Ok, three things. Our state politicos like to talk about this stuff a lot lately but I haven’t seen any of them refuse stimulus money or refuse all that free federal money for roads.

Actually, if this legislation gets passed, it would mean that Ms. Quinn is somehow more of a person than me.

Some folks feel similarly about this recent open carry debate playing out on the gun blogs. Open carrying may scare the white people and all of that. And, you know what, depending on where you live, it may well. Remember the black dude who had his AR-15 strapped on at the protest? Lot of people weren’t fans. And I doubt he gained many converts, though he (probably like the truck driver above) did get quite a few attaboys from similarly minded folks. And that is the issue I have with the in your face open carry sorts. OC seems like it’s preaching to the converted. And not much more. Non-converts either won’t notice, won’t care, may become a bit curious, or may think you’re a loon. Rightly or wrongly. I don’t think it’s effective marketing. Simply, I don’t think the plan of acclimating folks to handgun carry by exposure will be effective. That’s based on my own experience with open carry. My experience seems to indicate that most folks won’t even notice. Or, if they did, they didn’t say anything. Conversely, no one flipped out either.

That doesn’t mean I think it should be banned. Or that I think you’re stupid to do it. Or that you should stay in the closet.

Also, open carry, as Jay reminds us, has lead to a few unpleasant encounters with the police. Which is why some folks think it should be a sort of last resort.

It also doesn’t mean that I think having such reservations is pulling a Zumbo.

The open carry folks are some of the most passionate and hardworking second amendment activists out there. And hats off to them. They’ve had some major successes in cases where I thought they would not have had such success. So, I may be wrong about all this.

But if you do it, get a good retention holster.

Tam on why she doesn’t OC:

I don’t generally O.C., mostly to avoid excessive face time with the Po-Po and conversations with the occasional goober that can’t resist a “Hey, you got a gun there! You ’spectin’ trouble?” or “Did you know that your gun’s cocked?”

Don’t feed bears. And don’t feed some bears while shooing away others.

454 Casul seems to work against big ass bears. Wow.

You are killing the word “racist”. Just like you killed “fascist.”

It was during the suspension that a district investigator searching Stelmack’s office found a briefcase with the five images depicting the faces of two girls affixed to copies of a nude 19-year-old woman’s body.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s creepy and I wouldn’t want the guy as principal of a school but that’s illegal?

This isn’t about their freedom to contract. This isn’t about their freedom to marry. These were already freely available, no one was getting jailed for performing a ceremony, and no one was having their legal contracts overridden. This is purely about the taxpayer subsidy for married couples being extended to same-sex couples

Not really. For example, there is no contract that recognizes that a gay spouse can make medical decisions for his/her incapacitated gay spouse such as exists under normal marriage. No matter what contracts you sign, that decision will be left to who is legally the closest family member. It’s about a bit more than a tax subsidy.

The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

Assuming they mean it for real and not in that same way they ended the other war on a noun by just doing the same thing and calling it something else, this is good. I suppose I’ll worry if the start calling it a Domestic Contingency Operation. We’ll see.

The difference in this debate is that I have been arguing on the basis of what I believe to be true, and doing my best to explain why I believe it. Kevin, by way of contrast, claims to be able to literally ‘prove’ his case beyond any doubt whatsoever by recourse to detailed statistical data.

Well, yeah. And he did.

Seems one thing that libertarians, conservatives and liberals who are not in office can agree on is gerrymandering is bad. I think gerrymandering should be punishable death. Discuss.

If the Constitutional right to life implies a right to free health care then the right to the pursuit of happiness implies free hookers, booze, and cable TV.

Well, load the cost up on to the Debt Star.

* No, it’s not.

[I originally had the full post mirrored to this site, but rather than monopolize Uncle's front page, I figured I'd just redirect you to Lean Left.]

UPDATE: Another review here.

But there are a few things that give me pause. For starters, person B (the shooter) had been drinking in a bar before the incident. Compounding that, according to people on the scene (some of whom I know), person B was told that person A was “messing with his car” (I’m paraphrasing), and person B went out there specifically to confront person A. So while person A was indeed trying to fight person B, it’s unclear who started the fight, and it’s also unclear as to whether person B was justified in being afraid for his life. From what I’ve been able to piece together (admittedly from very limited information), without the shooter’s gun, the chances of anyone ending up dead or even seriously injured as a result of the altercation were pretty close to zero. And in any case, if I’m afraid for my life, I don’t go initiate a confrontation.

The crowd at the bar, many of whom know and like person B, seemed to have mixed opinions about whether or not the shooting was justified. The whole thing is a mess, and it makes me just sick. I’m glad I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve even considered pulling a weapon on someone, and I hope I never am.

UPDATE: There are a lot more details here, and they demonstrate the dangerous nature of rumor and innuendo in such matters. It apppears that my person A above was the one who had been drinking in the bar. And the details about someone charging someone else don’t get any mention. Second-degree murder charges have now been filed against the shooter (H/T: commenter chris).

Rushing:

Belied by the Jets’ 9-7 season versus the Packers’ 6-10 season, Rodgers had a better year than Favre in every Statistical category except fumbles lost (3 against Favre’s 2, though Favre fumbled more times) and completion percentage. All told, Rodgers was responsible for nine more touchdowns than Favre — six more passing touchdowns, and three more rushing touchdowns — while throwing nine fewer interceptions. In fantasy football terms, you did 90 points better if you had Rodgers on your team than if you had Favre.

Now the stigma attached to Rodgers is that there were several games where the offense had the ball late in the game with a chance to tie or win, and they didn’t get it done. And there’s some validity to that. But in most of those cases, they never would have been in that situation if not for terrible defense and special teams. As it is, the Packers were fifth in the league in scoring, at 26.2 points per game (Jets: 9th, 25.3), despite being 17th in the league in rushing, at 112.8 yards per game (Jets: 9th, 125.3), and despite having the most penalized team in the league in terms of yards, 984 yards on 110 penalties, an astounding 61.5 yards per game in penalties (Jets: third best in the league, just 569 yards on 77 penalties, 35.6 YPG). The Packers were also 5th in the league on third down, converting 44.2% of the time (Jets: 14th, 41.1%).

Meanwhile, the Packers’ defense was 26th in the league against the run, allowing an average of 131.6 rush yards per game (Jets: 7th, 94.9), and 23rd in the league in points allowed, at 23.8 (Jets: 18th, 22.3). If the defense hadn’t scored an NFL-best 7 defensive touchdowns (Jets, T-3rd, 5), a lot of those games would have been a lot worse.

Special teams, however, is where it gets really ugly: the Packers tied the Ravens for worst in the league in return yardage, 20.1 yards per return (Jets: T-14th, 23.1); they were 27th in punting average, at 41.4 yards (Jets: 23rd, 42.9); and 28th in punts downed inside the 20, at 15 (Jets, 27th, 16).

Looking at the numbers and the particulars of the two teams, it’s clear that the Packers have many problems, but the QB position isn’t one of them. The Jets finished with a better record than the Packers, but they were statistically better in almost every category except QB play, where the Packers were clearly superior.

So enough ragging on Rodgers and pining for Favre already. Rodgers played exceptionally well, especially for a first-year starter on — let’s face it — a bad team.

E-Mart makes the case far beyond my poor power to add or detract. Go read.

Also, an unrelated bonus flame:

One larger point here is that, while “rising stars” like Sanford and Jindal may be individually compelling, they must operate within a Republican Party that has enthusiastically embraced ignorance on a whole host of subjects, economics included. The issue is whether they can escape these constraints.

The social conservatives’ positions tend to empower government over individuals. If they got their way, the public would be forced to submit to the government’s decision-making. The more liberal position, by contrast, allocates power to individuals – no one is forced to do anything. (Admittedly, this is not really a constitutional argument – just an additional explanation for why the Christian Right tends to scare people).

Take, for instance, the granddaddy issue of them all – abortion. The Christian Right position would require every single person in a given jurisdiction to give birth. (Yes, some would argue that it’s simply about letting the states decide – but still, they prefer this position because many states, and virtually the entire South, would ban abortion). Thus, the decision-making power here would belong to the government. Individuals would no longer be free to decide.

The pro-choice position, by contrast, ensures that individuals – not the government – will ultimately make these private decisions. Individuals remain free to have, or not have, abortions as they and their God see fit. And everyone remains free to persuade their fellow citizens of the values of bringing all pregnancies to term. But in the end, the individual – and not the state – would make the final call.

