Quote of the Day - James Lileks Edition

I need to start reading The Bleat regularly again.  Today's gem comes from today's post:

My favorite term is "free-dumbs," which marks the latest continuation of the word "freedom" as a signifier of idiocy. At some point "liberty" fell into disfavor with these people, because the wrong people were insisting that it applied to them as well.

In Relation to My Previous Post...

...I've Been Thinking, there's this:  Stay Alive, Joe Biden, a piece in The Atlantic published day before yesterday.

Key graphs:

Democrats—some independents, and some Republicans too—were terrified and furious at the prospect of another four years of Donald J. Trump. And as the weeks of the primary season ticked on, it became clear that there was one option to forestall that possibility, and his name was Joe Biden.

Through it all—the fairly awful campaign events and confusing statements and garbled debate performances—the idea of the former vice president has somehow remained consistent, and apparently convincing, as both Trump’s inverse and co-equal. Senator Bernie Sanders may still be in the race, but this is a detail. Democrats have chosen Biden as their vessel for Trump’s defeat, and that choice is the entire point: The vanquishing matters more than anything else.

--

Biden’s team appears to understand this, and to believe that what matters most now is keeping their candidate alive in the American imagination as an alternative to Trump. His appearances these days have an almost parallel-universe quality to them: Biden’s audience-less remarks from his home in Delaware have the suggestion of an Oval Office address, and their content seems intended to offer a glimpse into the twilight zone where someone else, someone more empathetic and capable, is president. It’s as if Biden is telegraphing to his public: You have already imagined that I can beat Trump; now imagine what it will be like when I am president.

For the foreseeable future, there will be no more speeches in front of hundreds, or lines of people waiting to shake Biden’s hand. There may not even be the glossy fanfare of a convention with a prime-time address. But, truthfully, all those things were always sort of beside the point. Like on that morning in McClellandville, and countless other ones besides, Biden was never really convincing anyone on the stump—his political power at this point is an idea, held collectively, about how to defeat Trump. The work now is to keep that idea convincing enough, for long enough, among as many people as possible, for the corporeal man to actually win.

"Keep their candidate alive in the American imagination...."

See also: Ace of Spades


And this:


Great minds and all that.

Quote of the Day - Adaptive Curmudgeon Edition

From his post The McDonald Girl's Story:

For whatever reason, I’d never before understood the beatific wonderment of youth. This child, who was clutching a buck’s worth of sugar water, had a direct line to the joy of the universe. It was amazing; in the true sense of the word. I stood there astounded and speechless at the complete, naïve, guileless, joy of a happy child’s smile. 

It was then that I started to understand. This is why adults raised children. This is why they tolerated crayons on the walls and dirty diapers and Barney videos… this was a real, unfiltered, direct link to heaven.

She was so happy. And I was too. I was delighted to have noticed such a moment. I saw and truly understood… joy.

 RTWT.

More Guns ≠ More Gun Deaths

If there is no correlation, there cannot be causation.  This site makes that argument quite graphically:

It's an excellent analytical piece.  RTWT.

Other People's Content

As you may know, I frequent Quora.com. Recently someone asked the question:

What are the great ideas of progressivism distinct from liberalism?

This answer by Charles Tips is one of the best, most concise responses I've ever read, and I asked him if I could archive it here on my blog.

He said yes:

All of progressivism is distinct from liberalism. It rests on an idea I hesitate to call great, but which certainly has been workable. And that idea depends on a number of ancillary ideas and methods.

The modern reordering of politics

Monarchism enjoyed a long run of more than two millennia before being beset in short order by three new politics: Liberalism kicked in in the late 17th century. Bonapartism commenced in the early 19th century followed by Marxist socialism in the mid-19th century.

It was a rough time to be a monarch or aristocrat, institutions propped up only by myth (some are made of better stuff and are more beloved of God), militia (the finest knucklebreakers money can buy) and corruption (we give ourselves titles, offices and land; you can barely survive without paying us). If Napoleon wasn’t running roughshod over your turf exposing you as not so hearty as you claimed, Old Karl was filling your subjects ears with nonsense about class-free society.

