Sunday, February 25, 2007
The actions of men outraged at the abridgement of the rights to which they are accustomed…
Although I helped found the New Jersey Coalition for Self Defense, I have entirely withdrawn from any active participation in it. I do, however, keep sporadic contacts with my old Colleagues there, which has revealed to me a slight, slight glimmer of hope twinkling in their long night.
It was about a year ago that I summed up the hopeless RKBA situation in New Jersey in this post, Dredging Up Some Compassion.
In this post, I talked at length of the political, institutional, social, and demographic dynamics that put any serious hope of reform out of reach for the foreseeable future. In the middle of the article, I noted
Quote:
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A man who finds his the rights and privileges to which he is accustomed abridged becomes mortally offended, but a man who has never been accustomed to any rights and privileges will not complain.*
This is the grand victory of the gun bigots: creating a generation of men not accustomed to their just rights. It is their vision and plan for the rest of us, and they are very, very serious about bringing it about.
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Towards the end of this post, I concluded that the actions of a great many NJ gunnies…
Quote:
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…{are}… not the actions of men outraged at the abridgement of the rights to which they are accustomed. {they are}… the uncomplaining acts of men who are accustomed to not having any rights.
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…which is as sad and as blistering a commentary I have ever leveled at anyone.
All is not dark in New Jersey.
Here are your flashes of lightning, illuminating the long dark night:
These are the actions of men outraged at the abridgement of their rights, and they demand to have them, in whatever form they can.
What are they doing?
These men and women are doing something that the State of New Jersey cannot confound them in.
They are applying for their Florida Carry Permits, facilitated by the NJCSD's
"Right To Carry Road Show".
The "Right To Carry Road Show" is the brainchild of the New Jersey Coalition for Self Defense, who provided the concept, organization and administration and hosted at Central Jersey Rifle and Pistol Club.
The RTCRS was a smashing success. The honest expectation was that perhaps as many as a couple dozen people would come throughout the day. As you can see in the picture, the line went around the corner, and down the block. By 9:30 AM, they had to turn people away at the gate, because the materials they had on hand were exhausted. It is estimated that up to 250 people would have applied, had there been enough application kits, a number never anticipated, given the questionable turnout RKBA advocacy events have seen in New Jersey.
While it is true that a Florida permit isn't honored by New Jersey, it is the second most widely recognized permit in the US, right behind the Utah permit. These men and women have taken it upon themselves to take on the responsibility and dignity of their rights, and in so doing, they accustom themselves to having those rights.
In so doing, these men and women proclaim themselves to be true Americans, lovers of liberty, in direct defiance of the formidable forces arrayed against them, and they do it in a way that the Jon Corzines and Frank Lautenbergs of the world cannot touch them.
These men and women are ours, Jon Corzine, Frank Lautenberg, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Chuck Schumer, Sara Brady, Rebecca Peterson, and all the rest of your foul gang. They are forever lost to you., and they light their lamps in your very own back yard.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I salute you. Bravo! Bravissimo!
For more information on the Right To Carry Road Show, contact Robert Kriessler, president@njcsd.org, or go to NJCSD.org
Public Service Announcement: The Next Right To Carry Roadshow:
The following is a message from the New Jersey Coalition for Self Defense:
Right To Carry Road Show, 3/31 Jersey City NJ
Dear Patriots,
The New Jersey Coalition for Self Defense (NJCSD) will be holding our next Right To Carry Road Show (RTCRS) on Saturday, March 31st from 1PM to 6PM at the NJ Firearms Academy in Jersey City.
The RTCRS is a mobile CCW processing center intended to assist honest gun owners in exercising their rights, by making Florida non-resident carry permits readily available to New Jersey residents, whose own government denies them the right to carry firearms for personal protection.
In just about one hour, applicants will be walked through the completion of the application, fingerprinted, photographed, and have the application package notarized and finalized for mailing all in one place, at one time.
For more details about the RTCRS, please visit our website here:
RTCRS / NJCSD Information
To register for the RTCRS, please go to our SECURE online store here:
RTCRS Registration
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us either via Email or by phone at 201-895-0033 for more information. Spaces are limited, so please register soon!
