Senator: Expect painful cuts in Pentagon budget
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 3 mins ago
WASHINGTON – A Senate defense committee chairman says Pentagon budget will include large, painful cuts. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said Tuesday that major program cuts will not be pushed off until the 2011 budget, but will be included when Defense Secretary Robert Gates sends his spending plan to the president later this month.
Levin's comments confirmed what many contractors and military leaders have expected, but he offered no details on which programs may be axed. He said Pentagon officials have indicated they will not be able to submit the much-anticipated spending plan by April 21, as initially hoped.
The Michigan Democrat also told reporters at a breakfast meeting that he is reserving judgment on whether the multi-billion-dollar contract for replacement of the Air Force's aging refueling tankers should go to one company or be split between two rival bidders. Other key lawmakers have suggested a split.
The Air Force selected Northrop Grumman/EADS over competitor Boeing Co. for the aerial tanker project last year, but reopened the bidding after the Government Accounting Office found flaws with the decision.
Levin said that if the Pentagon recommends a winner-take-all strategy for the tanker contract, he believes Congress would go along with it if the argument is powerful enough.
==========================
GR4U - Well this isn't unexpected. Someday American troops will die needlessly because rotten politicians have wasted the money that SHOULD have supported our troops!
Sunday
Destruction from Within
by Colonel Bob Pappas, USMC, Retired
When Obama told us that he would "totally change the economic system;" "totally change America;" and "totally change the world," he wasn't kidding. There has been much speculation that he "doesn't know what he is doing." In a sense they are right, but in one thing they are dead wrong and that is he intends to carry out his promises as they pertain to the country's economic system, the social system and how America fits into the international order. To think otherwise is to ignore the obvious.
Observing the United States of America destroy itself from within is one of the most heart rending, angering, events imaginable, but it is happening. Several years ago, I included sarcastic comments in an essay for the benefit of Osama bin Laden, exhorting him to be patient because all he had to do was wait and the US would destroy itself. Tragically, that sarcastic admonition is in advanced stages of coming to fruition.
The USA, once the economic envy of the world is fast becoming its whipping boy, its laughing stock, and its economic and social black hole. Once the defender of righteousness and good, it is rapidly declining into the pit of self-delusion, over-indulgence and Rome, except that it took Rome longer to fall than the length of its history of the United States from its founding to date.
The International Monetary Fund is based on the U.S. Dollar but if one has been paying attention of late, there have been some heavy weights that have called for a change from the dollar to some other form of international currency. Even light-weight, Islamo-facist Iran made similar calls during the past year. And despite Obama's pathetic overtures directly to the Iranian people; his embarrassing "reset" with Russia; whatever gimmick he comes up with for China; his wild inflationary spending, dollar devaluing; financial markets takeover intended to generate pressure for a "total change to the world economic system," Obama voters asked for it, now he is delivering. So, why the surprise?
In an AP article dated March 21, 2009, by Andrew Taylor, "Agenda on Track Despite Worsening Deficits" Taylor explains the projection of Obama Administration multi-trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. Deficits of that magnitude were not caused by the "failed policies of the Bush Administration" about which Democrat Candidate B. Hussein Obama railed with regularity during the recent election cycle. Where it had its beginning during the Bush Administration, the magnitude and scope of the present crisis is entirely and directly attributable to Obama's legislative and leadership initiatives.
Bush Administration deficits were child's play, at $500 billion annually, by comparison to Obama's in league with the socialists in Congress planned, multi-trillion dollar spending spree; which incidentally began with his $787 Billion "Stimulus Bill," followed by the $410 billion Omnibus, earmark-bloated spending Bill. Both of which are on top of the Bush Administrations paltry $138 billion stimulus bill of last spring and the $70 billion dollar bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and $30 billion Bear Stearns binge.
In a laughable moment during his recent White House Press Conference Obama stated that we would move the economy from "borrow and spend to save and invest," this on the heels of the largest expansion of government spending in history. Of course the "lemmings" lapped it up, but reality is that the statement was made on the heels of ten year projections of multi-trillion dollar deficits. So, either Mr. Obama doesn't have a clue, or he is, shall we say, "prevaricating?" Worse yet, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that Obama is intentionally overspending to bring the dollar and economy to bankruptcy so that people will beg for a complete government takeover. And what would such a takeover be called? A bailout? Or communism?
The Democrats repeatedly bashed President Bush for his "failed economic policies" that is, "tax breaks for the rich," "excessive spending" (if one can believe that coming from Democrats) and the cost of the "unnecessary" War on Terror. Their stated theory was that if the rich had been taxed there would be no need for deficit spending. They point to the "surplus" from the Clinton years to the deficit in the Bush years as proof of their argument. Additionally, they blame the cost of the War on Terror as contributing to increasing deficits and National Debt. The question now is, "Why are we still engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan?" Why are the rich still benefiting from the Bush tax cuts? All this was supposed to stop the moment Obama took office. Of course it was campaign rhetoric at the time, and is now confronted with reality until he can "totally change the economic system."
With the benefit of a "retrospectrascope" it is fact that the downturn in the economy began after six straight years of economic growth under the Bush White House and Republican Congress (although to be fair, one can find plenty of room for improvement), when Democrats took over the Congress. Further, Democrats including Obama voted in favor of the "Bush" stimulus bill and the bailouts for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Bear Sterns.
Obama has repeatedly blamed President Bush for the "hand he was dealt," which like all good prevarications, contains elements of truth. But what he doesn't divulge is that his budget deficit projections are in the trillions of dollars, not for one budget or election cycle, but for generations. All the while he smoothly intones that he will cut the deficit in half by the end of his "first" term. If one pays attention, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how he plans to do it.
He begins by putting forth a budget that alone has rocked the entire world's economic system to the point that the UN, Russia and China are calling for replacing the dollar as the basis of international currency. (Question: Why is the dollar the lead international currency? Answer: Because it has been the most stable of all currencies since the end of WWII; better than gold for a reason, and now that reason is rapidly evaporating.) After piling up enormous deficits for several years, all it would take would be to cut the pork during the last year and there one has it, the deficit would be cut in half. Far fetched? I'd bet a dinner at Ruth's Chris for four.
When Obama eventually cuts that quadruple inflated budget in half, he would still be devaluing the dollar at a rate that is more than double that of the past eight years, but will have kept his promise to reduce the budget deficit in half. Note: Obama makes reference to cutting the "budget deficit," not National Debt, in half. By way of explanation, devaluing the dollar makes American made products attractive on foreign markets while it drives the cost of imported goods up, thereby making American made products also more attractive at home.
At the same time, Obama is protecting the so called, "working class" from the inflationary effects by overt efforts to drive up wages by increasing union membership throughout the workforce and thereby driving up the cost of labor across the board. That not-so-veiled attempt to enact "Universal Unionization" is called the "Employee Free Choice Act" (EFCA) which Obama promised "I will make it the law of the land when I'm president of the United States." Of course his assertion assumes that Congress will enact EFCA. The provisions of the act as presently written would strip independent and free employees of the right to a secret ballot, subject them and their families to harassment and threats by union thugs (organizers) and essentially force unionization on the workforce. Readers know it, the Administration knows it, unions know it and anyone who is awake knows it.
In the light of day, union membership is ultimately designed to provide income and benefits for the union hierarchy first, foremost and always. They get rich on the backs of members through union membership dues. Then from time to time they take union members out on strike to show their clout which strips those same workers of income and jobs. The sad truth is that unions have cost/lost more money, destroyed more companies, driven more companies/work overseas and brought about more illegal immigration that is taking work away from American workers at home in the last fifty years, than any other single factor in the economy.
Organized labor supported Obama during the election and now it's "payback" time. He envisions that by vastly expanding union membership through enactment of the "Employee Free Choice Act" he will lock in what he is rapidly making a strangle hold on the economy.
Some companies deserve to be struck, and also are complicit in the loss of US jobs. Those CEOs fall into what is commonly referred to here as "Robber Barrons," taking vast amounts of money out of a company and shareholder equity without contributing any reason for employees to be loyal or provide stockholders with even a small return on their investment.
Investing in the stock market has always carried a level of risk. But risk, whether intentional or otherwise was transformed into gambling and formalized by Phil Gramm, a Republican, and Bill Clinton during the Clinton Administration. It provided broad deregulation of the financial markets and caps on Executive compensation. The result was compensation for CEOs being paid in stock options. That drove CEOs to take actions that would inflate the price of publically traded stock, totally unrelated to actual company performance, in order to increase their income. Opportunists rode the wave to an all time high before the bubble burst last summer.
The collapse of the stock market is directly attributable to the following factors and although the list is not comprehensive, it is a good start: CEO equity greed, overinflated stock prices, gambling, margin accounts, the spike in oil prices at $150/barrel, hedge funds, sub-prime lending, and the banking crisis.
During the Carter Administration a piece of legislation entitled the "Community Reinvestment Act" (CRA) was signed into law. Its purpose was to force lending institutions to loan money in communities that has previously be "redlined," that is, where little or no lending activity took place because of socio-economic factors. It turns out that the "disqualifying" socio-economic factors were primarily within black neighborhoods. The CRA made "redlining" illegal and "encouraged," that is, forced banks to make loans that were risky, basing a bank's ratings for future growth on lending activity within the "redlined" communities.
Over time there were a number of changes to the law whose ultimate and laudable objective was to bring the black community as a whole on par with their non-black counterparts. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought loans that were offered under the auspices of the CRA and combined or bundled them with other loans. Generally, non-performance of CRA loans was from the outset and has remained historically at a higher level than non-CRA loans. Enter the Sub-Prime loan era. Senators Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank forced banks to make Sub-Prime loans under the aegis of the CRA so that as the housing bubble inflated and speculators engaged in house flipping and thereby making large profits in short order, members of the black community could exercise the same opportunities.
The way that banks structured sub-prime loans was as an adjustable rate mortgage. The initial rate was actually below the prime rate set by the Federal Reserve, thus "sub-prime," where a loan payment might be very attractive for a long enough time to afford borrowers the opportunity in the inflating housing market to "flip" a house for profit. Co-incidentally, the bulk of sub-prime adjustable rates were scheduled to mature to higher rates during the spring and summer of 2008.
Following hurricanes Erin, Dennis, Katrina, Gustav and Ike, the price of oil began to rise and soon speculators jumped on. Seeing the opportunity to gouge the U.S., OPEC even threatened production cutbacks. Speculators had a "field-day" driving the price of oil from under $30 dollars a barrel in 2001 to $60 a barrel in 2007 and reaching $150/barrel in the spring and summer of 2008.
The price of gasoline rose from about $2.00 per gallon to over $4.00 per gallon beginning in January 2007 peaking in July 2008 at over $4.00/gallon. So, a commuter who had been paying $200.00 a month was confronted with a jump to $400.00 a month at exactly the same time that the house payments went from hundreds of dollars per month to over a thousand dollars because of the rate adjustment previously negotiated sub-prime mortgage loans. That combination resulted in defaults followed by foreclosures.
With millions of non-performing loans with payments late or non-existent, underwritten by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, those agencies were unable to meet the mountain of financial obligations and had to be rescued by the Federal Government. (Did those CEOs have their bonuses taxed at 90 %?)? But the tsunami had begun because banks that had purchased bundled (toxic) loans from those two government created entities had also been lending to gamblers in the stock market who were using borrowed money for among other things, margin trading. (Margin trading is a means of leveraging funds to buy more stock than there is money available in a particular trader's account.) Once the trade is settled ostensibly at a profit, the money is paid back with interest. If a stock goes down in price the margin is immediately called by the lender.
Since the stock market, which had in fact become a somewhat regulated gambling operation, had become hyper-inflated in relation to book value, banks began drawing back lending for margin accounts or as noted began calling the margins for those stocks that declined in value. Trading firms' liquid assets ran dry over night and "voila!" we witnessed the collapse of Bear Sterns due primarily to its holdings of toxic sub-prime mortgage assets and later Lehman Brothers. Bear Sterns received government help ostensibly because of Stearns sub-prime involvement and Lehman was allowed to collapse and was bought out by various US and overseas entities.
The ripple or should one say, the "wave" of failures and government intervention has dramatically increased with the advent of the Obama Administration, but he claims that he is dealing with the hand he was dealt when in fact between his calamitous talk and ramrod of the $787 billion stimulus bill, he has created a shift in the financial market's tectonic plates.
In an earlier essay I wrote, "Many Republicans, so called "conservatives" tell us they want Obama to succeed. At what? If he succeeds at the promises to "totally change the economic system," "totally change America," and "totally change the world" the U.S. will descend the ladder to third world status in less than a decade.
Obama doesn't have a clue how the U.S. economy works nor does he want to know, any more than he knows how national security, or virtually the entire gamut of U.S. government functions work. Government is not the solution, it is the problem. Government bureaucrats are empire builders and creation of four hundred thousand new bureaucratic jobs does not boost the economy, it burdens it. Government does not create economies, it may regulate them, it may harm them, and central planning czars are reminiscent of Soviet central economic planning.