But the real kicker was liberalism, which, with its economics of productivity, stood as a rival power center. When Richard Arkwright, a poor tailor’s son, died near the end of the 18th century worth half a million pounds from his inventiveness and enterprise, it sent shock waves through all of European society. The reverberation was especially strong in the courts of kings—scientists and tinkerers and commercial men now had an engine that could produce real wealth and offer useful employment to our subjects!

The gentry had laughed up their sleeves at the very notion of the United States of America—a class-free society… with no titles of nobility… with subjects made full citizens… and the leaders of government construed as public servants!!?? Preposterous! But it kept succeeding—not preposterous but prosperous.

Napoleon came and went, and his nephew was not the adroit he was. Socialism threatened wide-scale revolution then went quiet. But liberalism had bestowed commoners with the goose that lays golden eggs. What were thinking layabout sycophants to do? And then the United States threatened to split in two. Maybe liberalism was a dead end.

Monarchy rallied and soon King Wilhelm I charged Prince Otto von Bismarck to go out and get the many German principalities and duchies to submit to his rule. He needed an incentive, and the strongest appeal to the masses was socialism. He decided to explore and so had a famous series of private meetings with Ferdinand Lassalle, leader of an early social democratic party (that being the name communists had had to resort to in order to get around sedition laws).

Bismarck soon concluded, by God, this man is every bit the monarchist I am, just for the House of Lassalle rather than the House of Hohenzollern. I know how to work with such opportunists!

And so he stole Marx’s entire scheme and implemented it in the name of the King. He hired leading social democrats into his government, united all the German states under now-Kaiser Wilhelm I, created the paternalistic welfare state, and not long after made socialism illegal. As Bismarck explained:

My idea was to bribe the working classes, or shall I say, to win them over, to regard the state as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in their welfare.

The new myth: We Care. By swallowing socialism whole, he had lucked upon the means to protect privilege against liberalism. Item #2 in The Communist Manifesto had been a graduated income tax. Implement that and the political class then has a throttle on the personal wealth of the rising entrepreneurial class. All the goodies capitalism produces can be kept—the goose can keep laying the golden eggs; we just get our eggs off the top. And we need a lot of them because We Care.

Social democracy comes to America

The United States was birthed at the zenith of liberalism as the pinnacle of liberalism. Our Constitution guaranteed a society that was flat and free. Citizens were free to pursue their own self-interest because Adam Smith had shown that turns out to be good for everyone.

In order for an enterprising man to succeed, he has to create a win for his workers so that they willingly stay engaged in production. He has to create a win for his customers so that they keep buying his products. He typically must use the profits that eventually begin flowing in to shore up the business. It is only with a great deal of risk and fortitude that he himself can gain a win.

Modern free-enterprise economics had supplanted pre-modern non-productive economics, which was zero-sum (win-lose) and therefore produced no new wealth. In fact, the old non-productive economics was now referred to as corruption. Only, for those who were well-situated, it was so much less toil than productive economics. One could become wealthy not by getting in harness for the long haul but simply opportunistically by taking advantage of one’s status.

As word of the Bismarckian bombshell began arriving in the US, several things were going on.

• Resentment, reaching well into the North over Reconstruction and the three amendments with the effect of making former slaves full citizens

• Former slaves from the South and Swedish farm boys arriving from the Upper Midwest looking for factory and trade work

• The steady arrival of “new immigrants” on the eastern seaboard—Jews from Eastern Europe and Catholics and Orthodox from Southern Europe

• The rise of industrial might and industrial tycoons

• A rising number of politicians unwilling to be content in the role of public servant

• The widespread adoption in genteel families of Victorian morality

Progressivism, the movement to implement Bismarckian social democracy in the US soon dominated both parties. However, the movement faced a huge impediment in the Constitution, a document crafted as a bulwark against statism. Here are some of the methods employed by progressives over the years in service of their great idea.

