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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. - MaxedOutMama I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. Kim du Toit
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. . . and so are you Wahabism Delenda Est      Hey, FEC!  BITE ME! I'm a Member of the McCain-Feingold INSURRECTION!    "Jeez, Kevin... calling you an asshole would be a huge understatement, wouldn't it?" -Jack Cluth, The People's Republic of Seabrook (Coming from you, Jack, it's an honor.)  email: gunrightsAT comcastDOTnet INVITATION: If you have never shot a firearm, regardless of your position on the right to arms, and if you live near or visit the Tucson, AZ metropolitan area, I invite you to go shooting for a day. I will provide the arms, ammunition, targets, safety equipment, range fees and instruction. All you have to do is show up. 6 Takers To Date DO YOU LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE and want to try shooting? Click HERE  Proud Gun-blogging member of the Pajamahadeen since May, 2003!
Debates: "The Commentary" A OLD discussion on gun control between me and an Irishman living in London Start here. UPDATED! Now with archive! Post #1 by Alex, a Guest A multi-post discussion hosted here at TSM My short exchange with Professor Saul Cornell of the Second Amendment Research Center Best Posts: The "Rights" Discussion: What is a "Right?" What is a "Right"? Revisited, Part I Part II Rights, Morality, Idealism & Pragmatism, Part I Part II Part III Part IV The United Federation of Planets Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection? Part I & Part II 1975 in Washington, D.C. vs. 2004 in Canton, Ohio Go Ahead, Rely on the Government for Your Protection The Other Side Liberal vs. Conservative: Both are Necessary The Mystery of Government The Blog that Ate Poughkeepsie Updated and restated as: Of Laws and Sausages Militias A Mistake a Free People Get to Make Only Once The George Orwell Daycare Center This is NOT What I Wanted to Read TRUST The Lying "News" Media, Pt. II Say WHAT? Bias? What Bias? Agenda? What Agenda? The Church of the MSM and the New Reformation Let's See if I Can "Germinate an Intelligent Thought" Here The ACLU Hasn't Changed its Tune They Never EVER Stop It is Not the Business of Government Five Reasons Why It ISN'T They Keep Making Better Fools Five Month Investigation, 10 Tracer Rounds, Two Felony Convictions That Sumbitch Ain't been BORN! On Guillotines and Gibbets England Slides Further Towards Bondage Pressing the "RESET" Button Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left To Lose A Terrible Resolve The Courts Will Not Save Us Trilogy: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions "Game Over, Man. Game Over." An Important Question And the denouement: Hudson Was Wrong The Dangerous Victims Trilogy: "(I)t's most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can" Violence and the Social Contract Governments, Criminals, and Dangerous Victims In the same vein: Those Without Swords Can Still Die Upon Them The True Believers Trilogy: True Believers March of the Lemmings Reasonable People Also in the same vein: Tough History Coming The Culture Trilogy Culture Hubris Weltanschauung And its follow-on: In Re: Culture Technical Dissertations Why Ballistic Fingerprinting Doesn't (And Won't) Work Spin, Spin, Spin Speaking of Teddy Kennedy... This is the Kind of Thing That REALLY IRRITATES ME Questions from the Audience?
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PROTESTWARRIOR Some people who are taking the fight to the Left. And some GREAT T-shirts, too. DAILY READS I need a longer day! Day by Day InstaPundit Lileks' The Bleat Mostly Cajun View from the Porch Of Arms and the Law TFS Magnum Ravenwood's Universe Irons in the Fire Say Uncle The Adventures of Roberta X TRUE EXCELLENCE American Digest The Belmont Club Boobs, Injuries, and Dr. Pepper The Volokh Conspiracy Michael Yon Varifrank Eject!Eject!Eject! Eternity Road Oleg Volk ON INDEFINITE HIATUS USS Clueless The Safety Valve Ipse Dixit The Lopsided Poopdeck Acidman (RIP) Skywritings Publicola D.C. Thorton Kim du Toit Personal Effects Smoke on the Water OTHER GUN/RIGHTS BLOGS Airborne Combat Engineer AlphaPatriot Alphecca American Dinosaur A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver The Anarchangel Mrs. Anarchangel The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Argghhh! The Bitch Girls Boots and Sabers The Breda Fallacy Gun Nuts Media Carnaby Fudge Clayton Cramer Cogito Ergo Geek Countertop Chronicles Cowboy Blob Critical Mastiff Cryptic Subterranean Found: One Troll FreedomSight From the Heartland Fun Turns to Tragedy!!! The Geek with a .45 Gunwatch Heartless Libertarian Hecate's Crossroad Hell in a Handbasket Individ Justin Buist's Blog The LawDog Files Lead and Gold Les Jones Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast Mad Ogre The Michael Bane Blog Moral Flexibility Mr. Completely Murdoc Online The Munchkin Wrangler Ninth Stage No Looking Backwards No Quarters Oscar Poppa Outrageous Malfunction Pass the ammo Posse Incitatus Random Nuclear Strikes Reasonablenut Resistance is Futile! Sandcastles and Cubicles SlagleRock's Slaughterhouse Snowflakes in Hell Surly Curmudgeon Texican Tattler The Ten Ring South Park Pundit Triggerfinger The View From North Central Idaho Vox The War on Guns Weck Up To Thees! Wince and Nod Xavier Thoughts .45 Caliber Justice BLOGGERS I'VE MET A Keyboard and a .45  
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Sunday, December 21, 2003 Tipping and NATO Go read Francis Porretto's most recent piece, Tipping Points. And pass the link around. And read When it Counts, Where is It? while you're at it. And prepare for the next Boston Tea Party. | Friday, December 19, 2003 Remember "Tupiniquim"? He was the Brazilian that left some comments and inspired me to write "That Sumbitch Ain't Been BORN". Well, he responded to me in an e-mail (good thing, too, as the response goes several pages and would have been a multipart comment, to say the least. In order to do him justice, I'm going to respond here in the blog, interspersing my responses within the whole of his e-mail: Hi, KevinTrust me, your English beats the Spanish I studied in college all to hell and gone. Thank you very much for the answer, is great hear different points of view. Now, after a reading of all those things you told me, I wish I can give you some points: explain some things that I think (the points where we disagree), give you my excuses for some excess, and tell what I agree with you. And I'll start telling right what I agree.Except, granted, where those problems overlap. I know what I wrote about USA external politics on your blog. Well, here are my apologies. Excuse me if I seemed offensive (and reading again what I wrote, I know I seemed offensive), it really wasn't my intention, believe me. I see great qualities on USA, especially cultural qualities. I told you about the beat generation (Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac.); lost generation and one of its great masters, John Steinbeck; Ernest Hemingway, Walt Withman, jazz, rock'n roll, and a lot of others. But, here in Brazil, and in a lot of other places this world, people hate USA much more every day. Why? There are some reasons, and I guess this is a thing that you must not ignore.Well, yes and no. You have to understand that the United States is a very large country. The majority of us, I'd say, never travel outside our own borders, nor really think about other countries all that much. There's so much here here, that we don't need to. We expect that our elected officials and government employees will do that, as that's what they're elected and hired to do. The only time many of us really even think about other nations is when they do something that does - directly - affect our nation. If we're hated, many of us think, it may be because we've (rightly) done something that has adversely affected the people who hate us. I wasn't offended, but I did (and do) disagree with much of your original comments. Well, in first place, I'll tell what I saw in Steven Den Beste essays: rhetoric, nothing more.Rhetoric is defined, according to Webster's, as "the art of speaking or writing effectively," as "the study of principles and rules of composition formulated by critics of ancient times," and "skill in the effective use of speech." Den Beste is certainly all that. But I think you meant it in the meaning of "insincere or grandiloquent language." I assure you, it may be grandiloquent, but it is most definitely not insincere. I think you dismiss him far too lightly. Like you and John Moore told me (not with these words), and I agree, if we search we won't find a people so big without an evil group. And, I'm telling you now, you won't find a people so big without groups with different ideas too, be sure. There will ever be people with different minds, different points of view, and this is good. The freedom of thinking and the right to tell what you think are human natural rights. This way, a 300 million people just can't share ONE idea. They share a lot of ideas, and disagree in a lot of others, right like Brazilians, Mexicans, Venezuelans or Europeans. I know, maybe you'd tell me that everybody with an USA citizenship doesn't share this idea, or that this freedom of thinking and this right to tell what you think are the idea that all North Americans share. But realize that these ideas and those you told me, about freedom, and about we don't have a master, are shared by almost everyone in this world. The Human Rights assure it.There I disagree with you, for if "almost everyone" actually shared the idea, there wouldn't be so many dictatorships in this world. "The Human Rights" assure nothing, not even here. I know you don't think the same, but I guess that these Steven Den Beste essays just give one more reason for North Americans have much pride of themselves, and this isn't good for them. Let me explain: a people need to feel pride of itself, but there is a point where pride turns to arrogance. Today, this is the USA point.I suggest you study our history. We've been arrogant