Message to Obama, socialism/communism doesn't work, and another attempt, this time in the US will only damage the US, including those to whom you want to "spread the wealth." Think about it and put on the brakes because your "gallows humor" is called that for a reason.
I urge all Americans who believe in freedom to make your thoughts known to your Congressman and Senators. Otherwise, stand by for the fast ride into a Cuba, Russia, China, or some other "workers paradise."
============================================
GR4U - And here at the last I must disagree with Col. Pappas. I think the time for talk is over. Does anyone REALLY believe the elected class is listening to We the People? I see no evidence that they are!
When Obama told us that he would "totally change the economic system;" "totally change America;" and "totally change the world," he wasn't kidding. There has been much speculation that he "doesn't know what he is doing." In a sense they are right, but in one thing they are dead wrong and that is he intends to carry out his promises as they pertain to the country's economic system, the social system and how America fits into the international order. To think otherwise is to ignore the obvious.
Observing the United States of America destroy itself from within is one of the most heart rending, angering, events imaginable, but it is happening. Several years ago, I included sarcastic comments in an essay for the benefit of Osama bin Laden, exhorting him to be patient because all he had to do was wait and the US would destroy itself. Tragically, that sarcastic admonition is in advanced stages of coming to fruition.
The USA, once the economic envy of the world is fast becoming its whipping boy, its laughing stock, and its economic and social black hole. Once the defender of righteousness and good, it is rapidly declining into the pit of self-delusion, over-indulgence and Rome, except that it took Rome longer to fall than the length of its history of the United States from its founding to date.
The International Monetary Fund is based on the U.S. Dollar but if one has been paying attention of late, there have been some heavy weights that have called for a change from the dollar to some other form of international currency. Even light-weight, Islamo-facist Iran made similar calls during the past year. And despite Obama's pathetic overtures directly to the Iranian people; his embarrassing "reset" with Russia; whatever gimmick he comes up with for China; his wild inflationary spending, dollar devaluing; financial markets takeover intended to generate pressure for a "total change to the world economic system," Obama voters asked for it, now he is delivering. So, why the surprise?
In an AP article dated March 21, 2009, by Andrew Taylor, "Agenda on Track Despite Worsening Deficits" Taylor explains the projection of Obama Administration multi-trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. Deficits of that magnitude were not caused by the "failed policies of the Bush Administration" about which Democrat Candidate B. Hussein Obama railed with regularity during the recent election cycle. Where it had its beginning during the Bush Administration, the magnitude and scope of the present crisis is entirely and directly attributable to Obama's legislative and leadership initiatives.
Bush Administration deficits were child's play, at $500 billion annually, by comparison to Obama's in league with the socialists in Congress planned, multi-trillion dollar spending spree; which incidentally began with his $787 Billion "Stimulus Bill," followed by the $410 billion Omnibus, earmark-bloated spending Bill. Both of which are on top of the Bush Administrations paltry $138 billion stimulus bill of last spring and the $70 billion dollar bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and $30 billion Bear Stearns binge.
In a laughable moment during his recent White House Press Conference Obama stated that we would move the economy from "borrow and spend to save and invest," this on the heels of the largest expansion of government spending in history. Of course the "lemmings" lapped it up, but reality is that the statement was made on the heels of ten year projections of multi-trillion dollar deficits. So, either Mr. Obama doesn't have a clue, or he is, shall we say, "prevaricating?" Worse yet, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that Obama is intentionally overspending to bring the dollar and economy to bankruptcy so that people will beg for a complete government takeover. And what would such a takeover be called? A bailout? Or communism?
The Democrats repeatedly bashed President Bush for his "failed economic policies" that is, "tax breaks for the rich," "excessive spending" (if one can believe that coming from Democrats) and the cost of the "unnecessary" War on Terror. Their stated theory was that if the rich had been taxed there would be no need for deficit spending. They point to the "surplus" from the Clinton years to the deficit in the Bush years as proof of their argument. Additionally, they blame the cost of the War on Terror as contributing to increasing deficits and National Debt. The question now is, "Why are we still engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan?" Why are the rich still benefiting from the Bush tax cuts? All this was supposed to stop the moment Obama took office. Of course it was campaign rhetoric at the time, and is now confronted with reality until he can "totally change the economic system."
With the benefit of a "retrospectrascope" it is fact that the downturn in the economy began after six straight years of economic growth under the Bush White House and Republican Congress (although to be fair, one can find plenty of room for improvement), when Democrats took over the Congress. Further, Democrats including Obama voted in favor of the "Bush" stimulus bill and the bailouts for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Bear Sterns.
Obama has repeatedly blamed President Bush for the "hand he was dealt," which like all good prevarications, contains elements of truth. But what he doesn't divulge is that his budget deficit projections are in the trillions of dollars, not for one budget or election cycle, but for generations. All the while he smoothly intones that he will cut the deficit in half by the end of his "first" term. If one pays attention, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how he plans to do it.
He begins by putting forth a budget that alone has rocked the entire world's economic system to the point that the UN, Russia and China are calling for replacing the dollar as the basis of international currency. (Question: Why is the dollar the lead international currency? Answer: Because it has been the most stable of all currencies since the end of WWII; better than gold for a reason, and now that reason is rapidly evaporating.) After piling up enormous deficits for several years, all it would take would be to cut the pork during the last year and there one has it, the deficit would be cut in half. Far fetched? I'd bet a dinner at Ruth's Chris for four.
When Obama eventually cuts that quadruple inflated budget in half, he would still be devaluing the dollar at a rate that is more than double that of the past eight years, but will have kept his promise to reduce the budget deficit in half. Note: Obama makes reference to cutting the "budget deficit," not National Debt, in half. By way of explanation, devaluing the dollar makes American made products attractive on foreign markets while it drives the cost of imported goods up, thereby making American made products also more attractive at home.
At the same time, Obama is protecting the so called, "working class" from the inflationary effects by overt efforts to drive up wages by increasing union membership throughout the workforce and thereby driving up the cost of labor across the board. That not-so-veiled attempt to enact "Universal Unionization" is called the "Employee Free Choice Act" (EFCA) which Obama promised "I will make it the law of the land when I'm president of the United States." Of course his assertion assumes that Congress will enact EFCA. The provisions of the act as presently written would strip independent and free employees of the right to a secret ballot, subject them and their families to harassment and threats by union thugs (organizers) and essentially force unionization on the workforce. Readers know it, the Administration knows it, unions know it and anyone who is awake knows it.
In the light of day, union membership is ultimately designed to provide income and benefits for the union hierarchy first, foremost and always. They get rich on the backs of members through union membership dues. Then from time to time they take union members out on strike to show their clout which strips those same workers of income and jobs. The sad truth is that unions have cost/lost more money, destroyed more companies, driven more companies/work overseas and brought about more illegal immigration that is taking work away from American workers at home in the last fifty years, than any other single factor in the economy.
Organized labor supported Obama during the election and now it's "payback" time. He envisions that by vastly expanding union membership through enactment of the "Employee Free Choice Act" he will lock in what he is rapidly making a strangle hold on the economy.
Some companies deserve to be struck, and also are complicit in the loss of US jobs. Those CEOs fall into what is commonly referred to here as "Robber Barrons," taking vast amounts of money out of a company and shareholder equity without contributing any reason for employees to be loyal or provide stockholders with even a small return on their investment.
Investing in the stock market has always carried a level of risk. But risk, whether intentional or otherwise was transformed into gambling and formalized by Phil Gramm, a Republican, and Bill Clinton during the Clinton Administration. It provided broad deregulation of the financial markets and caps on Executive compensation. The result was compensation for CEOs being paid in stock options. That drove CEOs to take actions that would inflate the price of publically traded stock, totally unrelated to actual company performance, in order to increase their income. Opportunists rode the wave to an all time high before the bubble burst last summer.
The collapse of the stock market is directly attributable to the following factors and although the list is not comprehensive, it is a good start: CEO equity greed, overinflated stock prices, gambling, margin accounts, the spike in oil prices at $150/barrel, hedge funds, sub-prime lending, and the banking crisis.
During the Carter Administration a piece of legislation entitled the "Community Reinvestment Act" (CRA) was signed into law. Its purpose was to force lending institutions to loan money in communities that has previously be "redlined," that is, where little or no lending activity took place because of socio-economic factors. It turns out that the "disqualifying" socio-economic factors were primarily within black neighborhoods. The CRA made "redlining" illegal and "encouraged," that is, forced banks to make loans that were risky, basing a bank's ratings for future growth on lending activity within the "redlined" communities.
Over time there were a number of changes to the law whose ultimate and laudable objective was to bring the black community as a whole on par with their non-black counterparts. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought loans that were offered under the auspices of the CRA and combined or bundled them with other loans. Generally, non-performance of CRA loans was from the outset and has remained historically at a higher level than non-CRA loans. Enter the Sub-Prime loan era. Senators Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank forced banks to make Sub-Prime loans under the aegis of the CRA so that as the housing bubble inflated and speculators engaged in house flipping and thereby making large profits in short order, members of the black community could exercise the same opportunities.
The way that banks structured sub-prime loans was as an adjustable rate mortgage. The initial rate was actually below the prime rate set by the Federal Reserve, thus "sub-prime," where a loan payment might be very attractive for a long enough time to afford borrowers the opportunity in the inflating housing market to "flip" a house for profit. Co-incidentally, the bulk of sub-prime adjustable rates were scheduled to mature to higher rates during the spring and summer of 2008.
Following hurricanes Erin, Dennis, Katrina, Gustav and Ike, the price of oil began to rise and soon speculators jumped on. Seeing the opportunity to gouge the U.S., OPEC even threatened production cutbacks. Speculators had a "field-day" driving the price of oil from under $30 dollars a barrel in 2001 to $60 a barrel in 2007 and reaching $150/barrel in the spring and summer of 2008.
The price of gasoline rose from about $2.00 per gallon to over $4.00 per gallon beginning in January 2007 peaking in July 2008 at over $4.00/gallon. So, a commuter who had been paying $200.00 a month was confronted with a jump to $400.00 a month at exactly the same time that the house payments went from hundreds of dollars per month to over a thousand dollars because of the rate adjustment previously negotiated sub-prime mortgage loans. That combination resulted in defaults followed by foreclosures.
With millions of non-performing loans with payments late or non-existent, underwritten by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, those agencies were unable to meet the mountain of financial obligations and had to be rescued by the Federal Government. (Did those CEOs have their bonuses taxed at 90 %?)? But the tsunami had begun because banks that had purchased bundled (toxic) loans from those two government created entities had also been lending to gamblers in the stock market who were using borrowed money for among other things, margin trading. (Margin trading is a means of leveraging funds to buy more stock than there is money available in a particular trader's account.) Once the trade is settled ostensibly at a profit, the money is paid back with interest. If a stock goes down in price the margin is immediately called by the lender.
Since the stock market, which had in fact become a somewhat regulated gambling operation, had become hyper-inflated in relation to book value, banks began drawing back lending for margin accounts or as noted began calling the margins for those stocks that declined in value. Trading firms' liquid assets ran dry over night and "voila!" we witnessed the collapse of Bear Sterns due primarily to its holdings of toxic sub-prime mortgage assets and later Lehman Brothers. Bear Sterns received government help ostensibly because of Stearns sub-prime involvement and Lehman was allowed to collapse and was bought out by various US and overseas entities.
The ripple or should one say, the "wave" of failures and government intervention has dramatically increased with the advent of the Obama Administration, but he claims that he is dealing with the hand he was dealt when in fact between his calamitous talk and ramrod of the $787 billion stimulus bill, he has created a shift in the financial market's tectonic plates.
In an earlier essay I wrote, "Many Republicans, so called "conservatives" tell us they want Obama to succeed. At what? If he succeeds at the promises to "totally change the economic system," "totally change America," and "totally change the world" the U.S. will descend the ladder to third world status in less than a decade.
Obama doesn't have a clue how the U.S. economy works nor does he want to know, any more than he knows how national security, or virtually the entire gamut of U.S. government functions work. Government is not the solution, it is the problem. Government bureaucrats are empire builders and creation of four hundred thousand new bureaucratic jobs does not boost the economy, it burdens it. Government does not create economies, it may regulate them, it may harm them, and central planning czars are reminiscent of Soviet central economic planning.
Message to Obama, socialism/communism doesn't work, and another attempt, this time in the US will only damage the US, including those to whom you want to "spread the wealth." Think about it and put on the brakes because your "gallows humor" is called that for a reason.
I urge all Americans who believe in freedom to make your thoughts known to your Congressman and Senators. Otherwise, stand by for the fast ride into a Cuba, Russia, China, or some other "workers paradise."
============================================
GR4U - And here at the last I must disagree with Col. Pappas. I think the time for talk is over. Does anyone REALLY believe the elected class is listening to We the People? I see no evidence that they are!
There is no backup plan!
Tax cheat Geithner makes it clear that there is no backup strategy. If what they're doing doesn't work, then...POOF! It all goes swirling!