• Law schools at Harvard, Yale and other leading universities devoted themselves to a democratic reading of the Constitution—majority rules rather than the republican idea that no law is valid that impinges on the rights of anyone

• Doubling down on democracy with new voting methods—ballot initiatives, recall elections, referenda, direct election of senators and so on

• Adoption of the Prussian Volksschule, geared to indoctrination, as our public school model

• Alliance with the Conservative Democrat faction in the South

• Scientism—Spencer’s popularized version of Darwinian evolution becoming the basis for eugenics and white supremacy

• William James’s The Moral Equivalent of War

• Amending the Constitution (XVI) to permit a capitation tax (previously disallowed) on income

• The rise of Keynesian economics, an economics conceived specifically to allow for political control of the economy

• After progressive numbers were halved in the wake of Prohibition, an increasing reliance on Fabian deception

• The rise of administrative law together with federal agencies having police units not publicly accountable

• Approval of public-sector unions, which has seen a rise in public-sector compensation outpacing that of all productive sectors and with union dues going directly to the Democratic Party

• Alinskyite Rules for Radicals street politics

• The long march through the institutions, which saw progressives increasingly in control of courts, news media, the arts and other influential social sectors

• Political Correctness—the use of Gramscian ideas to control thought, meaning and culture

• Identity politics

• The politics of intractable problems and nursing grievances

• The rise of the deep state and “weaponization” of public agencies

To be sure, there are many branches to these methods, and this list is far from exhaustive. But all such methods are in support of the great idea of progressivism. In a nutshell…

And so our wealthiest neighborhoods now surround our political capitols, especially Washington, DC, and our politicians no longer see themselves as lowly public servants: United States order of precedence.

Damn, Charles, that was beautiful. And frightening.

Quote of the Day, Civil War 2.0 Edition

From American Thinker, What Might Civil War be Like?:

Cities cannot feed themselves under any conditions, and what food could be grown on America’s resource-starved farms would be gobbled up by people nearer and dearer to the farmers. Leftists would have to both secure vast territories around their urban strongholds and relearn from scratch the generations-lost art of food production. Liberal enclaves stranded in the hinterland would simply be untenable. We, on the other hand, would be critically short of new Hollywood movies. Without a steady supply of the works of Meryl Streep and Matt Damon, millions of conservatives would instantly drop dead from boredom – that is, according to Meryl Streep.

9/11

I've got nothing to add to this post from 2003 except "Thank you" to the operators of the Internet Wayback Machine, and I'll be sending them a donation.

Tough History Coming

Sarah Hoyt pens an essay on the topic that you ought to read.

(You know, Say Uncle is right - linking is a lot easier than writing....)

Recommended Reading

I was pointed at this piece in an exchange over at Facebook. I'm not through with reading it yet, but it's interesting enough for me to recommend it to my readers who have attention spans. Situational Assessment 2017.  Excerpt:

I use John Robb’s term “Trump Insurgency” here to highlight the fact that the election of 2016 was not an example of “ordinary politics”. Anyone who fails to understand this is going to be making significant errors. For example, the 2016 election is not comparable to the 2000 election (e.g., merely a “close” election) nor to the 1980 election (e.g., an “ideological transition” election). While it is tempting to compare it to 1860, I’m not sure that is a good match either.

In fact, as I go back and try to do pattern matching, the only real pattern I can find is the 1776 “election” (AKA the American Revolution). In other words, while 2016 still formally looked like politics, what is really going on here is a revolutionary war. For now this is war using memes rather than bullets, but war is much more than a metaphor.

This war is about much more than ideology, money or power. Even the participants likely do not fully understand the stakes. At a deep level, we are right in the middle of an existential conflict between two entirely different and incompatible ways of forming “collective intelligence”.

As I said, interesting.

This is an Optimistic Piece

Found at Blue's Blog:

One 82-year-old lady loves Obama and she may have a very good point. She says that Obama is amazing, and is rebuilding the American dream! She gives us an entirely new slant on the "amazing" job Obama is doing, and she says that she will thank God for the President. Keep reading for her additional comments and an explanation. When discussing Obama, she says:

1. Obama destroyed the Clinton Political Machine, driving a stake through the heart of Hillary's presidential aspirations - something no Republican was ever able to do.

2. Obama killed off the Kennedy Dynasty - no more Kennedy strolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home.

3. Obama is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes! Dennis Moore had never lost a race. Evan Bayh had never lost a race. Byron Dorgan had never lost a race. Harry Reid - soon to be GONE!