for most of it. But I think if you check, arrogance is a side-effect of power. Nobody out arroganced the British during their Empire phase. The French haven't lost their arrogance, even though their power has faded almost to obscurity. And the Germans have damned near cornered the market on arrogance, just ask the Czechs. The Germans are #1 on their "most offensive visitors" list. Americans are a distant fourth. Maybe you'll be nervous with me, but this isn't just what I see, is the opinion of a lot of people this world, people enough for you don't just ignore. I felt happy when saw that you know about the evil governments that USA supports (still today), and that USA government keeps getting in mistakes that gives misery and death not to some, but to lots. But, in the end of your post, you told that just ignore everyone that say that USA is evil. No one would just tell you're evil, who does is because felt this evilness. Who says that USA is evil are the people that are in misery now, in consequence of this country's government arrogant attitudes (I have a lot of examples, and Brazilians lived this kind of USA government attitude directly). Knowing you only ignore everyone who tells this kind of thing, I understand that you'll keep thinking that "USA political system" is the best possible, and you'll keep full of pride about it.Here I have to ask a question: please clarify the statement "USA has the government that attacked most countries in the 20th century." Attacked who? How? Give me a list, please, with specific details. Then compare that list to the actions of the former Soviet Union and its satellites. Keep its people safe from what? What's the price the world is paying for its people's illusion of security? Because, be sure, this is an illusion.How so? In America, we don't have government thugs "disappearing" people (yet.) We don't have tens of thousands dead in unmarked mass graves. Terrorism, at least on the wholesale level, is a relatively recent phenomenon here - one that we're currently addressing, whether you think our methods effective or not. I'd say, off hand, that our security has been pretty well served for quite a long while. Please, understand my way to think: I'm not a North American, and I'm not benefited by any action of USA government. When the Brazilians militaries get the power, US naval forces were on our coast. Washington Post wrote that "an important step was given for the democracy on Brazil". It all was lie, you know, but I know better than you.To this I'd say that you grant a lot more power and planning to our government and military than they deserve. However, you apparently read Chomsky and believe him, so that's understandable. There is always a desire to blame somebody, anybody, outside your own culture and America is a pretty good target for that blame. And surely we deserve some of it, but not all, and probably not most. The war on Iraq is the most recently example. This war won't keep USA people more safe, and really won't keep the world more safe, like George Bush have been telling.Here we're going to have our first really serious disagreement. You assert that the U.S. planned and helped Hussein achieve power, but I challenge you to find a non-chomskian source for evidence supporting that accusation. What we didn't do was oppose his power-grab, and once he seized power, we (like every other nation, including France and Germany) treated Saddam like a legitimate leader of a country. Saddam was hardly the only despot in charge of a nation at the time. And "unilaterally overthrowing" him would have been frowned on by the international community then, too. Singling out the U.S. as the boogeyman over Saddam's rise to power is unrealistic. What we did subsequent to his ascension was to use him as a counterbalance against the actively hostile nation of Iran - in the "our bastard" theory of international politics. Was that wrong? Well, I think so, but it kept Iran and Iraq occupied with each other rather than us and the rest of the Middle East. Yes, a lot of people died, and some of their blood is on our hands, but hardly all of it, and not ours alone. If you search in some old newspaper, you'll find Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Husseim's hand. And the George Bush's involvement with petroleum industries and with gun industries (that financed Bush's candidature) is obvious for people here.Yes, I'm sure it is. Everything is so simple isn't it? Only it's not simple, and neither is it so obvious. Conspiracy theories are certainly easy to generate, but so seldom even close to accurate. This is the forte of Chomsky and his ilk. This is obvious as is obvious that his electioneering was corrupt, and as is obvious that the Iraq war was a crusade for natural resources: the petroleum, especially. This is what Noam Chomsky was trying to say, when opposed to the war: that USA government was attacking Iraq with political intents, not humanistic intents. How can a government kill people with humanistic intent? How can a war keep the world safe? In Brazil, in the "World Social Forum", Noam Chomsky came and was applauded and received like a great intellectuality. I felt happy knowing that some North American was aware about the USA external politics excess (remember, I'm not benefited by USA politics anyway).Ok, we have several assertions here. One: Bush's "electioneering was corrupt." Please clarify. As I recall, it was Gore, not Bush who attempted to change the election rules in the middle of the election. Two: the Iraq war was a crusade for oil. Really? How much oil are we getting out of Iraq for free right now? We pay for our natural resources, Tup, we don't steal them, or take them by conquest. The invasion of Iraq was about a whole lot of things, not just one. Was oil part of it? Well, let's just say that if the majority of the world's oil wasn't sitting under the sands of the Middle East, the entire region would receive about the same amount of attention from the U.S. that Brazil does. Rhetoric or not, I recommend you read Steven Den Beste's detailed explanation of the myriad reasons behind our invasion of Iraq, but here it is in a nutshell: Saddam was a dangerous man, known to have and have used chemical weapons against Iran and his own people. He was known to have actively sought nuclear and biological capabilities. He had attacked Iran and Kuwait. He had endured 12 years of UN sanctions at great cost to his people, but none to himself, and the opinion of the liberal world was that those sanctions needed to be dropped "for the children" - leaving Saddam in power, and unfettered. This meant that he would again be dangerous, and that was not an option. You want to make the invasion about oil? Go ahead. Did we invade Iraq for humanitarian reasons, to free the Iraqi people? No we did not, but we saw it as a great fringe benefit. We went in to get rid of Saddam. We went in to eliminate Iraq as a source for funds to and protection of terrorists. We went into Iraq to put the fear of the same into Syria, Jordan, Iran, and all the other nations overtly or covertly supporting terrorism, and that includes our "friends" the Saudis. We invaded Iraq for a number of reasons, and oil was one of them, but to hear Chomsky we went in to Iraq and into Afghanistan with the intent to steal their oil and make our oil companies and weapons companies rich - period. Bullshit. USA arrogance was evident when George Bush refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol. His justify, published in Brazil: "What's good to the USA economy needs to be good to the world." USA pollutes more than any other country this world. This is a prove of the USA arrogance - an arrogance that keeps its people blind to some contradictions.Do you understand what the Kyoto Protocol does and what it means? Are you intimately familiar with the science - and the politics - behind it? Neither am I, but I am convinced that will be useless in affecting "climate change" and extremely restrictive in affecting American industry. "USA pollutes more than any other country in this world" you state, but that's in part because the USA outproduces any other country in this world. The former Soviet Union was a gross polluter, even though it was a miserable producer. What's going on inside industrializing China - a nation, I believe, not even included in the Protocol? Understand this - whether Bush approved the Protocol or not, it was never going to pass through our Congress. Blame it on Bush if you want, but those are the facts. George Bush can't tell me that "his great democracy should opposite the tyranny wherever it is found", when it supports Ariel Sharon, maybe the major tyrant in this world; supports the North Alliance, that is terrorist (!) and poppy planter; and supported the Brazilians militaries, right like supported Pinochet's ascension. I just don't know if Ariel Sharon is the major tyrant this world, because I think that maybe George Bush is it.America supports ISRAEL. Sharon is Israel's current democratically elected Prime Minister. Bush, in my humble opinion, has done more not in the interest of Israel than the last four American Presidents combined. We deal with the Northern Alliance because they were our allies in the overthrow of Saddam. There's a saying you're probably familiar with: "Politics makes strange bedfellows." America is not alone in this, either. If you'll recall, America and Britain held their noses and formed an alliance with Josef Stalin against Hitler not so long ago, just for one example. Politics is a dirty, filthy business, and I'm constantly amazed and disgusted at the people who are so attracted to power that they'll engage in it. But I'm grateful that so many decent people are willing to do it, too - else things would all end up in the crapper. We'll find a lot of others contradictions: USA is, supposed, the "land of the free". The great idea that all North Americans share is that you don't have to submit to anyone. But the USA government has the right to submit others with his military, or refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol, or with a lot of other attitudes, to keep safe its people. USA