Makes you feel real good about Gubmint doesn't it? I'd just as soon have THESE guys in charge!
Makes you feel real good about Gubmint doesn't it? I'd just as soon have THESE guys in charge!
The demonization of gun-owners continues
I spent much of my day yesterday running errands that I don’t have the time to do during the work week. On several occasions I saw the guns banned symbol on business entrances as I walked in.
One of them was at a bank where I have an account. As I transacted my business at the counter I was sorely tempted to ask if the guns-banned sign on the entrance made them any safer, or if it just made them FEEL safer. I elected not to say anything because in today’s atmosphere, even the question might bring down the SWAT team on your head!
I had too much to do to take a ride in a police car!
One of my errands involved following my wife to the car dealership to get her car serviced. I stood there silently while she conferred with the service rep and did the obligatory reams of paperwork. As we were nearly finished the rep took a large rubber stamp and endorsed the front of the service order.
“Mrs GunRights, I need you sign here just assuring us there is no gun in the vehicle.”
As you can imagine I virtually leaped out of my skin!
“Say what?” I burst out.
“Um, yes sir. We had an incident recently involving a gun that went off in a car we were servicing.”
“Well boy, I’d sure like to hear THAT story” says I.
The service rep then tells me that had a customer who was a real hurry to go out of town on an emergency and they were scurrying around to get his vehicle in and out of the shop as quickly as possible. During the rush the customer apparently left a loaded firearm behind in the car. The rep didn’t know if it was a handgun, rifle, or what. (I got the impression he wouldn’t have known the difference between a BB gun and a bazooka!)
And here’s the “punch line”:
Says the rep: “As the technician drove the car around back, and into the service bay, he rolled over a speed bump and the gun just went off!”
I burst out laughing and replied “that’s the story he told ya’ll, and apparently y’all believed it! Guns don’t ‘just go off’. Somebody or something MUST have pulled the trigger.”
The service rep couldn’t have cared less from the look on his face. But I can surmise that it’s more likely the gun-ignorant technician was rummaging around in the customer’s car, found the gun, and with supreme ignorance as the catalyst, pulled the trigger “just to see”.
Naturally he had to lie to keep his job, and the easiest thing to do was to just repeat the same lie found in the media all the time:
“…and the gun just went off!”
Pfffffff!
[rolling eyes, shaking head]
One of them was at a bank where I have an account. As I transacted my business at the counter I was sorely tempted to ask if the guns-banned sign on the entrance made them any safer, or if it just made them FEEL safer. I elected not to say anything because in today’s atmosphere, even the question might bring down the SWAT team on your head!
I had too much to do to take a ride in a police car!
One of my errands involved following my wife to the car dealership to get her car serviced. I stood there silently while she conferred with the service rep and did the obligatory reams of paperwork. As we were nearly finished the rep took a large rubber stamp and endorsed the front of the service order.
“Mrs GunRights, I need you sign here just assuring us there is no gun in the vehicle.”
As you can imagine I virtually leaped out of my skin!
“Say what?” I burst out.
“Um, yes sir. We had an incident recently involving a gun that went off in a car we were servicing.”
“Well boy, I’d sure like to hear THAT story” says I.
The service rep then tells me that had a customer who was a real hurry to go out of town on an emergency and they were scurrying around to get his vehicle in and out of the shop as quickly as possible. During the rush the customer apparently left a loaded firearm behind in the car. The rep didn’t know if it was a handgun, rifle, or what. (I got the impression he wouldn’t have known the difference between a BB gun and a bazooka!)
And here’s the “punch line”:
Says the rep: “As the technician drove the car around back, and into the service bay, he rolled over a speed bump and the gun just went off!”
I burst out laughing and replied “that’s the story he told ya’ll, and apparently y’all believed it! Guns don’t ‘just go off’. Somebody or something MUST have pulled the trigger.”
The service rep couldn’t have cared less from the look on his face. But I can surmise that it’s more likely the gun-ignorant technician was rummaging around in the customer’s car, found the gun, and with supreme ignorance as the catalyst, pulled the trigger “just to see”.
Naturally he had to lie to keep his job, and the easiest thing to do was to just repeat the same lie found in the media all the time:
“…and the gun just went off!”
Pfffffff!
[rolling eyes, shaking head]
Saturday
An excellent primer on types of government
American is certainly headed for a "tyranny of the elite"!
Friday
I just had LASIK done
And I'm kinda struggling with close up vision right now. Plus... I'm pretty behind at work due to having missed a couple of days. So don't give up on me. I'll be back in form in a day or so.
In the meantime, go check out The War on Guns, Sipsey Street, or SurvivalBlog.com. There's always good stuff to be found there! You'll find the links down on the right side of this page.
Wednesday
Another encounter with the Police! At my front door!
Boy I got a shock last night. I was sitting at my PC around 8 pm and the door bell rang.
Naturally my dog went nuts and started raising hell. I got up and went to the door and in the process tried to restrain my ferocious hound in the darkness of the front alcove. He has a nasty habit of running up to any stranger, jumping up on them and peeing on their shoes. In retrospect I wish now I’d turned his bladder loose to do its worst.
While fumbling with the dog I shouted thru the door “Who is it?”
A voice that sounded exactly like a good friend of mine (a person much given to jokes of this sort) answered “Police!”
Uh huh. Right.
I snatched the front door open expecting to see my friend and lo and behold I found myself in the presence of SIX local cops. To say that I was taken aback would be a gross understatement!
They were positioned with two in the doorway, two back about 25 feet down the entrance walkway, and two more off to my extreme left and extreme right – also back about 25 feet. It looked like they were expecting serious trouble. Heck, they even parked their cars down the street, well away from my house!
“Mr Gunrights” one says.
“Yes”
“Are your boys at home?”
“No…my boys don’t live here anymore. What’s this about?”
“Well we’re investigating an automobile burglary, and your son’s names came up”
Now the alarms in my head go off big time! My sons don’t hang out together because for the last 8 months my youngest has been living in Orlando going to school. He’s trying to complete a 4 year degree in less than 3 years, so he doesn’t time to come home for months at a time.
“Who has implicated my boys?” I ask.
An officer standing in the background pipes up “Oh about three different people!”
When the stormtroopers found out that one boy was out of town the line of questioning shifted entirely to the oldest who still lives locally. In the interest of brevity I’ll explain that my degree of cooperation was pretty much nil.
To such questions as “Where does he live” and “Where does he work” I claimed ignorance. I decided to give them his cell number hoping that the matter would be resolved over the phone rather then face-to-face. Once the Gestapo realized I wasn’t going to be much more help, they cordially refused to answer any of MY questions and exited stage left.
I was VERY pleased to see them leave!
Once they’d gone I began to analyze all that had transpired, starting with my own performance. With all that I’ve read, and all the advice I’ve taken on how to deal with encounters with the police, I must be quite candid and say that I did a poor job.
My failures were thus:
I did not demand that they identify themselves by name or badge number.
Even when a cop is in uniform, make them identify themselves by name. Make note of it, as well as their badge number. The department is NOT going to assist you in this matter later if this information becomes necessary!
I did not turn on the porch light so I could see their faces clearly.
This one burns me above all. I had the means to ID these guys right at my fingertips by flicking on a light switch, but I didn’t have my wits about me.
I volunteered entirely too much information, while gathering too little information of my own.
Instead of telling the thugs my son was in Orlando, I could have said he lives out of town. The less they know…the better for YOU!
I did not correctly identify who was at before door before opening it.
I will NEVER make this mistake again!
I was unarmed during the entire time.
Again…I will never open my door without the means to defend myself. I admit there’s little to be done against six heavily armed and well-trained men with merely a pistol. But putting up a better accounting of myself would have allowed me to go to my grave in a better frame of mind.
These last two failures are not police-encounter-specific. They apply to ANY TIME the doorbell rings. My only excuse is that I let my guard down because I heard what I mistakenly took for the voice of a friend. It’s a lesson that I won’t forget anytime soon.
Once the self-analysis was done I turned my attention to what I had learned about the enemy and his motives, intentions, and future plans.
(Note: I refer to them as “the enemy” because to a great extent they ARE the enemy of the general public. For one, the police no longer see themselves as peace officers; they are “law enforcement officers” and with that goes a distinct attitude of Us versus Them. I can attest to this having worked directly with police for many years as a civilian employer of police officers as cash security at an NFL stadium. Even the “good ones” have this attitude.)
The first thing I pondered carefully was why they sent six cops to merely question someone about a simple property crime. That seems highly unlikely given that the “parties of interest” have no police records. It just doesn’t seem to add up.
Relative to that point is the textbook assault positioning they took up at my front door. I have already described the manner in which they positioned themselves. Even the parking of their squad cars down the street makes me wonder what were they expecting.
That they did not voluntarily identify themselves I also have pondered. Why? Has officer anonymity become the norm now?
When I stupidly volunteered that my youngest was in Orlando going to school, I recall one officer asking if he was at UCF. At that time I thought nothing of it. For reasons I’ll clarify in a moment, I’m not so sure it was an innocuous question.
The whole casualness of the encounter lent a certain air of un-officialness to the event. They didn’t give me a card or phone number or name. They completely left the youngest son out of the questioning once they found he was out of their jurisdiction. Their whole attention shifted completely to the oldest – because he might still be reachable.
The last piece of the puzzle seemed to fall in place on the following morning when I phoned a good friend who is highly placed in the local Sherriff’s Office. He informed me that the badge number they later gave my oldest boy on the phone was a fake badge number, and he confirmed that no warrants existed for either of my boys. If there were three witnesses to a property crime, I feel sure there would have been an arrest warrant issued for one or both of my sons. That makes me doubt the story I was told about a car burglary being investigated.
Because of this incident that happened in a neighboring county only two weeks before, I am pretty convinced that what happened last night was the result of the Good-Ole-Boy network that exists among cops. I believe a phone call was made from the McIntosh county cop to one of his friends here within our local department, and what happened at my door last night was an attempt to provoke my sons into doing something foolish that certainly would have cost them their liberty - and maybe even their lives!
Am I paranoid? Possibly. But I read of cases involving police misconduct nearly every day. And it’s growing worse, not better. Ever ask yourself why it is that you so dread seeing blue lights in your rearview window, or why you’re so afraid of running afoul of any part of the Gubmint enforcement apparatus? It’s because you KNOW there is no justice to be found there! None!
I am on my guard, and I have put my sons on guard as well. I sincerely hope that the Good-ole-boys are not out there planning something devious. Are the Campus Police now trailing my youngest looking for an opportunity to settle the score?
Naturally my dog went nuts and started raising hell. I got up and went to the door and in the process tried to restrain my ferocious hound in the darkness of the front alcove. He has a nasty habit of running up to any stranger, jumping up on them and peeing on their shoes. In retrospect I wish now I’d turned his bladder loose to do its worst.
While fumbling with the dog I shouted thru the door “Who is it?”
A voice that sounded exactly like a good friend of mine (a person much given to jokes of this sort) answered “Police!”
Uh huh. Right.
I snatched the front door open expecting to see my friend and lo and behold I found myself in the presence of SIX local cops. To say that I was taken aback would be a gross understatement!
They were positioned with two in the doorway, two back about 25 feet down the entrance walkway, and two more off to my extreme left and extreme right – also back about 25 feet. It looked like they were expecting serious trouble. Heck, they even parked their cars down the street, well away from my house!
“Mr Gunrights” one says.
“Yes”
“Are your boys at home?”
“No…my boys don’t live here anymore. What’s this about?”
“Well we’re investigating an automobile burglary, and your son’s names came up”
Now the alarms in my head go off big time! My sons don’t hang out together because for the last 8 months my youngest has been living in Orlando going to school. He’s trying to complete a 4 year degree in less than 3 years, so he doesn’t time to come home for months at a time.
“Who has implicated my boys?” I ask.
An officer standing in the background pipes up “Oh about three different people!”
When the stormtroopers found out that one boy was out of town the line of questioning shifted entirely to the oldest who still lives locally. In the interest of brevity I’ll explain that my degree of cooperation was pretty much nil.
To such questions as “Where does he live” and “Where does he work” I claimed ignorance. I decided to give them his cell number hoping that the matter would be resolved over the phone rather then face-to-face. Once the Gestapo realized I wasn’t going to be much more help, they cordially refused to answer any of MY questions and exited stage left.
I was VERY pleased to see them leave!
Once they’d gone I began to analyze all that had transpired, starting with my own performance. With all that I’ve read, and all the advice I’ve taken on how to deal with encounters with the police, I must be quite candid and say that I did a poor job.
My failures were thus:
I did not demand that they identify themselves by name or badge number.
Even when a cop is in uniform, make them identify themselves by name. Make note of it, as well as their badge number. The department is NOT going to assist you in this matter later if this information becomes necessary!
I did not turn on the porch light so I could see their faces clearly.
This one burns me above all. I had the means to ID these guys right at my fingertips by flicking on a light switch, but I didn’t have my wits about me.