Thank you for your support!
*It is for this reason that whenever I train a newbie, I see to it that they experience the dignity of being armed with a fully loaded handgun in a holster, putting them in a position where they find themselves armed, trusted, trustworthy, and capable. For many, this is a groundbreaking experience, which I hope will bootstrap them further.
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Posted By: geekWithA.45  
Friday, February 23, 2007
Zumbo's Choice...
{a hasty gotta get out the door to a meeting post}
Over the last day or two, some interesting Zumbo developments have come up that will have an interesting influence on the lay of the land with respect to the gunny community.
Ted Nugent has hosted Jim Zumbo in a couple of threads, where Jim has voiced a second, incrementally improved apology. IMO, as of the last time I checked the thread last night, he's not quite there yet, as he seems to think that that AR platform's redemption is its utility as a hunting implement.
Meanwhile, David Petzal, of Field and Stream, who is reported to have been an advocate of the 1994 AWB, has come out for Zumbo, and the Fuddite faction seems to be rallying there.
Thus, Zumbo's choice is setup.
I struck a neutral but skeptical position on the matter, telling Jim that now that he's been knocked off his ass on the road to Damascus, we'll see what happens next.
Jim Zumbo can take note of the Fuddite rally, decide, "gee, they really like me", and line up that way, and assume his place as King of the Fudds, which will have the effect of formally splitting the gunny community across this pre-existing fault line.
Or, he can continue his education on the import of arms beyond their hunting utility, and tell the Fudds that they are wrong.
Doing that will take a big man, and I hope that Jim is up to the task.
Saul of Tarsus is mostly remembered for what he did after he was knocked off his ass.
Update!
Brother Jim of Smoke on the Water waxes more poetically than I on that very same topic. He also speaks to an important point: our sworn enemies are watching, and comporting ourselves as a mob with pitchforks will not serve us.
We must hold open the possibility of redemption, if not for Jim Zumbo personally, then at least for the misguided hunters for which he is a proxy.
Also, a chilling bit:
From THR member Daniel of Australia:
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I've been following this entire incident with interest, because what has happened closely mirrors something that happened here. In the aftermath of the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, when there was intense debate about proposals for tightening gun laws, a spokesperson for a group called the Professional Hunters Association said words to the effect of "Anyone who needed a semi-automatic to kill animals was a 'City Boy', who shouldn't be out there with a gun in the first place!"
This was extremely damaging to arguments against wholesale bans on semi-automatic firearms, and was trumpeted loudly in the media: here were professional hunters, giving the lie to any legitimate reason or need to own these evil weapons, and it came up repeatedly in the media and in parliamentary debates on the proposed legislation. How could our position be maintained in light of this comment from within, from professionals?
Rebecca Peters is still using this quote too, eleven years later, as she tries to sell the same story internationally. The huge irony is that in fact professional shooters always did use semi-automatic longarms, particularly in control shooting of ferals (pigs, buffalo etc) from choppers - and they ended up being one of the few groups who still can own them
Personally I think the damage done by this sort of thing, from within the firearms community - in fact from people in the role of spokesmen - is incalculable.
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Global Warming Indoctrination Driving European Children Clinically Insane...
The Article
Quote:
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Global warming concerns are keeping children awake at night
Half of young children are anxious about the effects of global warming, often losing sleep because of their concern, according to a new report today.
A survey of 1,150 youngsters aged between seven and 11 found that one in four blamed politicians for the problems of climate change.
Are you doing enough?
One in seven of those questioned by supermarket giant Somerfield said their own parents were not doing enough to improve the environment.
The most feared consequences of global warming included poor health, the possible submergence of entire countries and the welfare of animals.
Most of those polled understood the benefits of recycling, although one in 10 thought the issue was linked to riding a bike.
Pete Williams, of Somerfield, said: "Concerns over our environment dominate the media at present and kids are exposed to the hard facts as much as anybody.