This pattern repeats itself across a number of issues. For example, gay marriage doesn’t require anyone to do anything. It merely allows consenting gay adults to be married. Gay marriage bans, by contrast, grant that decision-making power to the state.

Similarly, rights to contraception don’t require anyone to do anything – the ultimate decision remains with the individual. Contraception bans, by contrast, allocate the decision-making power to the government.

Same deal with school prayer. Banning school prayer in public classes doesn’t prevent anyone from praying privately at the school. But allowing public prayer, by contrast, would force non-Christians to sit through prayer sessions in a publicly funded school. Again, the decision to participate in prayer would be made by the state, not the individual.

The larger point is that these examples illustrate why many people fear social conservatives – simply put, many of the latter’s preferred positions would use the state to intrude on people’s lives and dictate very private and personal decisions to them.

Now, I think this is largely true. But at the same time, if you expand beyond the so-called “social conservative” issues, there are plenty of places where it’s the liberals who would be doing the forcing. Environmental issues, for example, or gun control.

That said, I think the fact that compliance is somehow enforced is not, in and of itself, necessarily a bad thing. It depends upon your view of the thing being enforced.

Now some will doubtless object that the federal pension insurance will cover the pensioners, but there are two problems with this. First, this insurance will only pay a fraction of what the pensioners are currently receiving, and secondly, it makes those payments on the taxpayer dime, which means that from that perspective, we’re screwing both the pensioners and the taxpayers.

Now maybe this is unavoidable at this point — maybe the pensioners can’t fully be saved. I don’t know. But when we’re talking about real people, real benefits, and real jobs, we should at least be honest about what it is we’re talking about doing.

Blindly partisan crap from either side need not apply. I’m looking for even-handed, well-reasoned arguments about what to do, not demagoguery. Anyone aware of some good essays?

UPDATE: The consensus here, unsurprisingly, has been to let GM fail. Kevin at Lean Left argues in favor of a GM bailout. Check it out.

Yes, you’re going to get some liberal social policies that you don’t approve of. Them’s the breaks. But I expect more of a return to the “horror” of the Clinton years than anything like the Carter years. And I expect Obama will waste no time moving to the center and disappointing his leftier base on some issues. So even that won’t be as bad as you might think.

Where to go from here? Use this as an opportunity to do what my party, the Democrats, wasted too much time not doing — you could argue from about 1994 to 2005 — cleaning up your own house. Get rid of the dead weight. Your side should be every bit as embarrassed by the Ted Stephenses as mine should be by the Robert Byrds. And while you’re at it, start lobbying the other party on the issues you care about — if guns are your thing (as they are for so many here), then angle for more Feingold Democrats.

And maybe — just maybe — we can actually see about finding some common ground. And maybe I’m a Chinese jet pilot.^*

Anyway, it’s not the end of the world, and this too shall pass. You’ll get over it. And if you wait long enough, the Democrats will screw themselves, as parties in power always do, and it will once again be your turn to fuck everything up royally.

Note to Uncle: Thanks to outstanding beer bets, we now officially owe each other a beer. I’ll have to make it a point to get to East Tennessee, so we can each drink two beers, and then keep right on a-drinking. And then, after several beers, in the true spirit of the South, go shootin’!
Gloat err, Note to Tam: Where’s your Palin now? “See ya at the polls,” indeed!

^* Bonus points for getting the reference without the benefit of Google.

* – I should note that it’s very good news that the plot has been thwarted — the bad news is the inevitable spin that will come of it.

Since Uncle’s on the beach enjoying his vacation, I figured I’d give you folks some blog fodder to get you all worked up:

• I voted today. Spoiler alert! I voted Democrat. *gasp!*
• The Guardian (UK): All the screaming you’re hearing about “voter fraud” is a bunch of crap. (FactCheck mostly agrees,as does PolitiFact.com.)
• Speaking of FactCheck.org and things that will get your dander up, they’re going after the NRA again. Sic’ ‘em!
• Larison briefly discusses elitism.
• A dyed-in-the-wool liberal endorses Murtha’s opponent
• Want to kill time with a stupid game? Try Truth Invaders.
• Nate Silver writes about why McCain isn’t doing so well right about now.
• Pattycakes is being screwed by The Man.
• xkcd weighs in on Scrabble. (For those of you not familiar with xkcd, it’s always important to read the hover text…)
• Vinny accuses Sarah Palin of socialism.
• Wondermark: Overthrow your corporate overlords, as long as it’s not too expensive… (xkcd hover text rule also applies here).

Have fun, and have a good weekend.

Of course, there are some who will always insist that this ought to be an issue, when there’s clearly no “there” there, but for anybody else, it’s worth checking out.

UPDATE: Vinny has more…

I can’t find where taxes are lower for anyone under Obama’s plan.

If that’s true, then he’s not looking or not paying attention. See the non-partisan Tax Policy Center’s report (PDF) on the two candidates tax plans. In particular, note Figure 1 on page 41 — for the bottom four quintiles, both candidates cut taxes, but the average increase in after-tax income as compared to current law is much larger under Obama’s plan than it is under McCain’s:

The top quintile is the only group for which the average after-tax income goes down under Obama, and the detailed numbers (e.g., Table 4, Page 33) show that you’d have to be in the top 1% of taxpayers to see a decrease in after-tax income:

Under the Obama plan, families in the middle quintile would see their taxes go down by an average of $1,035 in 2009 as compared to current law (Table 3, Page 32):

Whereas under McCain’s plan, the average tax savings for that same quintile is only $325 (Table 6, Page 36):

For the middlest of the middle class (for lack of a better description), the average tax savings in 2009 under Obama is more than three times what it would be under McCain. Even for the upper-middle class (the fourth quintile), the increase in after tax income would be half again as large under Obama (+2.4%, Table 4, Page 33) as compared to under McCain (+1.6%, Table 9, Page 39):

Bottom line: If you’re not in the top 10%, your taxes will go down, and if you’re not in the top 1%, your taxes won’t go up. Further, if you’re in the bottom four quintiles, your taxes will be lower under Obama’s plan than they are under currently, and lower than they would be under McCain’s plan.

Now, of course, all of these reports assume that the candidates would actually be able to get their tax plans passed as proposed, and if you believe that of either candidate, I’ve got a bridge in Alaska to sell you, especially in light of the current state of the economy. But the point is that according to their stated plans, taxes would be lower for the overwhelming majority of taxpayers under Obama than they are under current law, and lower than they would be under McCain. You can argue about the fairness or lack thereof — and the fiscal responsibility or lack thereof — of the two plans, but it’s either ignorant or disingenuous to state that “taxes [won't be] lower for anyone under Obama’s plan.”

Crossed at Lean Left

[UPDATED for clarity]

To borrow from publius’ summation: essentially, “it’s not risky to lend to minority families, it’s risky to lend to rich white people.”

Taste the snark:

I await the Krauthammer column in which he points out the specific provision of the Community Reinvestment Act that forced Bear Stearns to run with an absurd leverage ratio of 33 to 1, which instructed Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers to blow up hundreds of millions of their clients’ money, and that required its septuagenarian CEO to play bridge while his company ran into trouble. Perhaps Neil Cavuto knows which CRA clause required Lehman Bros. to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars in short-term debt in the capital markets and then buy tens of billions of dollars of commercial real estate at the top of the market. I can’t find it. Did AIG plunge into the credit-default-swaps business with abandon because Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now members picketed its offices? Please. How about the hundreds of billions of dollars of leveraged loans—loans banks committed to private-equity firms that wanted to conduct leveraged buyouts of retailers, restaurant companies, and industrial firms? Many of those are going bad now, too. Is that Bill Clinton’s fault?

Crossed everywhere.

This week, it comes from NYT Columnist Thomas Friedman:

Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can’t just ignore what she has to say. And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw. It was when she turned to Biden and declared: “You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that’s not patriotic.”

What an awful statement. Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.

I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.

Sorry, I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”

I can understand someone saying that the government has no business bailing out the financial system, but I can’t understand someone arguing that we should do that but not pay for it with taxes. I can understand someone saying we have no business in Iraq, but I can’t understand someone who advocates staying in Iraq until “victory” declaring that paying taxes to fund that is not patriotic.

How in the world can conservative commentators write with a straight face that this woman should be vice president of the United States? Do these people understand what serious trouble our country is in right now?

H/T: KTK at Lean Left

Palin’s narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain?s running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood ? a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.