is the "land of the opportunities", where Latin American descendants and black people are chose to compound the front in the platoons (fact published in Brazil).Hold on right there. I'm assuming that you mean that blacks and latinos represent the majority of combat troops? This is something I've heard before, and it's bullshit too. It's been spouted by some of our elected officials, also, but it's not true. According to this UPI article, for example, blacks and Latinos make up about 38% of our all-volunteer military (though they represent only about 30% of our overall population), but on the sharp end in combat assignments, minorities are not overrepresented. The article states: Blacks are found disproportionately in the military, while Hispanic residents, many of whom are not citizens, are slightly underrepresented. Blacks are found most heavily in the Army and are least common in the Air Force.I believe your "facts" are in error. "Land of the opportunities" where the rich people are white, and the death condemned are almost all black.Wrong again. According to this link, in 2002 45% of death-row inmates were white, 43% were black, and about 9% were Hispanic. Yes, a disproportional percentage of them are black, but - like it or not - a disproportional percentage of violent crime is committed by blacks, mostly on other blacks. However, this absolutey refutes your assertion that "almost all" condemned are black. Try verifying your "facts." It might open your eyes to the fact that you're being mislead. George Orwell wrote, in his great book "1984", about the Truth Ministry. The Truth Ministry has the responsibility of tell the lies to the people. His irony about the governments is truth, and is truth especially in the USA government.It isn't just governments that lie, Tup. Maybe you ought to do some independent research. Maybe you'd tell me: we are humans too, and aren't perfect. I know, and you're right this point. I'm not requiring perfection from you. But I claim for you:"Manifest Destiny" was dropped long, long ago. We've lived quite a while with our neighbors to the North and South now. "Leaders of the world"? We've been put in that position by being the last Superpower. We sure as hell don't want it, but it's ours by default. Who would you want to see in that position? France? I know, you told me that this is changing, that the USA interest about the things that happen outside its borders is growing. But I don't think so. We don't want to see the USA spending the lives of its soldiers in combat, to keep us all safe. We just don't think that the world will be more secure after spending any human life. Nobody wants to see the US army trying to be the policemen of the world. All military attitudes are against the freedom and against the democracy. Can you see that, when a North American claims for himself this job, to be the policemen of the world, he's falling in arrogance? USA government doesn't need to attack anyone to defense the world. It needs just really hear the voice of the others. When you said that ignore those who hate, fear or don't understand USA politics, you are reproducing the USA government attitudes. I just hope you know that, this way, you're ignoring almost everyone living in this planet."Hear the voice of others" unfortunately means "don't do anything without UN approval" it seems. You remember the UN? The organization that put sanctions on Iraq for 12 years, but was unwilling to actually "spend any human life" to oust him? Who, exactly, are we to listen to, Tup? There are about 190 nations in the world, of which only about 60 are free democracies. Should we bow to the wishes of Robert Mugabe? Listen when Kim Dong-Il rattles his saber? What "international law" are we to follow? Where is it codified and written down? What principles define it? The United States follows one set of written laws (or at least it's supposed to): The Constitution of the United States. That Constitution does not allow our government to kow-tow to other nations when it is not in our interests to do so. Understand that. Engrave it in your brain. The Constitution of the United States is our overriding law. It will not and cannot be subordinate to the laws, wishes or whims of other nations. USA political system isn't the best in the history, and this isn't a shame, because, in this world of globalization, all political systems are the same.Excuse me? All political systems are the same? Saddam's "political system" is the same as ours? Kim's? China's? Rwanda's? I think you just shot your argument in the foot. Every country is influencing the other, and the one's actions aren't isolated of the other's actions. The tyranny in a poor country is, someway, benefiting a rich country. It's necessary for the maintenance of a world order that USA just doesn't want to change, because it's the great benefited with this order. The misery in Africa is part of the USA political system, because, in truth, this is the world political system. This is the globalization.Here's Chomskyism at it's most virulent - all suffering is the fault of America because we aren't all suffering equally. Since we're doing well, everyone else's pain must be our fault. Sorry, I'm not buying. The misery in Africa has been there since before America was a nation, and it will be there no matter what we as a nation do. North Korea is a miserable hell not because of America, but because of the vicious dictators that have run it. Either it's our fault because we don't deal these bastards, or it's our fault because we do. Grow up, Tup. The world will not become a better place if we all hold hands together and sing folk songs. The world is not fair, and the people who run much of it are not nice. If we try to put pressure on people like Kim, we're pilloried for "starving the children of North Korea," but if we deal with his country we're accused of "supporting a vicious dictator." What the hell are the options? You've basically said that military invasions are immoral. What do you propose? What can America do that will meet with your approval, besides sitting on our hands and listening to our betters tell us what bad boys we've been? Lots of people think that this actual world political and economical system is failure and evil. You told me to ask to the people who lived in the former Soviet Union how they'd grade their governments. I don't have to, a recent research show the answer: 60% of that people want the communism back, 35% don't want, and the rest didn't give opinion.So much for your earlier assertion that the idea of freedom is shared by almost everyone. Do you think that Czechs don't want Russians there once again? I think so. But what about Camboja? What about Vietnam? What about Afeganistan? What about Iraq? Do they want North Americans there? USA and USSR, for the poor countries, weren't so different like you think. The Russians want their old government system back because they were benefited with it, while Czechs had misery and violence. What happens with the USA government still today isn't different: good for you, but just for you.What human beings want, Tup, is security. They want to live in the absence of fear. They'll suffer a little fear if it means that they'll have a roof over their head and food on the table - even if it's a poor roof and poor food. Freedom, however, doesn't promise this. Freedom means risk. The risk that you might go hungry. The risk that you might lose what you have. But it means that you don't have to fear someone from your government who has the power of life and death over you, with no appeal. (At least for most. Right now.) A lot of people are willing to give up freedom for the promise of security, but they never understand that that promise is a lie. No one can guarantee you security, and if you've yeilded your freedom to get something that can't be guaranteed, what good has it done you? People in other countries look at America and see security. We're a tremendously wealthy country. To many that represents security. But many don't understand that that wealth comes from risk taking and hard work. Certainly many do, because they come here on rickety boats and the come here by sneaking across our borders, and they come here by giving up everything they have in the world just for the chance. They come here and they work hard and they, too, achieve wealth - some of them. And some of them fail. But a lot of them come here expecting to get something for nothing, too. Russians might want their old system back, but the Russians sustained their meager level of security on the backs of the sattelite nations like Czechoslovakia and Poland. Without those other nations under Russian dominance, they can't have their old hardly adequate lives back, but they don't care. They just want security, but they forget that their old form of government failed. Tell me again how all political systems are the same? I'll try to finish what I'm trying to say: USA isn't and doesn't have to be the best. It is just part of a context, and has been responsibly for the part of the tyrant. USA has a democratic internal politic (I hope so), and a repressive external politic. In external politics, USA keeps supporting the terror, and getting in mistakes that it'll never compound (like it did never compound the mistakes that perpetrated and have been perpetrating still today in Brazil), and it will continue if North Americans don't react. And, while North Americans were full of pride and arrogance, they won't react. Essays like those published by Steven Den Beste are just filling North Americans with blind patriotism and pride. This is the reason why Chomsky can't be ridiculed: he's serious, and has ideas that would be good for North Americans try to share.Yes, he wants us to submit to a world government that doesn't exist. He wants us to essentially reject the Constitution. Sorry. Can't do that. Won't do that. I really don't know if his voice would be tolerated in Europe, but I really think it would. Iztván Mezarus is tolerated and celebrated there, right like the professors from Frankfurt School were.Well of course! Marxism is well tolerated by the intellectual European elite! My