millions from dying of excessive heat via the relatively recent miracle of air-conditioning.

What else? Let’s see. How many lives have been immeasurably improved because of the internal combustion engine? The freedom to get in one’s car and drive to work, or to travel across the country to see the sights, historical, environmental, or otherwise, is a blessing—though too often taken for granted now—beyond compare. The same goes for air travel. Not to mention that, prior to gasoline-powered vehicles, things were a tad more difficult. Who wants to ride a horse to work in heavy snow and 40-below windchills? Walk? Bicycle? What about the elderly, infirm, and handicapped? Would that be fair, inclusive, tolerant, and kind? And the ubiquitous horse poop—filling the streets and thoroughfares of that era was an ever-present health threat on several levels.

More? Before petroleum-based oils came into existence, many people lit their homes with lamps fueled by whale oil. Sperm—and other—whales were also benefactors of the switch to oil, coal, and natural gas.

Exactly so. Before the age of fossile fuels, the average person lived and died in a 10 mile radius of where he or she was born. Most people could not afford to keep a horse, and horses are not that fast anyway. Most people worked very hard to just survive, and most people lived to an average of 40 years. Think about that. This is what the Biden administration wants for us. Still think they have our best interests at heart?

The Insane Cost of Health Care

 Andrea Widburg at the American Thinker has a podcast on Health care costs, or more accurately, the insane costs of actual health care. She offers multiple reasons for this calamitous situation, not the least is Obamacare and illegal aliens. Go watch her podcast one of either Rumble or Youtube.  But make a cup of coffee because it's a 45 minute sitdown.

Human Nature Does Not Change. Neither Should the Constitution Except Through the Amendment Process

 Today I want to highlight a case that is discussed at the  American Thinker by Carlton Allen entitled Hawaii Judges Say 'Hell With the Constitution'. The case involves Christopher Wilson, a resident of Hawaii who was charged with carry a pistol while hiking. Wilson cited the Second Amendment and the Bruen decision. The Hawaii Supreme Court citing the states "spirit of Aloha" reinstated the charges against Wilson. The United States Supreme Court has so far refused to grant certiorari in the case on technical grounds. Such is the state of play.  

When I served as a judicial officer, I leaned into the originalist philosophy championed by Justice Antonin Scalia. His wisdom — that judges must adhere to the Constitution and the law as written, not as they wish it to be — served as a lodestar. As Scalia famously remarked, “The Constitution is not a living document — it is a legal document.” This sharp declaration underscores a vital truth: the Constitution is not a chameleon, changing with the political winds or cultural trends. It is a fixed, enduring framework meant to safeguard liberty and ensure the rule of law. Judges are bound by its text and original meaning, not free to reinterpret it to suit their preferences or the moment’s fashionable ideologies. To treat it otherwise is to abandon constitutional governance altogether.

The principles of originalist philosophy are important if we are to have Constitutional governance at all. Human nature does not change, and the laws laid down in the Constitution do not change just because current whims of society change. People have certain rights, and those rights always exist in all times and places. Thus the Constitution is not a "living document" but a legal document.

This principle could not be more relevant in the wake of the Hawaii Supreme Court’s defiance of U.S. Supreme Court precedent in State v. Wilson. The procedural posture of the case is important: Christopher Wilson, a Hawaii resident, was charged in 2017 with carrying a pistol without a license while hiking. Wilson argued that his actions were protected by the Second Amendment, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen (2022), which affirmed the right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.

The Hawaii Supreme Court, however, reinstated charges against Wilson, effectively ignoring Bruen. In a particularly audacious move, the court criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for “cherry-pick[ing]” historical evidence and engaging in “fuzzy” reasoning, dismissing the Bruen decision as backward-looking. The Hawaii court even invoked the state’s so-called “spirit of aloha” as justification for rejecting the plain guarantees of the Second Amendment. This was more than a bad legal ruling — it was a brazen act of judicial nullification.

When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices denied certiorari on procedural grounds, noting that this was an interlocutory matter that had not yet fully played out in Hawaii’s courts. However, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, issued a statement that should serve as a warning to all who care about constitutional governance. Justice Thomas sharply criticized the Hawaii Supreme Court for not giving the Second Amendment its proper weight, observing that the lower court’s analysis “failed to give the Second Amendment its due regard.” He further noted that Hawaii’s defiance of Bruen was deeply troubling and a signal of broader disregard for the rights of Americans.

...snip...

What makes the Hawaii Supreme Court’s actions in State v. Wilson even more concerning is that this is not a case of a state challenging the constitutionality of federal law. Instead, Hawaii has effectively declared that the Second Amendment, as interpreted in Bruen, does not apply within its borders. By reinstating charges against a citizen exercising what the U.S. Supreme Court has unequivocally affirmed as a fundamental right, the Hawaii court has treated the Constitution not as the supreme law of the land, but as an inconvenience to be disregarded.

This is not interposition in the historical sense — it is an outright dismissal of federal authority and a refusal to acknowledge the Second Amendment’s binding force. Such defiance signals a dangerous precedent, where states or localities decide unilaterally which parts of the Constitution they will honor. It is a direct challenge to constitutional governance and the principle that the rights enshrined in the Constitution apply equally across all states.

By invoking doctrines like nullification and interposition — whether explicitly or implicitly — progressive activists undermine the structure of our Republic. The Constitution is not a patchwork quilt of negotiable rights. It is a unified legal framework, and its protections do not cease to exist when they conflict with the political preferences of a state or locality. What Hawaii has done is more than defiance; it is a rejection of constitutional order, one that endangers the rights of all Americans.

Gentle readers are encouraged to read all of Allen's article. This is one to watch as the precedent set by the Hawaii Supreme Court cannot stand.  I would note especially the statement by Justice Scalia that the Constitution is meant to be difficult to change. One cannot legitimately reinterpret the plain meaning of the words to mean something different because of changing fashions. Fashions always change, but as noted above, human nature does not.

The Problem of Over Credentialism

 When I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, the state board that licensed engineers had only in the last 20 years removed the old path to engineering of experience and passing the licensing test.  Abe Lincoln got a law license by "reading the law," which consisted of study and experience.  In his piece entitled The Cult of Credentialism J. B. Shurk notes that many American novelists had no college experience, yet were literary geniuses:

I once saw a celebrated American author give a class of literature majors one of the best lessons they could learn. He was speaking about the English language when he noticed that all of the students were busy taking notes rather than listening. He paused and asked how many planned on being writers. All hands went up. He asked how many expected to be successful in their pursuit. Most hands went up. Then he looked them in the eye and told them that majoring in literature is not the way to do so. The students were shocked (as were some of their professors), but the famous novelist continued. He listed his favorite writers of the last century and noted that most had spotty educations and work experiences that had nothing to do with writing. Prestigious college degrees and straight As, he told the students, are no substitute for creativity and life experience.

It was interesting watching some of the reactions in that auditorium. Surely literature majors had noticed that for every Ralph Waldo Emerson, T.S. Eliot, or John Updike with a Harvard degree, there were ten Mark Twains, Ernest Hemingways, Hunter S. Thompsons, or William Faulkners whose academic achievements were rather modest. Still, many of the young students had gotten it in their heads that if they attended the fanciest schools and read the great works of literature with enough enthusiasm, they would one day be recognized for their own literary genius.