These are just a handful of the Democrats whose political careers Obama has destroyed. By the end of 2016, dozens more will be gone. Just think, in December of 2008 the Democrats were on the rise. In two election cycles, they had picked up 14 Senate seats and 52 House seats. The press was touting the death of the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party. However, in just one term, Obama put a stop to all of this and gave the House and the Senate - back to the Republicans.

4. Obama has completely exposed liberals and progressives for what they are. Sadly, every generation seems to need to re-learn the lesson on why they should never actually put liberals in charge. Obama is bringing home the lesson very well: Liberals tax, borrow and spend. Liberals won't bring themselves to protect America. Liberals want to take over the economy Liberals think they know what is best for everyone. Liberals are not happy until they are running YOUR life.

5. Obama has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan. In one term, he has rejuvenated the Conservative Movement and brought out to the streets millions of freedom loving Americans. Name one other time when you saw your friends and neighbors this interested in taking back America!

6. Obama, with his "amazing leadership, "has sparked the greatest period of sales of firearms and ammunition this country has seen. Law abiding citizens have rallied and have provided a "stimulus" to the sporting goods field while other industries have failed, faded, or moved off-shore.

7. In all honesty, 4 years ago I was more afraid than I have been in my life. Not afraid of the economy, but afraid of the direction our country was going. I thought, Americans have forgotten what this country is all about. My neighbors and friends, even strangers, have proved to me that my lack of confidence in the greatness and wisdom of the American people has been flat wrong.

8. When the American people wake up, no smooth talking teleprompter reader can fool them! Barack Obama has served to wake up these great Americans! Again, I want to say: "Thank you, Barack Obama!" After all, this is exactly the kind of hope and change we desperately needed!!

9. He has saved Carter’s legacy and made Jimmy Carter happy, since Jimmy is no longer the worst president we've ever had. Credit goes to where credit is due. I feel better now!

THANK YOU OBAMA

Actually, I can't argue with any of that.

Read This

Found it over at The Feral Irishman.  The blog is new to me, Taxicab Depressions.  The post is entitled "What's On The Ballot."  Excerpt:

* 20 trillion dollars in debt

* 120 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities

*Insurance companies withdrawing coverage or doubling premiums for millions as Obamacare collapses

*North Korea developing and testing land-based and submarine ballistic missiles

*Iran fast-tracked to nuclear weapons

*Billions of dollars and pallets of shrink-wrapped cash shipped to Iran

*Pakistan threatening India with nukes

*Venezuela collapsing under socialism

*Iranian gunboats and Russian fighter jets harassing US Navy vessels in the Persian Gulf

*Russia installing missile batteries in Syria and Eastern Europe

*China building airstrips in the South China Sea

*Police officers targeted for murder across the country

RTWT.

We are so screwed.

World's Best Blog Post is Ten Years Old

Oh my god.  It's TEN YEARS OLD.

If you're unfamiliar with it, IMNSHO this blog post at Unqualified Offerings - and the accompanying comment thread - is the best thing EVAR in the Blogosphere - Blog.

Warning, don't start reading this if you have to get up early tomorrow.  The comment thread is 1,104 posts long.

And it's not the best just because my comment ended the thread, either. 

Quote of the Day: Adaptive Curmudgeon Edition

Firehand tagged me over at Bookface, pointing me at this piece by Adaptive Curmudgeon, Thoughts On Z-Blog's "On Being Revolting in the Modern Age." Said Z-Man post is here.

I wish I'd written Adaptive Curmudgeon's post. Excerpt (but by all means, read the whole thing):

My big observation of the “Hillary’s private server with State secrets affair” wasn’t about the press. It was about the people; or rather roughly half of the people. A moment passed that felt colder and more unsettling than the usual “they’ve fucked us again” situation.

Think about it like this; the FBI infuriated half the electorate and that half… did nothing. Yet it wasn’t a moment of defeat. It wasn’t a wail of despair, not gloom, not anger, not resignation, not desperation. It was a subdued tone of quiet finality. An acceptance that corruption is so deep that no one, nobody at all, can pretend otherwise.

Go. Read.