point, however, was that if Chomsky was as critical of Europe, while living in Europe, as he is critical of the US while living here, he would not be as accepted. I'll chalk that misunderstanding up to our language difference. About Collin Powell: he was general in the first war against Iraq, and leaded an attack to a city, killing something about everyone that lived there. Including civilians, olds, children, cats, dogs, trees - everyone. He declared that didn't kill anyone in that city.What? Colin Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Gulf War I, which is a cabinet position. He didn't lead any attacks on anything. What have you been reading? Recently, he came to the Brazil and was interviewed by a lot of journalists in a program called "Mesa Redonda". A journalist said: "You lied in that war. You killed lots of civilians, including children and olds, and I have proves here. You can defend yourself now." But, sure, he couldn't say anything in his defense.If he was confronted with "facts" like you just provided, I'm not surprised. Were "lots of civilians" killed in Gulf War I? By Saddam's troops, certainly. Did we kill some in our bombing of Baghdad? Almost certainly. There is that one communications bunker/bomb shelter incident that comes immediately to mind. THAT IS WAR. The purpose of war is to kill people and break things until the other side gives up. We've come a long way towards limiting the number of innocents killed in war, but the reality is that in war, people die. I note that no one said to Saddam "you killed lots of civilians including children and old people, and we have proof. You can defend yourself now." Especially not France or Germany. They traded with him. To the tune of several billion dollars. Why are they not excoriated for "supporting a brutal dictator?" About McCarthy: after his politic of "everything is better than communism", North Americans learned to hate the communism, like it was something like the Nazism. It's just a political system, and has to be learned and considered. To critic the communism, you need to know it. I think you'll be nervous or scared seeing me defending the communism this way, specially knowing that I'm not a communist. But you have to understand that I studied the communism, and just after knowing a lot of things about it, I decided that I wouldn't be a communist. Anyway, I think that this hate is a kind of discrimination, and it's bad for North Americans and for the world, especially because gives them a pretext to attack, for example, Cuba or China.I thought you said "all political systems are the same"? We learned to hate communism because it was "something like Nazism." The Nazi's managed to murder some 12 million people - non-combatants, that is. Gypsies, mental defectives, homosexuals, communists, and of course, Jews. Pretty much anybody they didn't like. During the 20th Century, almost 62 million citizens of the USSR died by the direct and indirect action of their own government (as in planned starvation.) Over 35 million Chinese died at the hands of their Communist government. Two million Cambodians died. No one knows how many North Koreans have died. Communism was worse than Nazism. I'm not "nervous or scared" of your defense. I think you're incredibly naive, though. Communism is a wonderful sounding idea, but it completely ignores human nature, and the things it espouses lead to the kind of acts that leave millions and tens of millions dead "for the good of the Party." I'm glad you're not a communist, but you are from every indication a socialist - and the difference between the two ideas is minimal. And, concluding, I'd like to tell that a failure in the marketplace of ideas (using your expression), right like the success, doesn't mean the intelligence, reason or quality of the expressed ideas. In Germany, after the first war, people were open to receive any idea that seemed good, to elevate them once again. They chose the Nazism, and the Nazism was only one idea in their marketplace. The Nazism's victory doesn't mean it's full of merits, intelligence or reason. The Nazism is one of most stupid political concepts that humanity created in its history.You'll note, I hope, that on the world marketplace, Nazism failed. And it lost to Capitalism and Democracy. So did Communism. USA isn't the "Great Satan", it really isn't what's wrong with the world, but is supporting a political system that is giving misery to almost half of world's people. I hope you're understanding me, I'm not blaming USA, but I'm trying to show that USA isn't better than anyone, and that the pride and arrogance of its people is blinding them. These are my points of view, anyway, and I haven't much credits or knowledge than anyone to tell what I think. My word isn't law. Yeah, I know, I don't have to say it to you; I'm just trying to say that I don't defense my words with narcissism. I'm just fixing my ideas in the marketplace, right like everyone does."Supporting a political system that is giving misery to almost half the world's people." Supporting how? And how are we to oppose this system? (And what is this system, exactly?) Again, what are we supposed to do? I'm not saying you're suggesting it, but the ideas I've seen espoused by people who've said much of what you have here is that the U.S. should just give away its wealth until everyone in the world is equally poor and miserable, just to be "fair." Like the old Buffalo Springfield song goes: Tax the rich,
You seem very intelligent, and sure write very well. You seem to have great easily to express what you think too, and you have, anyway, good arguments to defense your own ideas. I guess we would be great friends if we know one each other personally. Thank you very much for this conversation, and I'll be waiting some answer from you, if you want to tell me something. And, concluding, I just call you "North Americans" because that's what you are: North Americans. I'm a Latin American, and a South American. We all are Americans. If you felt insulted, excuse me; and if you think that is better, I can easily call you "Americans". Alright?Thank you for the kind words. I think we could have some pretty interesting (and spirited) conversations as well. And don't worry about the language barrier. You made yourself quite clearly understood for the most part, and where things are a bit obscured, I don't think it's due to the language. However, we Americans don't see ourselves as "North Americans." That's an important distinction. We're not Panamanians, and we're not Canadians. When you say "North Americans" when you mean "citizens of the United States of America" you unwittingly include everybody in Canada, Mexico, and points South to the equator. Trust me, many of these people would not want to be included in the all-encompassing phrase "North Americans." I wasn't insulted, but I believe they might be. | Quote of the Day From Jonathan David Morris: Our civil liberties are at risk in America, but it isn't a George Bush thing. It isn't a Bill Clinton thing. It's a government thing. The worst part about it, though, is that when lawmakers make pork-flavored promises, we are the ones who dig in.Yup. | This Will Elevate Your Blood Pressure Two bulletin-board posts: The first is the story of a man arrested for illegally checking his firearms at the airport - after he did it absolutely correctly. The second is the story of his girlfriend immediately subsequent to his arrest. <sarcasm>I feel SO much safer now.</sarcasm> UPDATE: The Laughing Wolf takes the topic and runs with it. With excellence, I might add (and do.) | Thursday, December 18, 2003 UPDATE: The Hoplophobe Responds Barry of Inn of the Last Home responds to the criticism of his objection to concealed-carry. (Link bloggered - scroll down to Vilification and Clarification.) In my opinion, he just dug himself in deeper, and he needs to think about what he said very, very hard. My response? "I also would feel uncomfortable knowing that anyone on the street, in the theatre, at a restaurant, at the supermarket could be carrying a loaded gun on their person. And here's why - despite training, despite temperament, despite the best of intentions: I don't trust you."Go tell him what you think. I believe he needs to hear it. UPDATE 12/19/03: Francis Porretto weighs in, too. | No Charges I've probably been beaten to this story already, but Bill St. Clair was kind enough to e-mail me this report that 71 year-old Melvin Spaulding will not be charged for shooting 20 year-old scum James T. Moore who was one of three men beating up Melvin's 63 year-old friend George Lowe. Halleluja! Why the hell Spaulding was arrested and jailed is still beyond me. I covered this earlier here and here. Per the e-mail: Shooter, 71, won't face charges at allGee, ya THINK? Pinellas sheriff's spokesman Tim Goodman said there was nothing improper with the arrest, even though the prosecutors have decided against filing charges.Yes it was, Mr. Spaulding. And you did the right thing. | Back Again I'm not addicted to the Internet! I can quit anytime! So why is it, as soon as I get access, I've got to get caught up on what I've missed? Anyway, one more day at work, then I have the next two weeks off. More posting is promised! | Sunday, December 14, 2003 The Hoplophobic Mindset Via Say Uncle comes the link to fellow blogger Michael Williams' disgusted response to being denied a CCW permit by his betters in California. While I'm not surprised by the denial, I was a bit shocked to see the comment by Barry, another blogger who runs The Inn of the Last Home from Tennessee. It is the quintessential gun-phobe: I just...I just blink my eyes in amazement everytime this crops up - actually watching people feel the need to carry a concealed weapon in public...Note the change: "If I were to take a live, armed weapon and carry it on my person, in public, it would eat away at my sanity just as if it were emitting lethal radiation." Followed below by: "The radiation would rot my brain...." That is fear of an inanimate object. He actually believes that the presence of a firearm will warp his sanity. Barry, I applaud your decision to remain unarmed. I hope, however, that you will get some psychiatric or psychological treatment for your crippling fear of your own lack of control. And I sincerely hope that neither you nor anyone you know becomes the victim of a violent crime. But please, don't project your mental disturbance on others. | More Guns in Church! Via The Volokh Conspiracy, comes this story of one Rev. Arthur Ford who used a handgun to defend himself and his son-in-law from a nut who was beating them with a fireplace poker. This guy attacked six people in total, with the Reverend and his son-in-law being the last. One of the victims was critically injured and is hospitalized. I suspect that if Rev. Ford had not owned a handgun, they would not have been the last. So much for turning the other cheek. Good for the Reverend. | We Got Him Like you haven't heard it everywhere by now. Wring him out, give him a fair trial, then hang him. | Saturday, December 13, 2003