I have noted several times over the years that society has become over credentialed. Journalism is a classic example of this over credentialism. What one needs to start journaling is a combination of ability to write well, curiosity, persistence and persevirance and a heathy dose of common sense. It helps to be somehwat witty, but that is not what is needed. What one doesn't need is a college degree. The Brooklyn Bridge was designed and built by John Roebling, who had much experience with engineering, though he only spent two semesters in formal studies. (I hereby apolgize to David Miller, and engineer I worked with a Cherry Point who thought we needed less non essential courses in engineering training. Sorry, I was wrong)

As with so much else in our culture today, we have been taught to value the wrong things. Education, critical thinking, and intellectual growth are vitally important. A degree is only as important as it assists an individual in these pursuits. If a person advances toward an academic degree without becoming a better thinker, then the degree is just window dressing. Everybody likes an attractive store window, but if the merchandise inside is shoddy, no customer will return. Today, a college degree is advertised as the essential accoutrement for every successful person. Unfortunately, a college “education” has been responsible for producing a surplus of shoddy minds.

A few years back, I watched an argument unfold online. People were debating the emergence of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” departments in schools and corporations. The back-and-forth was spirited but respectful. Many voices pointed out that DEI initiatives are a legalized form of discrimination that do nothing but divide Americans and aggravate pernicious tribalism.

Then a Boston professor jumped into the debate. She explained that she had advanced degrees in these subjects, that her education had cost several hundred thousand dollars, and that she had been the recipient of several illustrious university grants. She concluded that her C.V. proved not only that she knew more than everyone else, but also that those reading should feel lucky to be the beneficiaries of her free “expertise.” The professor’s patronizing tone conveyed such an appalling appeal to (undeserved) authority that the episode seemed the perfect encapsulation of academia’s collapse. Knowledge and critical thinking skills have been jettisoned in favor of lofty yet hollow titles connoting unearned prestige.

This little incident was an ominous precursor to the “Reign of COVID Terror,” the greatest outbreak not of disease, but rather of crimes against humanity. Rampant junk science and detestable appeals to authority coalesced into a ghastly form of totalitarianism that gave us lockdowns, injection mandates, religious persecution, mass surveillance, and the glorification of “expertise.” In the end, most of what the “experts” told us (with regard to COVID’s origin, transmission, lethality, and treatment) turned out to be spectacularly false. But the “experts” touted their credentials, pointed to all the exalted prefixes and suffixes surrounding their names, and expected everyone else to obey. Authoritarianism thrives when “the credentialed” presume to know best. Credentialism, after all, is sister to aristocracy.

Here is the problem with over-credentialism os that it breeds authoritarianism and totalitarianism. After all, if a highly credentialed person claims to know, can ordinary people with only common sense prevail in a debate? The meaning of PhD after a persons name is Doctor of Philosophy. But as my uncle, who has a PhD in mathematics noted, what it really means is "piled higher and deeper. One learns more and more about less unless until one becomes and expert on nothing." Not literally true, but it is a far cry from the idea of the Renaissance Man such as Issac Newton.  In truth, we need both kinds of people and knowledge in our debates.  The COVID lockdowns and idiotic requirements show what happens when highly credentialed people quickly shut down all debate.  As we learned, Sweeden did none of these things and suffered no more that those of us that did as the credentialed said.

Please read all of Shurk's article.

Burying Communism

 I would like to see it, if it were possible to Bury Communism for Good, as D. Parker suggests at the American Thinker. But, spoiler alert, all of the forms of collectivism, whether communism, socialism, progressivism, fascism, or some other name yet to be invented, partake of the worst instincts of mankind, namely envy. They all propose to give men something for nothing. All you have to do is put the "right people" in power. Unfortunately, there have never been the "right people."

It’s always been a perennial lie of the political left to falsely claim they’re all about fresh ideas, bringing in “new” winds of change, and that communism has never really been tried before. Anyone with a passing familiarity with history knows that’s a colossal pile of B.S., but if they can bluff their way along, they can hawk their societal slavery once again. The strains of collectivist control of the economy were in the cards in the last election, and if they had won, they would be crowing about how we’re all commies now.

Thankfully they lost, and they lost “bigly,” given the long odds with the national socialist media and every leftist celebrity on their side, so now is the time to take a good hard look at the damage their genocidal dreams have wrought upon humanity over 400 years finally declare enough is enough. It’s time to make the case for burying these collective ideologies for good.

I encourage gentle readers to read all of D. Parker's piece, for he makes a good case that we should indeed bury it once and for all. But we will never get rid of it entirely. Until Jesus comes again to rule in true justice, we are stuck with fallen people who will prefer envy to actual work. Still, there are things we can do. We can use the media and entertainment to make heroes out of people who work hard and succeed. We can also stop lionizing communist leaders and instead demonize these people. After all, they didn't become communist out of altruism, they did it to gain power and wealth at the expense of the everyday people. They were sure THEY knew how others should live, but not themselves.

We now know that history isn’t on their side, we also know that there is a very high cost to humanity with their Utopian fantasies. Fantasies that can never work, but always end with a mountain of corpses.

If there is one common thread running through collectivist thought down through the millennia, it’s an upper-crust, self-styled intellectual authority class that appears to think it knows better than the rest of humanity, and thus should rule over them. Thus, this intellectual authority class develops collectivist systems to control everyone else and bring about a perfect Utopia — at least, that’s been the sales pitch for the past 2,000 years.

One of the things about all collectivist systems is the utter misery imposed on the working people, for their own good, of course. And when they don't go along with being immiserated, then there are the "re-education camps" and gulags, and sadly the executions. Millions of executions, because when people don't "think correctly," they must be eliminated.

Force is the primary differentiating factor between communistic (or whatever) systems and those based on economic liberty. It's the only way those systems can work, and it’s the reason they need to finally be on the ash heap of history. Because in the 400 years of failure from the concepts that ‘have never really been tried before’ billions of people have been oppressed, and untold millions (we know that at least over 100 million) have been thrown into cattle cars, shipped to concentration camps and gulags, and murdered.

We also need to emphasize this aspect of collectivist systems. They inevibably mean the murder of people on an industrial scale.

The UAP Debate

 I am bringing something a little different today, a piece on what until yesterday were called Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs.  Now, I don't necessarily believe in UFOs, nor do I not believe.  I am open minded concerning the existence of UFOs.  According to John Nantz at Townhall.com in a piece entitled Crash Retrievals, Reverse Engineering, And the Cost of Secrecy: The UAP Debate Unfolds, the new term is "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena."

November marked another round of historic House and Senate hearings on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). Sworn testimony was delivered before both legislative bodies, and more astounding information has been revealed to the American public through highly credible whistleblowers and government officials.

UAP is the modernized acronym for Unidentified Flying Object (UFO). The old acronym carried baggage and stigma, but more importantly, has simply become antiquated and inaccurate. The unidentified phenomenon aren’t simply flying objects, but have been observed to be trans-medium, moving with unimpeded ease between space, atmosphere, and water.

The various Congressional hearings on UAP have been, shall we say, interesting, but have been overshadowed by the political events going on.

the UAP question for most people is relevancy. However, during the November 20 Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on UAP. Jon Kosloski, head of the Department of Defense’s UAP investigation program, the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) told the senate committee that UAP are real, there are cases that defy his understanding of physics, and that UAP are not our technology or adversarial technology. These are stunning admissions, especially in light of DOD’s decades long denial of even the existence of UAP, and active disinformation campaigns designed to discredit the topic and anyone who dares to counter the DOD narrative.

