September 24, 2014

Daesh?

According to Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France:

"This is a terrorist group and not a state," ... "I do not recommend using the term Islamic State because it blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims and Islamists. The Arabs call it 'Daesh' and I will be calling them the 'Daesh cutthroats.' "

Any opinions?

August 31, 2014

Another novel idea

If you want something in the worst way..........that's usually how you'll get it.



- Now is the time to demand that the folks in the Statehouses and Congress educate themselves about the driving causes of violence.

- Now is the time to demand that politicians enlighten themselves ENOUGH so they can speak without being laughed at due to their ignorance. Information is power; ignorance breeds bondage and waste. Screw that some embarrass themselves, what about the embarrassment they cause their constituents?

- Many people feel that private arms are to blame for much of the violence. The US Bill of Rights and specifically the 2nd, 9th and 10 Articles stand in the way of limiting rights to private arms.

- Now is the time to hold those elected accountable for understanding the new laws proposed and passed and those related laws which currently exist. Now is the time to lose the excuses about trusting advisers, making compromises and "just doing something".

- More than any other purpose or duty a government may have, the primary duty is to protect the individual.



In honor of Mr. Bloomberg:
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."

Demand a plan? Sure, accept a plan unexamined for consequence, source and detail at the public peril.

For the last 225 years the US has been a leader among nations thanks to the wisdom in its founding documents. Those ideals, checks and balances, principles and rights have been in many ways adapted or copied by more than 90% of other nations. Discard, disparage or ignore any of that at possible cost to everyone.

When considering the existence of God centuries ago Blaise Pascal hypothetically asked, "Do you want to bet?" He then answered the question by saying that it is a necessary bet. The same is true of the RKBA; do you want to bet?

August 27, 2014

It makes me sad when I see our elected officials...

...making fools of themselves saying things like magazines get "used up" and "shoulder thing..." not to mention folks like a certain Congressman who tied up a hearing trying to be sure that an influx of extra military personnel wouldn't cause Guam to "capsize".

I don't expect every one of them to take an 8 hour firearm class and spend a couple hours at a range.

Information is power.

August 20, 2013

The surveillance quagmire

The PRISM program is the latest of many surveillance programs to come to light as problematic. As technology advances (as it has from snail mail to telegraph to radio to telephone...) there will be advances in surveillance and these will be met by probably undue trust by private citizens. Incidents of what have later been determined as unconstitutional breaches of privacy are not hard to find.

The other programs like MAINWAY, Fairview, STELLARWIND and others back to ECHELON have used computers to correlate information gathered by various means. Wullenweber antenna arrays are spread over the globe and information from Snowden has revealed that telecoms provide info directly to the government.

The growing technology that makes easier the task of correlation of metadata such as call records and some details of text/email content with other data possibly including visual surveillance (maybe involving the NRO) begs for oversight with published understandable standards.

Not to go deep into conspiracy land here but there is a history of government surveillance programs by agencies with black budgets that weren't even acknowledged as existing.

Are new laws clarifying the 4th Amendment needed?

If so, what restrictions are reasonable?

August 18, 2013

Words in the defense of...

...maintaining a militia is the common thread to all of these quotes:

...or do I have that wrong? Is there something else here I've missed?

Who said this: "Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty."???

November 18, 2012

From the inception of this country...

...the basic rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness have little meaning if those pursuits may be lost or destroyed by the selfish, capricious and arbitrary decisions of criminals. Some folks after a lifetime of work may, due to bad luck or low wages, may have not so much worth of possessions but who am I to decide that while it might be okay to shoot someone over a truck and $15,000 in tools that it isn't acceptable to shoot someone over grandma's pearls.

October 27, 2012

Raufoss, Lapua, BMG...

This is a repost of a reply I made a while back to a knowledgeable poster who wrote critically about the MSM characterization "High powered assault rifle." For those who've read this before and/or who have this information, my apologies.

These are terms whose significance is lost on most of the public. It has been my experience that any general details of ballistics are held as some mix of boring and complex. Specific details of works authored by experts such as Dr. Roberts for example: < http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2008Intl/Roberts.pdf > among others, are viewed the same way with somewhat gruesome overtones. The idea that scientific means exist to design and evaluate the incapacitating effects of a weapon system is disgusting and contrary to the beliefs of many in the anti-gun camp.

IMHO:
- "High powered assault rifle" has origins similar to "double secret probation". A high powered rifle is a "bad" thing. An assault rifle is a "bad" thing. Form a conjunction of those terms and the object described has to be a "worse" thing.
- Often, the worst inaccuracies are perpetrated when those credentialed, charismatic and popular writers and speakers publicize their emotion based opinions.

It is an odd mixture of my own feelings to view these anti-gun pundits with anger, sympathy and pity; anger for trying to teach others based on their emotional prejudices, sympathy for their ideological goals and pity for the knowledge of their rather certain self-frustration of their cause.

September 19, 2012

comprehending a belief system

Religion and politics are two topics that don't mix well in discussion but they do share some common ground. In religion, when a believer dissents from an accepted belief or doctrine, he is called a heretic. The thing about heresy is that whether political or religious, is that it originates from a fundamental defect/misunderstanding of the nature and source of the belief system.

Horwitz, who wrote this article has either deliberately ignored or consciously denied two serious contradictions. The one, mentioned elsewhere in this thread, that 2A is also part of the Constitution can be explained by the common collectivist view. However, the fact is that this country predates the Constitution and was founded by the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution founded the current federal government not the country.

The Declaration gives the reason for our country's existence:

(emphasis is mine)

In their wisdom the Founders recognized the need for the Constitution to change. They provided for that in Article Five. During the Constitutional Convention representatives for many states brought up the need for a Bill of Rights and required that a Bill of Rights be added to Constitution. This was the first use of the Article Five provisions and probably most important change to the Constitution. The Bill of Rights does a number of things but the one relevant to this topic is in the 2A. This amendment provides a second method for changing the government and had the Founders not thought that right so important, it would not have been among those clearly protected.

Adding to this misunderstanding we have this gem from Mr Horwitz:



This sums up my thoughts on Huffington's heretic: The Founders knew that the principle danger to liberty was from the government. No other message comes through so loud and clear. British oppression prompted the founding of the US. What the hell could be so wrong with someone that they couldn't see that?

September 12, 2012

Bravo!

"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - W. Churchill

Self-preservation and self-defense are requites in a productive life. A commitment to non-violence to the point of death is a black hole in society. While the death of an individual or group may make a social statement, it usually doesn't highlight a best solution to anything but deaths of those killed.

Non-aggression is very reasonable goal. Failing in your own self-defense is functionally equivalent to helping plan your own murder.

September 6, 2012

IMHO...

...a fact finder finds facts that help him form an opinion.

A fault finder finds faults that help him defend his prejudices.

just sayin'