The USP - University Shaped Place

Reader Bram left a comment to my last post, The "Education" System from a Primary Source with a link to a short piece by Fred Reed of "Fred on Everything" fame.  The title of this post comes from that piece, College Then and Now: Letter to a Bright Young Woman.  I urge you to read it in its entirety.

The only thing I would add to it is the observation that the public school system producing the incoming Freshmen has also declined dramatically since "The Sixties," so that ten to twenty percent of college-prepared students is now probably less than 5% compared to a few decades ago.

The Servile State

Another reason I won't do überposts anymore is that others do them so much better than I.  Here's today's Quote of the Day, from Richard Fernandez's recent piece, Greetings Slaves (highly recommended):

Where both Belloc and Orwell may have erred was in assuming the Servile State could fix the sustainability problems that doomed Leninism. The hope of finding a lasting formula for collectivism lies at the heart of the USSR's reboot as the EU and Hillary's socialism in words but crony capitalism in deeds strategy, in contrast to Bernie Sanders' hair-on-fire socialism. Nobody argues with the collectivist goals, just about how to pay for them. Both the EU and its American imitations are attempts at finding a socialism which can pay the bills. Unfortunately the present political crisis raises the possibility that the Servile State itself is inherently unsustainable.

Here I get to attach an image that I find highly appropriate for this post:


Go read the link.

Quote of the Day - Tam Edition

From her post Because I hate using good material at an away game... from a bit back:

We used to do assimilation. You would move here and we would hate you and make you live in ghettos and organize political parties against you, and your kids would learn our games and our songs and our language and move out of the ghettos and be our tradespeople. And your grandkids would be our doctors and lawyers and aldermen and would forget your language and we would add your food to our menus and take one of your holidays and hang it on our wall as a trophy and use it as an excuse to get drunk every year.

But not any more. Now assimilation is imperialist and racist and bad.

I Want to Disagree, But...

Saw this over at American Digest:  ThoughtCrimes: "Why Women DESTROY NATIONS * / CIVILIZATIONS - and other UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS"

It's an eighteen minute video. Watch the whole thing. Read the comments.

Thoughts?

Let Me Play You the Song of My People

Over at Quora one of the contributors is Chris Knox, son of Neal Knox, gunwriter and one of the original NRA "Cincinnati Revolution" members.  Chris is pretty active at Quora, but I had to share this one answer to the question What are the Basic Types of Gun Owner? (reproduced with permission)

Legal Gun Owner Types

The Tacticool (ooda orbus fictus)
Recognizable by his 5.11 tactical pants and shirt, and his IDPA "shoot me first" vest. Peppers his vocabulary with terms from Tacti-tard Trainer Buzzword Bingo.  His warrior mindset is completely wrapped up in his OODA loop. From his Oakley shades to his desert boots, this sheepdog is a genuine tier-one operator. A cynic might wonder if he might not move faster if he were to shed about fifty pounds.  See also Mall Ninja.

Statistics (Approximate)
Murders committed: 0
Robberies committed: 0
Assaults committed: 0

The Real Tactical (ooda orbus veritus)
What the Tacticool wishes he were. Has a part-time job as a weapons instructor for Special Forces. Nobody knows what he actually does for a living. Disappears for weeks at a time. Close reading of Foreignpolicy.com may reveal that a third-world government has fallen during that time.

Statistics (Approximate)
Murders committed: 0 (at least none that were unsanctioned)
Robberies committed: 0
Assaults committed: 0

The Fudd (vewwyus quietus)

Another gun owner type recognizable by clothing and branding on the pickup. Color stages alternate between tan, Realtree®, and blaze orange. May be found in a duck blind holding a Browning Auto-5 grumbling about "assault weapons" and suggesting they be banned. Variations may appear on trap, skeet or sporting clays fields, typically changing chokes on a shotgun with the action closed. The Fudd's numbers have been in decline in recent years since a prime example of the species Jim Zumbo was discovered with an advanced case of foot-in-mouth disease.  Other factors in the declining numbers include the AR-15 dominating the firing line at Camp Perry where the Gravel-Bellied variety of the Fudd (see also v.q. sabulum) discovered that gun laws also affected his target rifle. 