On November 13th, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability aired by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), held a UAP hearing and empaneled retired Rear Admiral Timothy Gallaudet, former Director of DOD’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) Lue Elizondo, journalist and author Michael D. Shellenberger, and former NASA Associate Administrator of Space Policy and Partnerships Micheal Gold. All four individuals are experts in their fields and gave testimony under oath.

Of the many points Rep. Mace made during the hearing, perhaps the most incisive was in regard to the government making disability payments to individuals who’ve suffered demonstrable harm from their work on or around recovered UAP. Her statement related directly to questioning by Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) who cleverly observed, “Well you can’t talk about fight club if there’s no fight club.” Moskowitz’s point was if the DOD required Mr. Elizondo to sign non-disclosure agreements about crash retrieval programs, then that tacitly acknowledges the existence of crash retrieval programs.

UFO, or as they are now known UAP have not inteseted me much. But the Bible does mention other intelligent beings created by God. These beings, called angels, demons, and the whole company of Heaven. Could these be the extraterrestrials that are the subject of Congressional hearings? One wonders. But please read Nantz's article, and follow further developments.

Has America Lost Its Collective Mind?

If you have been paying attention, you have, no doubt, been wondering: Has American lost its collective mind? As if to answer that question, at Townhall.com today, Matt Vespa has a hilarious post that encapsulates the absolute insanity of the "woke" movement in Comedian Hilariously Takes Down Cancel Culture Which Attacks This Classic Christmas Song

This story isn’t new, but one comedian decided to incorporate it into his act regarding the controversy surrounding the song ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside,’ which the political correctness police deemed a date rape anthem or something. The song was all the ‘isms’ and ‘ists’—the song was sexist, misogynist, etc., and radio stations stopped playing it. So, to analyze why this song is problematic, comedian Tom Cotter read this Christmas classic's lyrics compared to another song that reached the top of the charts, ‘WAP’ by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

Gentle readers are encouraged to watch as Tom Cotter alternately reads the words to "Baby It's Cold Outside" and "WAP". This shows that America has truly gone insane.

Is Climate Sanity Setting In?

Chris Talgo today has an article at Townhall.com entitled Climate Alarmists Are More Desperate Than Ever, which catalogs a number of trends toward climate realism. What one has to realize is that climate cooling...er...warming...er change has never been about the climate. The entire scam has been a United Nations effort to redistribute the wealth of developed nations toward the undeveloped. Keep in mind that the undeveloped nations could adopt our laws and system of government and have our success within a few decades. But they are socialists, so would rather steal it than earn it.

While campaigning, Trump made it crystal clear that he intends to unleash the American energy sector, particularly with regard to new oil and natural gas extraction projects. Moreover, Trump has pledged to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords, authorize the construction of new pipelines throughout the nation, allow U.S. exports of U.S. liquified natural gas to our European allies, eliminate President Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, and abolish a host of frivolous regulations that have handicapped U.S. energy production in recent years.

It also must be noted that among the American population, climate alarmism seems to be on the decline as well. In years past, climate change consistently ranked among Americans’ top concerns. However, as several recent polls show, Americans now rank climate change last or near-last in terms of their highest concerns.

Meanwhile, in Europe, climate realists continue to make progress by calling attention to the absurd measures taken to prevent a so-called climate catastrophe.

Talgo provides a number of examples of European nations imposing ever more stringent regulations on their people. In addition to Germany and France, I would add that Ireland wanted to cull cattle herds destroying farmers livelihood. But of course, this isn't about climate. This is about socialists trying to redistribute the wealth rather than make their own wealth. As such, they seem more interested in hitting people over the head than understanding people's concerns. But it's for their own good, right?

Like Germany, several other European countries jumped on the climate alarmist bandwagon years ago, much to the detriment of their citizens. From the Netherlands to France, farmers and many others have protested against the implementation of climate alarmist policies that put their livelihoods in jeopardy.

As Arnaud Rousseau, who leads one of France’s largest farmers union, put it, “What is happening at the moment stems from the accumulation of rules that at first you accept ... until it becomes too much.”

While the bottom-up protests in Europe and the victory for Trump bodes well for climate realism, it would be foolish to believe that this necessarily means climate alarmists are on their back foot.

Instead of listening to peoples’ genuine concerns about high gas prices and electricity bills, their apprehensiveness to buy electric vehicles, their questioning of the green transition, or any other uneasiness they may have about upending their daily lives, climate alarmists believe it is best to smash them into submission.

Let this be a lesson for other ideas. If you can't convince a majority of people that they should change their ways through open and honest debate, maybe it is not a good idea. Please read Talgo's article.

A Look At The Accuracy of the Three Threes

 Mike McDaniel has a post at the American Thinker entitled Gun Fights: Is the "three threes" rule accurate? He looks at several studies dealing with the distances at which gun fights are initiated. Of course, the second "three" deals with the number of rounds shot, which does not factor into any of the charts.

A common teaching tool among professional is the “three threes:” gunfights take place within three yards, take three seconds and no more than three rounds are fired. As a means of focusing student’s minds on the realities that when things go bad, they go bad fast, and one must be prepared for that, it’s a useful idea, but does it represent the truth? That depends on to whose statistics one refers, also whether the “gunfights” involve citizens or on-duty policer officers. In 2021, Chris Baker at Lucky Gunner provided pertinent details.

Interestingly enough, most of our data for the "three threes" rule come from law enforcement sources. But as McDaniel points out, law enforcement shootings may not match civilian shooting data. After all, civilians don't usually go after dangerous criminals on purpose, and normally aren't the target of dangerous criminals either. The more useful numbers come from Tom Givens of Rangemaster Firearms Training. Please see the graph provided at the highlighted article, which indicate that 87% of the shootings studied occurred at between 3 and 5 yards.

What lessons can we learn from these admittedly limited statistics? We might revise the threes rule to “around three yards+.” We don’t know the duration of these incidents, the accuracy of the anecdotes, nor the numbers of rounds fired. Experience suggests three rounds is in the ballpark, but that applies to the innocent shooter. More may be fired by bad guys.

Statistics are useful for generally constraining your training to the most likely of scenarios. So, McDaniel's "around three yards+" seems like good advice. The truth is that whatever you are confronted with will be what you have to defend. For most of us, the time we have to train is quite limited, with work, family and other responsibilities taking up most of our time. Of course, we should all be prepared, but understand that it is the bad guy who will chose the time and place to attack.

Restorative (In)justice

 At the American Thinker today, Mike McDaniel in a post entitled Restorative justice breaks real justice explains the consequences of the "defund the police" movement. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is this: when justice breaks down, we are left with vigilantism. We are thus forced to live by the feud, where might makes right.

Bail is intended not to punish the indigent, but to ensure their appearance in court. Criminals freed without bail have little incentive to show up in court or remain in contact with court-appointed attorneys. Bail is also intended to protect the public against sociopaths and psychopaths, violent predators whose actions and intentions represent a clear and present danger.

What evidence did Judge Anderson have that might convince a reasonable jurist Earnest was no danger to the public? Apparently, none. Anyone staging an ambush to murder their victim presents a compelling case for jail pending trial, and likely up to the 60 years Tennessee law allows for conviction on second degree murder.

An allied reality is jail also protect criminals from their victims and from the public at large. When citizens realize the system they fund, and upon which they rely, for protection against criminals refuses to protect them, they move inexorably toward dispensing it themselves. And why should they not? The police, prosecutors and courts are their invention, wielding their power on loan on condition of good behavior.

