Here's Another

Via Acidman comes this story of someone apparently being railroaded by an overzealous prosecutor:

The news of Dixon's arrest for rape, statutory rape, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and sexual battery seemed to take those who knew him by surprise. It seemed totally out of character for this near-4.0 student, who scored greater than 1,200 on his SAT and planned to major in education at Vandy. In the end, the jury found no basis for any of the "forcible crimes" charges, and found him not guilty on all of them. They also concluded that, as was Dixon's claim all along, the sex was completely consensual.

However, John McClellan, the Floyd County District Attorney on the case, also brought the charge of Child Molestation against Dixon. This charge was proven through a technicality, as Dixon was two years and seven months older than the girl, and Dixon had just turned 18. Even though the sex was consensual, under Georgia's relatively new Child Protection laws, this conviction carries a mandatory 10-year prison sentence without parole. According to Gumbel via the law firm representing Dixon's appeal, and not disputed by McClellan, this is the first time in Georgia's history that a high school teen was prosecuted for a felony for having consensual sex with a classmate.

And, in what by the evidence seems another indication that we haven't yet ended our problem with institutionalized racism, comes this bit:

The conviction — in legalese, for "statutory rape and aggravated child molestation" — at the time received little attention outside of the local media. However, an attorney in Atlanta — David Balser, of McKenna Long and Aldridge — just happened to read a small newspaper report in the Rome News-Tribune on the decision, and it piqued his interest. The deeper Balser dug, the more troubled he became with the case.

Last fall, Balser gathered his facts and called a meeting of a few friends at his firm. When he showed them what he believed had happened — that Dixon had committed a crime that in all previous cases had never resulted in any jail time, and it appeared was prosecuted in large part because Dixon was black and the girl was white — his firm gave him permission to pursue an appeal on a pro bono basis to the Georgia Supreme Court.

Georgia. Makes me wonder how much starch District Attorney McClellan likes when he has his pointy hood drycleaned and pressed.

And I await breathlessly the appearance of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, et. al. I hate those self-aggrandizing rabble-rousing fuckers, but sometimes the rabble needs rousing. And they will point a spotlight at the cockroaches responsible for this travesty.

I just hope they don't grandstand in the spotlight so much that the cockroaches end up hiding in their shadows.

More Benign Government Action

This has been making the rounds since Drudge posted it, but it goes along well with my recent theme.

Seems 89 year-old Helen Shue managed to miss one (1) tax payment on her 41 acre farm - appraised at a value of $800,000 - and it wasn't because she didn't try to pay, but because she didn't pay with a certified check or money order. (Coincidentally, that's the way you have to pay when you apply for a gun permit in NYC, too.)

So they sold her farm at auction to cover the tax liability.

Eight-hundred thousand dollar appraised value.

It went for $15,000.

To a developer.

The payed but not accepted tax?

$572.00

Only through the actions of an anonymous informant was anyone in her family notified before the Sheriff came to evict her.

Yup, government for the benefit of the governed. As long as the governed keep a gimlet eye on them.

We appear to have fallen down on the job. Isn't it past time to pick ourselves up and go back to it?

OK, I Can't Resist

Some people have far too much time on their hands. Thus, the Church Sign Generator.

Here's mine (and I've lived in the Baptist South, so I know whereof I speak!)

Nothing Like a Little Wretched Excess

I finally got around to downloading the (few) pictures I took at last week's AR15.com shoot at the Casa Grande public range. Here's the guns I took:

From the top (though you can barely see the pistols):
XP-100, Kimber Classic, AR-15, Enfield No. 5 Mk I Jungle Carbine, Mossberg 590, and my 1917 Enfield.

This is what was on the bench next to me:

In case you don't recognize it, that's an 18" barrelled single-shot .50BMG rifle.

With a suppressor.

Thank Jebus.

It's actually pretty damned quiet for what it is. It's maybe as loud as my .45. But it kicks like a freaking mule.