Palin didn?t make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.

It was fun while it lasted.

Palin?s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I?ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I?ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there?s not much content there. Here?s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: ?Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we?re talking about today. And that?s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.?

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama?s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: ?I?m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who?s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who?s actually done it??

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

If Palin were a man, we?d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she?s a woman ? and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket ? we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

What to do?

McCain can?t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP?s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

I thought it was the Left that was supposed to suffer from “PDS.”

http://www.barackobamatest.com

I’ll gladly concede that Paulson knows more about the world’s rapidly collapsing finance system than I do. That doesn’t matter. Paulson’s request violates an inviolable principle, namely, to repeat, that if a public official demands $700 billion by week’s end, no strings attached, with no democratic or judicial review of that official’s unfettered discretion to spend that $700 billion as he chooses, then you say, “No.”

“No” is the only possible answer a free person can give to that request.

If you don’t answer “No,” then you have to answer “Yes, Your Majesty, screw that whole experiment-with-democracy thing, we think you’ll make a fine sovereign and king and please take our money as tribute from your loyal, unquestioning subjects.” I prefer the former answer, and not just because it’s shorter.

…snip…

Fortunately, crowning King Henry and doing nothing at all aren’t our only options. The events of the past week seem to prove that the American financial sector is in a full-blown panic. The Bush administration is now insisting that we fight panic with panic. That won’t work.

It may, in fact, be the case that something huge and unprecedented and Very, Very Expensive will be required to save the republic. But if we can’t manage to do that democratically — with accountability, oversight and the full participation of the people’s representatives — then the thing we are saving will no longer be a republic.

I’m going to close just on a note to Conservative Christian folks. A day is coming, and it is coming soon, when you will have to face that continuing to align yourselves with the Republicans will mean the ruination of evangelical Christianity. You cannot tie religion and politics so closely without religion being corrupted.

Well, thus far, it seems to be the other way around.

The usual (flawed) understanding of “hate crimes” legislation is that it would make the hate itself, rather than any actions based on the hate, the crime. It’s that misunderstanding that leads people to fear that “hate crimes” will lead inexorably to “thought crimes,” to people being prosecuted strictly for their opinions.

The thing is, I don’t know of anyone who’s proposed anything approaching that, i.e., proposed a law to make hate itself illegal. “It’s now illegal to be a bigot.” Besides the Constitutional issues, it’s absurd on its face to seriously entertain the notion of being able to simply outlaw racism or ban sexist or homophobic remarks or whatever – or at least it’s absurd to think any such law would actually achieve any of those ends or even be enforceable. So let’s drop that particular misconception and focus on the real argument, one which, as is explicit in the very phrase “hate crimes,” refers to “crimes motivated by hate.”

The whole thing is worth a read.

Hate crimes are, in a very real sense, a form of terrorism, because the target is much wider than just the people you directly attack/harm. You’re attempting to intimidate or otherwise “send a message” to an entire group. In a certain sense, the people you kill are the collateral damage, while the survivors are the intended victims.

I concur. That said, you’ve established motive. Should be used as evidence to prosecute. Case closed.

Now, do I think a hate crime should carry excessive sentences? No. Because you’re then punishing thought. Look what the Hell is happening in Canada if you want to go down this road.

I don’t think Tom disagrees.

Another issue with hate crimes is they seem to be crimes that can only be committed by white men.

Aunt B. says it can be considered domestic terrorism.

And all you people who are saying the church shooting was Rush Limbaugh/Bill O’Reilly/Karl Rove/Insert Right Wing Bogeyman’s fault are morons. And you people seeking to reinstate the fairness doctrine for this reason are totalitarian morons.

A government capable of keeping me perfectly safe is no government I’d wish to live under.

Over the course of the campaign against Hillary Clinton and now McCain, Obama has elaborated more and more the ideas that would undergird his foreign policy as president. What emerges is a world view that is far from that of a typical liberal, much closer to that of a traditional realist. It is interesting to note that, at least in terms of the historical schools of foreign policy, Obama seems to be the cool conservative and McCain the exuberant idealist.

…snip…

Obama rarely speaks in the moralistic tones of the current Bush administration. He doesn’t divide the world into good and evil even when speaking about terrorism. He sees countries and even extremist groups as complex, motivated by power, greed and fear as much as by pure ideology. His interest in diplomacy seems motivated by the sense that one can probe, learn and possibly divide and influence countries and movements precisely because they are not monoliths. When speaking to me about Islamic extremism, for example, he repeatedly emphasized the diversity within the Islamic world, speaking of Arabs, Persians, Africans, Southeast Asians, Shiites and Sunnis, all of whom have their own interests and agendas.

Obama never uses the soaring language of Bush’s freedom agenda, preferring instead to talk about enhancing people’s economic prospects, civil society and—his key word—”dignity.” He rejects Bush’s obsession with elections and political rights, and argues that people’s aspirations are broader and more basic—including food, shelter, jobs. “Once these aspirations are met,” he told The New York Times’s James Traub, “it opens up space for the kind of democratic regimes we want.” This is a view of democratic development that is slow, organic and incremental, usually held by conservatives.

Obama talks admiringly of men like Dean Acheson, George Kennan and Reinhold Niebuhr, all of whom were imbued with a sense of the limits of idealism and American power to transform the world. “In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative,” wrote Larissa MacFarquhar in her profile of him for The New Yorker. “There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean. He distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections. It’s not just that he thinks revolutions are unlikely: he values continuity and stability for their own sake, sometimes even more than he values change for the good.”

…snip…

Ironically, the Republicans now seem to be the foreign-policy idealists, labeling countries as either good or evil, refusing to deal with nasty regimes, fixating on spreading democracy throughout the world and refusing to think in more historical and complex ways. “I don’t do nuance,” George W. Bush told many visitors to the White House in the years after 9/11. John McCain has had his differences with Bush, but not on this broad thrust of policy. Indeed it is McCain, the Republican, who has put forward some fanciful plans, arguing that America should establish a “League of Democracies,” expel Russia from the Group of Eight industrialized countries and exclude China from both groups as well.

The whole thing is worth the read. Cross-posted at Lean Left and TennesseeFree.

Those people had children and surprise; the children are second generation lemmings. Worst than first generation lemmings this new batch really believes if a story is bad they must believe it.

So how dire is the situation? People really believe a trace gas can cause Global Warming, Al Gore is the smartest man in the World, and Barrack Obama is the most qualified man out the over 300 million people in this entire country to be the next President of the United States.

They call this philosophy of the Chicken Little syndrome Liberalism. Need a few examples of this wayward tuned in turned on incoherent philosophy?

Don’t read this before a meal:

Plasma, LCDs blamed for accelerating global warming

Sharia law SHOULD be used in Britain, says UK’s top judge

Obama: I need to earn troops trust

Who knew that LCD computer screens and televisions were 17,000 times worse than CO2 for creating Global Warming? My God, that sounds serious. Just curious, what are you reading this on, is it a LCD monitor you earth killing bastard? How can you even sleep at night?

I guess if Britain will embrace Sharia Law we should too, right? We do everything else the British do, well because they are British and obviously superior in every way.

Obama, oh never mind. Does it matter? He is black and you really don’t have a choice. If you don’t vote for him you are a racist.

So how does it feel to be a planet killing xenophobe racist?

I have a new idea. Don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper or watch on television. Question it. If you see a long line of lemmings, don’t stand in that line. It ends at the bottom of a cliff.

Then there are the “internal” features of the opinions. I confess that I am equally dismayed by the Scalia and Stevens opinions (though, if absolutely forced to choose, I’d go with the Scalia opinion). One of the most remarkable features of Justice Scalia’s majority opinion (joined, of course, by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito) and Justice Stevens’s dissent (joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter) is the view that the Second Amendment means only what it meant at the time of its proposal and ratification in 1789-91. Justice Scalia, of course, has long been identified with “originalism,” even though some of his critics, both liberal and conservative, note that he has been a most inconsistent one. But Justice Stevens has certainly not embraced originalism. Yet they spend a total of 110 pages debating arcane aspects of the purported original meaning of the Amendment.