"While many adults may look the other way, this study should show that global warming is not only hurting the children of the future, it's affecting the welfare of kids now.
"By raising awareness amongst today's young, hopefully we are improving our chances of reaching a solution.''
The study marked Somerfield's drive to reduce the eight billion plastic bags wasted by UK households every year.
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I'm sorry. That's totally unnatural. This is a grownup thing. If kids that age are experiencing anxiety, sleeplessness, and fear, it's because someone told them to.
In the course of their indoctrination education, someone laid before all those kids some terrifying scenarios that they're intellectually defenseless against that is affecting their mental health.
I blame Al Gore: Reaver of young minds. ;)
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Monday, February 19, 2007
Well, Times Sure Have Changed...
Jim Zumbo, a fellow I'd never heard of until a few days ago puts up a post on his outdoor life blog that sounds like a talking point straight out of the faux gun rights group "Americans For Gun Safety" (*1) {link denied}, and within 48 hours, he is universally piled upon by the gun community, unanimously defenestrated by his sponsors, tossed off his own blog, and his otherwise illustrious career as a sportsman, writer and hunter augers in and bursts into flames.
(If you missed the kerfluffle, see Kevin's fisking and then scroll around for his followup posts regarding Zumbo's "apology" and other splashback. Also, don't miss this brilliant parody of his Zumbo's post)
There is an important lesson here, one that needs to be heard loud and clear.
Perhaps 10 or 15 years ago, the Elmer Fudd faction might have gotten away with throwing the owners of militarily credible arms under the bus in, as Tam eloquently put it, (an) "...attempt to throw me out of the sleigh, hoping that the wolves would be satisfied with my AR and would leave your precious bambi-zapper alone," but those days are over.
The gun community as a whole has found a new unity, and they have spoken in terms that are loud and clear:
"The owners of politically incorrect arms are not expendable, but those who fail to grasp and support the deep meaning and importance a formidably armed citizenry are."
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, because it bears repeating:
The second amendment is about fostering a formidably armed citizenry for the serious purposes of the defense of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We get the relatively trivial sports of hunting and target shooting as a byproduct of this, not as a main effect.
It is very, very sad that someone in the position of a thought leader such as Jim Zumbo that hunters used to look up to fell into the same trap that so many other hunters have.
Too many times I've heard hunters express the sentiment that their sporting arms would never be the subject of a ban. Too many times have I heard politicians seek cover in their ranks, seeking credentials as "friends" of the 2nd Amendment because they hunted.
Perhaps, though, hunters are waking up, having taken notice of Ted Kennedy's drunken rantings against the "cop killer" .30-30, or the short hop of reclassifying hunting arms as "sniper rifles".
It's been a long while, but I have commented on the problem of the "elitist hunter/sportsman/gunowner" a couple of times before.
Quote:
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If you own a duck gun or a deer rifle, and see nothing wrong with the "Assault Weapons Ban", I remind you that the Second Amendment is of sober and serious purpose that is not about your trivial right to entertain yourself with sports shooting.
When they come for your duck gun, my battle rifle and I won't be there to help you, because at that point, I either won't have a battle rifle, or it's shards will have been buried with me.
And if that came to pass because you were sitting on your ass, you won't deserve any help either.
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I am very happy to see more and more hunters making that connection, and getting off their asses. Even Remington, one of Zumbo's sponsors, made it clear that they'd have none of that.
Furthermore, likely in response to the whole mess, Remington has also copied their tactical line into their civilian sales site, making their position crystal clear.
These are dangerous days to be a gunny, and it's going to get more dangerous before it gets better.
{hat tips: Kevin, Countertop, Kaylee, Tam, Instapundit, and a cast of thousands}
(*1) Read up on AGS here. Yes, these were the guys who came up with the 7 step plan for the Democrats to "own" the second amendment, which repeatedly utters the mantra "close the gun show loop hole, renew the assault weapons ban"
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Monday, February 12, 2007
Rudy Giuliani and Guns...NFW.
I'm listing these here for posterity.