If he'd removed the can and put the muzzle brake on it, all my stuff would have been blown off my bench.

Here's a shot looking downrange.

The far berm is (by laser rangefinder) 285 yards. The mountain makes a quite effective backstop.

This shot is from about 100 yards downrange back towards the shooting positions.

About 50 people or so showed for this one, but the weather was excellent and we all had a good time. What I didn't know was that one of the Class III dealers had brought an FN P90 and was letting people shoot it. I missed out. Bummer!

Maybe at the next shoot...

Edited to add: This is a picture taken by another attendee of someone shooting the P90:

(Envy, envy, envy....)

Shouldn't That be a Crow on the Plate?

Robert Arial, South Carolina's The State

Here's Larry Wright's (Detroit News) take on it:

And Mike Thompson's (Detroit Free Press)

Chip Bok of the Akron Beacon-Journal comments too:

On a different note, he has apparently read Henry Louis Mencken:

The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.

That's going to be it 'till much later. Way too much to do, and not enough time to do it in.

But, But, Ballistic Fingerprinting Saves Lives!

Also via Keepandbeararms.com,

State police speak against expanding gun database

Ballistics system has flaws, crime lab director says

No, really?

After finding substantial problems with the state's ballistic fingerprinting database, Maryland State Police have recommended that it not be expanded.

A 40-page report by the director of the agency's crime lab concludes, among other things, that the ballistic samples on file are often not from the type of guns used by criminals, and that the state system is not linked to the national database.

--

To date, the database -- which has cost $2.1 million over the past three years -- has generated four matches, and in each case, police already had the gun they were trying to trace, according to the report.

--

Among the problems identified in the report: Some casings submitted by manufacturer Glock have not been reliable; the casings submitted by gun manufacturers are not usually from the type of guns linked to crime scenes; and the state's database cannot be linked with the national database.

"Not reliable" how, exactly?

Yet Johns Hopkins thinks ballistic fingerprinting is the best thing since sliced bread.

In direct opposition to the findings of a California Dept. of Justice study that predicted precisely what the Maryland report confirms:

The RBID “beta” sites in New York and Maryland currently contain only handgun information. In 2002, there were approximately 12,400 handguns sold in Maryland that were subject to the ballistics imaging requirements. New York ballistically imaged 20,973 handguns in 2002. To date, New York and Maryland have made no matches, or “hits,” with these programs.

Attachment A of this report states:

Automated computer matching systems do not provide conclusive results. Rather, a list of potential candidates are presented that must be manually reviewed. When applying this technology to the concept of mass sampling of manufactured firearms, a huge inventory of potential candidates will be generated for manual review. This study indicates that this number of candidate cases will be so large as to be impractical and will likely create complications so great that they cannot be effectively addressed.

--

There are several issues associated with an automated imaging concept that have to be considered. These relate to issues that impact the efficacy of the use of ballistics imaging when applied to large numbers of commercially produced firearms. These are:

1. Current imaging systems require trained personnel, ideally a firearms examiner, for entry, searching and verification. The use of technicians typically results in higher numbers of false positives that need to be microscopically compared.

2. Current systems may not be as efficient for rimfire firearms and are limited to auto loading weapons. Proposed systems will not practically accommodate revolvers, rim fires, certain shotguns and rifles. A large proportion of firearms sold in CA may never make entry into the system.

3. It is unknown at this time whether or not the algorithm can successfully ID a cartridge case fired after typical break-in and wear have occurred back to the #1 casing fired at the time of manufacture. Performance Test #7 (See page 8-11) showed that even in a limited database, the ranking of subsequently fired casings could drop enough to fall from a candidate list for consideration. Typically quoted existing research/papers regarding persistence of fired marks on fired cartridge cases were written based on manual comparison by qualified firearms examiners, not automated correlation techniques.

4. All potential “hits” selected for further inspection by computer correlation must be confirmed by “hands on” microscopic examination by a qualified firearms examiner.