I volunteered entirely too much information, while gathering too little information of my own.
Instead of telling the thugs my son was in Orlando, I could have said he lives out of town. The less they know…the better for YOU!
I did not correctly identify who was at before door before opening it.
I will NEVER make this mistake again!
I was unarmed during the entire time.
Again…I will never open my door without the means to defend myself. I admit there’s little to be done against six heavily armed and well-trained men with merely a pistol. But putting up a better accounting of myself would have allowed me to go to my grave in a better frame of mind.
These last two failures are not police-encounter-specific. They apply to ANY TIME the doorbell rings. My only excuse is that I let my guard down because I heard what I mistakenly took for the voice of a friend. It’s a lesson that I won’t forget anytime soon.
Once the self-analysis was done I turned my attention to what I had learned about the enemy and his motives, intentions, and future plans.
(Note: I refer to them as “the enemy” because to a great extent they ARE the enemy of the general public. For one, the police no longer see themselves as peace officers; they are “law enforcement officers” and with that goes a distinct attitude of Us versus Them. I can attest to this having worked directly with police for many years as a civilian employer of police officers as cash security at an NFL stadium. Even the “good ones” have this attitude.)
The first thing I pondered carefully was why they sent six cops to merely question someone about a simple property crime. That seems highly unlikely given that the “parties of interest” have no police records. It just doesn’t seem to add up.
Relative to that point is the textbook assault positioning they took up at my front door. I have already described the manner in which they positioned themselves. Even the parking of their squad cars down the street makes me wonder what were they expecting.
That they did not voluntarily identify themselves I also have pondered. Why? Has officer anonymity become the norm now?
When I stupidly volunteered that my youngest was in Orlando going to school, I recall one officer asking if he was at UCF. At that time I thought nothing of it. For reasons I’ll clarify in a moment, I’m not so sure it was an innocuous question.
The whole casualness of the encounter lent a certain air of un-officialness to the event. They didn’t give me a card or phone number or name. They completely left the youngest son out of the questioning once they found he was out of their jurisdiction. Their whole attention shifted completely to the oldest – because he might still be reachable.
The last piece of the puzzle seemed to fall in place on the following morning when I phoned a good friend who is highly placed in the local Sherriff’s Office. He informed me that the badge number they later gave my oldest boy on the phone was a fake badge number, and he confirmed that no warrants existed for either of my boys. If there were three witnesses to a property crime, I feel sure there would have been an arrest warrant issued for one or both of my sons. That makes me doubt the story I was told about a car burglary being investigated.
Because of this incident that happened in a neighboring county only two weeks before, I am pretty convinced that what happened last night was the result of the Good-Ole-Boy network that exists among cops. I believe a phone call was made from the McIntosh county cop to one of his friends here within our local department, and what happened at my door last night was an attempt to provoke my sons into doing something foolish that certainly would have cost them their liberty - and maybe even their lives!
Am I paranoid? Possibly. But I read of cases involving police misconduct nearly every day. And it’s growing worse, not better. Ever ask yourself why it is that you so dread seeing blue lights in your rearview window, or why you’re so afraid of running afoul of any part of the Gubmint enforcement apparatus? It’s because you KNOW there is no justice to be found there! None!
I am on my guard, and I have put my sons on guard as well. I sincerely hope that the Good-ole-boys are not out there planning something devious. Are the Campus Police now trailing my youngest looking for an opportunity to settle the score?
A Crash Course in economics
Anyone who knows me knows that I believe
Two factors are at the root of this: Apathy and Ignorance. Too many Americans don’t care about anything outside their own immediate sphere of existence, and too many Americans are ridiculously ignorant! You’ve seen the surveys that show everything from people who couldn't find
And of all the subjects that deserve our attention, the one with probably the most impact on our lives is economics. The average American knows so little about economics that it’s unlikely they even balance their checkbook. And the result of that gross ignorance is demonstrable when a man like Barney Frank, who played a significant and personal role in the mortgage market meltdown, can stand up and point fingers of blame in every direction, and no crowd of citizens are storming his office armed with a barrel of hot tar and bags of feathers! (or a noose!)
Here’s a great tool to help you do exactly that. This is a well written and well presented Crash Course in economics that you can either watch as a video or read as text; whichever suits you best (altough if you just read the test you'll miss a lot of very informative graphs and charts). I fervently hope, for the sake of this nation, that you take a little bit of time to train yourself. and become a more informed and hopefully a more interactive citizen.
Tuesday
What the Gubmint giveth...the Gubmint can taketh away!
This is DIRECTLY from the White House website! Anyone with a good 5th grade civics class under their belt knows that the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are NOT given. They are deemed to be inalienable; that is to say they are foundational, God-given, over and above human authority.
But NOT as far as the Obama administration is concerned!
"The second amendment GIVES the citizen the right to bear arms."
As David Codrea over at The war on Guns points out:
"I suppose just posting the Bill of Rights without agenda-driven editorial interpretations would be too complicated? What presumptuous frauds these scoundrels are. Tell me there isn't intent here."
Monday
Notable quotes concerning guns
As long as there are guns, the individual that wants a gun for a crime is going to have one and going to get it. - Ronald Reagan
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn. - Gandhi
You cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass. (Explaining one of the reasons the Japanese choose not to invade the continental US during World War II.) - Admiral Yamamoto
Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used, and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible. - Senator Hubert Humphrey
Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. - John F. Kennedy
If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. - The Dalai Lama
There’s no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them while they were in progress. - Israeli Police Inspector General Shlomo Aharonisky
The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose. - James Earl Jones
The ruling class doesn’t care about public safety. Having made it very difficult for States and localities to police themselves, having left ordinary citizens with no choice but to protect themselves as best they can, they now try to take our guns away. In fact they blame us and our guns for crime. This is so wrong that it cannot be an honest mistake. - Senator Malcolm Wallop
If the constitutional right to keep and bear arms is to mean anything, it must, as a general matter, permit a person to possess, carry and sometimes conceal arms to maintain the security of his private residence or privately operated business. - David Prosser, Wisconsin Supreme Court justice
Hoplophobia is a mental disturbance characterized by irrational aversion to weapons, as opposed to justified apprehension about those who may wield them. - Jeff Cooper
A woman who demands further gun control legislation is like a chicken who roots for Colonel Sanders. - Larry Elder
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes….Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. - Thomas Jefferson
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks. - Thomas Jefferson
The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed. - Thomas Jefferson
To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them. - George Mason
A free people ought to be armed. - George Washington
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. - Thomas Jefferson
To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them. - Richard Henry Lee
Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it’s not an individual right or that it’s too much of a public safety hazard, don’t see the danger in the big picture. They’re courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don’t like. - Alan Dershowitz
As we have seen, the first public expression of disenchantment with nonviolence arose around the question of “self-defense.” In a sense this is a false issue, for the right to defend one’s home and one’s person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
A gun is a tool, Marian. No better, no worse than any other tool. An axe, a shovel, or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that. - Shane, played by Alan Ladd, in the movie Shane
An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it. - Jeff Cooper
If I had my way, sporting guns would be strictly regulated, the rest would be confiscated. - Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House)
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. - Thomas Jefferson
When seconds count between living and dying, the police are only minutes away. - Philip Van Cleave
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn. - Gandhi
You cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass. (Explaining one of the reasons the Japanese choose not to invade the continental US during World War II.) - Admiral Yamamoto
Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used, and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible. - Senator Hubert Humphrey
Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. - John F. Kennedy
If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. - The Dalai Lama
There’s no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them while they were in progress. - Israeli Police Inspector General Shlomo Aharonisky
The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose. - James Earl Jones
The ruling class doesn’t care about public safety. Having made it very difficult for States and localities to police themselves, having left ordinary citizens with no choice but to protect themselves as best they can, they now try to take our guns away. In fact they blame us and our guns for crime. This is so wrong that it cannot be an honest mistake. - Senator Malcolm Wallop
If the constitutional right to keep and bear arms is to mean anything, it must, as a general matter, permit a person to possess, carry and sometimes conceal arms to maintain the security of his private residence or privately operated business. - David Prosser, Wisconsin Supreme Court justice
Hoplophobia is a mental disturbance characterized by irrational aversion to weapons, as opposed to justified apprehension about those who may wield them. - Jeff Cooper
A woman who demands further gun control legislation is like a chicken who roots for Colonel Sanders. - Larry Elder
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes….Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. - Thomas Jefferson
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks. - Thomas Jefferson
The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed. - Thomas Jefferson
To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them. - George Mason
A free people ought to be armed. - George Washington
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. - Thomas Jefferson
To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them. - Richard Henry Lee
Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it’s not an individual right or that it’s too much of a public safety hazard, don’t see the danger in the big picture. They’re courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don’t like. - Alan Dershowitz
As we have seen, the first public expression of disenchantment with nonviolence arose around the question of “self-defense.” In a sense this is a false issue, for the right to defend one’s home and one’s person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
A gun is a tool, Marian. No better, no worse than any other tool. An axe, a shovel, or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that. - Shane, played by Alan Ladd, in the movie Shane
An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it. - Jeff Cooper
If I had my way, sporting guns would be strictly regulated, the rest would be confiscated. - Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House)
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. - Thomas Jefferson
When seconds count between living and dying, the police are only minutes away. - Philip Van Cleave
The Fed: "Let's PRINT our way out of this mess!"
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Relatively lost in the frenzy over $165 million in bonuses paid to AIG employees last week was an announcement by the Federal Reserve that it would take the highly unusual step of buying up to $300 billion worth of long-term Treasury bonds. Nice piece of slight of hand there! While everyone was looking elsewhere at the AIG mess, the Gubmint announced it's going to dump more fiat currency on us!
Although the Fed regularly buys and sells short-term Treasury bills to set the overnight federal funds rate, it generally does not intervene in long-term Treasurys, allowing the market to set long-term rates.
Except for a small episode during the 1960s, known as Operation Twist, the Fed has not bought long-term Treasurys since 1952. And for good reason.
"It's as inflationary as hell," says Howard Simons, a strategist with Bianco Research.
When the Fed buys Treasurys or other securities, it can pay for them by creating new money, which goes out into the economy. If you have more money chasing roughly the same amount of goods and services, prices go up.
Some worry that having the Fed buy Treasurys could encourage the government to spend even more money if it thinks it has a new, ready buyer for its securities. Duh! Give the Gubmint more money and you expect they'll save it or use it to reduce the debt? Yeah right! Maybe when monkeys fly out your butt!
When the government wants to spend money - on an $800 billion stimulus package, for example - it can either raise taxes, cut other spending or borrow money by selling Treasury securities to investors. The more Treasurys it sells, the higher the interest rate it must pay to attract investors. If the Fed buys Treasurys, the rate should come down.
The Treasury is not allowed to print money because governments can tend to go a little crazy and print too much, resulting in hyperinflation and often, economic collapse.
The Fed can create money, but it is supposed to be the independent, sober-minded guardian of our nation's monetary supply. It is supposed to make sure the money supply is generous enough to encourage growth, but not so generous as to cause inflation.
It is supposed to "take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going," as former Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin famously said.
Simons fears that if members of Congress come to believe that the Fed will buy whatever the Treasury wants to sell, "There will be no limit on what they can spend. When Nancy Pelosi figures this out, 'Whooo, my lord,' " he says.
John Taylor, a Stanford University economics professor and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, say the Fed's move "raises huge questions about inflation and the independence of the Fed. This is unprecedented." The vast majority of publicly educated Americans are utterly ignorant of inflation and its consequences!
Saturday
I'm not an economist ( and I DON'T play one on TV)
But I don't need to be an economist to know that THIS can't be a good thing for America.
Friday
I wonder how you say 'Let me kiss your ass' in farsi
Watch our wonderful president bend over and kiss islamic ass in the horribly mistaken belief that if we just convince them we're nice guys they'll be willing to get along!
UPDATE:
Iran's leading camel humper to Obama: Piss off!
UPDATE:
Iran's leading camel humper to Obama: Piss off!
Thursday
My New Bumper Sticker
I'm sick of all the Obama stickers, and I thought this was a perfect counterpunch!
So I bought a ten-pack
It hardly ever got off the ground
The Washington Times
EDITORIAL: Guns on a plane
After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed to carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of aircraft and rammed them into buildings.
Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program, risking public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.
The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in field inspections of pilots.
This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots. The 12,000 Federal Flight Deck Officers, the pilots who have been approved to carry guns, are reported to have the best behavior of any federal law enforcement agency. There are no cases where any of them has improperly brandished or used a gun. There are just a few cases where officers have improperly used their IDs.
Fewer than one percent of the officers have any administrative actions brought against them and, we are told, virtually all of those cases “are trumped up.”
Take a case against one flight officer who had visited the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles within the last few weeks. While there, the pilot noticed that federal law enforcement officers can, with the approval of a superior, obtain a license plate that cannot be traced, a key safety feature for law enforcement personnel. So the pilot asked if, as a member of the federal program, he was eligible. The DMV staffer checked and said “no.” The next day administrative actions were brought against the pilot for “misrepresenting himself.” These are the kinds of cases that President Obama wants to investigate.