If one had any reason to believe that either Scalia or Stevens was a competent historian, then perhaps it would be worth reading the pages they write. But they are not. Both opinions exhibit the worst kind of “law-office history,” in which each side engages in shamelessly (and shamefully) selective readings of the historical record in order to support what one strongly suspects are pre-determined positions. And both Scalia and Stevens treat each other—and, presumably, their colleagues who signed each of the opinions—with basic contempt, unable to accept the proposition, second nature to professional historians, that the historical record is complicated and, indeed, often contradictory. Justice Stevens, for example, writes that anyone who reads the text of the Second Amendment and its history, plus a murky 1939 decision of the Court, will find “a clear answer” to the question of whether the Second Amendment supports a “right to possess and use guns for nonmilitary purposes.” This is simply foolish. Justice Stevens pays no real attention to a plethora of first-rate historical work written over the past decade that challenges this kind of foolish self-confidence, as is true also of Justice Scalia. There is no serious discussion, for example, of Saul Cornell’s fine book A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control, but many other examples could be offered, from various sides of the ideological spectrum.

Both Scalia and Stevens manifest what is worst about Supreme Court rhetoric, which is precisely the tone of sublime confidence when addressing even the most complex of issues. The late Victoria Geng once wrote a marvelous parody of Supreme Court decisions in which, among other things, the Court announced that “nature is more important than nurture.” We wouldn’t take such a declaration seriously. It is not clear why we should take much more seriously the kinds of over-confident declarations as to historical meaning that both Scalia and Stevens indulge in.

What is especially ironic is that the strongest support for Scalia’s position comes from acknowledging that the Second Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, has been “dynamically” interpreted and has taken on some quite different meanings from those it originally had. Whatever might have been the case in 1787 with regard the linkage of guns to service in militias—and the historical record is far more mixed on this point than either Scalia or Stevens is willing to acknowledge—there can be almost no doubt that by the mid-19th century, an individual right to bear arms was widely accepted as a basic attribute of American citizenship. One of the reasons that the Court in Dred Scott denied that blacks could be citizens was precisely that Chief Justice Taney recognized that citizens could carry guns, and it was basically unthinkable that blacks could do so. Thus, in effect, they could not be citizens. Charles Sumner, who, unlike Taney is quoted by Scalia, strongly endorsed the rights of anti-slavery settlers in Kansas to have guns to protect themselves against their pro-slavery opponents. If one reads only Scalia and Stevens, one would believe that there is no dynamism to the Constitution, which is both stupid as a theory of interpretation and, more to the point, completely misleading as a way of understanding the American constitutional tradition.

What Glenn Reynolds is to conservatives Paul Campos is to extremist liberal fanatics. I had a brief post on Der Professor Campos on SayUncle last week.

What do you make of a person who first writes, “The ongoing overreaction to the 9/11 terrorist attacks is only the most vivid example of how our leaders cynically exploit our fears by making wildly exaggerated claims, such as that Islamic terrorism poses an “existential threat” to America.” Then Professor Campus follows that inane derangement with this, “we should be more afraid of having our children stolen from us by Republicans than by kidnappers.”

Only Jack McElroy would find any value with Paul Campos’s disjointed ramblings.

What is that message? And more importantly, why should you care?

Suppose you were elected Temporary Supreme Dictator of America.

What are 10 laws you would pass/repeal or government programs you would create/tear down? (Assume that you are in office for however long it would take to do these things and that any changes you make will remain in place after you leave office.)

Kinda similar, but we played this game before only it was presidentin’ not dictatin’. But, here goes:

1 – Disband the ATF. All agents and employees will be allowed retain their current position and salary once they arrive at the border to guard. May as well do something useful.

2 – End social security, medicare, and medicaid. Yeah, we all like to feel good about helping people out and all but you’re bankrupting our country (in 2005, those three things were over 40% of the budget). Of course, we can’t just end it outright lest some people would be royally fucked. So, effective now, people entering the work force will stop contributing to all three. Begin the phase out thusly:

Everyone who has a supposed fund in social security will be paid their cash balance. At this point, I will point and laugh at Congress who will finally have to admit what I’ve been telling you since I started this blog which is that there ain’t no fucking money in an account for you.

Continue funding medicaid/medicare for those over the age of 30. Everyone else, put on your big boy pants and deal.

Sorry, thems the breaks but you’re killing us.

3 – End the war on drugs and release the prisoners. Ok, just the non-violent prisoners.

4 – Repeal the 17th amendment. Fire all senators, reps. Redraw district maps so they make sense (i.e., your district will probably be shaped like a damn square). Hold elections for senators and reps. Gerrymandering will be a crime punishable by death.

5 – Any law passed by congress and signed into law will automatically expire four years from its passage. All laws currently on the books expire four years from today. You want to keep them, you got work to do.

6 – Flat tax. All accountants/tax lawyers who suddenly lose marketable skills can report for border duty along side former ATF agents.

7 – No more immunity for government employees. Limited immunity for things that are normal course of business for them. For egregious violations of the public trust, these employees can be held personally liable (I’m looking at you, Nifong, who I think should be under the jail).

8 – Stealing from Phelps: jury trial for eminent domain and asset forfeiture proceedings.

9 – Pass a law mandating that judges inform all potential jurors that they have a right to nullify.

10 -Executive order repealing all executive orders.

That ought to be enough flame bait for ya.

Update: Either 11 or an addendum to number 4 – From jon in comments: let congress know that we mean that commerce clause shit. It means regulate commerce not regulate anything that happens to incidentally be a part of commerce.

the many cultural and political forces pushing us to behave like a nation of hysterics.

As a nation, we will collectively shit our pants at the drop of hat. Often, for no real reason. Kinda like how we collectively lose our shit whenever a pretty white girl is abducted.

Related: Never tell me the odds:

Each year in the United States, there are 26-30,000 deaths by firearm. As of 2006, Roughly 55% of them are suicides (the number varies greatly year to year, between 40% and 60%).

Of the remaining 10,000 to 18,000, somewhere between 60% and 80% (depending on the year) are one felon killing another (according to the FBI).

The number of non-felons killed (other than suicides) using a gun in the US is anywhere from 2,000 to 7,000 a year (again, highly variable year to year). About 20% of those are accidents, and 80% are murders. Of those murders approximately 80% were committed by people with felony records.

Read it all.

From the beginning of organized tournament chess, the rules included this provision: when a player succeeds in advancing his pawn to the last rank, he can promote it to “a piece of his choice”. At an international tournament around 1910, a weird thing happened: White chose to promote his pawn to a BLACK Bishop, thus preventing Black from claiming a draw by stalemate. The tournament director was forced to acknowledge that the rules, as written, allowed such queer promotions. The right to promote your pawn to a piece of the opposite color was as unheard-of as, say, gay marriage. Who would ever want to do such a thing? But the rules HAD ALWAYS PERMITTED IT, said the judge. It was not a “new” right.

The romantic myth behind judicial review is that there are NO “new” rights. In this romantic myth, the right to gay marriage was always inherent in the constitution of Massachusetts, but was not noticed until our Supreme Judicial Court bothered to look, a couple of years ago. The whole POINT of legal (as opposed to political) arguments is to demonstrate that the rules ALWAYS SAID you have the right to promote your pawn to a piece of the opposite color, marry a person of the same sex, or own a handgun.

Whether or not you subscribe to this mythology will determine your terminology, with respect to “new” rights. If you think The Law is some immutable Platonic ideal which humans perceive only imperfectly, then judges merely find EXISTING rights when they examine The Law and say things like: “Well what do you know! People ALWAYS had the right to put blogs up on the World-Wide-Web. The right was always there, even if the internet wasn’t.”

If you’re not quite so romantic — if you think The Law is in fact a fuzzy man-made thing with no independent existence outside the cave — then of course a right not previously acknowledged is a “new” right, made up by judges on the spot.

Both points of view are defensible. The only laughable thing is the sort of inconsistency which I suspect many gun enthusiasts (and many gay-rights activists) to be guilty of: the inconsistency which says “MY right was always there and the courts finally acknowledged it; YOUR right was recently just made up by activist judges.”

Cross-posted at Lean Left.

they do not understand that we oppose them for their means, not their ends, and many believe that we oppose the Good they seek to bring forth, and cannot understand why anyone (other than a reactionary degenerate seeking to preserve a position of oppression based privilege) would oppose such Goodness.

I mean, us small government, individualist, small l libertarian, whatever buzzword you want to use, sorts. It’s true. You see, I want less .gov influence in, well, everything. Your average American is the exact opposite. They want Free Federal Money^tm for pork projects in their district, they want free health care, they want social security, they actually think the $600 rebate they’re getting in a couple months is a good thing, they want the .gov to write a big check and bail out their mortgage company, they want a puppy, they want to suckle at the .gov tit. It’s true. Deal with it. We’re the minority and that is that. Put on your big boy pants and deal with it.