5. Firearms that generate markings on cartridge casings can change with use and can also be readily altered by the user. They are not permanently defined identifiers like fingerprints or DNA. Hence, images captured when the firearm is produced may not have a fixed relationship to fired cartridge casings subsequently recovered.

6. Cartridge casings from different manufacturers of ammunition may be marked differently by a single firearm such that they may not correlate favorably.

7. As progressively larger numbers of similarly produced firearms are entered into the database, images with similar signatures should be expected that would make it more difficult to find a link. Therefore, this increase in database size does not necessarily translate to more hits.

8. Fired cartridge casings are much easier to enter, correlate, and review than fired bullets.

9. Not all firearms generate markings on cartridge casings that can be identified back to the firearm.If you're interested, read the whole report and all the appendices.

So, Maryland has spent $2,100,000 on their automated system, and it's identified four (4) cases - for guns they already had on hand. It hasn't identified a single firearm they didn't have to immediately compare to.

Wow. That's effective use of taxpayer money, isn't it?

How many police officer salaries does that represent?

Oh well, I guess they can confiscate some more boats and cash and property to cover the costs.

Depends on Just Where You're Talking About, Doesn't It?

Via Keepandbeararms.com:

Lectures analyze America’s gun culture

Nationally recognized experts are examining key issues on gun crime, a widespread and growing problem, in a three-part lecture and discussion series, titled “Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America,” at the University’s Law School.

"Widespread and growing"? In England, maybe. Well, it is widespread here, but it's been shrinking since 1991. Unless you believe the newspapers who have devoted more and more coverage to it. It's not widespread in England, but it's absolutely growing there - in the home of the most restrictive firearms laws in the free world, and a place that didn't have a "gun culture" until after they started banning stuff.

I HATE Registration

And I HATE government confiscation of property.

See this story about a man who just received a Presidential pardon. You can bet your ass he didn't get his boat or his rifle back.

Dentist Convicted Of Transporting Automatic Weapon

A man who pleaded guilty to transporting an automatic weapon in 1987 was pardoned by President George W. Bush, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

Fort Lauderdale dentist Bruce Louis Bartos, 60, said he pleaded guilty to the charge of transporting an automatic weapon on his 45-foot fishing boat because he had two children in college, had just lost his wife to cancer and did not want to go to trial.

And lose everything he had, and probably go to jail. That's the big stick the government hangs over the heads of nominally law-abiding citizens who just didn't know the law or failed to cross some "t" or dot some "i". Ayn Rand got it dead to rights:

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one “makes” them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on the guilt.

Bartos said he was unaware at the time that his AR-15 - the civilian version of the M-16 military assault rifle - was illegal without a permit. He used the rifle, along with a handgun and other weapons, for protection from drug dealers and pirates when boating between South Florida and the Bahamas, he said.

"CIVILIAN VERSION" That means SEMI-AUTOMATIC. It's a big distinction. Just ask the Violence Policy Center.

Now I cannot imagine a more appropriate firearm for defense against piracy - and piracy does occur in those waters. All he had it for was self-defense, but like Mr. Campbell in the post below, he's the one victimized by the government. Read on.

Bartos agreed to plead guilty and forfeit his boat in return for two years' probation.

What did the government need with his boat? We're talking about a paperwork omission. Do they take your house if you fail to register your car?

I'd say the government "cashed in" on Mr. Bartos's "guilt." I wonder if a government employee now owns a 45' fishing boat he got at a really good price.

"I pleaded guilty and lost my boat over a stupid $200 or $300 dollar gun," he said. "And for $200 I could have had a permit."

THEY STOLE HIS BOAT OVER A $200 TAX. And that, my friends, is what registration is good for - aside from confiscation of guns, which I'm sure they also did. I doubt he got to keep any of his guns.

Bartos later began to challenge his conviction by filing clemency requests and having character references sent to the Department of Justice on his behalf. He hired a Washington lawyer, and hoped to be among those pardoned before President Bill Clinton left office.