Since Mr. Obama's election, pilots have told us that the approval process for letting pilots carry guns on planes slowed significantly. Last week the problem went from bad to worse. Federal Flight Deck Officers - the pilots who have been approved to carry guns - indicate that the approval process has stalled out.
Pilots cannot openly speak about the changing policies for fear of retaliation from the Transportation Security Administration. Pilots who act in any way that causes a “loss of confidence” in the armed pilot program risk criminal prosecution as well as their removal from the program. Despite these threats, pilots in the Federal Flight Deck Officers program have raised real concerns in multiple interviews.
Arming pilots after Sept. 11 was nothing new. Until the early 1960s, American commercial passenger pilots on any flight carrying U.S. mail were required to carry handguns. Indeed, U.S. pilots were still allowed to carry guns until as recently as 1987. There are no records that any of these pilots (either military or commercial) ever causing any significant problems.
Screening of airplane passengers is hardly perfect. While armed marshals are helpful, the program covers less than 3 percent of the flights out of Washington D.C.'s three airports and even fewer across the country. Sky marshals are costly and quit more often than other law-enforcement officers.
Armed pilots are a cost-effective backup layer of security. Terrorists can only enter the cockpit through one narrow entrance, and armed pilots have some time to prepare themselves as hijackers penetrate the strengthened cockpit doors. With pilots, we have people who are willing to take on the burden of protecting the planes for free. About 70 percent of the pilots at major American carriers have military backgrounds.
Frankly, as a matter of pure politics, we cannot understand what the administration is thinking. Nearly 40 House Democrats are in districts were the NRA is more popular than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We can't find any independent poll in which the public is demanding that pilots disarm. Why does this move make sense?
Only anti-gun extremists and terrorist recruits are worried about armed pilots. So why is the Obama administration catering to this tiny lobby at the expense of public safety?
Wednesday
Update on the DOD's destroy-the-brass policy
Well we've narrowly avoided another slam against our right to keep and bear arms. The DOD's recently accounced policy to destroy all military once-fired brass has been reversed. Had this policy remained in place, it would have immediately caused ANOTHER spike in ammo prices for the civilian market.
Read about it at Sipsey Street Irregulars (and while you're there, take a look around the joint for a good dose of Liberty enhancement!)
Read about it at Sipsey Street Irregulars (and while you're there, take a look around the joint for a good dose of Liberty enhancement!)
Tuesday
Good thing this terrible criminal was caught!
Man Bolts Antlers to Dead Doe, Gets $400 Fine, 10 Days in Jail
Saturday , March 14, 2009
BURLINGTON, Vt. —
A man who bolted antlers to the head of a dead doe and posed for a photograph with the deer was fined $400 and jailed for game violations.
Marcel Fournier, 19, shot the deer the evening of Nov. 22 and used lag bolts and epoxy to attach a 10-point rack, officials said. He then checked in the kill as lawful game at Barnie's Market.
It's illegal to kill an antlerless deer, and it's also illegal to hunt at night.
The Concord resident admitted to the killing and led a game warden to the deer's remains after an anonymous caller alerted authorities. Fournier said he had "quite a time" drilling and fastening the antlers, authorities said.
Game warden David Gregory said the antlers didn't look or feel right.
"When you grabbed them, you'd feel movement," he said.
Col. David LeCours, chief warden of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the size of the antlers relative to the size of the deer seemed off.
"Something wasn't natural about them, in addition to the fact that they weren't natural," he said.
Fournier was sentenced to 10 days in jail Feb. 18 for taking a deer in a closed season. He won't qualify for a state hunting, fishing or trapping license for at least three years.
LeCours said add-on antlers are the stuff of legend, but that it's the first documented case of it in Vermont.
=============================================
GR4U - Okay, now clearly this guy is an idiot. I won't argue that in the least. But I ask you, is this 10 days sentence justifiable? Have all the murders in Burlington VT been solved? Have all the armed robberies, rapes, assaults, carjackings etc. been solved? Is it just me, or is this a colossal waste of law enforcement resources? I just shake my head in complete amazement that this kind of crap can generate a 10 days jail sentence!
And one more point: Did you catch the part where he was turned in by an anonymous tipster? Ya know... the f*ckin Commies never had such an efficient spying apparatus! Americans are being trained to blow the whistle on one another. We're being programmed to do Big Brother's work for him.
I'll skip the Tea thanks
A word about the teabag tax protests going on in various places around the country:
Oh Pluuuuuleeeeease!
What do these fools think they’re accomplishing? Does anyone really think that a teabag sent thru the mail is going to sway some congress-critter to vote one way or the other? All the phone calls, emails, letters and protests have come to naught, so how are teabags going to succeed where all that has failed!
Newsflash you sunshine patriots! The Pols have stopped listening! A teabag means nothing to those people. For one thing, it’s not going to make it thru the mail screenings that are a matter of course ever since the anthrax scares. It’s going to hit the trash can long before it’s ever seen by anyone who has been elected.
And another thing about teabags: they didn’t work the first time they were tried either! The Boston Tea Party took place in December 1773. The British were still playing the oppression game in April 1775 with Gage sending troops to confiscate guns and ammo. (You DID know that the revolution started in response to an attempt by the government to disarm Americans didn’t you?)
The Tea Party looked good in the newspapers, but it didn’t bring about a change of heart in the British.
So today in 2009 we have people who vaguely have the feeling that they need to send Washington a message. And they’ve latched onto teabags as their “feel good” answer. These same people probably waved an American flag in the days and weeks following 9/11 and thought to themselves “What a patriot I am!”.
Want to send Washington a message? A REAL message? Then go buy a gun and a couple thousand rounds of ammo. Then get your ass out the range and blow the center out of a target. Now mail that target to your representative with the following note:
“Dear elected official,
I wanted you to know that I am doing my part to defend the Constitution against ALL enemies both foreign and domestic. Please see my enclosed target. Remember it well each time you’re tempted to abandon your oath of office in search or profit or power.
Sincerely,
Concerned American Citizen
Oh Pluuuuuleeeeease!
What do these fools think they’re accomplishing? Does anyone really think that a teabag sent thru the mail is going to sway some congress-critter to vote one way or the other? All the phone calls, emails, letters and protests have come to naught, so how are teabags going to succeed where all that has failed!
Newsflash you sunshine patriots! The Pols have stopped listening! A teabag means nothing to those people. For one thing, it’s not going to make it thru the mail screenings that are a matter of course ever since the anthrax scares. It’s going to hit the trash can long before it’s ever seen by anyone who has been elected.
And another thing about teabags: they didn’t work the first time they were tried either! The Boston Tea Party took place in December 1773. The British were still playing the oppression game in April 1775 with Gage sending troops to confiscate guns and ammo. (You DID know that the revolution started in response to an attempt by the government to disarm Americans didn’t you?)
The Tea Party looked good in the newspapers, but it didn’t bring about a change of heart in the British.
So today in 2009 we have people who vaguely have the feeling that they need to send Washington a message. And they’ve latched onto teabags as their “feel good” answer. These same people probably waved an American flag in the days and weeks following 9/11 and thought to themselves “What a patriot I am!”.
Want to send Washington a message? A REAL message? Then go buy a gun and a couple thousand rounds of ammo. Then get your ass out the range and blow the center out of a target. Now mail that target to your representative with the following note:
“Dear elected official,
I wanted you to know that I am doing my part to defend the Constitution against ALL enemies both foreign and domestic. Please see my enclosed target. Remember it well each time you’re tempted to abandon your oath of office in search or profit or power.
Sincerely,
Concerned American Citizen
If you only get one thing from this blog EVER...
This is one of my all-time favorite books! Anyone who fancies themself a patriot, needs to get this and read it from cover to cover - all 800 pages!
Among other things it covers:
Rating the Battle Rifles
M1/M14 (M1A)
FAL
HK91
Rating the Battle Carbines
The AK74
Combat Rifle Optics
How To Become A Rifleman
Reloading, Zeroing, Shooting, Cleaning, & Caching
Javelin Press
VDH offers three possible explanations
(a) Clueless. Obama, the community organizer from Chicago with a mere two years plus in the Senate, is clueless. He has never run a business, never served as an executive, never done anything in matters of commerce other than speak and write and authorize spending bills as part of his government job.
(b) Not so clueless. Or Obama has a pretty certain, calculated European objective of high taxes, big-spending programs, utopian foreign policy initiatives, and a therapeutic sense of ensuring we are all going to be equal by result. In that sense, the recession was a godsend, since he has a brief window of about six months of fright and uncertainty to ram through programs that will last a lifetime, and whose expense will ensure a vast redistribution of income.
(c) A Mean streak. Or there is not so much chaos or European utopianism at work as a sort of primeval dislike of capitalists and those who have access to money — an angry President Obama whose furor now and again peeks through (remember the clingers’ speech, the accidental middle finger scratches, and the Robespierre rhetoric).
Be sure to read the entire article. Victor Davis Hanson certainly has his Ca Ca consolidated.
(b) Not so clueless. Or Obama has a pretty certain, calculated European objective of high taxes, big-spending programs, utopian foreign policy initiatives, and a therapeutic sense of ensuring we are all going to be equal by result. In that sense, the recession was a godsend, since he has a brief window of about six months of fright and uncertainty to ram through programs that will last a lifetime, and whose expense will ensure a vast redistribution of income.
(c) A Mean streak. Or there is not so much chaos or European utopianism at work as a sort of primeval dislike of capitalists and those who have access to money — an angry President Obama whose furor now and again peeks through (remember the clingers’ speech, the accidental middle finger scratches, and the Robespierre rhetoric).
Be sure to read the entire article. Victor Davis Hanson certainly has his Ca Ca consolidated.
Friday
How the government responds to a shortage of ammo
There's an unprecedented shortage of ammo, so what's the Imperial Federal Gubmint do?
The DoD has ordered the destruction of all once-fired military brass. Clearly they don't want us reloading ammo.
Hmmmmm
Now I wonder why.
WAKE UP AMERICA!!!
The DoD has ordered the destruction of all once-fired military brass. Clearly they don't want us reloading ammo.
Hmmmmm
Now I wonder why.
WAKE UP AMERICA!!!
Hate groups I might learn to love!
I was recently browsing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website, and I stumbled across a map of the US with all the various “hate” groups listed by state, and by county.
The thought occurred to me that anybody the SPLC despises might be somebody I might actually appreciate! Naturally I went to researching their little maps and drilled down to several local hate groups, and found two that look appealing. I say that guardedly because I am unfamiliar with either organization - so I’ll withhold final judgment until I’ve researched a bit further.
First there’s the League of the South.
Here’re a couple of excerpts from their Core Beliefs page:
And second, there’s the Council of Concerned Citizens, and the obligatory blurbs from their Statement of Principal page.
I’ll admit that none of the above gives me any trepidation.
Do you see any hate in there so far? Check out the sites and tell me if you see any hating in them. Then go take a look at the SPLC and see if you can spot any hate. Where does the largest concentration of hate lie among the three organizations?
The thought occurred to me that anybody the SPLC despises might be somebody I might actually appreciate! Naturally I went to researching their little maps and drilled down to several local hate groups, and found two that look appealing. I say that guardedly because I am unfamiliar with either organization - so I’ll withhold final judgment until I’ve researched a bit further.
First there’s the League of the South.
Here’re a couple of excerpts from their Core Beliefs page:
We seek to advance the cultural, social, economic, and political well-being and independence of the Southern people by all honourable means.”
Our strongest and most enduring earthly affections and allegiances are to those people and places closest to us—family, friends, neighbors, villages, towns, cities, counties, and States. Conversely, our weakest attachments are to far-off abstractions such as “the nation,” “the environment,” or the “global community.”
Teaches and practices good manners and the famed “Southern hospitality, which are outward manifestations of the recognition that our fellow men are made in the image of God and should be treated according to God’s law.
And second, there’s the Council of Concerned Citizens, and the obligatory blurbs from their Statement of Principal page.
We believe that the United States of America is a Christian country, that its people are a Christian people, and that its government and public leaders at all levels must reflect Christian beliefs and values. We therefore oppose all efforts to deny or weaken the Christian heritage of the United States, including the unconstitutional prohibitions of prayers and other religious expression in schools and other public institutions.
We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called “affirmative action” and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.
We believe the United States is a sovereign and independent nation, that our independence as a nation is the most precious legacy of our Founding Fathers, and that all treaties, agreements, conventions, international organizations, and institutions must recognize and respect our national sovereignty and independence.
I’ll admit that none of the above gives me any trepidation.
Do you see any hate in there so far? Check out the sites and tell me if you see any hating in them. Then go take a look at the SPLC and see if you can spot any hate. Where does the largest concentration of hate lie among the three organizations?
Could Congress get any MORE disconnected from reality than this?
With the world swirling about it, the House took a moment Thursday to honor pi, the Greek letter symbolizing that great constant in mathematics representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.