Obviously, actual vigilantism can’t be allowed, but refusal to do the duties the public expects can only lead to the public taking back their loaned power. That sort of justice tends to be final indeed.

To get a better handle on what McDaniel is talking about here, one has to remember the theory on which our Constitution and laws are based. God, our Creator, grants to each person a number of rights and powers. In a state of nature we each exercise these individually. But for the sake of the common good, We the People loan some of these to the state. The states in turn lone a limited number of them to the Federal government. One of the powers delegated to the state is the police power, for which we pay taxes. The police are there to protect both the victim and the criminal, so that the courts determine the truth of the case and can mete out punishment for the guilty and perhaps provide closure to the victims. That each of these duties is done imperfectly is a sign that we live in a fallen world. Nonetheless, we cannot allow the imperfection to convince us to give up the whole enterprise. Some justice is better than no justice.

McDaniel gives a good deal of time to discussion of one crime, and frankly, the commission of yet another by a rogue judge, mistakenly applying "restorative justice." But it really is not restorative, for what may or may not have been done to this individuals ancestors 200 years ago has no bearing on the crimes he is charged with today. It is, in the end, a phony theory to wreak havoc on society and must be crushed along with the rest of the Democrat/communist/socialist agenda.

Environmentalists Hate You and Me

 Selwyn Duke, at the American Thinker asks Let's say man is changing the climate. So what?

No, I’m not a guy who “just wants to see the world burn” (and that would be literally). Rather, if anthropogenic climate change were occurring, why should we assume it wouldn’t be beneficial?

Oh, it’s not just that the Earth is greener and crop yields are higher when CO2 levels are greater; it’s not just that relative warmth breeds life. It’s also this:

Some scientists have said the Earth will soon enter, or has already entered, a significant cooling phase. Others even contend that another ice age is nigh. And if this is so, any man-caused temperature increase would merely mitigate this naturally induced but deadly phenomenon.

A warmer environment is better for human life than a cooler environment. So, why assume that a warming world is bad? Duke thinks we can chalk it up to prejudice. I think there is something to this. Most devout environmentalists have the belief that man is a cancer on the earth. We do change the environment to suit ourselves, but then, what living thing does not? The fact that we can even exist is due to plants developing photosynthesis, providing oxygen for animal life. Beavers build dams which changes the environment to suit them. Bees will increase the flowering plants they like best. Mankind, being men, changes the environment more spectacularly, but we are doing what all nature does.

In reality, moderns’ thinking so often reflects a kind of misanthropism or, at least, a bias against Western-triumph-born modernity. People believing that extraterrestrials furtively visit our planet never assume the aliens’ matter-of-course environmental impact could be malign; they’re too advanced. People pondering a hunter-gatherer tribe (e.g., the North Sentinelese) generally assume they just must live “in harmony with nature” and be innocuous; they’re too primitive. Never mind that American Indians deforested stretches along, and caused the sedimentation of, the Delaware River long before Europeans’ New World arrival (to provide just one perspective-lending example). The activities of man, or modern man or Western man, depending on the precise prejudice, just must be harmful for the simple reason that he engaged in them. So, yes, racial profiling is a problem — against the human race.

In fairness, we can do and have done much to damage the environment. In fairness again, though, forested area in the U.S. is greater than it was a century back and our water and air are cleaner than they were 60 years ago. And in recent times the Great Barrier Reef has actually increased in size (this isn’t necessarily due to man’s activities). So we can also be good shepherds of the Earth.

Some don't merely believe we are a cancer on the earth, who should be eliminated (expect for them, of course), but believe we should all be humiliated as much as possible. Thus, Klaus Schwab thinks we should own nothing and be happy about it (or else.) He thinks we should eat bugs because...well just because. But even more bizarre is this story by Monica Showalter at the American Thinker entitled Globalists present their newest plan for us: Beer crafted from raw sewage. There is simply no reason to use sewage to make beer. It would be cheaper, if fresh water is in short supply, to use desalinized sea water using one of several systems. Or better still, import beer from a country with good water.

For a movement that claims to be all about saving the Earth, the green environmentalist globalists sure do come up with repulsive ideas.

...snip...

Like edible bugs, it's undoubtedly expensive given all the processing it would take to make it safe to drink. And like a lot of things, they may find they made "mistakes" in establishing the purity.

Wouldn't it make more sense to make the beer in some place where it makes sense to make beer, where beer tastes good, buying it from another country if necessary? Is there some reason there's a need to look to the sewage stream for one's beer? It's like teaching a dog to dance -- sure, it can be done, but why?

More to the point, the whole idea is repulsive.

Like eating bugs, the yuck factor makes one wonder why? But then, when you realize that at heart the save the planet movement is a misanthropic anti-human movement, you begin to understand. Gentle readers are urged to read both articles.

Man is Not the Measure of All Things. God Is.

 Anthony J. DeBlasi has an interesting article at the American Thinker today entitled Do Math and Science Add Up to Reality?. At heart, DeBlasi's point is that math and science can point to physical reality, but there is more to reality than the physical. In DeBlasi's own words:

What I have been saying in effect is that it is vital for humans as humans to understand that the scientific solution to everything is not, as Carl Sagan claimed, “a matter of time.” At best such boundless faith in science sustains the spirit to outdo what reality allows. At worst it spawns a blinding and devastating arrogance, as demonstrated by people like Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab.

Reality is beyond the mind’s ability to know it in the way we know we’re alive or grasp it in the way we can manipulate the elements of nature. Reality isn’t discovered, the way we find what’s hidden under a rock. It’s not invented, something leftists have not learned. It is acknowledged, as the smartest in all ages have been doing, to their credit, to their successes, and to the benefit of everyone.

DeBlasi leads us on a journey toward the conclusion above. Science is about discovering the way the physical world works. Sometimes, as with quantum physics, the discoveries seem more like magic than physics, but these are still the physical world. And DeBlasi hints at our problem in discerning Truth: It is that we cannot use the mind alone to answer questions about the mind.

I pause to wonder, how can there be an answer to a question about the mind, using the mind? Is that not the ultimate conundrum? It would seem that ultimate questions of mind-reality lock themselves out of any attempt to answer them inside the cranium, where they are constantly restricted. In math, for instance, the fence is intra-consistent symbol structures and rules — in science, intra-consistent assumptions and methods — whose consistency with structured thought outside of the designated frameworks is imperfect and whose connection to reality terminates in at least one X outside of its operational field?

Because these mental structures enjoy a life of their own within their respective realms and disciplines, the answers they may provide for ultimate questions are of necessity “empty boxes,” however well-constructed. To think that the mind can transcend itself and see the world “as it really is” requires one to believe that the mind itself is not part of that world, a belief inconsistent with scientific doctrine, compounding the difficulty with “ultimate questions.”

What is missing here is faith. Whether we want to admit it or not, everyone gets through life by faith. We all believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, in the East and set in the West. We all have faith that gravity will continue to operate and things will not suddenly start falling upward. So, if that is true, then why not have faith also in the revealed Truth found in the Bible. We would not know if there is even a God if He had not revealed himself to Abraham, and Abraham had not believed Him. But He did, and he did. And becase He did this, we know that God makes and keeps promises. Moreover, we can even know why he revealed himself: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten (read unique) Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. - John 3:16

One hears constantly that science and faith in God are somehow at odds, that one must pick one or the other. But I am an engineer. I use science and math to design solutions to make people's lives better. Yet I can clearly see the limits of science. Science cannot answer the ultimate questions of why we are here, or why we are so different from the other animals created. There is no evolutionary reason for music, for example, and yet nearly everyone can make and appreciate music. Indeed, faith and science are entirely compatible. After all, the God who revealed Himself to Abraham also created the world we live in and everything in it. And since He cannot lie, everything we learn about the world turns out to be compatible with His revealed Truth.