Sorry Mr. Bartos, but you weren't a big Clinton campaign contributor (or big enough criminal) were you?

When he found out about the pardon Wednesday he became "breathless, speechless."

I'm a little surprised myself. I expect the Deep Space Nine to make hay over Bush pardoning an "assault weapon smuggler" or some such quite soon.

"Someone in the Justice Department read my file and basically felt that I had really received a raw deal, and that it should never have been handled this way," Bartos said.

Even though only close friends and advocates knew about his conviction, the pardon came as a great relief.

"It gives me the ability to hold my head up high, like I'm a full fledged citizen of this country," he said.

You just got reamed by the government of this country, and they had the courtesy to kiss you afterward. That is all.

A U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman in Miami did not have any comment on the pardon.

No, I bet they didn't.

Does this restore all his rights? Was it a felony conviction? Could it have resulted in a sentence of more than one year (or was there a sentencing guidline at all?)

Did the pardon come with the keys to his boat?

Enquiring minds want to know.

UPDATE: According to this story:

Bartos said his boat was stopped and searched when he returned from a family trip to Bimini in 1986. On board he had an AR-15, the civilian version of the M-16 military assault rifle, which Bartos said he carried for protection.

The gun was tested at the FBI lab and deemed to be automatic, which is illegal.

Illegal without the $200 "tax". I should have recognized that just by the reference to the $200 requirement. (Then again, his assertion that it was a $200-300 rifle is in error. Even in 1986 a full-auto AR-15 would have been worth over a thousand dollars. A semi-auto version would be worth more than $500.) I assume that Mr. Bartos's AR-15 had M-16 parts installed in it, which is a no-no. But I stand by my objection: Taking someone's hundred-thousand dollar boat over a $200 tax omission is excessive punishment.

Some are More Equal

Ran across this story this evening, and found this part to be fascinating:

Kenneth Moose, 39, a longtime twin borough resident who now lives in Bridgewater Township, is a former Far Hills police sergeant who, earlier this year, was cleared of charges that he illegally possessed an assault firearm.

--

Moose, 39, served for 14 years with the Far Hills Borough before retiring in December 2002.

Moose's fitness for police duty was called into question in October 2002, when he was arrested for possessing an M-1 Carbine, a World War II-era firearm classified as a prohibited assault weapon under a 1990 New Jersey law. He had received the .30-caliber semi-automatic weapon from a local resident in September 1990, four months after the assault weapons ban was enacted.

Which makes me wonder what happened to the "local resident" who violated the law by possessing the M1 Carbine four months after the ban was enacted.

He was indicted by a Somerset County grand jury on the weapons charge last December, then cleared of charges in May. At that time, Superior Court Judge Edward Coleman, sitting in Somerville, said state statutes did not bar local police officers from privately owning banned weapons.

Question: Did the law specifically exempt police officers? Did it specifically exempt private ownership? If so, WHY? On what grounds? And if not, didn't the judge just make law from the bench? What makes local police officers a protected class? Can they privately own banned machineguns? Sawed-off shotguns? Suppressed handguns?

Because the charge was the first of its kind to be brought against a police officer under the assault weapons ban, the state Policemen's Benevolent Association (PBA) sided with Moose in a friend of the court brief.

The Somerset County Prosecutor's Office has appealed the judge's dismissal of the charges. A hearing date has not yet been scheduled.

I'd be more than a little interested in the outcome of that hearing.

Much Crunchy Goodness

Say Uncle has several posts up that are just excellent. Start at the top and work down, but this one really pissed me off. It refers to this Fox News story about civil rights abuses: Citizens Mugged by the State.

Of particular interest to me (though they all pissed me off) were the two due to the War on (some) Drugs™:

Tax consultant Judith Roderick, 55, of Lacey, Wash., had prepared a land trust for a client who was later charged with growing marijuana. The Thurston County Narcotics Task Force seized Roderick's home, her bank accounts and her business records during their investigation into whether she knew the client had used drug money to buy the land. Left destitute by the seizures, Roderick had to represent herself in court. It took over a year for prosecutors to decide they had no case.