Rounded off, pi equates to 3.14, hence the designation of March 14 as Pi Day under the resolution. Informal celebrations have been held around the country for at least 20 years, but Thursday’s 391-10 vote is the first time Congress has joined the party.
“I’m kind of geeked up about it,” Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) told POLITICO. “It’s crazy, but I’m a whole lot more excited about that than congratulating the winner of last year’s Rose Bowl.
YOU GOTTA BE SHITTIN ME!!!!!! This is what our elected representatives concern themselves with?
Rounded off, pi equates to 3.14, hence the designation of March 14 as Pi Day under the resolution. Informal celebrations have been held around the country for at least 20 years, but Thursday’s 391-10 vote is the first time Congress has joined the party.
“I’m kind of geeked up about it,” Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) told POLITICO. “It’s crazy, but I’m a whole lot more excited about that than congratulating the winner of last year’s Rose Bowl.
YOU GOTTA BE SHITTIN ME!!!!!! This is what our elected representatives concern themselves with?
Thursday
A Billion $ per hour!
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has come up with a vivid new way to express his contention that the nation is spending way too much money it doesn’t have.
McConnell includes the tweaks in his opening remarks on the Senate floor on the 51st day that President Obama has been in office.
“In just 50 days, Congress has voted to spend about $1.2 trillion between the Stimulus and the Omnibus,” McConnell says. “To put that in perspective, that’s about $24 billion a day, or about $1 billion an hour—most of it borrowed. There’s simply no question: government spending has spun out of control.”
Another excerpt from Nation of Cowards
By now it should be evident that the project of all laws that criminalize innocent conduct in order to prevent crime is: to so arrange the material conditions of life that those disposed to act upon their evil intentions will have no means of realizing their designs.
Matters must be so arranged that, though criminals will want to use guns, they just won’t be able to get them. People will want to use drugs; they just won’t be able to buy them. Crazy people will want to blow up buildings; they just won’t be able to. Thus will the world be made a safer place.
And now we come to the critical point, the self-destructive contradiction inherent in laws that criminalize innocent character to prevent crime before it occurs: their goal is to make responsibility irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if criminals want to commit murder with guns; we will arrange things so that they simply cannot. Pass Brady and a few other well-crafted laws, vigorously enforce them, and it won’t matter whether people act responsibly or not. Their irresponsible intentions will be rendered impotent and irrelevant.
Query: how does the law have the moral authority to hold people responsible for their behavior, if the law is engaged in a project whose operative presumption is that responsibility and irresponsibility can be made irrelevant, and are a matter of indifference? How do criminals, how does anyone learn that they are responsible for actions, if the law is engaged in a mighty project to render it irrelevant whether one does or does not want to act responsibly?
And if we think that laws designed to prevent crime can indeed make the world a safer place, we should ask ourselves this: How, exactly, is the world made a safer place by making self-control and responsibility irrelevant?
— Jeff Snyder, Nation of Cowards (2001), p.76-77
Matters must be so arranged that, though criminals will want to use guns, they just won’t be able to get them. People will want to use drugs; they just won’t be able to buy them. Crazy people will want to blow up buildings; they just won’t be able to. Thus will the world be made a safer place.
And now we come to the critical point, the self-destructive contradiction inherent in laws that criminalize innocent character to prevent crime before it occurs: their goal is to make responsibility irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if criminals want to commit murder with guns; we will arrange things so that they simply cannot. Pass Brady and a few other well-crafted laws, vigorously enforce them, and it won’t matter whether people act responsibly or not. Their irresponsible intentions will be rendered impotent and irrelevant.
Query: how does the law have the moral authority to hold people responsible for their behavior, if the law is engaged in a project whose operative presumption is that responsibility and irresponsibility can be made irrelevant, and are a matter of indifference? How do criminals, how does anyone learn that they are responsible for actions, if the law is engaged in a mighty project to render it irrelevant whether one does or does not want to act responsibly?
And if we think that laws designed to prevent crime can indeed make the world a safer place, we should ask ourselves this: How, exactly, is the world made a safer place by making self-control and responsibility irrelevant?
— Jeff Snyder, Nation of Cowards (2001), p.76-77
Wednesday
This is Hamas - and they're getting $900 million US dollars
We're about to give these assholes $900,000,000 of YOUR TAX DOLLARS!
HAS OUR GOVERNMENT LOST ITS FOOKIN MIND!!!!!
HAS OUR GOVERNMENT LOST ITS FOOKIN MIND!!!!!
Tuesday
Speaking of Boston T Party
One of my favorite books:
ABOUT HOLOGRAM OF LIBERTY
Civic Belief #1: The Congress was given few specific powers. All else was left to the States and to the people under the 10th Amendment. Ample checks and balances protect the Republic from federal tyranny.
Civic Belief #2: The Federal Government has become so powerful only because despotic officials have overstepped their strict, constitutional bounds.
If #1 is true, then how did #2 happen?
"The Constitution has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it". Lysander Spooner, No Treason (1870)
Think about that. By either the Constitution's purposeful design or by its unintentional weakness, we suffer under a federal colossus which takes a third of our lives and regulates everything from alfalfa to xylophones. This is Freedom? So, why aren't Americans free? Perhaps we weren't really meant to be!
Find out more here...
ABOUT HOLOGRAM OF LIBERTY
Civic Belief #1: The Congress was given few specific powers. All else was left to the States and to the people under the 10th Amendment. Ample checks and balances protect the Republic from federal tyranny.
Civic Belief #2: The Federal Government has become so powerful only because despotic officials have overstepped their strict, constitutional bounds.
If #1 is true, then how did #2 happen?
"The Constitution has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it". Lysander Spooner, No Treason (1870)
Think about that. By either the Constitution's purposeful design or by its unintentional weakness, we suffer under a federal colossus which takes a third of our lives and regulates everything from alfalfa to xylophones. This is Freedom? So, why aren't Americans free? Perhaps we weren't really meant to be!
Find out more here...
A tale of a traffic stop
There’s three carloads of us heading north on I95 Saturday morning. We’re heading to a two day shooting event in a small town in the next state. So naturally all three vehicles are crammed with guns, ammo, and camping gear.
My two sons, Josh (19) and Joe (25) are bringing up the rear, and they’ve fallen behind the rest of us by a good four miles. Shortly after the first two vehicles got off the interstate I called Josh to see if they’d reached the exit yet. That’s when he told me they were being pulled over by a cop.
“Aw sh*t!” was my natural response. He said “Let me deal with this and I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes.”
At this point I pulled over in a small country churchyard so as to not widen the distance between me and the boys. After a couple of minutes I called back and Josh said “We’re not getting a ticket, but when I catch up to you I’ll fill you in on what happened.”
Five minutes later we’re all standing beside the road hearing this tale. I’ll let Joe take it from here:
“So we’re rolling along on I-95 at a good clip and along comes this county cop from behind us just a haulin ass. He was doin’ at least 80…and not using his flashing lights! I told Josh to speed up and let’s get his vehicle or tag number and report his ass to the county Sheriff”
Let me just interject here that NO ONE detests cops more than my son Joe. He’s had some “personal interactions” with our local authorities, and he’s never gotten over his hatred of anyone with a badge!
“We speeded up to catch the cop, which meant we had to do at least 80 or 90. About the time we caught up with him, he ran into some slower traffic and was forced to slow down. Well we kinda ran up on his tail in the process. In the meantime I was on the phone with the McIntosh County Sheriff’s office demanding to speak to the County Sheriff himself about reporting some officer misconduct.”
“About this time, the cop we were trailing took notice of us being on his tail and so he changed lanes and dropped back behind us. As we came alongside of him, I gave him the most evil look …all the while pointing at my cell phone. He looked sort of confused.”
“Now by sheer coincidence we came upon the exit where we were supposed to be getting off the interstate, and ‘our cop’ got off behind us. About then the Sheriff came on the line and I explained to him that ‘you have an officer out here on I-95 who is speeding, not using his lights, and risking everyone’s life out here in the process! I asked the Sheriff if he condoned this sort of behavior by his officers.”
“At this precise moment, the cop behind us turned on his lights signaling us to pull over. I told the Sheriff that we were being pulled over and he instructed me to stay on the line.”
When ‘our cop’ walked up to the car, I leaned over across Josh as he rolled down the driver’s side window, and before the cop could even say a word I thrust the phone toward him and growled ‘It’s for you!’. Well he was confused and stammered “huh…what…” and I said it’s your boss: the McIntosh County Sheriff. I was just telling him that you were out here speeding without your flashing lights on and endangering a lot of people’s lives!”
“Now here, the Sheriff (whom I had on the speaker phone) speaks up and asks the officer if he can hear him. The officer says ‘yes’, and the Sheriff instructs him to continue with the stop…that he (the Sheriff) was going to act as an observer.”
“So now the cop is all nervous and completely thrown off by what’s happened. He asks for our driver’s licenses. I told him that since I’m not operating a motor vehicle, he doesn’t need my license. He didn’t argue with me, he just turns and goes back to his cruiser to run Josh’s license. I asked the Sheriff if he was still there and he replied ‘Yes, just keep the line open.’”
“In a minute ‘our cop’ comes back and says’s something about ticketing us for speeding. I immediately said ‘Oh no…YOU were the one speeding. We just followed you to get your tag or squad car number’. The response was some ‘Wells’ and ‘Ummms’ but again, no real argument. Then he changed his approach and asked if we were in the military. We said ‘What difference does that make to the fact that you were speeding and putting people’s lives at risk?’ Then he asked what we’re doing in the area, and I briefly considered saying ‘none of your damn business’. I think he asked if we were there to see friends and we said ‘something like that’.
“Finally Officer fast-car says ‘Well I’m not going to ticket you. Just drive safely’, to which I responded ‘And you better slow down, or use your flashing lights Officer!’. Once he walked away I asked the Sheriff if he got all that. He said ‘Yeah, thanks for bringing it to my attention. I’ll take care of it. Oh…and boys…y’all drive safely too’.
“Yes sir”
Okay… once I stopped laughing I told Joe and Josh to NEVER try that again. Clearly they got lucky. If that Sheriff had been buddies with the officer, the next words coming out of that speaker phone might have been ‘Bring them on down to the station for a little chat.’
This is what comes of letting these two clowns read Boston T. Party’s book You And The Police.
My two sons, Josh (19) and Joe (25) are bringing up the rear, and they’ve fallen behind the rest of us by a good four miles. Shortly after the first two vehicles got off the interstate I called Josh to see if they’d reached the exit yet. That’s when he told me they were being pulled over by a cop.
“Aw sh*t!” was my natural response. He said “Let me deal with this and I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes.”
At this point I pulled over in a small country churchyard so as to not widen the distance between me and the boys. After a couple of minutes I called back and Josh said “We’re not getting a ticket, but when I catch up to you I’ll fill you in on what happened.”
Five minutes later we’re all standing beside the road hearing this tale. I’ll let Joe take it from here:
“So we’re rolling along on I-95 at a good clip and along comes this county cop from behind us just a haulin ass. He was doin’ at least 80…and not using his flashing lights! I told Josh to speed up and let’s get his vehicle or tag number and report his ass to the county Sheriff”
Let me just interject here that NO ONE detests cops more than my son Joe. He’s had some “personal interactions” with our local authorities, and he’s never gotten over his hatred of anyone with a badge!
“We speeded up to catch the cop, which meant we had to do at least 80 or 90. About the time we caught up with him, he ran into some slower traffic and was forced to slow down. Well we kinda ran up on his tail in the process. In the meantime I was on the phone with the McIntosh County Sheriff’s office demanding to speak to the County Sheriff himself about reporting some officer misconduct.”
“About this time, the cop we were trailing took notice of us being on his tail and so he changed lanes and dropped back behind us. As we came alongside of him, I gave him the most evil look …all the while pointing at my cell phone. He looked sort of confused.”
“Now by sheer coincidence we came upon the exit where we were supposed to be getting off the interstate, and ‘our cop’ got off behind us. About then the Sheriff came on the line and I explained to him that ‘you have an officer out here on I-95 who is speeding, not using his lights, and risking everyone’s life out here in the process! I asked the Sheriff if he condoned this sort of behavior by his officers.”
“At this precise moment, the cop behind us turned on his lights signaling us to pull over. I told the Sheriff that we were being pulled over and he instructed me to stay on the line.”
When ‘our cop’ walked up to the car, I leaned over across Josh as he rolled down the driver’s side window, and before the cop could even say a word I thrust the phone toward him and growled ‘It’s for you!’. Well he was confused and stammered “huh…what…” and I said it’s your boss: the McIntosh County Sheriff. I was just telling him that you were out here speeding without your flashing lights on and endangering a lot of people’s lives!”
“Now here, the Sheriff (whom I had on the speaker phone) speaks up and asks the officer if he can hear him. The officer says ‘yes’, and the Sheriff instructs him to continue with the stop…that he (the Sheriff) was going to act as an observer.”