Truer Words... From Donald Sensing: I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free. | No Law Abridging That's the title of this piece by Curmudgeon Emeritus Francis Porretto. Money quote: So long as speech was protected, Americans could claim with some justice that we were in some sense free. If Tuesday's Supreme Court decision prevails, we will not be able to call ourselves even partly free. We will be a people in chains. Chains forged to protect incumbents from having their records in office publicized in the press as they stand for election. Chains forged to increase the power of the Old Media, granting their journalists and editors the last word on political campaigns. Chains forged by (and for) men to whom "the people" are not only not sovereign, but are a force to be fastened down and made to do as they're told by those who know better.Read the whole thing, including the comments. And think about that reset button some more. Labels: Reset Button | Friday, December 12, 2003 Pressing the "RESET" Button Last week, Jay Solo asked an important question. I was the first to respond. His question was whether or not the American populace would use the "reset button" guaranteed by the Second Amendment. In his words: Do you expect the "reset button" to need to be used in our lifetimes?It's a good question. I recommend you read all the responses, and add your own if you feel like it. Here was my response: Do I expect it to be used? Yes. Will it be effective? I doubt it.There were several good responses, but I'd like to elaborate a little bit on the topic. I don't think you're going to see a widespread armed uprising. What you're going to see is individuals and small groups who've simply had enough arming and striking - and probably dying in the process. If you've read John Ross's Unintended Consequences you'll get the idea, but I don't expect anything like the level of response he writes of. Not enough people are pissed off enough to do that. Of course the media will spin it as "lone deranged gun-nuts" or "anti-government militias," but if you pay attention you'll note an increase in the numbers over time. Someone once wrote; "If you're not boiling mad, you've not been paying attention." Mencken wrote: "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." Note this post by Dodd Harris: Say Goodbye To Your Right To Free SpeechYou'll recall, I was a bit perturbed about SCOTUS dodging the Silveira case last week, too. I'd like to remind you of the recent Klamath Valley incidents in which the government denied water to farmers in order to protect an "endangered" fish. This drew a lot of media attention, because instead of affecting one person or one family, it affected everyone in the valley. But a lot of other incidents in which the rights of individuals are trampled on by government bureaucrats occur that fly under the media radar. Generally, government is treated by the media as a vast benevolent force (unless, of course, that same government is defeating an enemy totalitarian government or unseating a murderous tyrant - then it's eeeeeevil.) Whatever actions that government takes for the benefit of an endangered species, or "for society" is more important than what it does to the people who are directly affected by these actions. Oh, occasionally something really egregious will pique some reporter, and we'll get a "human interest" story that pisses off the few of us who are paying attention. Sometimes our ire will get the government to back off, claiming it was all a big misunderstanding or worse, the government doesn't back off at all. The recent incidents of Melvin Spaulding in Florida, George Norris in Texas, Dennis Pryslak in New Jersey, Stratford High School in South Carolina, and many others come to mind. Scroll through the archives of this site. There's probably at least one a week that will raise your blood pressure. I've quoted Jefferson's letter to William Smith several times recently, but this part is the one I find most interesting: Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.It seems, in the main, that we aren't informed at all, much less well. Lethargy? For the overwhelming majority, yes indeed. Until it happens to you. Then you get pissed right quick, and wonder why nobody hears your side of the story. I think a lot of people are getting fed up with ever-increasing government intrusion into our lives. With our ever-shrinking individual rights. More than one of Jay's respondents noted the apathy of the majority, though, and I agree. Government interferes lightly on a wholesale basis, but it does its really offensive intrusions strictly retail. So long as the majority gets its bread and circuses, it will remain content. But not everyone. I think one example of this is illustrated by this story from Greenwood, S.C. (hat tip to Ravenwood for the link): Suspect in standoff claims self-defenseRead the whole story. Yes, these people were extreme. Killing two officers and then engaging in a gunfight with many more over 20 feet of property certainly is excessive. But I don't think this is going to be an exceptional case as time goes on. I think more and more individuals will be pressing the "RESET" button in the future. With about the same effect. UPDATE: I note that this piece has been linked from Wikipedia's "Gun Politics in the United States" entry with the notation: An analogous popular saying of less eloquent modern day gun rights advocates is that the amendment is "the government's reset button"."Less eloquent"? Whoever made that entry is cordially invited to bite my left buttcheek. Check the sidebar. I've got eloquence in abundance. Labels: Reset Button | I'm Baaaack! For a couple of days, anyway. Thanks to everybody who kept checking the site. I still averaged over 200 hits a day, even after I told you I'd be gone! (I'm not sure what that says about you guys, though...) I'll try to post some crunchy goodness before I leave for a couple more days. (The project is running long, though they didn't want us to work over the weekend.) | Monday, December 08, 2003 Oh Sweet Freaking Jeebus! (Still on hiatus, but my trip has been slightly delayed.) L.A. police chief William Bratton gives some remarkable advice to UK police: 'Avoid Slippery Slope of Armed Police' - U.S. ChiefGuess what, Chief? Machine guns aren't all that legal here, either. And the legally owned ones have never been a problem in the hands of the average citizen. You're giving credit where none's due. “If anything, don’t go down that slippery slope.”No? They've gone down the slope to the point where the only people with firearms are the government and the criminals, and the result? Now the cops there need to be armed. For that matter, so do the You're advising them to just give up? Mr Bratton, who was police commissioner of New York from 1994 until last year, made the comments after delivering a speech hosted by think-tank Civitas and a new London civic movement Mind the Gap.Don't you just love the way that police officers are now special? Apparently the Chief isn't aware that the first metropolitan police force was established by Sir Robert Peel in 1822. His nine principles of policing were as follows: The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.Apparently every police force extant has forgotten this. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.I think, had the people retained these ideas, the police wouldn't be having near the problems that they are. But you know what we're constantly advised: Let the police handle it. You're not qualified. “The first time anyone uses a gun against a police officer that needs to be treated seriously, having violated that contract.”I don't have time right now to pull up the stories, but police have been threatened - and shot - at the station in England. How effective are the police? Well, I've reported in this blog numerous accounts of the problems of violent crime in the UK. Just today Ravenwood reports that the police in London are advising women not to jog alone because some wacko is stabbing women joggers just for the fun of it. But God forbid that women have some weapon with which to defend themselves. Much less the police. | Sunday, December 07, 2003 I Think it I Fixed It About two years ago I had an 1896 Swedish Mauser "sporterized." I know some of you purists just winced at the thought, but this was a $100 rifle, no bluing, surface pitting on the barrel, considerable wear and tear - certainly not a collector piece. I had the action rebarreled with a medium-weight chromoly Shilen tube, 1-in-8" twist, cut to 24". I had the 'smith turn down the bolt handle, narrow the trigger guard, then polish and blue the barreled action and install a two-piece scope base. I then installed a Timney trigger and glass bedded the action into a Fajen thumbhole stock, making sure the barrel was free-floated. I then proceeded over the next two years to try just about every combination of 140-grain bullet and powder to see what it would shoot well. The answer? Nothing. I tried 155 grain bullets. No good. I tried 120 grain bullets. A bit better, but still no great shakes. The gun simply would not group better than 2.5 to 3 MOA, and that only if I was lucky. Since I had built the rifle in order to shoot Metallic Silhouette, which requires you to shoot offhand up to 500 meters, that wasn't going to be good enough. Finally, I decided I'd try preloading the barrel. I took an old expired credit card and cut it into strips, then stacked the strips in the barrel channel of the stock, and reinstalled the action. The plastic strips, located about 1/3rd of the way down the barrel channel from the forend, put an upward pressure on the barrel and change its natural vibration frequency. I loaded up some test ammo last night - 139 grain Lapua boattail hollowpoints over Reloder 19. Here's my best group of the day, but not by much:
I think I fixed it. | Saturday, December 06, 2003 Spoke too Soon Publicola has a post up I think everyone ought to read. I mean everyone. He doesn't title his posts, but if he did, I'd recommend Patriots & Tyrants, because it reminded me of something Thomas Jefferson wrote to his friend William Smith after Shay's Rebellion in 1787. The first time I read it, I thought to myself "What a radical SOB Jefferson was." Now I read it, and I understand his fear. He feared apathy, and believed it could be the downfall of the nation. This is what he said: The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure.Death-by-a-thousand-cuts. Frog in a pot. Use whatever analogy you want, we the people have been lethargic since 1865, and it has cost us - dearly. And the worst thing is, we haven't misconceived, we've ignored obvious wrongs. And not so obvious ones. Lethargy indeed. Tytler was right. The cycle is: bondage, faith, courage, liberty, abundance, selfishness, complacency, apathy, dependence, and then back into bondage. How far into dependence are we? Read the post below it, too. And the link. And wonder what happened to our liberty. (Edited to add:) In light of Jefferson's advice, I think Claire Wolfe is wrong. It's not too early to shoot the bastards, it's too late. They're too entrenched to respond as Jefferson advises they should. Which brings to mind Churchill's quote... | Blog Hiatus My apologies, but I'm going to be out of town for about a week, with no internet access. Therefore I will be unable to update this blog until Friday evening 12/12 at the earliest. I might get something in tomorrow, Sunday 12/7 - Pearl Harbor Day, but I might not. I've got a lot of things to do, not the least of which is prepare for this trip. See you next week. Thanks for tuning in. | Friday, December 05, 2003 Another Story You Won't Be Reading in the English Papers (Via Acidman) The Atlanta Would-be robber slain by intended victimGotta wonder what the father and daughter were doing in the park at 11:00 PM, but this is America - they're allowed. Being in a park at night does not give someone the right to rob you. "The victim pulled his own firearm and fired some rounds at the suspect," Woodall said.Hmm..."late teens or 20s." That means that to the Brady Bunch, the And when they say "automatic rifle," they mean "machine gun." This means we've got a guy with a machine gun and body armor out running around. Marvelous. Remember also, the federal government reported "losing" several hundred guns just last year. And there's this charming story of how a police officer managed to leave an AR-15 laying by the side of the road. Anyway:Federal agents in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, were looking for guns stolen from an agent's car. A stolen vehicle that police believe was the suspect's getaway car was also found in the park.Stolen Glock, stolen car, attempted armed robbery, in his 20's. How long was his record, and why wasn't his ass in jail? Police say the father acted in self-defense and will not face charges in connection with the shooting. The names of the two men have not been released.Nice of them not to arrest and jail the man like the cops in Florida did to Mr. Spaulding. I wonder if he got to keep his pistol? | Thursday, December 04, 2003 OUTRAGE! (continued) Publicola updates us on the status of 71 year-old Melvin B. Spaulding, who was arrested and jailed without bond for the audacity of defending his friend against three young attackers rather than dialing 9-1-1 and waiting to be rescued by the AUTHORITAHS! Seems Mr. Spaulding, who has since been released, and has not yet been charged with anything has been told that, even though he has a concealed-carry permit, he's not allowed to have a firearm. The story is here. Bastards. | We've Got RSS! I think. Via Blogstreet, I think this provides an RSS feed for The Smallest Minority (about a day late, but better than nothing?) http://www.blogstreet.com/rss/13828.rss Pardon my ignorance on the subject. | This is NEAT Being a South Park Republican type, I found this little tool pretty entertaining. (Via the Everlasting Phelps) The South Park Create a Character. Here's my interpretation of me on the average weekend:
This, however, is NOT neat: Read Phelps' post on the abuse of eminent domain in Norfolk, Virginia. Now do you understand why my character is holding a | I Thought the Idea was to PUNISH Criminals Oh sweet bleeding Jebus. Kim linked to this story about an Austrailian police officer: He faces one charge of wounding with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm.Why? Because he shot at a man trying to run him over. But that's not the best story! From a link on that page, we get this: Prison punishment concernPoor babies! They should file suit because they're not being tucked in at night! First the police can't do their jobs, and second the prisons can't either! And they wonder why violent crime is on the rise in Australia! | Read This and then Tell Me that Gun Control "Works" Read this excellent editorial from the British paper The Guardian: Gun crime spreads 'like a cancer' across Britain Money quote: Handgun crime has soared past levels last seen before the Dunblane massacre of 1996 and the ban on ownership of handguns introduced the year after Thomas Hamilton, an amateur shooting enthusiast, shot dead 16 schoolchildren, their teacher and himself in the Perthshire town.That's about $350.00 - about the retail cost of a decent pistol here in the U.S. Sure, gun control works. It disarms the victims just about perfectly. You'll note that there aren't any stories like these in the British press. | Privacy? Peons Don't Need Privacy! Remember the airport scanner story from back in January that caused such a ruckus because it could see through your clothes? Yes, it would help detect concealed weapons, but it also let operators essentially see you naked. That raised some questions about privacy, but the argument at the time was that if you wanted to fly on a commercial airliner, you already gave up quite a bit of your right to privacy. Well, now England is looking at invading your privacy when you're walking on the street. Seems that they're developing a unit that will fit into the back of a van and allow police officers to scan anybody. Police are developing a mobile scanner that can detect weapons being carried on the streets as part of the fight against the rising tide of gun crime.The justification? The scheme was initiated by Sir John Stevens, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, earlier this year as he launched a crackdown on the tide of gun crime sweeping across Britain.But I thought that gun control was supposed to make everybody safe. Now they're telling us that invasion of privacy will make everyone safe? Before the scanner takes to the streets the police may find they have to fight civil liberties groups concerned that the scanner - which reveals intimate body details - is an infringement of privacy.Well I certainly hope so. However, I don't think the government is all that interested in what the civil liberties groups think: The spokesman refused to comment on reports in The Times that a version of the scanner has already been tested on the streets of London from the back of a converted van. | Another Expensive Exercise in Futility Last week it was reported in several places that Canada's attempt at registering all long guns and all gun owners - originally sold to Parliament and the people of Canada as having a net cost to taxpayers of $2 million - would reach a cost of $1 billion a full year earlier than the Auditor General predicted after she reviewed the fiscal debacle last year. Now in that gun-control Utopia of England - where all legal guns and gun owners are registered and licensed, and all machine-guns, "assault weapons," and handguns are banned - they're going to spend £1.1 million (about $1.9 million) to build a "National Firearms Forensic Intelligence Database" so that the police can "speed up the way officers can link gun crimes." At least that's the initial estimate. | Wednesday, December 03, 2003 He Shoulda Used a .45 I expect that anybody who reads The Smallest Minority also reads Kim du Toit (and probably Kim first), but since he posted this link without comment, I'll comment. Wimpy 9mm Europellet! An XBox requires at least a .40 S&W, and I'd recommend a .45ACP. | OUTRAGE! Ravenwood begins his piece with this warning: "If you have blood pressure problems, you probably don't want to read this". He's right. A 63 year-old man is being beaten by three young men. His 71 year-old friend intervenes with a .22 pistol, wounding one, and stopping the fight. The 71 year-old was arrested and held without bond. Read Ravenwood's post. I need to reduce my blood pressure. | Monday, December 01, 2003 Sore Losers