Classic car restorer Dan Peruchi, 35, of Fort Worth, Texas, was driving a vehicle he had just purchased through West Memphis, Ark., when police stopped him. They seized $18,890 in cash Peruchi was carrying for car purchases because a drug-sniffing dog reacted as if some of the bills had once been in contact with cocaine.

No charges were filed against Peruchi, and there was no evidence of drug involvement. But he never got his money back.

So the Fourth and Fifth Amendments have been gutted. No wonder they want to strip us of the Second.

Read the whole thing. And stop thinking that government is a benign thing.

Yup, He's a Thorougly Dangerous Man!

THIS is why I abhor gun control laws. As the man said: "In one sentence, I believe that gun control creates needless victims."

Pistol-packing Senior Chases Off Mugger, Gets Charged for Unlicensed Gun

Bronx-WABC, November 5, 2003) — A mugger in the Bronx got quite a surprise when the 80-year-old man he attacked in an elevator pulled out a .38 caliber handgun. There was a struggle, a shot was fired, and now the elderly victim is being criminally charged.

But of course. He had the audacity to try and defend himself rather than depend on The State.

Marcus Solis is in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx where he talked with the man.

Lester Campbell says the gun belonged to his mother, and that it was passed onto him when she died. And he said he would carry it with him when he went to cash checks.

Seems reasonable to me. Except in New York, where you have to have government permission to own a gun, and you have to "show need" in order to carry one for self-defense. "Show need" and spend a lot of money and time. Sounds like Mr. Campbell had the time, but not the $329 it costs merely to apply. Doesn't matter anyway, as Mr. Campbell doesn't have a business, and individual citizens (unless you're a celebrity or politically connected) can't get a license to carry.

Campbell had just cashed his Social Security check and gone to the supermarket near his house, when the mugger followed him into the elevator of his building. What the mugger didn't realize was that the octogenarian was packing heat.

Why should he? The City has ensured that the victims of muggers are disarmed. Campbell was a fluke - a man who held his right to defend himself was more important than the written law. There seem to be fewer and fewer people like this.

And after Campbell pulled out his gun, a fierce struggle ensued.

Lester Campbell, Mugging Victim: "He tried to keep the barrel away from him, twisting and turning. And when I was going to pull it, see, I lose some grip. And that's when he started twisting and twisting."

The mugger had knocked Campbell to the ground and ripped his pants while grabbing for his wallet. The retired security guard fired one shot that hit the side of the elevator, and richotted up into the ceiling.

The elevator stopped on the third floor where the suspect ran out, and Campbell cried out for help. The thief made off with $262 in Social Security money. And now Campbell's eye is bloodshot, and his cheek is purple from injuries he received in the assault.

But contrary to the received wisdom of the gun controllers, Mr. Campbell didn't "have his gun taken away" from him. At least not by the mugger. And the mugger might think again before he mugs his next victim. But probably not. After all, Mr. Campbell is an aberration in NYC.

Police however arrested Campbell and charged him with misdemeanor criminal possesion of a weapon. While he admits he knew the gun was unlicensed, Campbell insists he did nothing wrong.

This is where Mr. Campbell gets to learn the difference between "wrong" and "illegal." And it underscores the need for Jury Nullification. Because he's right.

Lester Campbell: "He had no business doing that. I was minding my business. I don't bother nobody."

Ernest McKenzie, Building Resident: "The way I feel, if he didn't have the gun probably something would happen to him, serious. And at the same time, he has to be licensed."

Right. Have you seen the hoops you have to jump through to get a license in NY?

Police confiscated the gun, along with another one in the apartment. So Campbell was cited for two counts of misdemeanor criminal possession of a weapon, and was given a desk appearance ticket. He'll have a court appearance next month.