That said, there seems to be a bit of a conundrum over that.

Tam has given up:

I think the big difference between our points of view is that you haven’t given up the fight, while I have. I just don’t see even a tiny plurality of human beings that give a crap about freedom. They want to be led. They want free stuff. They want to tell other people what to do. They’d rather watch American Idol than read a book. And they outnumber me by a thousand to one. And I’ve come to the dawning realization over the past years that I’m the abnormal one.

And McArdle notes:

The reason that those of us on the fringe–libertarians, Greens, socialist workers, or what have you–do not have more representation in government is not because there is some structural problem with the American political system, like a lack of IRV or minority party candidates. The reason we don’t have more representation is that most people just don’t agree with us.

Indeed.

KDT wants to fight it. I find his recent support for McCain at odds with that unless he just thinks it gets him four years to buy ammo.

Gullible Sebastian thinks that the key is numbers in the teens of percentages have libertarian tendencies. Well, they’ve always been there and don’t seem to have much sway because you can’t tap that resource without giving up something. He concludes with this cheery bit:

Liberty is a never ending battle. We will never win. Like the game Whack-a-Mole, it’s frustrating, and sometimes it seems like you’re doing all you can to just hold the line. But giving up is a sure way to lose at Whack-a-Mole, so to libertarians, I offer this: “Keep whacking!”

The issue then becomes that, at some point, with life getting in the way people don’t have time to whack any more. Or the energy. We’re losing. As Donald Sensing said:

I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go.

And that is the future unless Americans get off their collective ass and do something about it. But they won’t, American Idol is on. You see, a government that can do all of that stuff mentioned way up in the first paragraph is too big. And it will bring more of the nanny state. There are thousands of surveillance cameras and police armed with machine guns that look more like soldiers than Officer Friendly in our big cities. Governments are banning or trying to ban transfat, smoking, restaurants from serving fat people, and anything that is not made out of soft foam rubber. For your safety, of course. Police are routinely raiding the wrong houses, or raiding based on scant evidence (like your power usage for a particular month) and killing innocent people over drugs. Police routinely are caught beating the crap out of someone, and there are never adequate consequences for that. We lost Kelo. Your property is only yours until the .gov says they want it. They can tap your phones, read your email, and have all your financial information. And no one is doing anything about it except a few guys discussing it on the internet.

In my wallet, I have a business card. It has a gold emblem on it and across the top it says:

Department of Justice
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives

It came from an ATF agent. On the back, is written a phone number with the word Cell to indicate it’s the agents cell number. I keep that card in my wallet as a reminder that the federal government will knock on your door over shit you said on the internet.

Update: AC says buck-up little minority camper.

To respect all opinions is to have no respect for the truth.

Collectivity is a good thing

Shared power is a valued goal

Moderation and equal access to resources are things to strive for

And that is how we create kids that will grow up and vote for Obama.

So, I’m really torn. I mean, if I buy this collective good nonsense this one time, when does it stop?

Full disclosure: I have a flex-fuel vehicle. And no one made me do it. The issue is, that, the only place in town that sells E85 is Pilot Oil. And I don’t shop there because Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam (whose family owns Pilot Oil) is a member of Mayors Against Guns. C’mon, Bill, quit the group. For the environment. And energy independence.

Lemme ’splain. No, there is too much. Lemme sum up.

See, if you think that there is a rational and lawful basis for jury nullification, you’re retarded. If you think that judges should decide the law while juries decide the facts, you’re just following orders and a Nazi. Does that cover it?

Any way, my thoughts are that juries should be fully informed on matters of fact, law and, hell, legal strategy. But the courts don’t do that. In fact, if a lawyer looked at jury and said Guys, you can just decide this is bullshit then what’s going to happen to him? We can’t, after all, have the people judging the law. There’d be anarchy!

I refer you to this bit:

Yeah, the cops have discretion aplenty on whether to arrest or merely warn you. The Prosecutor’s office has discretion aplenty on whether to charge you for a crime or crimes (and what charges to bring, and what penalties to ask for). The judge is a tinpot god in his own courtroom.

But if the JURORS show the slightest bit of independent thought, civilization will collapse into flaming ruin.

I find jury nullification is a valid means of essentially countering particularly odious laws, like say prohibition or someone getting sentenced to 30 years for selling weed.

The other issue that gets bandied about by people who are not fans of jury nullification is that you, pesky troublemaker, took an oath to uphold the law! And if you renege on that then you’ve perjured yourself. Having read a sample oath, I don’t buy that argument. I see no prohibition in there stating that judging the law is verboten. Even if it did, taking an oath to uphold the law is not going to override my moral convictions. And I’m not saying I’d lie to get on jury.

Past ramblings here, here, and here.

As you were.

In which I remind casual readers that, yes, I really am a gun nut. Even though I don’t like scaring white people.

Breaking point seems to be the topic of debate on the gun blogs lately. Essentially, at what point is it time to shoot the bastards. As for me, I dunno. Joe lists examples that he thought would qualify, such as Ruby Ridge and Waco. I was a 20 year-old kid when those happened and only recall what I saw on TeeVee. And the revelations of the feds lying and being corrupt didn’t really come out until after these incidents were concluded. And, yes, the .gov got merely a slap on the wrist. But no such incident has happened since.

Sebastian says he’d hide is guns. Well, that’s great but you just got on the internet and told everybody that. And I know the feds read my site (hi, guys).

But the consensus among these two is that, generally, gun owners won’t do much. I dunno. First and foremost, I think the political process is working now. Most states have CCW, the JD has taken the individual right view of the second amendment, both houses of congress affirm that, and both political parties’ platforms in the last elections state that too. It’s not absolute victory but it shows that we’re heading the right direction. We’re winning*. So, first and foremost, gun owners should be active in the political process now. It’s not the 1990s any more. More importantly, the various anti-gun groups have about zero clout.

Chris disagrees that gun owners won’t do much. I tend to concur. Not all gun owners would but I think a substantial portion would.

As for me, what would I do? Turn them in. Ammo first.

* Update: note on we’re winning: except certain states (like NJ, NY, IL, CA, and MA) where it’s mostly hopeless.

Meanwhile, in comments, Guav asks:

I’m in the process of putting together a large preparedness pack in the event of of some natural disaster or terrorists attack that results in the breakdown of law here in the NYC metropolitan area.

I’m going to order gas masks for my wife and I, some vegetarian MRE’s (I’d eat a deer if I had to, but right now I have the luxury of remaining vegetarian , water, first aid supplies, etc.

I’m trying to figure out what else I should include, as well as trying to figure out if I am allowed to keep any sort of firearm in my Jersey City apartment. All my guns are upstate at my friend’s house in NY.

I doubt my supplies would remain in our possession for very long without a means to defend them.

Well, my first preference in such a situation would be to stay at home. My family and I could live quite comfortably for weeks at my home even if power were cut off. We have plenty of grub, beverages, blankets, and such around the house. We even have a nice, clean creek running through our property for water. For those without creeks, make sure you fill all your pots, pans, and tubs with water just in case.

That said, at times, staying home might not be an option. So, what’s in your bag? I have a large plastic tub filled with our camping gear (gas stoves, knives, axes, fishing gear). But what else?

Personally, I’d grab Mr. Blasty and the Glock 30. I have a bout 10 loaded mags for the former and five for the latter. I’d probably also go ahead and grab El Nino for the Mrs. And I’d grab the bore snakes and some oil. And that’s it for guns. Though having a good 22 rifle is also a thought.

Other stuff includes:

food

toilet paper

flashlights: lots of them. My two favorites are my Surefire G2 Nitrolon (for lighting up the world) and my Streamlight TwinTask (which can light up the world and switch to LED mode for many hours of use)

tool box

extra batteries for everything (Seriously, I have the Sam’s Club monster pack of AAs)

First aid kit

Phones

Blankets and bedding

Kids meds

Radio

Knives and cutlery

Cups

Metal pots

Sanitizers (soaps and such)

Printed copy of the US Army Survival Manual (you can buy one, but it’s free here)

Tent

Propane for my stove

And other stuff I’m sure I’m forgetting. What’s in your bag?

Update: Perusing my archives, I found these items:

Kim du Toit’s items

Les Jones on the issue.

Counter on the issue.