Please read the whole article highlighted above, and consider, if you haven't already, that the Bible may be the most important piece of literature ever written.

What About Pam Bondi on Gun Rights?

 Cam Edwards at Bearing Arms has a first take on Pam Bondi as the pick for Trump's Attorney General entitled Where Does Pam Bondi Stand on Gun Control?. The first thing that should be said is that literally anybody would be a better AG than Merrick Garland. Even a David Hogg would be better because at least your average person would be able to see through him. But, with that said, Bondi, as the former Florida AG has a mixed record on guns. Unlike Matt Gaitz, she is not a no compromise gun rights supporter.

Donald Trump's second choice for Attorney General is likely to find a warmer reception in the Senate than Matt Gaetz did, but she could face some hostility from Second Amendment organizations over some of her previous positions on guns and gun control.

Pam Bondi served as Florida's attorney general for eight years, and was in office when the legislature crafted its response to the 2018 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

"In a time of crisis, it's about finding common ground, and that's what Gov. Scott has done," Bondi told Fox Business host Stuart Varney in March of that year, as the Florida legislature was in the midst of passing legislation that, among other things, raised the age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21 and established a "red flag" law in the state.

During that same interview, Bondi praised Trump's response to the Parkland shootings and expressed her hope that he could be a "mediator" with federal lawmakers.

"Hopefully Congress will follow Florida's lead and what Gov. Scott has been doing here in Florida and all of us working so well together," she told Varney as the interview concluded.

Edwards' conclusion, as I said, is mixed:

Bondi is not an out-and-proud gun grabber, but she does come with some gun control baggage that's likely to come up during her meet-and-greets with senators as well as her confirmation hearings. Would she, for instance, wholeheartedly defend the federal prohibition on handgun sales for adults younger than 21? Does she continue to believe that Congress should implement a federal gun violence restraining order like the one adopted in Florida six years ago? Would she side with the plaintiffs challenging semi-auto bans in Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey, California, and a handful of other states? And where does Bondi come down on the issue of restoring Second Amendment rights to those convicted of non-violent felony offenses?

Gentle readers are asked to read the whole article, and consider letting their gun rights organizations how they feel. As I have noted, I view a federal involvement in gun rights somewhat askance. The less said by the fed, the better.

A Mandate to Support the Second Amendment?

At Townhall.com today Katie Pointer Baney has a piece entitled A Political Mandate in Support of Pro-Second Amendment Policy in which she makes the point that the new administration will have at least two years to put in place policies to guarantee the right to keep and bear arms for generations to come.

When President-elect Trump takes office in January, his administration will inherit a powerful mandate to protect and expand Second Amendment rights. With unified control of Congress, this incoming administration has an unprecedented opportunity to enact meaningful regulatory and legislative changes that safeguards the constitutional rights of millions of Americans.

The message from voters in the November election could not be clearer. Americans across the country have voiced their support for safer communities and the fundamental right to self-defense. The new administration must deliver on its campaign promises to defend these essential liberties.

Americans from all walks of life – including various racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and political backgrounds – are increasingly choosing to be their family’s first line of defense. The growing support for Second Amendment protections across the country, coupled with a unified Congress that supports pro-gun policies, creates a unique moment for lawmakers to work with the President-elect in advancing long-overdo measures such as national concealed carry reciprocity. The administration should also look to eliminate Biden-era regulatory changes, including reducing burdensome red tape on firearm ownership, as well as ensure that our fundamental rights continue to be upheld for future generations.

One thing Baney believes we can accomplish is the long desired National Concealed Carry legislation. I have to admit to trepidation about this legislation. If it is written correctly, it will just say that if a person is permitted to carry by his state of residence, it should be recognized by every other state. But the temptation will be to open up guns to federal regulation. Just what we don't need.

The solution is straightforward: establish a national framework that allows law-abiding gun owners to exercise their constitutional rights consistently throughout the country. This would not only strengthen individual liberties but also enhance personal safety and bring much-needed clarity to the legal landscape surrounding self-defense in America today.

The new administration should also roll back any Biden era executive orders and policies that hinder the right to bear arms and the demonization of legal gun sellers and manufacturers. Please read the whole article. It was not only gun owners who voted for Trump, but it is true that gun owners nearly universally voted for him. Don't we deserve to at least have gun ownership treated with the same drivers' licenses?

WEF Slapdown

 J. B Shurk has a post at the American Thinker today entitled A Trumpian Rebuke to the World Economic Forum. It is a must-read think piece on the nature and effects of human freedom in an age of impending totalitarianism. The WEF would have you believe that their totalitarian government is inevitable, but as Shurk points out, the individual lights of each of us will overwhelm their dark ambitions if we are brave enough.

In the background of everything I write is a recurring message: human freedom is invaluable, and we must fight for it daily. We are not “biological programs” or “redundant machines,” as the techno-fascists at the World Economic Forum would describe us. We are not “useless eaters” whose mere presence threatens the planet. We are unique individuals made in the image of God. We are meant to make choices, learn valuable lessons, struggle through hardship, overcome adversity, and persevere. We are meant to live, have children, protect our families, and pass what wisdom we gain to the next generation.

What I describe above is ancient knowledge. Yet many of today’s “leaders” would deny these essential truths. They speak of “saving the planet” with great fervor but are silent when it comes to saving human life. In fact, their message is just the opposite: don’t get married, don’t have kids, celebrate abortion, and embrace euthanasia. To most leaders in the West, life is a burden. Or rather, your life is a burden. While they enjoy the perks and privileges of wealth and power, they see everyone beneath their social stratum as just another mouth to feed. How lowly and unimportant are we in the minds of those who wish to rule over us? Men such as Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, Al Gore, and John Kerry tell us bluntly that we should own nothing, obey our “betters,” and subsist on a diet of bugs. According to their dark worldview, this is the bleak future that we deserve.

...snip...

This is how the battle for human freedom goes. In every generation, new leaders rise whose dark ambition is to rob individuals of their liberty. In every generation, a gathering of people must see through the descending fog of fear and falsehood and draw those lost toward freedom’s light. Sometimes freedom wins, and the tyrants lose. Sometimes we humans find ourselves trapped in darkness for quite some time. This, however, remains true: no matter how bad things get, there are always those who refuse to bend. Perhaps their parents bestowed them with enough wisdom to see through the fog, perhaps their faith in God gives them uncommon courage for dangerous times, or perhaps their thirst for liberty is more intense than most. But wherever tyranny grows, those with rebellious spirit fight back. Moses freed his people. Spartacus led an army of former slaves. Abolitionists built an Underground Railroad. Freedom-minded Europeans toppled the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain. Liberty always finds a way.

Shurk points out that the WEF uses propaganda, put out by the mainstream media, to constantly make us feel isolated and helpless. If we fall for it, we are lost. But the truth, as portrayed in the recent election of President Trump, is that we are many, and if we ignore the propaganda, we can retain our freedom. The election of Trump proved what Glenn Beck has always said: "We surround them." But as has been said many times, freedom is only one generation away. We cannot let freedom die on our watch.