“So now the cop is all nervous and completely thrown off by what’s happened. He asks for our driver’s licenses. I told him that since I’m not operating a motor vehicle, he doesn’t need my license. He didn’t argue with me, he just turns and goes back to his cruiser to run Josh’s license. I asked the Sheriff if he was still there and he replied ‘Yes, just keep the line open.’”
“In a minute ‘our cop’ comes back and says’s something about ticketing us for speeding. I immediately said ‘Oh no…YOU were the one speeding. We just followed you to get your tag or squad car number’. The response was some ‘Wells’ and ‘Ummms’ but again, no real argument. Then he changed his approach and asked if we were in the military. We said ‘What difference does that make to the fact that you were speeding and putting people’s lives at risk?’ Then he asked what we’re doing in the area, and I briefly considered saying ‘none of your damn business’. I think he asked if we were there to see friends and we said ‘something like that’.
“Finally Officer fast-car says ‘Well I’m not going to ticket you. Just drive safely’, to which I responded ‘And you better slow down, or use your flashing lights Officer!’. Once he walked away I asked the Sheriff if he got all that. He said ‘Yeah, thanks for bringing it to my attention. I’ll take care of it. Oh…and boys…y’all drive safely too’.
“Yes sir”
Okay… once I stopped laughing I told Joe and Josh to NEVER try that again. Clearly they got lucky. If that Sheriff had been buddies with the officer, the next words coming out of that speaker phone might have been ‘Bring them on down to the station for a little chat.’
This is what comes of letting these two clowns read Boston T. Party’s book You And The Police.
Wikipedia reveals its degree of Obama bias (what a shock)
Eligibility issue sparks 'edit war'
Wikipedia blocks users from
posting criticism of Obama
Posted: March 09, 2009
8:42 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily
A WND article reporting yesterday that Wikipedia had been scrubbing President Obama's biography of criticism has resulted in an "edit war" on the website in which a large number of users were barred from posting on key issues, including any mention of challenges to Obama's eligibility.
Ultimately, administrators at Wikipedia, the online "free encyclopedia" mega-site written and edited by its users, entirely locked Obama's page so that only top editors could make changes to the entry – and only if a change is supported by a consensus of editors.
A perusal through Obama's Wikipedia entry yesterday found a heavily guarded, mostly glowing biography about the U.S. president. Some of Obama's most controversial past affiliations, including with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers, were not once mentioned, even though the associations received significant media attention and became themes during the presidential elections last year.
Also completely lacking is any mention of the concerns surrounding Obama's eligibility to serve as commander-in-chief.
Following WND's report on Obama's Wikipedia page, the news outlet monitored the page as scores of users attempted to add entries about eligibility concerns, and the president's past associations with Ayers and Wright. All attempts to post on Ayers or Obama's birth certificate were removed within minutes by the site's volunteer administrators.
Read the whole article here...
GR4U - Of course no one should be shocked by this. The Left has a long tradition of re-writting history or news to suit its own view of things. Just remember that "some are more equal than others".
Wikipedia blocks users from
posting criticism of Obama
Posted: March 09, 2009
8:42 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily
A WND article reporting yesterday that Wikipedia had been scrubbing President Obama's biography of criticism has resulted in an "edit war" on the website in which a large number of users were barred from posting on key issues, including any mention of challenges to Obama's eligibility.
Ultimately, administrators at Wikipedia, the online "free encyclopedia" mega-site written and edited by its users, entirely locked Obama's page so that only top editors could make changes to the entry – and only if a change is supported by a consensus of editors.
A perusal through Obama's Wikipedia entry yesterday found a heavily guarded, mostly glowing biography about the U.S. president. Some of Obama's most controversial past affiliations, including with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers, were not once mentioned, even though the associations received significant media attention and became themes during the presidential elections last year.
Also completely lacking is any mention of the concerns surrounding Obama's eligibility to serve as commander-in-chief.
Following WND's report on Obama's Wikipedia page, the news outlet monitored the page as scores of users attempted to add entries about eligibility concerns, and the president's past associations with Ayers and Wright. All attempts to post on Ayers or Obama's birth certificate were removed within minutes by the site's volunteer administrators.
Read the whole article here...
GR4U - Of course no one should be shocked by this. The Left has a long tradition of re-writting history or news to suit its own view of things. Just remember that "some are more equal than others".
Monday
On Tribes
"Americans are the Strongest Tribe"
"During the fierce battle for Fallujah, Bing West asked an Iraqi colonel why the archterrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had fled in women’s clothes. The colonel pointed to a Marine patrol walking by and said, 'Americans are the strongest tribe.'" -- Review of The Strongest Tribe at Small Wars Journal
There is no doubt that we liberty-loving Americans are bonded by something greater than simple nationalism. Yet everyday we see people -- nominal "Americans" -- who, like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers seem to resemble us, but are NOT us. The collectivist virus has taken over their brains and there is no reasoning with them. Their view of this country and its future are 180 degrees about from the Founders.
Yet this tribe of free Americans that we are is not based on genetics, matrilineal or any other. It is not a matter of race, creed, color or religion. (Although I would argue that we would not have a United States of America without the basis of Judeo-Christian ethics and English common law -- the faith of the Founders.)
Anyone can be a member of this tribe, but membership is not free. Anyone can rise, regardless of family background, to a position of leadership in this tribe, but he or she must be competent to lead. "Leadership" in our tribe is not synonymous with elected office. To lead citizens at any level calls for so very many more attributes than merely getting elected -- witness Barack Obama -- and principal among them is responsibility.
Yet the Body Snatchers eschew responsibility -- they run from it like the plague, for to them it is government which is the only repository of responsibility. It is the government which possesses a monopoly on good, an overabundance of munificence, the ultimate knowledge and competence, and yes, must possess the monopoly of force.
These are not Americans as the Founders would have accepted. They are human, to be sure. But THEY ARE NOT FREE MEN. They have elected, chosen, not to be free. Worse, they wish us not to be free.
They are of another tribe.
Read more of the wisdom of Mike Vanderboegh here
"During the fierce battle for Fallujah, Bing West asked an Iraqi colonel why the archterrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had fled in women’s clothes. The colonel pointed to a Marine patrol walking by and said, 'Americans are the strongest tribe.'" -- Review of The Strongest Tribe at Small Wars Journal
There is no doubt that we liberty-loving Americans are bonded by something greater than simple nationalism. Yet everyday we see people -- nominal "Americans" -- who, like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers seem to resemble us, but are NOT us. The collectivist virus has taken over their brains and there is no reasoning with them. Their view of this country and its future are 180 degrees about from the Founders.
Yet this tribe of free Americans that we are is not based on genetics, matrilineal or any other. It is not a matter of race, creed, color or religion. (Although I would argue that we would not have a United States of America without the basis of Judeo-Christian ethics and English common law -- the faith of the Founders.)
Anyone can be a member of this tribe, but membership is not free. Anyone can rise, regardless of family background, to a position of leadership in this tribe, but he or she must be competent to lead. "Leadership" in our tribe is not synonymous with elected office. To lead citizens at any level calls for so very many more attributes than merely getting elected -- witness Barack Obama -- and principal among them is responsibility.
Yet the Body Snatchers eschew responsibility -- they run from it like the plague, for to them it is government which is the only repository of responsibility. It is the government which possesses a monopoly on good, an overabundance of munificence, the ultimate knowledge and competence, and yes, must possess the monopoly of force.
These are not Americans as the Founders would have accepted. They are human, to be sure. But THEY ARE NOT FREE MEN. They have elected, chosen, not to be free. Worse, they wish us not to be free.
They are of another tribe.
Read more of the wisdom of Mike Vanderboegh here
Thursday
Get your kids OUT of government schools
There is NO WAY I would allow my kids to attend a public school today!
Just MENTION the 2nd Amendment and have the cops called
Prof calls cops when student mentions guns in speech
'If you can’t talk about the 2nd Amendment, what happened to the 1st Amendment?'
Posted: March 04, 200911:40 pm Eastern
WorldNetDaily
A professor at a Connecticut school has sparked controversy by calling police when a student talked about the Second Amendment during a class speech.
The report comes from the Recorder, a newspaper at Central Connecticut State University, which cited the case of student John Wahlberg.
The student was fulfilling an assignment for his Communications 140 class that required him to discuss a "relevant issue in the media" when he and two other students on a team chose to talk about school violence, including recent events such as the 2007 shootings that left nearly three dozen people dead at Virginia Tech University.
Wahlberg made the point during his Oct. 3, 2008, class presentation that if students were allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus, the violence could have been stopped earlier. He discussed the concept of college campus gun-free zones.
That evening, the Recorder said, Wahlberg got a call from campus police officers who "requested" his presence at their station. When he arrived, officers listed firearms that were registered to him and asked him where they were.
Read the whole article here...
'If you can’t talk about the 2nd Amendment, what happened to the 1st Amendment?'
Posted: March 04, 200911:40 pm Eastern
WorldNetDaily
A professor at a Connecticut school has sparked controversy by calling police when a student talked about the Second Amendment during a class speech.
The report comes from the Recorder, a newspaper at Central Connecticut State University, which cited the case of student John Wahlberg.
The student was fulfilling an assignment for his Communications 140 class that required him to discuss a "relevant issue in the media" when he and two other students on a team chose to talk about school violence, including recent events such as the 2007 shootings that left nearly three dozen people dead at Virginia Tech University.
Wahlberg made the point during his Oct. 3, 2008, class presentation that if students were allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus, the violence could have been stopped earlier. He discussed the concept of college campus gun-free zones.
That evening, the Recorder said, Wahlberg got a call from campus police officers who "requested" his presence at their station. When he arrived, officers listed firearms that were registered to him and asked him where they were.
Read the whole article here...
Wednesday
OBAMA'S TWO-WEEK RECAP
1. The American people elect a black president with a total of 42 days experience as a U S Senator from the most politically corrupt state in America whose governor is ousted from office. The President's first official act is to close Gitmo and make sure Terrorists civil rights are not violated.
2. The U.S. Congress rushes to confirm a black Attorney General, Eric Holder, whose law firm we later find out represents seventeen Gitmo Terrorists.
3. The CIA Boss, Leon Penetta with absolutely no experience, has a daughter Linda we find out, that is a true radical anti-American activist who is a supporter of all the Anti-American regimes in the western hemisphere.
4. We got the most corrupt female in America as Secretary of State; bought and paid for.
5. We got a Tax Cheat for Treasury Secretary who files his own taxes.
6. A Commerce Secretary nominee who withdrew due to corruption charges.
7. A Tax cheat nominee for Chief Performance Officer who withdrew under charges.
8. A Labor Sec'y nominee who withdrew under charges of unethical conduct.
9. A Sec'y HHS nominee who withdrew under charges of cheating on his taxes.
And that's just the first two weeks . . . but who's counting.
America is being run by the modern-day Three Stooges ~ Barrack, Nancy, and Harry ~ and they are still trying to define stimulus.
Stimulus is where the government gives a smidgen of your tax dollars back to you making you feel so good about yourself [stimulated] that you want to run out to Wal-Mart and buy a new Chinese-made HDTV and go home and watch Telemundo!
One Big Ass Mistake America
2. The U.S. Congress rushes to confirm a black Attorney General, Eric Holder, whose law firm we later find out represents seventeen Gitmo Terrorists.
3. The CIA Boss, Leon Penetta with absolutely no experience, has a daughter Linda we find out, that is a true radical anti-American activist who is a supporter of all the Anti-American regimes in the western hemisphere.
4. We got the most corrupt female in America as Secretary of State; bought and paid for.
5. We got a Tax Cheat for Treasury Secretary who files his own taxes.
6. A Commerce Secretary nominee who withdrew due to corruption charges.
7. A Tax cheat nominee for Chief Performance Officer who withdrew under charges.
8. A Labor Sec'y nominee who withdrew under charges of unethical conduct.
9. A Sec'y HHS nominee who withdrew under charges of cheating on his taxes.
And that's just the first two weeks . . . but who's counting.
America is being run by the modern-day Three Stooges ~ Barrack, Nancy, and Harry ~ and they are still trying to define stimulus.
Stimulus is where the government gives a smidgen of your tax dollars back to you making you feel so good about yourself [stimulated] that you want to run out to Wal-Mart and buy a new Chinese-made HDTV and go home and watch Telemundo!
One Big Ass Mistake America
Tuesday
What it takes to believe in gun control
* That the more helpless you are, the safer you are from criminals.
* That you should give a mugger your wallet, because he doesn't really want to shoot you and he'll let you go, but that you should give him your wallet, because he'll shoot you if you don't.
* That Washington DC's low murder rate of 69 per 100,000 is due to gun control, and Indianapolis' high murder rate of 9 per 100,000 is attributable to the lack of gun control.
* That "NYPD Blue" and "Miami Vice" are documentaries.
* That an intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot with a .44 Magnum will get angry and kill you.
* That firearms in the hands of private citizens are the gravest threat to world peace, and China, Pakistan and Korea can be trusted with nuclear weapons.