Good stuff. I suppose I should revisit this issue every once in a while and keep my supplies updated.

SO I WAS AT STAPLES THE OTHER DAY, and they were hawking this Grab ‘n’ Go Emergency Kit up front, next to the printer paper and the antivirus programs. Just further evidence of the mainstreaming of survivalism.

Mainstreaming of survivalism is an excellent way of putting it. After all, Disney is teaching our kids about survival kits and bug out bags.

Who Does Kay Brooks Hate More–Men or Women?

Kay wrote a post about a rape that occurred and said that maybe the woman shouldn’t have been out walking late alone. Kay was very explicit to note that she was not saying she deserved it. And I don’t think from reading Kay that she was stating the woman was responsible either (though she did say she was not without some responsibility) . Now, here’s where I part ways with the, err, feminist persuasion. Kay essentially notes that maybe if this young lady had done something differently, this may not have happened. Aunt B. seems to think that would constitute blaming the victim. I don’t think that is the case.

More importantly, stating that Kay hates men or women is a bit of the feminist over the top rhetoric that turns me off.

Let’s change the situation and say I decided to drive my McLaren to a bad part of town. And somebody carjacks me. Now, did I deserve it? No. Am I responsible for what happened? No. Did I maybe have a bit of a lapse in judgment by going there? Could be. Should I have expected people not to take it? Well, sure. But that’s not the best expectation to have of other people. Because some other people are pieces of shit. Not everyone is. Certainly not all men. Nor all women. But some people are.

But when it’s rape, the aforementioned analysis becomes taboo to suggest and outright not politically correct to discuss. And that’s a shame, if not outright dangerous.

As Nomen said over there: blaming victims for being victimized is wrong, pretty much always; blaming women for being raped is wrong, always. but pointing out that the unfortunate, sympathy-worthy victim may have committed a tactical error does not equate to blaming her, no matter how monotonously the correct-tactics drum may be beaten in society at large.

Update: In comments, Brittney informs me I can’t read:

No, that doesn’t mean she deserves what happened but she is not without responsibility in this.

Ok, that’s pretty bad.

if I don’t fight back, I don’t have a chance

Have you ever met a person who left you wondering, “How could someone be so twisted, so evil?”

The Doc notes that the book she’s discussing suggests that some people are just born evil. And, from my personal experience, that is true. Let me catch you up.

See, I’m a finance guy. I wasn’t always. I had a career before that. In that career, I was (and you’re going to laugh your asses off) a counselor. Yeah, me. The guy who calls people retarded, idiots, and invented the term PSH. More specifically, I counseled a whole special subclass of bastards: sexual offenders. They were a pleasant crowd. I had an epiphany one day when talking to a young lad and the conversation went something like this:

Miscreant: [describes his overwhelming desire to do very bad things to innocent children]

Me: And that urge for you is natural?

Miscreant: Yes.

Me: You know, most people don’t have that particular urge

Miscreant: I think they do.

Me: Really?

Miscreant: Yes. It seems normal to me.

Me: Excuse me a minute.

At that point, I’d had my epiphany. And I realized that the conversation would have ended badly. Because I had a thought at that moment and it was this: the world would be a better place if this guy wasn’t in it. That’s something that I realized could not be cured. I mean, no amount of duct tape would fix this guy. Well, unless the duct tape was used to restrain him prior to tossing him in a river.

Even if you convince this guy that doing very bad things isn’t acceptable, he will still have the overwhelming urge to do it and, honestly, it’s probably only a matter of time.

Needless to say, I soon got out of counseling. Wishing your clients dead isn’t healthy for you or you clients.

During my time there, I learned a few fun things about sexual predators:

And there’s more. In short, they were fucked up. Bad. And no amount of talking to them was going to cure them. And, honestly, talking to them disgusted me.

Most feminists agree on the basic principle that feminism is about recognizing and forcing others to recognize women as fully human, equal participants in society. How we go about that, what “fully human” means or what “equal participant” might entail are all up for grabs.

I think forcing is a bad choice of a word. And is also a bad choice in policy. I think the better plan is to convince rather than force. Forcing tends to put people off.

Note: I typed this a couple days ago and didn’t publish it with the thought that maybe I’d calm down about it. I didn’t.

That’s nice. He advocates retreat on the War on Terror and socializing heath care.

No word as to who “they” are, but I am guessing the vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

More from the most sensitive man in America:

This stuff’s not an accident. Nobody in this room should think this is an accident. You know, I’m out there speaking up for universal healthcare, ending this war in Iraq, speaking up for the poor. They want to shut me up. That’s what this is about. “Let’s distract from people who don’t have health care coverage. Let’s distract from people who can’t feed their children…. Let’s talk about this little silly frivolous nothing stuff so that America won’t pay attention.”

They will never silence me. Never.

If we don’t stand up to these people, if we don’t fight em, if we don’t beat them, they’re going to continue to control this country. They’re going to control the media. They’re going to control what’s being said. They do not want to hear us talking about health care for everybody.

I will be glad when Saturday is over. The affinity Al-Qaeda has for prime numbers and the chatter national defense agencies have spoken about give pause to tomorrow.

I hope there will be top flight security for this event.

From WBIR:

Traffic on Campbell Station Road was re-routed for a short while Tuesday morning as investigators from the Knox County Sheriff’s Office followed reports of a suspicious package in the area.

According to Knox County investigators, the “suspicious package” was actually a “geocache,” or part of a GPS game where clues are left online for contestants to find a prize.

The geochache was inside a military ammunition can.

Gamers, three days after Al Qaeda tries to blow up various parts of Britannia why would you place a GPS sender geocache for a GPS game in a used military ammunition can?

A section of Kingston Pike had to be shut down due to a bomb scare. While everyone is pleased it was a false alarm, what the hell?

Can you possibly see how dumb that is? Not cool.

For those at home that have no idea what GPS gaming is you can learn more here. I don’t see how GPS gaming is a cool game in today’s environment. Can’t you just surf porn or something? I hear Halo 2 rocks. Buy a Wii. Just don’t put your stupid GPS someplace where you scare people half to death. Is that too much to ask?

A few more observations. WBIR had this being at Kingston Pike and Campbell Station Road. The Knoxville News Sentinel had the better location at 12000 block of Kingston Pike near Hobbs Road. Guys, if there is a bomb, how about getting the address right?

Update: Turns out it is not unusual for old ammo cans to be used to store the geocache. Interesting. Thanks to gattsuru and Sebastian for clarifying the GPS game. I guess the question is, how do you play this game without scaring people and having inadvertent bomb scares?

Dude 1: Hey, man, what’s up?

Dude 2: Aah, not much. You?

Dude 1: Same old, same old. New TeeVee?

Dude 2: Yeah, wanna beer?

Dude 1: Sure, man.

They proceed to watch the game. To you women readers (both of you) that’s all you see. But to men, what they really said was this:

Dude 1: I understand you’ve been having a hard time lately and I’ve come to check in on you and make sure you’re OK.

Dude 2: Yeah, the new job might be more than I can handle. I think I may have overextended myself financially. Me and the significant other aren’t quite getting along like we used to. The IRS is kicking my ass. If this deal doesn’t go through, I might be screwed. I feel a bit depressed and I’m hoping that you can provide me with some advice and companionship to get me through this tough time. And I think my house has termites. What significant things are going on in your life?

Dude 1: Stressed out about raising kids. Feeling the effects of middle age. I’m kinda tired all the time. Marriage ain’t what it used to be with constant activities involving kids. I really need some more me time and alone time with my wife. I need to start working out and taking better care of myself because I want to be there for my kids when they’re older. And I should probably have this twinge checked out but I hate doctors and I hate bad news from them more. So, in the fine tradition of men, I’ll just ignore it. And, given your financial troubles, you bought a new TeeVee?

Dude 2: Yeah, not smart. But I needed something to take my mind off of things. And I appreciate you coming by and showing concern for my general well-being during this tough time. And I’m here for you.

Dude 1: You know I’ll always be there for you, in that non gay way, of course.

With men, less is more.

So after the Steve Gilliard “Nashville is Talking” dustup of 2007 we now have Al Sharpton of all people claiming there is a double standard in America.

This weeks Pot and Kettle award goes to Al Sharpton. Runner up Jesus General, aka Patriot Boy, was unavailable for comment.