In these uncertain times, a person can be forgiven for assuming that the end of freedom is near. After all, the World Economic Forum has attracted some of the wealthiest and most powerful people alive to its techno-fascist cause. How can any one person fight totalitarianism when this ugly philosophy has so many influential adherents? I will suggest to you that there are many more of us than there are of them and that we are capable of squashing this century’s re-emergent strain of totalitarianism at any time. Consequently, WEF tyrants engage in a kind of mass hypnosis in which they convince the public that any resistance to the new world order’s suffocating globalism is futile. With a steady stream of propaganda coming from media companies that WEF supporters control, we are made to feel small, powerless, and alone.

When President Trump won re-election on November 5, his victory had the greater effect of shattering the illusion of globalist invincibility. For the first time in quite a while, we could see how many of us were actually holding up liberty’s light, and the light from all our flames was actually quite bright. President Trump’s victory was freedom’s triumph.

I urge gentle readers to read the whole article. It is worthwhile.

Reasons for Not Posting

Gentle readers may wonder why I have not been posting the last almost 4 weeks.  The fact is that I underwent surgery for stage 4 cancer on October 21.  I was in the hospital for 3 weeks, underwent 3 surgeries, and just got out Monday of this week.  Needless to say, I am still recovering.  Mrs. PolyKahr has to drive me around even though I am not taking any pain medications.  I have followed the news to some extent, but I am concentrating most of my concern on getting better.

I hope to resume commenting on current events in the future, but for now it is just too much.  Recovery turns out to be hard work, and that's where I will be placing most of my spare energy for the foreseeable future.  I am happy that Trump won and won big.  But as always, do not place your hopes in men, for men will ultimately disappoint.  Instead, place your trust in God alone.

Finally, to my two or three followers out there, may God bless you for staying with me these past 15 years.  I hope there will be more, but for now I just can't do it.   

Stop Focusing on the Tools

 Here's another piece from Bearing Arms by Tom Knighton hammering home the fact that universal background checks will do nothing to stop criminals, nor for that matter to help stop crime. So, why do they want them so badly? Skip to the end to find out.

The article at Bearing Arms is entitled Texas Man Arrested for Stealing Guns From Homowner Who Hired Him.

I can't say that I don't understand stealing because I suppose there are situations where I can. If you're starving--literally starving, not just hungry--and you steal food, I won't approve but I'd get it.

Most people never reach that level of desperation, though.

Yet even if you are, one would imagine that the average person might think stealing from someone they're working for is a bad idea. However, most crooks aren't that bright.

Or, at least, this one wasn't.

"The Atascosa County Sheriff's Office apprehended David Alviso III, a Jourdanton resident, after finding 13 stolen guns, six vehicle titles and a computer that belonged to the homeowner, according to an Atascosa County Sheriff's Office Facebook post."

Deputies Tim Challes and Stephen Cook arrived at the Blackhill Community residence, which is roughly eight miles east of Pleasanton, after getting a call about a theft. When the two deputies got to the property the homeowner and Alviso were both at the home. The homeowner accused Alviso of stealing from him after watching surveillance footage, according to the release. Alviso had reportedly been hired to do work on the home.

The deputies followed footprints from the house into the woods where they found a bag with the stolen goods.

Yeah, this guy wasn't in serious contention to join Ocean's Eleven by any stretch of the imagination.

Yet think about what all it would have taken for him to get away with it. Without surveillance footage, it's unlikely Alviso would have been fingered so early. It's even possible that the homeowner wouldn't have known about the theft for some time. By then, the footprints might have been gone from wind, rain, or someone covering their tracks. Literally.

And this, boys and girls, is how criminals get guns.

Given that this is fundamentally true, that criminals get guns mostly by either stealing them, or buying from someone else who stole them, a universal background check will do nothing either to stop criminals from getting guns, or the help the police track down the perpetrators of crimes. So why does the Left so badly want universal background checks? Because they want to build a registry of who has what guns at any given time. Such a registry makes it easier to order the confiscation of weapons.

Given how slowly justice moves, they would hope to have either rounded up the guns, or put the refuseniks in jail, or just executed them before anyone could mount sufficient opposition. We have plenty of history from other countries to show this is true. National Review has a detailed report of How the Nazis Used Gun Control to first register, then disarm those suspected of being "politically unreliable" and Jews. Once defenseless, the Jews were exterminated to the tune of 6 million of them.

The Left has been attacking the American republic for now 170 years. Yes, the Left is the aggressor here, not the other way around.  The attack has been on all fronts and lately has accelerated. But they fear our guns, which may be the only thing keeping us from being overwhelmed. But in the end guns are just tools. Stop focusing on the tools and focus on the bad guys abusing the tools.

The Hypocrisy of Tech Giants

 Olivia Murray has a great post at the American Thinker today exploring the hypocrisy of the Tech Billionaires entitled Silicon Valley progressives buy up nuclear reactors to power their AI data center needs, after pushing us to subsist with wind and solar power.

When the rubber met the road and the progressive climate change warriors in Silicon Valley needed energy to power their AI and data centers, you might be surprised to learn they didn’t opt for the “renewable” energy technologies they’ve been forcing down our throats (wind turbines and solar panels), using the weight of big government, but instead went for…reliability and affordability.

Or maybe it’s not all that unexpected, considering these are the same people who fly from climate conference to climate conference in personal private jets and gorge themselves on Kobe beef while calling on us to limit ourselves to crickets and lab-grown “meat” mash.

...snip...

As we are all miserably aware, these three companies are radically left, both in their company mission and the personal ideology of their executives, and they use their weight to influence policy—they’re leading proponents of the progressive “climate change” narrative. While they’ve certainly “invested” a bit into the “zero-carbon” energy schemes, they abandoned their positions for personal gain when they needed reliability and affordability—the very reason we conservatives have insisted that nuclear energy is a great and clean option.

Does that mean we “unwashed masses” will be afforded the same opportunities? Or will we still be saddled inefficient and unaffordable?

I suspect the latter.

I do not resent that the tech billionaires make a lot of money by supplying people with products they like. That is capitalism. What I resent is that they then use the money they have made through capitalism to impoverish the rest of us and to force us to live on a subsistence level. I suspect that Murray believes similar. If nuclear is good enough for tech giants, it is good enough for the rest of us too.

A Pox on Both Their Houses

 Today is the first day of voting in North Carolina in the 2024 voting season.  Democrats of course are expected to set records for first day voting, if other states are any example.  For myself, I cannot wait for the voting season to be over.  This has been the nastiest, most lie filled election at all levels in my lifetime.  I am thoroughly disgusted with it.  Most of the lies, of course, come from the Democrats, though there are some from Republicans as well.  I will vote, of course, but a pox on both their houses. 

I am especially disgusted with the Democrat obsession with abortion.  Here in Raleigh, we get television ads for many district races as well as statewide races because WRAL covers a huge area.  We get ads for races from the coast to as far as the Greenborough area.  In every case, the Democrat candidate has touted their support for essentially unlimited abortion, while castigating their Republican opponent as taking away a woman's "right" to choose.

I have to ask, do these people who support abortion not hear themselves?  Do they not realize that a  "woman's right to choose abortion" is actually legalizing a woman's ability to murder her unborn child?  Do they not hear what they are saying, do not realize the horror of what they are proposing?  In ancient times, people threw their first born sons and daughters into the firey belly of Molock as a sacrifice to the anciet gods.  This is usually referred to as "passing through the fire."  But such language doesn't cover the horror of such behavior, as the child would scream as it burn up.  The LORD God punished Israel for that as well as other offences against Him.  And we are doing the same thing.