So, after being robbed by a mugger, he's been robbed (and rendered defensless) by The State, and will probably be further robbed (fined) by the City that denies him the ability to protect himself, and that has no responsibility to protect him.

UPDATE: Dave at Pervasive Light has taken up a collection for Mr. Campbell's defense. And he's gotten an Instalanche through Jeff Soyer's blog, Alphecca. (That's what you get for being on Glenn's blogroll, grumble, grumble, grumble....)

Ok, Here's My 2¢

Ever since Kim du Toit wrote his piece "The Pussification Of The Western Male" (link is temporary) there has been a lot of comment on it all over the blogosphere. Most positive, some negative, some downright hilarious. It is, as Donald Sensing put it, "over the top" in places, but that's just Kim.

But let me put in my 2¢ on the subject.

Kim is not an isolated male. He's married. And Connie is no shrinking violet. And on her webpage is her manifesto:

Men create and defend societies. Women civilize them.

Men have been holding up their end of the bargain. We women have dropped the ball entirely.

We can, must, and will do better

Remember that when you read Kim's rant.

Civilized does not equal pussified.

Edited to add this appropriate quote:

To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem.

To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized,

merely the domesticated. - Trefor Thomas

UPDATE: Like I actually need to link it, the Blogfather has a link-filled post on the controversy.

I Wouldn't Do It Unarmed

Keepandbeararms.com has this excellent post by a pizza delivery driver on why he goes armed, and what has happened to drivers who have, and haven't.

As the man says, "In one sentence, I believe that gun control creates needless victims."

The War on (some) Drugs™ Claims Another Victim

One Clayton Helriggle, age 23, this time. Read the entire story.

Then read this follow-up.

Due to a "lack of cooperation" from individuals involved in the September 2002 law enforcement action in which Clayton Helriggle was shot and killed, an administrative investigation by Montgomery County Sheriff's officials ended without "any conclusions of fact in the matter."

Why am I not surprised?

The Brits Remain Clueless About the Failure of Gun Control

The Brits Remain Clueless About the Failure of Gun Control

At least according to this BBC report. They blame the internet and the postal system as a source of guns (which it very well may be, but how big a source?).

There are lots of interesting links on that page too. Like this one about the recently ended "gun amnesty" where some 43,908 guns and 1,039,358 rounds of ammunition were handed in.

Now, understand that all legally owned firearms and ammunition are registered. All handguns are banned.

And 43,908 firearms (no information, but you can bet very, very few were registered) were turned in.

And we're supposed to believe that they were turned in by violent or potentially violent criminals. But according to this story, it didn't affect the inner cities - which is where the violence is occurring.

So this tells me a couple of things: One, there are a lot of people in England who have (or did have) illegal guns and ammunition, so there is or was a significant amount of civil disobedience regarding these laws. Two, these people aren't the ones the government needed to worry about. The people the government needs to worry about didn't hand their guns in.

There were also some interesting bits of data provided in an internal link. I will present them below without comment:

Well no more comment than this: Gun control does not disarm those people willing to commit violent crime. It only disarms their potential victims.

UPDATE: Ravenwood notes that the Brits are also blaming Ebay.

I'd Have Held Out for Catherine

A good joke off of AR15.com:

One day, while a woodcutter was cutting a branch of a tree above a river, his axe fell into the river.

When he cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, "Why are you crying?" The woodcutter replied that his axe has fallen into water, and he needed the axe to make his living.

The Lord went down into the water and reappeared with a golden axe.

"Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.

The woodcutter replied, "No."

The Lord again went down and came up with a silver axe.

"Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.

Again, the woodcutter replied, "No." The Lord went down again and came up with an iron axe. "Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.

The woodcutter replied, "Yes." The Lord was pleased with the man's honesty and gave him all three axes to keep, and the woodcutter went home happy.

Some time later the woodcutter was walking with his wife along the riverbank, and his wife fell into the river. When he cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked him, "Why are you crying?"