Al Sharpton said, “Though I have nothing but empathy for Ms. Hilton whom I have met and appeared with on Saturday Night Live the night I hosted in 2003, this early release gives all of the appearances of economic and racial favoritism that is constantly cited by poor people and people of color. There are any number of cases of people who handle being incarcerated badly and even have health conditions that are not released.

I have served several sentences for civil rights and civil disobedience actions and I even fasted which caused health concerns to prison authorities who paid for a doctor to come see me daily rather than release me. This act smacks of the double standards that many of us raise.”

So I have no fear of indoctrination. I’m afraid of people who allow themselves to be indoctrinated. Grape Flavor-Aid, anyone?

Indeed. However, I think the best thing for students and your kids is for them to be made aware that disagreement (polite, of course) with their academics is acceptable, if presented well. I personally had two political confrontations with teachers. Once, I wrote a paper. I took the opposing view than the one taught in class. I was given a D. I’d never before (or since) received a D on anything. I thought it was a decent paper. I took it to the department head, who concurred. I received an A. Then a story that I’ve written about before wherein I told my professor that I would use real words and not made up hippie words like ne and give peace a chance. In a post on Speaking Ill of the Dead:

This professor was an ideologue. For example, he had the class watch a movie on abortion that was blatantly biased toward the pro-choice side. People left in the middle of it (it was particularly offensive to any pro-lifers who may have been there) and reported him to the department head.

He also told us that when we turned in a paper, we couldn’t use the words he or she. We had to use the non-sexist word ne. I forgot the rule for his and her. Obviously, ne wasn’t an English teacher. I had written a paper and turned it in and I, while referring to a specific person who was matter-of-factly female, used the word she and her quite often. Ne tried to ding me some points for doing so but I sought out the department head and created a stink about how teachers shouldn’t allow their preferences to affect proper English.

Now, ne wasn’t an asshole. He add (sic*) various little socio-political idiosyncrasies that were annoying. Ne was ideologically obtuse. Ne allowed his ideology to consume his professional life and ne wanted to exert his influence on his students and mandate they be exposed to his worldview and that they comply.

To his benefit, ne encouraged me to think by pissing me off.

Coincidentally, the department head agreed with me again. And, you see, there’s the rub. I had no issue with these guys making me think or challenging me. I took issue with the notion that I was being punished for not going along. That’s where it is dangerous. Address ideas, make your case, but be fair. That goes for the students too.

I am happy to report I was never asked to undergo counseling.

* See AC, I even sic myself.

The film shows various cases of conservatives, libertarians or even liberals who do not toe the leftist line 100% being shut down, shut out or shut up on “liberal” college campuses around the US. One thing that struck me about the cases is that several of those who had conservative or pro-American leanings were told by administrators that in order to stay at the university, they would need to see a psychologist who, I suppose, could vouch for their mental condition.

She has some examples. What I find a bit more surprising is that therapy and evaluation appear to be a punishment and not a legitimate therapeutic exercise. Ideas are not inherently dangerous. These folks were simply shouted down for not going along with the program. And that seems to make a mockery of the whole mental health field, if you ask me. And the psychologists in this case will likely report their findings about these miscreants who dare not agree to the administration.

The Constitution is a written instrument. As such its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when adopted, it means now.

Two things Al Gore is bringing for the consideration of the American people are very questionable ideas. But on the front end they seem to make sense. Even conservatives may think that compact fluorescent bulbs and ethanol made from corn are no brainers. Each of these ideas have serious economic and environmental drawbacks. But in the current state of frenzy not everyone is thinking about what the future implications of these ideas will be.

The good news is that a few people are navigating through the fog and considering the full implication of what wide acceptance of compact fluorescent bulbs and ethanol made from corn. Even the folks at KnoxViews. R. Neal is even beginning to see that corn based ethanol doesn’t make either economic or environmental sense.

My told you so piece on CF bulbs was back in March. Rich Hailey expanded on the mercury issue in May after R. Neal at KnoxViews wrote a long piece defending CF bulbs.

So before we think about a new religion maybe we should look under the hood and think whether the old religion is really broken. This is really all about politics. The liberal progressive side of the fence has shown to be incompetent when it comes to National Security. So the Earth First religion is what they have to offer. The simple facts are that without mandatory recycling CF bulbs will cause environmental and health issues which will negate any electricity or cost savings they may have. Corn based ethanol is one of the worst ideas for energy independence.

So why are liberal progressives changing their tune on corn based ethanol? Because the other team has gotten out in front by supporting switchgrass based ethanol which may make economic sense and which will not hurt the environment. In other words, it is CYA time for the liberal progressives.

The good news for the American people is that two questionable ideas are finally getting the full thought process required and maybe we can use our heads and not go on a National fools errand.

I tend to avoid the discussions. Anyhoo my thoughts:

Cycling: Don’t care. Do what you want but obey the rules and don’t be a dick.

Global warming: It’s happening. However, the impact of humans on it and the perceived level of Armageddon it may cause are debatable. So far, neither side does a decent job of convincing me. And I’m all for doing my part and whatnot but the fact is I can’t haul around two kids, all the junk required by two kids, a dog, and other items in damn Prius. Deal with it.

As you were.

Next, behold the hoplophobe in all it’s pants-shitting glory:

The combination of mental disease and access to guns leaps out at almost everyone in media coverage in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings. But from there, ideas and advocacies, widely distributed by the press, tend to become amorphous and tinged with hopelessness.

Actually, I’m mostly just afraid of the people with the mental problems. After all, they can substitute box cutters, gasoline and a Ryder truck loaded with fertilizer for a gun. Continuing:

Some years ago, the distinguished historian Richard Hofstadter told me that, after a lifetime of studying American culture, what he found most deeply troubling was our country’s inability to come to terms with the gun—which in turn strongly affected domestic and international attitudes. Emotions of extreme attachment to and even sacralization of the gun pervade American society, and commercial interests shamelessly manipulate these emotions to produce wildly self-destructive policies.

We’ve come to terms with the gun and have decided that people should have them. The only one who hasn’t come to terms with them are, uhm, you guys. But here’s the rub: It’s not people like that a gun turns into a killing machine. It’s people already predisposed to that sort of behavior. As David Kupelian notes:

“Why don’t you pick up that gun and blow your brains out?”

“You could kill a whole lot of people with that gun.”

“Why not shoot her right now? That would shut her up!”

These are the sorts of vile mental suggestions many people experience from within their own minds when they see a gun.

That’s right. Dark thoughts and impulses, too horrible to dwell upon or even acknowledge, occur to many of us at the mere sight of a firearm or a naked blade. When we see the firearm, we sense the presence of evil – so naturally we assume the gun is its source, when actually the gun’s close proximity caused our own buried, angry, violent tendencies to surface for a moment.

Thus, many people who “dislike” or “are afraid of” guns are actually afraid of what they might do if they had a loaded firearm in their hand.

Yes. I noted before about an anti-gunner:

So, he admits in a public forum to assaulting someone. See I, as a responsible person and one not prone to violence and one who carries a handgun, don’t beat people up. Nor do I get into fights. Nor do I start them. I generally avoid physical confrontation regardless of how steamed I am.

And the now famous bit on the Internet about guns and radiation:

If I were to take a live, armed weapon and carry it on my person, in public, it would eat away at my sanity just as if it were emitting lethal radiation. To know that I carried an instrument of sure and certain death on my person, available and ready to be pulled out and used at a moment’s notice to possibly kill…a child. A homeless person. An innocent.

And that’s rather the problem: people who don’t trust themselves sure as Hell don’t trust you. But that makes this (via Rustmeister) rather interesting:

Persons who hold egalitarian and communitarian worldviews worry more about crime and gun accidents, an anxiety that coheres with their negative association of guns with patriarchy, racism, and selfish indifference to the well-being of others.

Persons of a hierarchical and individualistic worldviews, in contrast, tend to see guns as safe, and worry much more about the danger of being rendered defenseless against attack; this perception of risk coheres with their positive associations of guns with traditional social roles (father, protector, provider) and individualistic virtues (self-reliance, courage, physical prowess).

Gun nuts are individualists and assume responsibility for themselves? As opposed to anti-gunners, who look to others and worry about things going bump in the night? Who knew? Did we need Yale to tell us that?

Average white folks are not extreme. They are not as informed. They do not share your anger. They have not become radicalized and chances are you don’t want them to be.

Ayup. AC also touches on one other point which is that we don’t want a bunch of radical white people. When a bunch of white people get scared, people die.

Don’t scare white people.