​
​​Statistics (Approximate)
Murders committed: 0
Robberies committed: 0
Assaults committed: 0

The Reloading Oracle (oneratis iterum omnisciens)
Used to know a guy who knew Elmer Keith. Sits near the reloading counter of the local gun shop dispensing wisdom to anyone who will stand still long enough to receive it.  Has memorized maximum loads and velocities for every caliber from .218 Bee to .460 Rigby. Once went rabbit hunting.

Statistics (Approximate)
Murders committed: 0
Robberies committed: 0
Assaults committed: 0

The Tinkerer (munitor fucilis)
Owns one rifle. Has replaced every part except the receiver. Has worked up perfect loads for every target from prairie dogs to elk. Shoots all year round. Has replaced barrels because they were shot out.  Has several subgenera, including the Cheapskate Tinkerer (m.f. frugalis) whose one rifle is a Mosin-Nagant, the Tactical Tinkerer (m.f. militaris) whose one rifle is an AR15 in .300 Blackout, the Woodsman Tinkerer (m.f. exterus) whose one rifle is a 1963 Model 70 in .30-'06, and the Gravel-Bellied Tinkerer (m.f. sabulum) which gathers in large numbers at Camp Perry, Ohio every summer.

Statistics (Approximate)
Murders committed: 0
Robberies committed: 0
Assaults committed: 0

The Pistol Packin' Parent (pater pistolus)
At one time believed extremely rare, this species has either become more common or less shy. Male of the species teaches the Eddie Eagle dance (Stop! Don't touch! Leave the area! Tell an adult!) to random four-year-olds it encounters. Argues gun control with teachers.  Female does not display as much, but may be recognized by a thin-lipped smile when encountering its natural enemy, the Demanding Mom (mega mater confusus). Either gender can be extremely dangerous when offspring are threatened.

Statistics (Approximate)
Murders committed: 0
Robberies committed: 0
Assaults committed: 0

The Negligent Gun Owner (armatus negligencis)
Owns three guns. Or is it two? That's right, his meth-head cousin "borrowed" that one pistol. Was it a revolver? Yes, thats it, owns two guns, a .22 rifle inherited from an uncle, and then bought the Glock after cousin took that one revolver. Wanted a gun in the house, especially after cousin's friends started hanging out. Fired one clip (isn't it called a clip?) and put it in the bedside table.  Pretty sure it's there. Believes in the Second Amendment. Votes Democratic.

Statistics (Approximate)*
Murders committed: 0
Robberies committed: 0
Assaults committed: 0
*May be an unwitting accessory to criminal acts.

The Red-Necked Idiot (armatus imbecilis rosocollum)
Recognizable by its common call, "Hold my beer and watch this!" Similarities to the Negligent Gun Owner, may indicate inter-breeding with the Meth-Head Cousin (not a Legal Gun Owner).  The Red-Necked Idiot is often a transitory stage to a Prohibited Person under the U.S. Gun Control Act of 1968. Non-Gun Owners, particularly those native to the northern corners of the United States, frequently assume the a. negligencis and a.i. rosocollum are typical of the entire genus of Legal Gun Owner. This is particularly true if the Non-Gun Owner has been exposed to the works of Jesco White (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Je...).  To the contrary, the Red-Necked Idiot is fairly rare. Evolutionary forces keep the species in check. They can appear to be more common than they actually are due to the number that show up in YouTube videos doing stupid stuff. The attractive power of video to this species needs further research.

Statistics
Accounts for a significant percentage of accidental (other Legal Gun Owners say "negligent") injuries, but the overall rate of crime remains low. 

The Low-Information Gun Owner (armatus disinformatus)
Marked by a common call pattern rarely heard in other species:  "I own guns and I believe in the Second Amendment, but...."  What follows the "but" is usually proof that the the Low Information Gun Owner fails to understand either guns or the Second Amendment.  Was satisfied with the 1994 Clinton-Feinstein ban since it exempted his Ruger Mini-14 and Browning Auto-5 by name, even though his guns differed from guns that were banned only in cosmetic features.  Supports idea of "Universal Background Checks" while copying the phone number from the range bulletin board to look at a used .38 revolver for the house.  There is speculation that the Low-Information Gun Owner may be a transition stage to Ex-Gun Owner (armatus priorus).