"Oh Lord, my wife has fallen into the water!" The Lord went down into the water and came up with Jennifer Lopez. "Is this your wife?" the Lord asked.

"Yes," cried the woodcutter.

The Lord was furious. "You lied! That is an untruth!"

The woodcutter replied, "Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said 'no' to Jennifer Lopez, You would have come up with Catherine Zeta-Jones. Then if I also said 'no' to her, you would have come up with my wife. Had I then said 'yes,' you! would have given me all three. Lord, I am a poor man, and am not able to take care of all three wives, so THAT'S why I said yes to Jennifer Lopez."

The moral of this story is: Whenever a man lies, it is for a good and honorable reason, and for the benefit of others.

That's our story, and we're sticking to it.

Can I get an "AMEN!"?

Hit 'Em Again, Dipnut!

Dipnut over at Isn'tapundit has an excellent disassembly of Bezerkly professor George Lakoff's assertion that conservative think tanks "use language to dominate politics." Excerpt:

No, don't tell me, I think I can guess:

We say things that make sense, and you don't?

Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them, says Lakoff.

No fair having ideas! That's like...like...beating up a baby or something!

The work has paid off: by dictating the terms of national debate, conservatives have put progressives firmly on the defensive.

That's not our only dastardly trick. We also have ideas which map to the world we live in as it actually exists! We've harnessed objective reality itself, to serve our political ends! Bwahahahahaaah!

Go read the whole thing. It's great for a laugh.

When you're done with that one, go read this outstanding City Journal piece (link courtesy of Bill Hobbs) on "Why We're Not Losing the Culture Wars Anymore." When you're done with that, go read Hobbs. It's all outstanding. (And I'm not saying that just because he linked to me long, long ago, either.)

UPDATE: Swen of Coyote at the Dog Show comments on the original piece, and makes some telling points.

Remember the Political Compass Test?

I took it back in June, but now Tim Lambert has done something interesting, he's set up a page where you can enter your scores and see graphically how you compare to others in the blogosphere. Interesting.

I took the test again just to see if there'd been any change. Nope.

What was Old is New Again

Via The Volokh Conspiracy, comes this story of the renewal of the Burma-Shave roadside sign idea.

"Dialed 911,

"And I'm on hold,

"Sure wish I had,

"That gun I sold."

The final sign advertises the Champaign County Rifle Association's Web site, www.gunssavelife.com.

Outstanding!

Hell-Bent for the Cliff?

Eric Raymond of Armed and Dangerous posts about the apparent direction of the Democrat party - oblivion. Like most all of his posts, it's well thought-out. Excerpts:

The Democrats certainly seem to be trying pretty hard to self-destruct. But this is not a new story; it's been going on ever since the New Left captured the party apparat in the early 1970s. My first experience of political activism was standing athwart that particular tide of history, yelling "stop!", as a campaign worker for centrist Democrat Scoop Jackson in 1975. I think I already half-understood that he was doomed. What I didn't foresee was the completeness with which the Democrats would abandon their southern and rural wings to become a party run exclusively by Brie-nibbling urban elites. Call it the NPRization of the party.

--

Ever since the early 1990s, there's been a tug-of-war going on within the urban elites that now run the party; the Democratic Leadership Council versus the inheritors of the New Left. What's happening now with the Dean campaign demonstrates that the DLC has lost its grip. The left is winning. The trend that has taken the Democrats from solid majority status in my childhood to the point where it needs a Bill Clinton to win elections, if it continues, might very well result in it disappearing into history.

The DLC's most recent effort to reverse this tend — to stop talking about gun control — only highlights the depth of the problem. They know, because their own analysts and Bill Clinton have told them, that gun owners are the swing vote that cost them the 1994 and 2000 elections. And yet, the left, for whom hatred of civilian firearms is a religious absolute, has such a lock on the party machine that the DLC can only talk about spin, not about a substantive change in platform.

All very true. But I don't think The Anointed are going go over the cliff without dragging as many with them as they can.

Read the whole thing.