Uncle, you say, What the Hell are you talking about? Well, let me explain. Most people in this country fit a certain demographic. That demographic is the prototypical family with two cars, 2.4 kids, stability, owns a home, is in debt, have no issues with gay people other than they don’t want them to get married, etc., etc. Most decisions in this country in terms of legislation center around what these people think. So, when I say white people, that’s who I mean. Don’t scare them. If you scare them off by appearing excessively gun nutty, then you’re turning the people who politicians almost exclusively pander to against you. So, don’t go get a sign that says:

Rep. Cruz should be hung from the tree of liberty for treasonous acts against the Constitution

And show up at a protest. First of all, it’s hanged. Secondly, it’s not smart. Sure, your heart may be in the right place and all that other hippie tree hugging crap to make you feel better about yourself. But white people think you’re fucking nuts. And you’re not doing gun rights any favors. Don’t get me wrong, I think Rep. Cruz is a moron. His bill would require gun registration and a $10-a-gun annual fee. And, well, that’s probably unconstitutional. But that’s no excuse to out-moron him. See, I’ve come close to saying things like that before and then actually did a blog post about me thinking about saying it and then deciding it’s not something that should be said. And then saying it in a weasel way because I’d done fessed up to thinking it.

And, if it’s any consolation, his supporters don’t quite get the first amendment either when they say:

No one has the right to call for the lynching of another human being — no one

Sure they do. It’s not a smart thing and if they actually incite someone to do it, they should be held accountable. But we can say crazy shit like that. The issue, for me, is that it’s stupid to say stuff like that.

And here’s the other thing: The press loves to show off some right wing nut jobs and gun nuts. If some right winger or gun nut does something stupid, it’s all over the news. However, idiots at left wing protests rarely get press coverage. You’ll never see these photos or significant coverage of them in an AP story.

Others:

The Geek: Fight Hard, Fight Smart

Bitter: Dig Faster

David (who likely doesn’t agree with me – he does): it’s certainly not “just a figure of speech.”

Sebastian: Putting the “C” in Crazy and This is one for the “How Not to Win Column”

It is a story about greed, corruption, ineptness, incompetence, and the complete contempt of personal property rights. It is a story about wink, wink, don’t worry about the rules what can these people possibly do?

One man got a video camera and what he has done is very compelling. James McMillan took his video camera and has created a library of videos that have now appeared on YouTube. The narrative tells a story of some of the usual suspects of stormwater abuse.

Isn’t it ironic that both developers Victor Jernigan and Scott Davis are two of the worst offenders of stormwater runoff? Both are friends of Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale. Victor Jernigan funded R. Larry Smith in his successful Knox County Commission race against James McMillan.

Victor Jernigan is the “go to guy” on Knox County Commission for stormwater issues. Why would you pick the guy with one of the worst records of stormwater violations to be the “go to guy”? Scott Davis is famous for the impassioned speech he gave about ethics and getting along with people after it was very clear that Lee Tramel would be appointed to the District 4 seat he coveted in the January 31st appointment debacle in Knox County Commission.

Mr. McMillan is often referred to as “Farmer McMillan” because he is actually a farmer who became concerned about the stormwater issue after Mr. Jernigan built several subdivisions that caused stormwater runoff which hurt Mr. McMillan’s cattle.

These are the videos that tell the real story of personal property rights in Knox County:

The Laura Cole story via “Farmer” James McMillan and YouTube:

Part 1 and Part 2

The Knox County Commission meeting Public Forum featuring Laura Cole via Publius9 and Channel9 of YouTube:

Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV

As first reported on WATE news:

KNOXVILLE (WATE) — A father took extreme measures Wednesday to discipline his 14-year-old son, who he claims was abusing drugs.

Because the boy is a minor, 6 News won’t reveal his or his father’s identity.

The boy was forced to wear a large sandwich board sign that said “I abused & sold drugs,” while standing in front of Cedar Bluff Middle School.

“I would like to say that I’m not out here doing this to humiliate my son,’ the dad said. “I’m doing this because I love him. We do have an extreme drug problem in America, and maybe it’s time for extreme measures that parents need to take to monitor this problem that we have.”

The man says he recently learned after reading the boy’s MySpace page his son was involved with marijuana and OxyContin. That’s when he decided to take immediate action.

A decision has been made by Randy Neal and the KnoxViews team to change the site rules so only “Trusted Users” can post to the KnoxViews site. The short hand for “Trusted Users” means liberal democrats.

This occurred after complaints from fellow KnoxViews bloggers that their posts had been removed from the front page. Mr. Neal patiently explained it was his blog and he and his team decide what is worthy of being on the front page. Mr. Neal made it clear he is the decider. On several separate occasions Mr. Neal changed the User Agreement to answer the questions from dissatisfied KnoxViews bloggers.

Each time the User Agreement was changed it became more doctrinaire, restrictive, and left leaning. The term “Progressive” was changed to mean “liberal democrat” because people questioned what progressive meant. Today it has been changed again to read, “KnoxViews is a progressive (i.e. “liberal”, although responsible opposing conservative viewpoints are welcome) community space for citizens of Knoxville and the surrounding community to meet, organize, and discuss news, politics, events, and issues affecting the community.”

The question now becomes who are the “responsible opposing conservative viewpoints”? Are there any?

The question of what the word “open” meant was also challenged. Tempers flared yesterday when Mr. Neal described fellow KnoxViews blogger, the former GOP Chairman of Knox County Chad Tindell, as one of the “token Republicans” of KnoxViews. Slowly but surely an open neutral blog drifted left until today it took a hard “left turn“.

Is KnoxViews representative of Knoxville? Or is it only representative of a small portion of Knoxville?

KnoxViews owner Randy Neal explained, “It was an interesting experiment while it lasted. Sadly it has come to an end, mainly because of the time involved in dealing with the complaints and policing the site.”

Did KnoxViews lose its openness today? Only the readers can make that decision. Without a level playing ground will KnoxViews become an echo chamber of only far left thinking? If so, will it have any relevance in East Tennessee?

Update: SayUncle Adds:

I do appreciate everyone’s lesson on capitalism and Mr. Neal’s property rights. No one is disputing that.

My issue is that when he first started it, he asked me to participate. So, I did. Now, my kind ain’t wanted there no more.

Update: Randy Neal Counter Point

Youth violence is a very complex construct and experts and others tend to want to blame one thing, a video game, the Internet, or TV as the “cause” of why kids kill. This simplistic “one solution fits all” approach is easy, just get rid of X and kids will stop being violent. But it is simply not true.

Back when I was in prison*, there was a man that had worked with delinquents for two decades. Back then, we called them delinquents - I think they call them happy, fluffy bunnies now so as not to offend them or their parents. Particularly the parents, who get outright ornery when you tell them that their son (who is a three time, violent felon and sexual predator) may have some issues. The man I worked with was a licensed social worker with a graduate degree and before that he was a drill sergeant. No, really. One day, I said to him: What’s wrong with kids these days? They’re too quick to shoot each other or stab each other or club each other from behind. He says, and I am not making this up, that: Kids today are afraid to take an ass-whippin’.

He went on to say that, in his day and mine, if two teenage boys had a conflict, they’d meet on the playground after school and settle it. He’s right, we did. But no one ever got killed. No one ever went to the ER. We had black-eyes and were sore but we got over it pretty quickly. Then, the next day, we were friends again. Now, he says, kids are afraid of that. They don’t want to fight, because they’re scared of a little ass-whippin’. They’d rather attempt to kill someone than get their ass handed to them.

Could be. I had my ass kicked a few times and I seem OK.

* I worked there but I may as well have been doing time. Not a pleasant experience.

Update: In comments, Ken opines:

But if no distinction whatsoever is made between degrees of violence, or the ends to which it is put, then there is no reason for an adolescent to draw a distinction between “fighting back” and murder. Both are equally condemned, so why take half measures?

I suppose teaching the notion that all violence is equally bad, though understandable, could have some unintended consequences. But I don’t know that anyone intentionally teaches that but policies like zero tolerance make it somewhat believable.

When it comes to the governance of the United States, I happily take a Locke-ian Enlightenment position. This does not mean I disbelieve in God’s ultimate law. It merely means that I believe there is no way possible to translate the perfection of God’s law through the designs of Man. Any attempts to do so ring false, and seem as though the Men who would desire to pass those laws are trying to elevate themselves to the position of God.

Or, you know, keep your God out of government and the government out of God.