* That Charlton Heston as president of the NRA is a shill who should be ignored, but Michael Douglas as a representative of Handgun Control, Inc. is an ambassador for peace who is entitled to an audience at the UN arms control summit.
* That ordinary people, in the presence of guns, turn into slaughtering butchers, and revert to normal when the weapon is removed.
* That the New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about guns, just like Guns and Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.
* That one should consult an automotive engineer for safer seat belts, a civil engineer for a better bridge, a surgeon for spinal paralysis, a computer programmer for Y2K problems, and Sarah Brady for firearms expertise.
* That the "right of the people peaceably to assemble," the "right of the people to be secure in their homes," "enumerations herein of certain rights shall not be construed to disparage others retained by the people," "The powers not delegated herein are reserved to the states respectively, and to the people," refer to individuals, but "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" refers to the states.
* That the 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1787, allows the states to have a National Guard, created by act of Congress in 1917.
* That the National Guard, paid by the federal government, occupying property leased to the federal government, using weapons owned by the federal government, punishing trespassers under federal law, is a state agency.
* That private citizens can't have handguns, because they serve no militia purpose, even though the military has hundreds of thousands of them, and private citizens can't have assault rifles, because they are military weapons.
* That it is reasonable for California to have a minimum 2 year sentence for possessing but not using an assault rifle, and reasonable for California to have a 6 month minimum sentence for raping a female police officer.
* That it is reasonable to jail people for carrying but not using guns, but outrageous to jail people for possessing marijuana.
* That minimum sentences violate civil rights, unless it's for possessing a gun.
* That door-to-door searches for drugs are a gross violation of civil rights and a sign of fascism, but door-to-door searches for guns are a reasonable solution to the "gun problem."
* That the first amendment absolutely allows child pornography and threats to kill cops, but doesn't apply to manuals on gun repair.
* That a woman in a microskirt, perfume, and a Wonderbra, without underwear, is a helpless victim, but someone getting paid $6 an hour to deliver the cash from a fast food place to the bank at the same time every night is, "asking for it." And you won't allow either of them to carry a gun.
* That Illinois' law that allows any government official from Governor to dogcatcher to carry a gun is reasonable, and the law that prohibits any private citizen, even one with 50 death threats on file and a million dollar jewelry business, is reasonable. And it isn't a sign of police statism.
* That free speech entitles one to own newspapers, transmitters, computers, and typewriters, but self defense only justifies bare hands.
* That with the above, a 90 lb woman attacked by a 300 lb rapist and his 300 lb buddy, has the "right" to kill them in self defense, provided she uses her bare hands.
* That gun safety courses in school only encourage kids to commit violence, but sex education in school doesn't encourage kids to have sex.
* That the ready availability of guns today, with only a few government forms, waiting periods, checks, infringements, ID, and fingerprinting, is responsible for all the school shootings, compared to the lack of school shootings in the 1950's and 1960's, which was caused by the awkward availability of guns at any hardware store, gas station, and by mail order.
* That we must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting spree at any time, and anyone who owns a gun out of fear of such a lunatic is paranoid.
* That there is too much explicit violence featuring guns on TV, and that cities can sue gun manufacturers because people aren't aware of the dangers involved with guns.
* That the gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign about kids handling guns is propaganda, and the anti-gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign is responsible social activity.
* That the crime rate in America is decreasing because of gun control, and the increase in crime requires more gun control.
* That 100 years after its founding, the NRA got into the politics of guns from purely selfish motives, and 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the black civil rights movement was founded from purely noble motives.
* That statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control, and statistics that show increasing murder rates after gun control are "just statistics."
* That we don't need guns against an oppressive government, because the Constitution has internal safeguards, and we should ban and seize all guns, therefore violating the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendments of that Constitution, thereby becoming an oppressive government.
* That guns are an ineffective means of self defense for rational adults, but in the hands of an ignorant criminal become a threat to the fabric of society.
* That guns are so complex to use that special training is necessary to use them properly, and so simple to use that they make murder easy.
* That guns cause crime, which is why there are so many mass slayings at gun shows.
* That guns aren't necessary to national defense, which is why the army only has 3 million of them.
* That banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, and Chicago cops need guns.
* That the Constitution protects us, so we don't need guns, and can confiscate them, thereby violating the 5th amendment of that constitution.
* That women are just as intelligent and capable as men, yet a woman with a gun is "an accident waiting to happen."
* That women are just as intelligent and capable as men, and gunmakers' advertisements aimed at women are "preying on their fears."
* That a handgun, with up to 4 controls, is far too complex for the typical adult to learn to use, as opposed to an automobile that only has 20.
* That a majority of the population supports gun control, just like a majority of the population used to support owning slaves.
* That one should ignore as idiots politicians who confuse Wicca with Satanism and exaggerate the gay community as a threat to society, but listen sagely to politicians who can refer to a self-loading small arm as a "weapon of mass destruction" and an "assault weapon."
* That Massachusetts is safer with bans on guns, which is why Teddy Kennedy has machinegun toting guards.
* That most people can't be trusted, so we should have laws against guns, which most people will abide by, because they can be trusted.
* That a woman raped and strangled with her panties is morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet.
* That guns should be banned because of the danger involved, and live reporting from the battlefield, which can keep the enemy informed of troop deployments, getting thousands of troops killed and perhaps losing a war, is a protected act that CANNOT be compromised on.
* That the right of online child pornographers to exist cannot be questioned because it is a constitutionally protected extension of the Bill of Rights, and the claim that handguns are for self defense is merely an excuse, and not really protected by the Bill of Rights.
* That the ACLU is good because it uncompromisingly defends certain parts of the Constitution, and the NRA is bad, because it defends other parts of the Constitution.
* That a house with a gun is three times as likely to have a murder, just like a house with insulin is three times as likely to have a diabetic.
* That police operate in groups with backup, which is why they need larger capacity magazines than civilians, who must face criminals alone, and therefore need less ammunition.
* That we should ban "Saturday Night Specials" and other inexpensive guns because it's not fair that poor people have access to guns too.
* That guns have no legitimate use, but alcohol does, which is why we issue cops beer instead of guns.
* That police and soldiers are the dregs of society who were unfit to get any real job, which perfectly qualifies them with the high moral standards and keen intellects to handle these complicated tools and be our guardians.
* That you should give a mugger your wallet, because he doesn't really want to shoot you and he'll let you go, but that you should give him your wallet, because he'll shoot you if you don't.
* That Washington DC's low murder rate of 69 per 100,000 is due to gun control, and Indianapolis' high murder rate of 9 per 100,000 is attributable to the lack of gun control.
* That "NYPD Blue" and "Miami Vice" are documentaries.
* That an intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot with a .44 Magnum will get angry and kill you.
* That firearms in the hands of private citizens are the gravest threat to world peace, and China, Pakistan and Korea can be trusted with nuclear weapons.
* That Charlton Heston as president of the NRA is a shill who should be ignored, but Michael Douglas as a representative of Handgun Control, Inc. is an ambassador for peace who is entitled to an audience at the UN arms control summit.
* That ordinary people, in the presence of guns, turn into slaughtering butchers, and revert to normal when the weapon is removed.
* That the New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about guns, just like Guns and Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.
* That one should consult an automotive engineer for safer seat belts, a civil engineer for a better bridge, a surgeon for spinal paralysis, a computer programmer for Y2K problems, and Sarah Brady for firearms expertise.
* That the "right of the people peaceably to assemble," the "right of the people to be secure in their homes," "enumerations herein of certain rights shall not be construed to disparage others retained by the people," "The powers not delegated herein are reserved to the states respectively, and to the people," refer to individuals, but "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" refers to the states.
* That the 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1787, allows the states to have a National Guard, created by act of Congress in 1917.
* That the National Guard, paid by the federal government, occupying property leased to the federal government, using weapons owned by the federal government, punishing trespassers under federal law, is a state agency.
* That private citizens can't have handguns, because they serve no militia purpose, even though the military has hundreds of thousands of them, and private citizens can't have assault rifles, because they are military weapons.
* That it is reasonable for California to have a minimum 2 year sentence for possessing but not using an assault rifle, and reasonable for California to have a 6 month minimum sentence for raping a female police officer.
* That it is reasonable to jail people for carrying but not using guns, but outrageous to jail people for possessing marijuana.
* That minimum sentences violate civil rights, unless it's for possessing a gun.
* That door-to-door searches for drugs are a gross violation of civil rights and a sign of fascism, but door-to-door searches for guns are a reasonable solution to the "gun problem."
* That the first amendment absolutely allows child pornography and threats to kill cops, but doesn't apply to manuals on gun repair.
* That a woman in a microskirt, perfume, and a Wonderbra, without underwear, is a helpless victim, but someone getting paid $6 an hour to deliver the cash from a fast food place to the bank at the same time every night is, "asking for it." And you won't allow either of them to carry a gun.
* That Illinois' law that allows any government official from Governor to dogcatcher to carry a gun is reasonable, and the law that prohibits any private citizen, even one with 50 death threats on file and a million dollar jewelry business, is reasonable. And it isn't a sign of police statism.
* That free speech entitles one to own newspapers, transmitters, computers, and typewriters, but self defense only justifies bare hands.
* That with the above, a 90 lb woman attacked by a 300 lb rapist and his 300 lb buddy, has the "right" to kill them in self defense, provided she uses her bare hands.
* That gun safety courses in school only encourage kids to commit violence, but sex education in school doesn't encourage kids to have sex.
* That the ready availability of guns today, with only a few government forms, waiting periods, checks, infringements, ID, and fingerprinting, is responsible for all the school shootings, compared to the lack of school shootings in the 1950's and 1960's, which was caused by the awkward availability of guns at any hardware store, gas station, and by mail order.
* That we must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting spree at any time, and anyone who owns a gun out of fear of such a lunatic is paranoid.
* That there is too much explicit violence featuring guns on TV, and that cities can sue gun manufacturers because people aren't aware of the dangers involved with guns.
* That the gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign about kids handling guns is propaganda, and the anti-gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign is responsible social activity.
* That the crime rate in America is decreasing because of gun control, and the increase in crime requires more gun control.
* That 100 years after its founding, the NRA got into the politics of guns from purely selfish motives, and 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the black civil rights movement was founded from purely noble motives.
* That statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control, and statistics that show increasing murder rates after gun control are "just statistics."
* That we don't need guns against an oppressive government, because the Constitution has internal safeguards, and we should ban and seize all guns, therefore violating the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendments of that Constitution, thereby becoming an oppressive government.
* That guns are an ineffective means of self defense for rational adults, but in the hands of an ignorant criminal become a threat to the fabric of society.
* That guns are so complex to use that special training is necessary to use them properly, and so simple to use that they make murder easy.
* That guns cause crime, which is why there are so many mass slayings at gun shows.
* That guns aren't necessary to national defense, which is why the army only has 3 million of them.
* That banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, and Chicago cops need guns.
* That the Constitution protects us, so we don't need guns, and can confiscate them, thereby violating the 5th amendment of that constitution.
* That women are just as intelligent and capable as men, yet a woman with a gun is "an accident waiting to happen."
* That women are just as intelligent and capable as men, and gunmakers' advertisements aimed at women are "preying on their fears."
* That a handgun, with up to 4 controls, is far too complex for the typical adult to learn to use, as opposed to an automobile that only has 20.
* That a majority of the population supports gun control, just like a majority of the population used to support owning slaves.
* That one should ignore as idiots politicians who confuse Wicca with Satanism and exaggerate the gay community as a threat to society, but listen sagely to politicians who can refer to a self-loading small arm as a "weapon of mass destruction" and an "assault weapon."
* That Massachusetts is safer with bans on guns, which is why Teddy Kennedy has machinegun toting guards.
* That most people can't be trusted, so we should have laws against guns, which most people will abide by, because they can be trusted.
* That a woman raped and strangled with her panties is morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet.
* That guns should be banned because of the danger involved, and live reporting from the battlefield, which can keep the enemy informed of troop deployments, getting thousands of troops killed and perhaps losing a war, is a protected act that CANNOT be compromised on.
* That the right of online child pornographers to exist cannot be questioned because it is a constitutionally protected extension of the Bill of Rights, and the claim that handguns are for self defense is merely an excuse, and not really protected by the Bill of Rights.
* That the ACLU is good because it uncompromisingly defends certain parts of the Constitution, and the NRA is bad, because it defends other parts of the Constitution.
* That a house with a gun is three times as likely to have a murder, just like a house with insulin is three times as likely to have a diabetic.
* That police operate in groups with backup, which is why they need larger capacity magazines than civilians, who must face criminals alone, and therefore need less ammunition.
* That we should ban "Saturday Night Specials" and other inexpensive guns because it's not fair that poor people have access to guns too.
* That guns have no legitimate use, but alcohol does, which is why we issue cops beer instead of guns.
* That police and soldiers are the dregs of society who were unfit to get any real job, which perfectly qualifies them with the high moral standards and keen intellects to handle these complicated tools and be our guardians.
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