Do you think Jeff Danziger is a little peeved? I didn't see a single picture of the coverage of Bush's Baghdad visit in which the soldiers weren't smiling ear to ear. Did you? | Well, I Won't Be Buying Anything Taurus Makes According to this report, Taurus International is helping in New Jersey's effort to make a "smart gun." In an earlier piece I discussed New Jersey's law that mandates that all new handguns be equipped with "smart gun" technology once such technology becomes available, in an effort to reduce the number of accidental gunshot deaths. New Jersey had eleven accidental gunshot deaths in 2001. ONE was a child. How many of those accidental deaths were hunting accidents? You know, gun in the possession of the authorized user? | They Can't Keep Dodging FOREVER The Supreme Court has sidestepped the Second Amendment AGAIN, denying cert. on Silveira v. Lockyer. Gun control groups will doubtlessly tout this as "proof" that there's no individual right to arms, neglecting the fact that that same reasoning would "prove" that there is one, based on SCOTUS's denial of cert. on U.S. v. Emerson. Excuse me, but I'm PISSED! UPDATE: Clayton Cramer comments. He thinks gun owners dodged a bullet, but I disagree. He says: It wasn't the perfect case, because it involved several different questions:Perhaps he's right, but he also says: There's a sequence for winning constitutional issues: win the simplest and least offensive case first; then use then(sic) as a wedge to win the less popular situations.We've been fighting this fight since 1939. How long are you willing to wait, Clayton? Silveira asked those three critical questions. Had SCOTUS heard the case and decided those three questions, then we gun owners would know where we stand, wouldn't we? Those are questions I'm losing patience over. The Justices may not be "required to be honest or consistent," but it's our job as citizens to hold them to that standard, isn't it? Just throwing up our hands and saying "Oh, well..." doesn't cut it. That kind of crap gives us courts like the 9th Circus - the epitome of dishonesty and inconsistency. Another UPDATE: Say Uncle comments too, and apparently Eugene Volokh had the original scoop. UPDATE 12/3/03: Publicola comments as well, in conjunction with SCOTUS's recent decision overturning the 9th Circus's ruling that 20 seconds was not enough time to wait before I seriously doubt either will have any positive effect on the going on in congress &/or the courts. I don't think we're gonna see anything close to freedom unless there's another revolution. The government has too much of a hold on power & it will not let it go easily.Can I get an "AMEN!"? | Somebody has too Much Time on Their Hands But what a cool idea! Politburo Diktat has created a map of the Commonwealth of Blogosphere States. Den Beste is represented by a sea, Instapundit is an entire COUNTRY. I'm not on the map, though. | Saturday, November 29, 2003 The War on...Bologna? This is too weird not to comment on: Cops seize 756 pounds of smuggled bolognaMarijuana I can understand. But lunchmeat? U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized 81 rolls of Mexican bologna Friday at the Paso Del Norte bridge as the pickup entered the United States.Proper handling? Somebody sculpted them into the shape of a car seat! Children were sitting on top of the illegal load before it was discovered, Maier said. The rear seat had been removed from the extended-cab pickup and the bologna was put in its place.Eeewww! Anybody know where those kids had been? Think about it: 500 cases of Hepatitis from green onions... He said the agency plans to pursue civil penalties against the Mexican man driving the truck. Maier said the agency won't release the man's name until the case goes to trial.Just wait until cigarette taxes go just a bit too high.... Oh, right. | "That Sumbitch ain't been BORN" Early last week I received two comments from a reader in Brazil who goes by the handle "tupiniquim." One was in response to "You're American if you Think You're American," and the other was to the piece "They Keep Making Better Fools." In "Better Fools" I wrote: I am an unabashed supporter of America. I truly believe that it's the best of all possible places to live, and that our form of government is superior to all others ever practiced.Tupiniquim responded: You believe that your form of government is superior to all others because you, i'm sure, did never take a look at everything that's happening out of USA. Take a look at Latin America, or Africa. Read Noam Chomsky. Read Allen Ginsberg. A lot of people out of your country is suffering with this "superior form of government". Believe me, I really know what I'm talking about."You're American..." was a response to this Steven Den Beste piece where Steven made some sweeping generalizations that I generally agree with. In response to this, Tupiniquim was a bit more verbose: Well, despite the fact that I am a Brazilian and a Latin American, I don't hate North Americans. I really think there are great people in USA, alive and dead, like Noam Chomsky, John Steinbeck or Allen Ginsberg. But, in USA, there are George Bush or McCarthy too. Great people live together with some tirans. What would Martin Luther King think about George Bush, the father and the son? Or about Collin Powell? Why do the country where was born the jazz, rock'n roll, beat generation, the "flower power", the hip hop, is the same country where was born McCarthism, Ku Klux Klan and the crusade of "War against terrorism"? Excuse me, I don't want to look offense, but I just can't comprehend what's the idea you all share. Steven Den Beste needs to write a book, but not compiling his essays. He needs to write a book explaining what is this one idea that all North Americans share.I promised him a response. This is it. First I'd like to say that, like most Americans, I'm not a student of our government's actions in South America. What has gone on between our government and the various governments to our South hasn't interested me a great deal, and is not in the forefront of the news up here. Perhaps it should be, but one of the failings we Americans are often accused of is that we're uninterested in what goes on outside our borders. Guilty as charged, for the most part. I'm aware, however, that the U.S. government has supported some pretty vile regimes around the world in the Kissingerian "but they're our bastards" foreign policy plan. I attribute this to our Cold War policy of "anything's better than Communism." Well, perhaps for us, but certainly not for the people under the governments receiving our support. Criticism of our behavior both in South America and around the rest of the world is valid - to a point. But the job of our government is to keep us safe, and the people we elect do that as they think best. I was both greatly heartened and somewhat troubled by President Bush's recent speech to the British people when he said: As recent history has shown, we cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own back yard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found.Heartened, because this statement repudiates the "our bastards" policy, troubled because a real commitment to this policy will require the U.S. to intervene, and America has not been really interested in becoming the policemen of the world. It is not something we've done well, because, by and large, we really are uninterested in what goes on outside our borders, and we've been unwilling to spend the lives of our soldiers in efforts not perceived as directly related to our own safety and security. That may be changing. It remains to be seen. In response to Tupiniquim's comment about reading Chomsky and Ginsberg, let me say this: Some criticism of the behavior of America is warranted. Chomsky goes way, way over the line. (I'll admit right up front that I've never read Ginsberg, and have no plans to.) Cox & Forkum recently did a political cartoon (about another professor) that illustrates precisely what I think of Chomsky:
This brings us to the thing Tupiniquim doesn't understand: What is the idea that all Americans share? (Well, he said "North Americans" but we know what he meant.) So, what is "it"? "It" doesn't fit on a bumpersticker. The idea we share won't fit on a protest poster. It doesn't fit on a T-shirt, and it isn't a single thing. Let's see if I can distill the idea down. Let me start by saying that everybody who holds American citizenship doesn't share the idea. We're far too diverse for that. Many people born here never do understand it. Den Beste was making a generalization, and generalizations don't hold up under a microscope. I'd also like to say that, while I believe the majority of Americans do understand it to a greater or lesser degree, there is a large and growing contingent in this country that not only doesn't understand it, but rejects the idea outright. Go read Democraticunderground.com if you want to see some prime examples of this. Our Declaration of Independence says: We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.The first line of the Declaration is one strongly definitive of an American ideal - equality of birth. There is a story, a joke in some ways, an allegory in others, that dates way back. In it, a British Lord travels to the Frontier West, America in the 1800's. His horse throws a shoe on the trail, so at the first little frontier town he comes to, he finds a blacksmith's shop to have the shoe replaced. As he rides up, he sees a large, sweaty, filthy man hammering on a piece of red-hot iron. The Lord sits on his horse, waiting to be served, but the blacksmith doesn't pay him any attention and continues to work his iron. Finally, the Lord, outraged to have been ignored this way by an obvious servant, dismounts, approaches the 'smith, and taps the man on the shoulder with his riding crop. "You, man!" he barks, "Who is your Master! I wish to have a word with him!" The blacksmith turns, looks at the Englishman, spits a stream of tobacco juice on the point of the Lord's boot and says, "That sumbitch ain't been born." That's one idea Americans share.Another is that government should work for us, not us for it. (But Americans are not one monopolitical block. Just how government should work is something we've been fighting about since before the end of the Revolutionary War, so being an American is more than believing that we are not the servants of our government.) That, too, goes back to "That sumbitch ain't been born" - just because someone draws a government paycheck does not make them our masters. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." That's another thing Americans believe in, and that's what draws people to this country - the liberty required to pursue happiness. In very much of the world, for a very long time, what you were allowed to do was constrained by your birth, and in many places today that's still true. America is that place you could go where what you could do was constrained only by your own capabilities. The ideal is that we are born equal, but that we succeed on our individual merits - equality of opportunity, not outcome. And note, our Founders didn't promise happiness, only the opportunity to pursue it. That's also an opportunity to fail - the risk is ours to take. And we've been risk takers the likes of which the world has never seen before. Bill Whittle wrote: Next time you look at the moon, challenge yourself to think of something: there are footprints up there. Footprints, and tire tracks. Also three used cars, and one golf ball.That was liberty risking life in the pursuit of happiness. Trust me on this, I grew up during the race to the moon. My father was an engineer for IBM working on the Saturn V Instrument Unit. I know whereof I speak. America is the place where you can dare to dream, and Americans all over the world, regardless of their legal citizenship, understand this too. Is America perfect in this regard? No, but no place is. However, where else but in America can a first-generation immigrant be elected Governor? Where else but in America can a college drop-out become the wealthiest man in the world? Where else but in America can you come get the finest education available? We're not perfect, but I believe we're the best that's available. And yes, we make mistakes, and those mistakes cause misery and death to some. But America is not the "Great Satan" - our mistakes are simply that, not deliberate efforts. No, we're not perfect, but ask the people who lived in the former Soviet Union how they would grade their governments. Ask the victims of Nicolae Ceausecsu. Ask the Czechs after the Russian armor rolled in in 1968, and there are uncounted other examples. Ours is a difference in kind not just degree. Sometimes we make an error, and instead of admitting it, we compound it. We're human too. That's something else Americans understand. One more thing Americans understand (though fewer of us than I'd like) - government is not a panacea, it's a necessary evil. It is seldom the answer to our problems, and it is often the cause of them. Americans have a love/hate relationship with government. We're schizophrenic about it. We want it to do what we want, not what we ask it to do. We want it to take care of us, and we want it to leave us alone. We want it to do extravagant things, and we want to not pay for it. And we forget, constantly, that a government that can give us everything we want can also take everything we have. I said in "Better Fools" that I believed that "our form of government is superior to all others ever practiced." I really do. But I also believe this rather sad comment made by someone: I truly believe that our Constitutional Republic, as established by the Founders, was the best form of government ever conceived. It resulted in the greatest nation this world has yet seen. Not perfect, but unmatched in potential or performance when it comes to the individual and to the society. Its only failing is human nature. How do you make people want to stay free? How do you make them do the work necessary to ensure their freedom, when they can be so easily convinced to give it up in exchange for some promise of security? I don't know the answer to that, and neither did the Founders. At least I'm in good company. One last thing I'll discuss here that Americans understand: "...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." We believe that, even though we've propped up some despots and overthrown some others. Those of us who really believe it are often those who have the least say in what our government does. We're the ones who want to be left alone by government instead of taken care of by it, and we're the least likely to be elected officials or employees of the government. We also believe "that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed." If your government is "destructive of these ends" it's your job to alter or abolish it - even if it's our government supporting the bastards. Yes, we're schizophrenic that way, too. It's another reason Europeans don't understand us, and it goes right back to "that sumbitch ain't been born" - our people often don't do what our government tells us. Hell, our government often doesn't bother to tell us because even they know it won't do any good. When enough of us are pissed off, it listens. As a result we can and do things as a nation that our government has no control over, as the French economy experienced just recently. In conclusion, let me address the questions of good & bad, King & McCarthy, jazz and the KKK et al. America hasn't seen any real "tyrants" since we threw the Redcoats off our shores. McCarthy? Arguably crazy, but he wasn't wrong about the infiltration of communists. Any parallel you draw between Bush (father or son) and McCarthy is one strained to incredulity. What, pray tell, is your problem with Colin Powell? The KKK is a small bunch of losers who feel that somebody has to be inferior to them, and their teeth have been pulled (no pun intended.) But this is America - like Chomsky, they have a constitutionally protected right to spew their venom, and we have a constitutionally protected right to ridicule them. America is a great country because it provides a marketplace where all ideas can be expressed to survive or fail on their merits. The KKK and Chomsky have small followings because their ideas fail in that marketplace. Repressing them would give them legitimacy they don't deserve. That's also why we don't ban Mein Kampf. It deserves to be read, to remind us of what those ideas lead to. America is hardly the only place where bad ideas originate. America is still the beacon of freedom to the rest of the world. The Land of Opportunity. As such, we are held to a high standard - one we occasionally fail. When we do, those who hate us, those who fear us, and those who simply don't understand us point to those failures and declare that our leadership is illegitimate, our freedom is false and our promise of opportunity is a trick. They say we are evil. And we ignore them, and go on. We're not perfect, but is there a nation superior to America in this world? That sumbitch ain't been born. Labels: miscellaneous | Friday, November 28, 2003 Thank You. At 10:24 this evening, a visitor from rr.com became my 40,000th hit, as recorded by Sitemeter, in just over six months of blogging. Hell, I'm impressed if no one else is. | Thursday, November 27, 2003 It's Small of Me, I Know... But I can't wait to listen to the Democrats - especially the Deep Space Nine - froth at the mouth about this:
Bush Makes Surprise Visit to Troops in BaghdadI imagine that Hillary is a bit peeved about being upstaged. And they keep calling Bush an idiot. | Blogroll Addition I've added Francis W. Porretto's Curmudgeon's Corner to my blogroll. Somehow, Francis manages to crank out an excellent essay on a daily basis, and since I've started reading him every day, I thought my six readers might also enjoy his work. Keep it up, Francis. | Wednesday, November 26, 2003 A Reminder: Please, Don't Drink and Drive There are worse things than accidentally killing someone on a holiday weekend. And make sure any teenagers in your house take a good, long look, too. (Via Feces Flinging Monkey) | Happy Thanksgiving! Sorry about the lack of posting (and thanks to everybody who linked to the last couple of posts) but I've been extremely busy with work (which pays the bills) and haven't had time. That's unfortunate, because there's been a lot I've wanted to comment on, but oh well. I have the next four days off, like most of you, so hopefully I'll get a few posts in before Monday. Thank you for your patronage. | Sunday, November 23, 2003 New Jersey Considers This to be an Assault Weapon
It's a .22 caliber rimfire semi-auto. It has a fixed tubular magazine. It sells for in the neighborhood of $100. That magazine holds 17 .22 Long Rifle cartridges. Or at least older models used to. And if you possess one in New Jersey, it can get you five years in the slammer on a felony charge. Commenting on "Two Rounds = "Assault Weapon" below, reader Pete linked to a heartwarming New Jersey Superior Court decision regarding the case of New Jersey v. Pelleteri. I'd never heard of this, even though it occurred in 1996 and I was really getting into the issue of gun rights starting in 1995. Here's the basis of the case: On May 30, 1990, our Legislature proscribed the "knowing" possession of "assault firearms." N.J.S.A. 2C:39-5f. Persons legally in possession of such firearms prior to the effective date of the statute could retain these weapons by obtaining the appropriate registration. N.J.S.A. 2C:58-12. Included in the definition of "assault firearm" is "[a] semi-automatic rifle with a fixed magazine capacity exceeding [fifteen] rounds." N.J.S.R 2C:39-1w(4). Defendant was convicted of "knowingly" having in his possession an assault firearm, a semi-automatic rifle with a magazine capacity of seventeen cartridges.Here's the kicker: When dealing with guns, the citizen acts at his peril. In short, we view the statute as a regulatory measure in the interests of the public safety, premised on the thesis that one would hardly be surprised to learn that possession of such a highly dangerous offensive weapon is proscribed absent the requisite license.I have not found the sentence Mr. Pelleteri received, but he could have gotten five years. He certainly lost his right to arms, as he was convicted of a felony. He was an expert marksman, a firearms instructor, and a collector. Now he cannot (legally) touch a firearm. I. Am. Aghast. A "highly dangerous offensive weapon"? It's a .22 FOR CHRISSAKES! TWO WHOLE ROUNDS OVER THE LIMIT! A fourteen round magazine capacity (that Marlin now makes) = perfectly safe, harmless little plinker. But SIXTEEN rounds makes it "a highly dangerous offensive weapon." If it isn't licensed. Stick a fork in New Jersey, it's done. Will the last gun owner leaving New Jersey please turn off the lights? I think Claire Wolfe's admonition that it's too early to shoot the bastards doesn't hold for Jersey. | | |