Here's his press release on his gun industry lawsuit, circa 2000, and here's youtube of his press conference, wherein he blames NY's murder problems on the "lax gun laws" of the rest of the country, and asserts a (false) correlation between the number of guns in society, and the murder rate.
Rudy is very careful to formulate his implied correlation thus:
Quote: {approximated from youtube video}
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When police are not seizing guns at a certain rate in a certain time and area, the murder rate goes up.
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The police sure in hell weren't going door to door seizing guns in an effort to reduce the overall number of guns, nor does the seizure rate of guns tell us anything about how many guns there actually are in a given area.
The police were seizing guns in the context of arrests, which were the result of increased police activity.
In other words, Rudy fails to make the case that the number of guns correlates with murder, but he DOES make the case that increased police activity impacts the murder rate.
The reason I point all this out is that Rudy is desparately seeking cover now that he's a POTUS candidate, but he will never be able to gain credibility on guns except with the gullible. He'll jink and jibe, play the John Kerry card, and try to sweep his record under the rug begging local necessity, but at the end of the day, he's a big, fat pseudo conservative gun bigot, and I'll have none of him.
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Vista Impressions...
Readers probably oughta know that I never voluntarilly load a recently released, first version of a major Microsoft upgrade. I have better things to do than be Gate's beta tester. Hell, my main machine still runs Win2K, at the highest patch level on the Redmond partition. (The other partition's Linux).
Nonetheless, Vista came aboard a new laptop.
First Impression:
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"oooh! Pretty eye candy!"
Second Impression:
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Pretty much the user's first act was to click on MSN Messenger, which was prompty killed by a new DEP (data execution prevention) security feature that ensures that code in protected areas can't be changed. DEP's not an inherently bad idea, as long as you don't screw up the implementation.
OK, Microsoft, howsabout you ensure that the 2nd most popular program you've put on the distro, you know, actually launches?
So, I poke around a bit, to see what options there are. My choices are, "Run DEP only on critical files" or "Run DEP on everything except what I designate".
A few more minutes of poking tells me that if I take the 2nd option, I'm going to have to laboriously add each and every program that fails by hand.
So, I laboriously add the messenger program.
Windows informs me that that particular program must be run under DEP.
Excuse the fuck me?
I have always taken the position that if I, as the owner of the machine, am not the FINAL authority on what is to run, and under what terms, then I consider my machine to be under the control of some other entity, whose intent and hostility is unknown.
Fortunately, DEP can be disabled with the following incantation:
Quote
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Disable DEP in Vista:
1. Click Start
2. Click All Programs
3. Click Accessories
4. Right Click on Command Prompt
5. Left click on Run as Administrator
6. Click the Allow button if it asks you for permission
7. Type or copy and paste this into the command prompt window:
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff
8. Hit enter and you should see the confirmation: Operation Completed Successfully
9. Reboot and DEP should be off.
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At that point, messenger tells me that it can't reach the outside world, perhaps the firewall needs adjusting?
I know my gateway's firewall is setup right, so it must be the brain dead MS local firewall. Click! That's the end of that, so much for captain MS brain dead firewall. I'll put a real firewall on later.
Messenger still can't reach the outside world.
Oh, for the love of God. They've helpfully (not) preinstalled Norton security suite, which will stop functioning in 90 days unless I fork over some money.
That annoys the hell out of me. If I wanted to sacrifice half my machine's performance, and introduce random bugs and untraceable problems, I would have written code that eats every other CPU cycle and trips exceptions every so often.
Fortunately, Norton uninstalls cleanly and easily (albeit slowly) from Vista, which in an improvement from the past, when dislodging it involved artillery shells.
Messenger still can't reach the outside world.
15 minutes with Google later, I see that Messenger will not work, and will blame the firewall, if your system clock isn't set properly.
WTF?
Incidentally, that really smacks of the XBox's penchant for blaming scratched disks for all its system crashes.
Beta testing Microsoft code: Just Say Bah.
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Friday, February 09, 2007
Boston Blunders...
So, Drudge is reporting that cartoon network president Jim Samples has resigned over the blinking sign bomb scare.
