Guns are Good

Regarding current media trends in the anti-gun (or as I might say, the gun-bigot) camp, I keep hearing the same, worn out things. It irks me. It worries me. And I am tired of repeating myself. So I think I will respond to some of the recurring bullshit here, and save my breath for a while. Maybe just link a QR code back to this page, and have it tattooed on my forehead. (Second thought: maybe just print it on a card.)
 
"Assault weapons like the AR-15 are destructive and should be banned."
Actually, the AR-15 (as with almost every weapon the media refers to as an "assault-weapon") does not actually qualify for the definition.  A true assault weapon is, in general, capable of selectable fully-automatic firing.  That means that the weapon itself is capable of sustaining rapid, repetitious firing, initiated by a single trigger-pull by the operator.  There are variants, such as burst or continuous modes, but the fundamental idea is the same.

A semi-automatic weapon never produces more than one fired shot for each trigger-pull by the operator.  The rate of fire achievable by a semi-automatic weapon is typically much lower than that of a fully-automatic weapon.
In fact, today the the AR15 is specifically a non-military version the venerable M16.  But it looks almost identical, and can share a number of the basic components (stocks, grips, barrels, etc.) - but not the select-fire capability.  That's not trivial circumvent, and it's illegal to do so (and has been for a very long time).
One can argue that porn is destructive, and being delivered by home computers, often to the detriment of children - so then should home computers should be banned?  I'm sure that would stop the "porn problem", too, wouldn't it?
"There's no reason you need to own a gun like ________."
Your rights, your liberties  - are not based on your needs.  There just isn't a logical connection here, yet somehow this phrase keeps coming out of the mouths of politicians.   The fallacy of the "need" argument is endlessly frustrating.  And it is manifest in other areas of our life nowadays, not just in firearms discourse.
You don't know how to feed yourself, so governments have decided to adjust your diet according to their liking ("You don't need trans-fats, or super-sized soft drinks, or so much meat in your diet.  Kids, eat more bean-sprouts and hummus -- even if you think it's gross like horseshit.  Etc.")
You don't know how to choose a vehicle properly for yourself.  ("You don't need a gas-guzzling SUV or truck.  You're killing the planet with carbon-emissions, destroying civilization by way of wrecking the environment.")
 And although politicians in some states have decided that you don't need to carry a weapon for self-defensive purposes, it is universally understood that those very same politicians travel with armed protectors or their own concealed weapons.
Some people are just more-equal than others, I guess.

Here are some other things that, likely, you don't need.

• Contact lenses, Lasik surgery, etc.  (glasses work fine)
• Swimming pools (such a waste of energy and precious water)
• Timely medical care (unless you're bleeding to death, stand in line, bucko)
• Physical stores (hey, shop online now)
• The US postal service (obsolete)
• Extensive knowledge about historical facts (disinformation)
• Offensive music or visual art (incorrect ideas or concepts)
• Excessive supplies of food, water, or other resources (depriving others)
• Telescopes, two-way radios, binoculars (what are you looking at?)
• Anything made by Apple (just get a PC, they work fine)
• A large house or fast car (wastes fuel).
• Adult entertainment (aka porn), in any form
• Recreational travel across the globe (wastes fuel)
• Colorful clothing - or anything except a single style of standard-issue clothing from the state.  Prison clothes, actually.  That would save a lot of trouble.  Yes, everyone should wear only prison clothes.
• Snack-food, silly toys, videogames, alcohol, tobacco, jewelry, boats or aircraft, too much furniture, pets, refrigerators, ultra-soft toilet tissue, over-the-counter medications.
• And the big one - a free market.  Why go through all that trouble, when the government can just coordinate your needs in a more orderly, efficient manner?  It's called central-planning, buddy.

"We need common-sense gun-control - NOW."