Statistics (Approximate)
Murders committed: 0
Robberies committed: 0
Assaults committed: 0

The Libertarian Gun Nerd (cerebrum libertatem fucilis)
Interest in guns arises from from viewing the gun as an intellectual exercise. The original interest may have been sparked by a class in Newtonian Physics, or from reading political theory. Often works in a highly technical field, such as System Administration. As a sysadmin, the LGN may express as the Technical Thug (c.f. http://pages.swcp.com/~mccurley/humor/thug.html). Some Unix shops have been known to require that System Administrators own either a pickup or a gun, and preferably both.   The Libertarian Gun Nerd may be a transitory stage to some variety of Tinkerer, or possibly a Collector.  Factors determining the final stage are unknown.

Statistics (Approximate)
Murders committed: 0
Robberies committed: 0
Assaults committed: 0

The Collector (accumulus fucilis)
Similar in habits and life cycle to its close relative, the Coin (a. numismaticus), Stamp (a. philatelus), and Model Railroad (a. ferrovias) Collectors and similar creatures of the Collector genus. Virtually all are male, although they may sometimes be seen in the company of female-dominated Collector species such as Figurine Collectors (a. adorabilis). Whether and how the entire genus reproduces is unknown and, it appears, will remain so since no one wants to know. Many subspecies exist, breaking down to astounding levels of specialization. A few examples follow:

• Smith & Wesson Revolver Collector (a.f. smithus cylindrus) Given a serial number and model, can tell from memory the date of manufacture. Knows whether the barrel was pinned, or whether the grip checkering forms a diamond around the grip screw. Subgroups exist around particular models (e.g. Model 29, Model 27). Similar groups exist for virtually every manufacturer, with subgroups around particular classes or models.
• Colt Single Action Collector (a.f. monoactio)  Among the best-known members of this species was singer Mel Torme who once owned this piece:

​

• Class III Collector (a.f. automaticus) Solely interested in automatic arms. Unlike many members of the Collector, is likely to shoot the guns in his collection.

The Stereotype Breakers (Genus stereotypicus rupturus)
Once rarely seen, but increasingly common, particularly in urban environments with a suitable habitat. Thrives in urban areas of Texas and Arizona, for example.  Long-established populations of gun owners have been known to react with suspicion, but have become more acclimated as environmental hazards to gun ownership have arisen.  Unlike traditional species of Gun Owners who come to guns through cultural and familial connections, Stereotype Breakers are often drawn to gun ownership by frequently unpleasant circumstances. 

Statistics (Approximate, for entire species and subspecies)
Murders committed: 0
Robberies committed: 0
Assaults committed: 0

Subspecies

• The Black Man With A Gun (Title borrowed from my friend, podcaster and very cool guy, Kenn Blanchard, the real Black Man With A Gun™.  Before Colion Noir there was Kenn) (s. r. souljus) Many early gun control laws originated as Black Codes in the post-Reconstruction South. As the learned justices of the Supreme Court wrote in the infamous Dredd Scott decision, giving African-Americans full citizenship would, among other things give them the right to "keep and carry arms wherever they went." It was to prevent just that horror that the Court ruled that Mr. Scott had no standing to sue his master in a free state. Rural African-Americans have long been hunters.  Martin Luther King was refused a Concealed Carry License.  Contrast that with the fact that in recent years an increasingly affluent urban middle class has become common in the once lily-white confines of the shooting clubhouse. Of course, no one said anything to Sammy Davis Junior:

• The Gay Gunner (s.r. queeribus) The derogatory term faggot comes from the ancient sport of burning gay men at the stake. In other words, gay bashing is nothing new. Like other members of the Stereotype Breakers genus, the Gay Gunner may have been unexpectedly common for years. Often congregate in gregarious flocks such as Pink Pistols. May be a closeted Republican. Marriage equality is nice and all, but self-defense trumps in the privacy of the voting booth.