Where's the resignation of the damned ijit who decided to shut the city down all day because some blinking signs were found?
Why did it take them all day to figure out they weren't bombs? Isn't that what bomb dogs are for?
"Fifi! Sniff!"
As I recall, Boston was the city that, during the 2004 Democratic primaries, put police in gun towers, overlooking the barbed wire "free speech zone", into which they stuffed those who dared opine differently. (Meanwhile, New York let the moonbats run free during the Republican primaries.)
Bah. A city of girly men. I turn my face from them.
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Voice From The Past...
Over the years, I've written multiple thousands of pages online. (This is not an exaggeration: the last time I counted this blog up, I was up to 800 typewritten pages. That was 2.5 years ago)
Every so often, I come across something I read, and I think, "Well, that wasn't half bad, I oughta drag it out front for folks to see."
This was my response to the question: "Would you move out if your state made CCW illegal?"
Quote:
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Already did that.
Wife, kids, business, the whole 9 yards.
Of course, NJ never was shall issue, but freedom was a major motivator.
As waitone pointed out, lack of right to carry is more of a symptom of a statist infestation than a primary cause, and I didn't give up on Jersey till information and events convinced me that the state was a lost cause, barring a miracle, for the foreseeable future.
IF NJ ever gets over it's addiction to statism and subsequently and goes shall issue, I'll wager that it'll be among the last to do so, if not in fact THE last.
My life doesn't revolve around carrying my sidearm with me whereever I go, but accepting the legally institutionalized notion that I'm not worthy to do so isn't an option for me.
To accept such, either consciously or by default crushes the spirit, and my spirit deserves better.
To put it another way, the laws of that place held that I, an intelligent, competent, law abiding citizen was not to be deemed trustworthy to bear arms in public.
My choices was to either agree with that, work to change it, or leave.
-Won't accept it.
-Worked to change it till I determined the situation was futile.
-Left.
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Writing Your CongressCritter 101
OK, you've got wind of some new piece of poo being proposed in the legislature.
You're a civic minded person, who's happy to give your elected critters a piece of your mind, because you understand that democracy works for people who actually bother to show up.
Whoohoo, and all that.
But how do you go about it?
Folks have been asking me for pointer on the particulars.
I gotta say, this here Internet Thingy sure makes it all a snap.
Start with identifying who your congress dude/dudess is, and how to get in touch with them.
Over on the left, you'll see a "Contact Congress" box. Enter your zip code, and click Go. You will then be rewarded with a detailed list of your critters, at both the Federal and State Level.
Copy that all somewhere safe, you'll be wanting to use it.
Next up, identify the specific bit of legislation in question, by number, and figure out whether it's state or federal. The feds are amused when you ask them to barge into statehouses to vote. The staties are equally amused when asked to barge into capitol hill to vote.
Then, identify the chamber it's in, usually a house/assembly or senate. Again, Senators are amused when asked to vote in the House, and Representatives are amused when asked to vote in the Senate. Also, there's usually a similiar measure introduced into the other legislative chamber, so it's best to identify that parallel bill as well.
Fortunately, the feds and most states have excellent online resources that let you figure out what a bill says, and where it is in the process.
Next, compose a short, polite, and pointed letter.
Here's an example.
No cheating, you'll have to write your own:
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{your name & address}
{Your critter's name/address}
{date}
Re: {bill ID/short title}
Dear Senator|Representative {actual name of dude/dudess},
As an American, I cherish our longstanding liberties, and the right of the citizens to be armed. It is my belief that an armed citizenry is a value to our society, both as a bulwark against crime, and is essentail to maintaining our character as a free, responsible people.
I therefore look with alarm upon {insert bill name/number here} and urge you to vote against and not support this or similiar measures.
I would point out that {these restrictions} are ineffective in controlling crime, which begs the question of the justification for such a measure, other than as alarmist, "feel good" legislation that is abusive to the prerogatives of responsible, law abiding citizens.