Democrats claim that their Republican opponents would disallow all abortions.  While that would be the ideal, just as divorce is allowed because of the hardness of our hearts, no states are going to absolutely oulaw all abortions.  There will be exceptions for rape, incest, and the health of the mother.  While some Republicans may talk about the ideal, the facts are that they will not be able to get the votes for it.  So, in the end, the Democrats are just trying to scare their voters.  Is that what we want as voters, or do we want them to represent us?

Another big lie is that the Republicans, particularly Trump, will implement the horrible, no good, abominable Project 2025.  This has been thoroughly debunked, and I don't see many candidates advertising about it, but some outside groups do.  First of all, Project 2025 is a production of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.  I don't think any conservative, however, agrees with all of the wish list contained in the 920 page document.  Again, even if Trump were attempting to put some of these proposals, he wouldn't have the votes in Congress.  Let us remember that the use of executive orders can not be used to implement laws, nor can executive agencies interpret the law to favor administrative priorities.

I hope future elections can focus more on the issues and less on tearing each other down.

Anti-Gunners Surprised Criminals Break Laws

 One has to wonder what kind of people believe that by making a law, they will stop criminals from being...well, you know...criminals.  It reminds me of those public service ads that used to show up on the television when I was young telling people lock their cars because they didn't want a good boy to go bad.  But of course, a good boy wouldn't be tempted to steal a car even if the keys were in it.

Yet, it seems that The Trace wants us to believe that criminality is because some states have something like Constitutional laws. The report comes from Townhall.com by Tom Knighton entitled Anti=Gun Organization Shocked To Learn That Criminals Break Laws

Being a criminal isn't a very difficult field to get into. You just have to break the law.

Sure, being good at being a criminal is a different matter--most suck at it, really--but it doesn't take a whole lot to be a criminal. Yet despite this simple tautology, some people are absolutely shocked to learn that criminals don't obey the law. They even write about it like it's news.

The latest example of this phenomenon is from the anti-gun "journalist" organization The Trace.

Please go and read the article at The Trace to find out the details. To make a long story a bit shorter, one Dylan Russell bought a number of guns over a two year period, which he was allowed to do because he had no convictions. Unfortunately, Russell wasn't entirely truthful, as he was using heroin at the time. Indeed, Russell bought the guns and them traded them for heroin. So he broke several laws as you may not purchase a gun while using illgal drugs, and you certainly may not buy a gun for another party.

In January 2024, Russell was charged in U.S. District Court in Burlington for his role as a straw purchaser in what prosecutors allege was a drugs-for-guns operation orchestrated by gang members based in cities including Springfield, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut. Russell, who has pleaded guilty in the case and is set to be sentenced in November, bought guns on behalf of drug traffickers; he got drugs from them in return.

Here's the question though, exactly what law would have prevented Russell from committing these crimes while still allowing honest citizens to purchase guns for self defense and other legal purposes? Perhaps making the use of illegal drugs more illegaler?

So what laws would have stopped Russell that wouldn't have infringed on the rights of ordinary, law-abiding citizens?

Of course, the answer is that there are no such laws. They don't care about you and me and our ability to exercise our right to keep and bear arms. People like Russell aren't even the problem for them. The problem is us. We don't want to give up our guns, so they try to use the people like Russell to justify their need for more and more laws, none of which would do a blasted thing to stop people putting guns in criminal hands.

Mob of Street Thugs Blocks the Freeway

 At Ammoland John Farnum warns us that When Stalled By A Violent Riot, Stationary Vehicles Are Death Traps. Farnum suggests crossing the median if necessary to turn around and get out of there. As long as you are moving, you have a chance. We can expect more of these as the election draws near and after the election. Keep your powder dry but stay armed.

Happy Columbus Day

 Happy Columbus day.

This is what indiginous people were doing before the Europeans arrived.  I would think all would be greatful.

Someone had to say it:

Hat tip to Theo Sparks.

Judge Tears Out Another Brick in the Wall That Is Election Fraud

 In order to be believed by all parties, elections must be honest.  But the Left and some on the Right have fought tooth and nail to keep the tactics that make our elections insecure and cause the losing side to cry foul.  Too many courts have failed in their duty to acknowledge the evidence of voter fraud brought to them.  Building election integrity has thus been slow, and I doubt that we can restore it in time for a vote to make a difference.  While the 2024 election is not likely to be our last, it is probably the last one before the Communists take over completely.  Still, miracles do happen.

Today at the American Thinker Jerome R. Corsi has an article explaining that one of the ways elections can be stolen has been cut off: How a Federal District Court Judge Weaponized Secret Algorithms to Stop Election Fraud Hidden in State Voter Rolls. Actually, while Corsi speaks of databases themselves, the actual problem is not the database per se, but the software used to manipulate the database.

On September 27, 2024, Federal District Court Judge Michael T. Liburdi rendered a decision in American Encore v. Adrian Fontes that weaponized algorithms surreptitiously embedded in various state boards of elections official voter registration database, turning them into a tool to block elections that bear the modus operandi of mail-in ballot election fraud from being certified.

In his decision, Judge Liburdi referenced a provision in the Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) that Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, had issued. That provision required the Secretary of State to certify an election by excluding the votes of any county that refused to certify an election. Justice Liburdi quoted the EPM language that became known in Arizona as the “Canvass Provision.” The quoted EPM language, including the parenthetical remark included in the original EPM document, reads as follows:

"If the official canvass of any county has not been received by this deadline, the Secretary of State may proceed with the state canvass without including the votes of the missing county (i.e., the Secretary of State is not permitted to use an unofficial vote count in lieu of the county’s official canvass)."

Judge Liburdi characterized the rule as “probably unprecedented in the history of the United States” because it “gives the Secretary of State nearly carte blanche authority to disenfranchise the ballots of potentially millions of Americans.”

Judge Liburdi’s ruling is a bulwark against secret algorithms in the state voter databases that create a pool of hidden “non-existent voters.” Beyond just creating “non-existent voters,” the cryptographic algorithms assign legitimate state voter IDs to the “non-existent voters.” This last step enables the criminal perpetrators to vote these “non-existent voters” as apparently “legal” mail-in votes in what could be sufficient quantities to steal otherwise losing elections.

To get a better feel for exactly how these secret algorithms are used to create non-existent voters that nonetheless appear as legitimate voters, I suggest you go to God's Five Stones, a website created by Corsi to report the group's findings.

The Democrat (read Socialist and Communists) have several built in advantages in any election. One is a belief that government is their highest priority, therefore they have a strong get-out-the-vote organization everywhere. But their real advantage is their belief in "by any means necessary." Therefore there is little to no qualms about lying, cheating and other skullduggery to win an election. The only way to discourage such actions is to provide sufficient consequences to discourage them. But if the one encouraging such shenanagans is also the one who benefits from them and who enforces laws against them, consequences mean little. That is why it is important to have to competing parties always watching the other.