• The Single Lady (s.r. unafemina) Her interest in guns arises from a relationship with the wrong guy. Michael Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety was so concerned about her plight they had a video made where an abusive ex kicks in a door to threaten a woman and child:
  
  
  Police dispatcher asks whether she has a restraining order.  Yes, but he's continuing to break the door down.  Rather than get another order, or as Everytown suggests, calling a senator, Single Lady gets a gun and takes a class. Then more classes. Then more classes. She now shoots competition IDPA and USPSA. Her formerly-threatening ex has left town.

It's still a work in progress, but unquestionably accurate so far.

How Many Microagressions Can a SJW Find?

Saw this over at American Digest under the title Last Gasp of Europe Just Before Everything Went Smash.  I think my title is complimentary to that observation.

Challenger

I first posted this in 2005. The link to Dr. Sanity's blog is still good.

As some of you may know, I grew up on Florida's Space Coast. My father was a Quality Control engineer for IBM, working on the Instrument Unit (guidance system) for the Saturn V rocket. I got to see all of the manned missions up through Skylab launch from just across the Indian River, except for Apollo XVII - the only night launch. I watched that one from my front yard in Titusville.

There were two dawns that day.

Consequently, I've been a space exploration enthusiast from a young age. I try to watch all the launches, or at least listen to them on the radio. I remember listening to the launch of the Challenger early in the morning here in Tucson, and thinking - as the station broke for a commercial - "At least this one didn't blow up on the pad."

Morbid, I know, but I'm also an engineer. I wasn't then - I had just graduated from college in December and didn't have a job yet - but that's been my orientation for most of my life. I knew that each manned launch was a roll of the dice, a spin of the cylinder in a big game of Russian Roulette, and that NASA had become just another government bureaucracy. (And I also knew just how close we had come to losing three men in Apollo 13 because a series of small, innocuous errors had cascaded into a catastrophic failure in a system that was almost neurotic in its quest for safety.)

It was just a matter of time.

Still, I was shocked when they came back from commercial to announce that Challenger had been destroyed in a launch accident just minutes after liftoff. I knew that all seven of the astronauts were dead. I knew that the "teacher in space" wasn't going to get there, and that a classroom of students had to be devastated by that realization. Many, many classrooms, but one in particular.

I watched the footage of the liftoff, now splayed in endless grisly loops on every network - all of which had previously declined to show the launch live and interrupt really important stuff like "Good Morning America." I watched as the flame bloomed out from a Solid Rocket Booster joint, impinging on the huge external fuel tank, and said, "That's what killed them. What the hell caused that failure?" I watched the Satan's horns of the SRB exhaust tracks as they trailed up and away from the epicenter of the blast. And then I watched it all again.

Over and over.

Later I discovered that the engineers at Morton Thiokol had tried to get the launch scrubbed, knowing the problems that cold weather caused in the O-ring joint seals of the SRBs, but they had been told to "take off their engineer hats and put on their manager hats" in order to make a launch decision. The launch had been delayed too many times, and President Reagan would be making his State of the Union address that night, with a call to Crista McAuliffe - Teacher in Space.

I decided right then that I didn't ever want to be a goddamned manager.

I also found out later that the crew, at least most of them, probably survived the destruction of the Challenger, and were alive and aware all the way to impact in the Atlantic. I like to hope not, but facts are sometimes ugly things.

And I wondered if NASA could regain the spirit, professionalism, and devotion to excellence it'd had during the race to the moon - and doubted it severely. As I said, NASA has become just another government bureacracy, more interested in expanding its budget and not making waves than in the visceral excitement and attention to minute detail that space exploration should inspire. (I'm speaking of the upper-level management, and many of the lower-level drones. I'm quite certain that there are still hundreds of people there still dedicated to the dream. They're just shackled and smothered by the career bureaucrats and the nine-to-fivers who punch the clock and wait for retirement.)

Anyway, all this is leading to a blog I found while perusing my sitemeter links tonight. GM's Corner, which linked to me last month, has a recurring "new blogs" post. This month's entry is Dr. Sanity, the blog of Dr. Pat Santy - who happened to be the flight surgeon for the Challenger mission. She has a post up about that day, and it's well worth the read: Challenger - A Flight Surgeon Remembers.

Highly recommended.

And if you want to read something even more inspiring, I strongly recommend Bill Whittle's essay Courage, about the Columbia disaster. Warning: it gets dusty towards the end.