Sincerely,
{your signature}
---------------------------------------------------
Having done that, spell checked and reread your epistle, you must then consider where to send it (basically, the local office or the office near the chamber), and the best method of getting it there.
SnailMail's good, if you have time, and if time is short, fax it. Paper's simply harder to ignore than the other two methods. In the very worst case, someone must at least look at it to determine whether to throw it out or not.
A phone call to the legislative staffer is 3rd, and email is last in preference.
The reality is that politicians are starved for information and feedback from their constituents, and are highly motivated to keep a running count of what their folks are thinking about a given measure, and as a result, they do in fact pay attention to their mail.
Unfortunately, if you live in Occupied America, most of the mail will be letters begging the nanny.gov to either protect them from x,y or z, or for the nanny.gov to take your shit and give it to them.
That's what uhaul is for.
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Chavez, again...
I didn't want to let Hugo Chavez's official ascencion to dictator go unremarked.
Fortunately, Citizen Smash pretty much hits the nail on the head, thus saving me the effort.
Make sure you read Smash's "career review", so as to get a better flavor for the twerp.
Quote:
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If this were happening in America, we'd be screaming bloody murder about the abrogation of the Constitution, and the death of democracy. But the Workers World Party (you know them, they're the folks behind ANSWER who put on all those huge anti-war rallies) thinks this is all just grand!
[subQuote]
The contradictions in the land of the Bolivarian Revolution could not continue unresolved. The political awakening and awareness by the masses of their own power was on a collision course with private ownership and control of the means of production.
Efficiency! No more corruption! These have been the demands of the rural and urban poor. Chávez once considered a "third way" between socialism and capitalism. But he has always been in tune with the masses, listening and responding. He now says these laws are necessary to speed the process of building socialism in Venezuela, to "dismantle the bourgeois state and build the revolutionary process."
[/subQuote]
Whatever you say, Comrade...
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Global Cooling Warming Roundup...
Kim duToit Talks about the sun. Kim's talked about Global Warming on and off, it's a shame that his "Eco Nonsense" blog category doesn't work.
Quote:
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“The sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures,” said Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research.
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Of all the objects that effect us, our system's star, mother Sol is pretty much #1.
Kevin Baker talks about Global Bullshit, and why a founder of Greenpeace left after GP was hijacked:
Quote:
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The environmental movement was basically hijacked by political and social activists who came in and very cleverly learned how to use green rhetoric, or green language, to cloak agendas that actually had more to do with anti-corporatism, anti-globalization, anti-business, and very little to do with science or ecology. And that's when I left. (The Greenpeace organization.)
I realized that the movement I had started was being taken over by politicoes, basically, and that they were using it for fundrasing purposes.
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Glenn Reynold's voice of reason:
Quote:
----------------
Do I "believe in " global warming? In the sense that the world seems to be warmer now than in recent history, yes. The more apocalyptic scenarios seem to me to remain unproven, but certainly cause for concern.
Do I believe that global warming is anthropogenic? Not so clear. Plausible, but still far from certain.
Does this matter? Probably not. Regardless of what you think of the above, burning carbon is a lousy idea. Coal and oil are, over the long term, far more valuable as chemical feedstocks than as fuels anyway, and burning them is unacceptably filthy regardless of greenhouse issues. We should replace them as soon as possible with nice, clean, greenhouse-friendly nuclear plants and other environmentally friendly power technologies. Burning less carbon is good planetary hygiene, and good practice generally, regardless of what you think of global warming. So, I suppose, in a way we should be pursuing global warming remedies regardless of what you think about global warming.
...
One thing that I think is important: Energy conservation needs to be something positive. Nothing sells on a "suffer for the future" model very well. Too many environmental activists are hair-shirt types (at least when the hair-shirt is for other people) and that stuff is poor salesmanship. Martin Eberhard, of Tesla Roadster fame, is right when he says that many early electric cars were "punishment cars," predicated on the notion that driving was inherently suspect. Make electric cars fun, and useful, and people will want them. This lesson applies to lots of other things, too. Neo-puritanism, on the other hand, has a certain personal and political appeal to some people, but it doesn't sell beyond its niche. The less scold, the more sold.