We Walk By Faith, and Not By Sight

 I have been fasinated by the Shroud of Turin for many years.  Now, I am not a relic seeker, and I do not base my faith on the existence of relics from 2000 years ago.  Even less do I adore these supposed relics.  Oh, it is interesting to visit the supposed tomb of Jesus, or the skull of St. Paul.  These are material remains which Jesus warns us not to focus on, but on heaven itself.  But when archeologists turn up evidence for events and people in the Bible, it is satisfying nonetheless.  On the other hand, it is no surprise that relics are not abundant, for God wants us to believe in HIM completely without proofs. Faith is the key. If you know because you have seen, where is room for faith? Did not Jesus say: Those who believe and are baptized shall be saved?

Kevin Mooney today at the American Thinker has an article entitled The Shroud of Turin - Can It Be Found in the Bible?. Having read all four Gospels, I can assure you that the burial cloth of Jesus is mentioned in the Bible. The real question is, is the Shroud of Turin the same as the burial cloth mentioned in the Gospels? We may never know for sure, but that is not for a lack of research on the Shroud. As Mooney notes, we can say with certainty that the Shroud is NOT a painting, nor a reenactment. But we cannot say what it IS. Do I believe it is the burial cloth is Jesus? Yes, yes I do. But that is faith, not objective science. In the end, everyone walks by faith, not by sight. The question for each of us is, in what are we going to put our faith? I know where I put mine, do you?

Please read the whole article, and consider getting Robert Orlando's book The Shroud: Face to Face. My backlog of reading material keeps growing it seems.

In time for Halloween, the Ghost in the Machine

 Mike McDaniel has a post today at the American Thinker entitled Ghost guns and liberty in which he reports on the Van Der Stock case before the Supreme Court. Based on court watchers reading the tea leaves, it could go either way. The term "ghost guns" is like the term "assault weapon" in that neither appears in the lexicography of guns. They are made-up terms by gun grabbers to scare the public.

McDaniel points out that Americans have been making their own guns for...well...centuries. Indeed, a serial number on a gun was not a requirement until the 1968 Gun Control Act. Serial numbers are really just a convenience for the manufacturer and in the case of the government to keep tabs on to whom they have issued the weapon and ensure they get it back. As McDaniel points out, no crime has ever been solved by knowing the serial number of the weapon used. What this is really about is power.

It's perfectly within America’s Second Amendment rights to make their own guns, and a number of manufacturers make parts kits, including unfinished lower receivers—the portion of a gun housing the trigger and hammer/striker mechanisms—“80%” complete, that require some drilling and/or other machining/filing to finish. Because these are not complete firearms—they’re parts--they are not required to have serial numbers, and that, to federal and state bureaucrats, presents two problems: (1) That’s too much freedom for Deplorables, and (2) they need the power to write their own laws to keep Deplorables from having too much freedom.

That’s why the ATF has unilaterally declared such parts kits, and particularly non-serialized lower receivers (in the case of AR-15 pattern rifles) and frames (in the case of pistols) illegal, though the relevant laws say nothing about them. Revolvers aren’t really involved as they take far more work, specialized machinery and knowledge to make. It’s another case of the administrative state writing law through rule making. Congress, for many years, hasn’t cared enough about its own legislative prerogatives to reign in federal agencies, and the agencies just love having that kind of unaccountable power. The best part for the agencies is they get to be all three branches of government. They write the laws, enforce the laws and are the judges and juries as well. If they’re accused of violating citizen’s rights, they investigate themselves and find themselves blameless.

Gentle readers should go and read the whole of McDaniel's article. Like so much about the Second Amendment, the government keeps overstepping its bounds because it desparately wants to limit the citizen so as to allow it to tyranize us without the messy consequences. We can not let that happen.

The Mask Comes Off

I remember being accused by a leftist at work during the Obama administration of not liking Obama because he is black. I replied that I didn't care if he was green. I did not like him because he is a damn Communist. My accuser then feigned outrage and said "So, am I a Communist?" to which I replied "If the shoe fits..." He shut up, but that was when he became positively hostile. He has moved on so I no longer have to deal with him. Around that time, I had a great awakening to the fact that the Democrat party leadership, a great many Democrat voters, and perhaps some Republicans had become either Communist, or sympathizers of Communists.

Yesterday, James Simpson had an article at the American Thinker that outlined exactly how the Communists have marched through our institutions and attained the power necessary to now be poised to overthrow the Constitutional Republic and replace it with a Communist Tyranny. You can read it at Communists Out Of The Closet. Essentially, they have assiduously employed the Cloward-Piven strategy wherever they could.

Longtime AT readers will remember my viral 2008 article: Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. That article described the Cloward-Piven Crisis strategy that Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, two radical Columbia University professors, dreamed up. Their first target was the welfare system. They hoped that signing up every person eligible for every public service would overwhelm the system and cause its collapse. In the ashes, they would then suggest the solution: a guaranteed annual income for all Americans. (Note that such proposals have been added to Biden spending bills but were stripped out). They went on to target voting and were the authors of the National Voter Registration Act (i.e., Motor Voter). That law made voter roll maintenance much harder while making non-citizen voting much easier.

Since then, the Crisis strategy has expanded into virtually every area of our lives. Almost everything we are witnessing in our nation today is part of it. From tidal waves of illegal immigration (don’t call them “migrants,” which is leftist terminology; they are illegal aliens), the fentanyl crisis, suicides at record numbers (especially among the young and members of the military), to the war on energy, the war on morality and sexuality, the War on White America and the War on Black America (yes there is one of those too)—everywhere you turn the Left has put our nation at war with itself, with the ultimate goal of overwhelming it to the point that the entire society degenerates into chaos and civil war. That end goal will provide the pretext for the powers that be to declare martial law, seize our guns and take over by force if necessary.

In just those two paragraphs you will find most of the things plaguing our nation today. They have all been foisted upon us by design. Working from the shadows, each thing seems like a separate calamity overwheming normal Americans. You can read the rest of Simpson's article for yourselves. I also encourage you to buy his latest book: Manufactured Crisis: The War to End America of course in the kindle edition because we need to save our sheckles.

I want to explore the "why" of it. What drives people to become Marxist, especially those living comfortable lives in the United States, such that they want to burn it all down?

Of course, behind Marxian philosophy lies the devil, Lucifer, who Jesus said was a liar and a murderer from the start. He hates all humanity (as does the Left) and wants to see as many people in misery and debouchery as possible. The devil laughs when we do his will, because it hurts God. And his constant intelligence may explain why this philosophy constinues generation after generation despite its utter failure everywhere.

But beyond this explanation lies an old idea that what has been the way of doing business since time immemorial is exploitive of people. Today it is called capitalism. But capitalism is best understood as each party to a transaction is trading something they have for something they want. Where it gets exploitive is when the government interferes on one side and we then have what is often called "Crony Capitalism." In exchange for campaign contributions or other valuable consideration, polititions set taxes and other regulations to favor certain capitalist businessmen over others and over workers. But the Communists don't really care about the workers, they just use them as their army to batter down the existing system so they can take power themselves. It is really all about power.

Until the Obama administration, the United States has stood as a rebuke to all Communist regimes. Today, we are on the cusp of a Communist take-over of our Republic.

Be clear on this: we are witnessing an attempted Communist overthrow of our great nation. Vote and help get others out to vote as if your life depended on it because it does. If Christians had voted in greater numbers in 2020, we could have overwhelmed the steal. We will need more this time around because the Democrats are registering illegals and millions of non-Americans overseas!

Christians have no excuse not to vote and, when they do so, they must vote for Donald J. Trump. His election will give us four more years to begin the arduous process of rebuilding our nation—ravaged by the Left for over a century, as described in Manufactured Crisis: The War to End America.