----------------
Canada's first climatologist speaks about the difference between concensus and science:
Quote:
----------------
Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets.
No sensible person seeks conflict, especially with governments, but if we don't pursue the truth, we are lost as individuals and as a society. That is why I insist on saying that there is no evidence that we are, or could ever cause global climate change. And, recently, Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. So how has the world come to believe that something is wrong?
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I was once personally accused of abandoning science, by someone who did not understand the difference between concensus and empiricism.
Concensus is fine, when it has some bearing on reality. It's not when it becomes an implement of groupthink, an excuse to close one's mind, and a tool to abort the search for evidence to the contrary.
Global Warming as the result of human activity? The jury hasn't even finished recieving testimony, because the investigators are too busy hiding from the inquisition.
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Sadly, The Legislature's Purpose Is To Legislate...
You know, the other day I was talking to a friend, and we concluded that the Whole Mess (c)(r)(tm) comes down to the fact that it's really damned hard to mount an election campaign around "Behold my wisdom and restraint! I have fought valiantly to prevent new laws from passing!"
Sadly, legicritters are termed "lawmakers", and unless they're busy beavering new laws, they feel empty and useless, or at least vulnerable to charges of "Sloth!" imperiously intoned by their opponents, who would promise to make laws, any laws, whatever sort of laws you'd like if they were elected.
We really need to get a whole 'nother branch of legislature: the house of repeal going. Then we can redirect all this busy beavering energy somewhere useful.
Opined my friend, "Ayep. When all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Monday, February 05, 2007
I just gotta record these bits for posterity...
Simply because it's blatant, and consistent over time:
San Francisco rolls out the red carpet for the Clintons (2004)
Quote: {emphasis mine}
----------------------
"Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you," Sen. Clinton said. "We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
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Hillary @ Winter DNC Meeting. (2007)
Quote: {My hasty transcription of video}
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..The same the same is true with energy independence. The Democrats know what needs to be done, the again we're working to push this agenda forward.
The other day the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world.
I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy and alternative technology that will actually move us toward the direction of independence.
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I could fisk the particulars of where both of those statements are off base as regard to the facts and their context, but they reveal something even deeper and more insidious.
In case you're too propaganda addled to figure out what's wrong with this meta picture for yourself, I'll fill you in:
In both of these cases, Hillary, in front of her supporters, and to great applause asserts:
A) That she knows better than you what to do with your property and
B) That she feels no compunction at all whatsoever about taking your property for your own good.
She. Doesn't. Even. Question. The. Propriety. Of. This.
This is not consistent with American values of property rights, self determination, or even free markets.
It is tempting, so tempting to just go ahead and do the obvious thing, and demonize Hillary over this sort of nonsense. It really is, until you realize that she and her ilk aren't necessarilly the cause. They are the champions, and if she didn't exist, someone else would have filled the role.
America's collectivoLeftist figureheads aren't nearly as disturbing to me as the percentage of our own population who are so alienated from our baseline values of freedom and self determination that they don't even recognize the disconnect.
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
Saturday, February 03, 2007
"Republitarian"...
Brilliant!
I came across that term recently. I interpret it to mean "One who advocates a Republic as the means to attain a libertarian minarchy."
Republic:
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A representative, participatory form of government designed to include the positive elements of a Democracy while providing for safeguards against the tyranny of the one, the few and the masses. Summary: "The majority rules, but only in such areas that it may justly excercise Power." (See John Locke)
Democracy:
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A representative, participatory form of government designed to prevent the tyranny of the one or the few, but lacking safeguards against the tyranny of the masses. "The majority rules, with no discernable limits." (See Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
Another possible interpretation:
Republitarian =
(Republican - Dark Authoritarians) +
(Democrat - Collectivist Populists)+
(Libertarian - (Self marginalizing grandstanders + AnCap purists + gratuitous libertines));
I doubt it'll go anywhere, but it's always interesting to see something refreshing.
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Posted By: geekWithA.45
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