 A popular phrase with the anti-gun crowd, but what does "common-sense" actually imply?  That's the magic sauce here.  It can mean anything you like, depending on context - and where on the slippery-slope you are presently.  I'd say we're already way, way beyond "common-sense" with firearm regulations today, and in some places so far beyond "common-sense" that using the term is not just vague and meaningless but downright inapplicable and stupid.
California, for example.  If you're a criminal, California is a great place for you.  Nice weather, good scenery, the ocean, and lots of disarmed, gun-terrified potential-victims for you to choose from. Yes, taxes are ridiculous and housing unaffordable, but since it's virtually impossible for lawful citizens to get any kind of "permit to carry", the average guy on the street should be an easy target.  That is, unless he happens to be another criminal, in which case he could potentially shoot back at you if you go after him.

"Common-sense" to me means:

• It's wrong to kill people for fun or profit, and hey, it's been unlawful to do so - like - forever.
• Everyone has an inherent and natural right of self-preservation.  This right descends not from government's generosity, but is axiomatic and immutable.
• All citizens capable of rational reasoning should be permitted to carry weapons of their choice for protection, without being forced through convoluted bureaucratic machinations a priori.
• You should be able to own whatever gun you want and can afford.

 That's about it.

"Pro-gun advocates, like the NRA, are maleficent lunatics dominated by the gun industry."

So what is implied then, is that only gun-bashing, anti-freedom leftist organizations have valid points to make?  Where have we heard this reasoning before?  Sounds very familiar.  When you don't have a solid case with facts, your best strategy is to discredit your adversary before he can convince a majority of the correctness of his position.  This is the recurring modus operandi of the left; using general ignorance of the facts to their advantage, to advance their own causes rooted in their own ulterior motives.

Ask yourself this:

• Who's working to TAKE liberties/property from you?
• Who's working to PREVENT others from TAKING liberties/property from you?

"Only the police, and military, should possess firearms."
Do you believe the police will be able, or even required, to save you in every crisis situation?  Do you trust your government fully and completely to act in your best interests, forever more?  How are they doing in this vein?  I am always shocked to hear anyone state their desire to be a disarmed and defenseless citizen.

If your daily concerns look like:

• What are my Facebook friends up to?
• Where's the closest Starbucks right now?
• What's happening on Jersey Shore?
• What can I do to help stop global warming?
• Should I buy another pair of shoes today, since they're on sale?
• Should I be recycling more than I am now?
• What's the latest music on iTunes?
• Where are my missing socks?

 Then you probably aren't worrying about:

• In an emergency, could you protect yourself and family?
• How can $16 trillion ever be repaid, to anybody, anywhere?
• Which freedoms are really guaranteed to you?
• What can be taken away from you against your will?
• What are your fellow citizens plotting to do regarding your future?
• What does government have planned for your future?
• Am I condemning subsequent generations to ever greater subjugation at the hands of a merciless governmental monstrosity?
• When I vote in an election, what am I actually voting for?

"Hi-capacity magazines should be banned."
Actually, what's being referred to here, most often, are "standard-capacity" magazines.  The anti-gun crowd merely wishes to "dumb-down" the hardware below the level that it was designed to be;  They've come up with this magical "10-round" figure which holds some special significance for their narrative as a "reasonable" magazine-capacity limit.  Maybe it's because that's how many fingers/toes they have.  Maybe they want 5-rounds per hand, if you're shooting with both hands.
I've personally never understood this thinking at all, since switching mags can be a very fast operation without much practice.  Again, if those advocating such things had the first clue about what operating a weapon is like, with first-hand experience, they might just understand how moronic their claims sound to the rest of us.
It's essentially as ridiculous as mayor Bloomberg's high-capacity (20-oz) soda ban in New York - resulting in much pain-in-the-ass for the public, which now just buys twice as many bottles to get what they desired in the first place.

So in summary, my message to the gun-grabber crowd:  I'll leave you alone, but you must afford the same in return.  Find another hobby.  Go enjoy your marijuana bong and the occasional abortion or whatever you do.  Leave me out of it...

Fault Intolerance

"Illogical. Illogical. All units relate, all units. Norman, coordinate..."

Democrats are creating the first truly, completely fault-intolerant system in this country.  A system so fragile that even the slightest breeze will crush it like a blade of grass in a stampede of angry unionists.   Where once this country, faulty and politically incorrect as it was, seemed to value its own future and progress more than it's feelings and appearances ... now it's all about the latter.
Make those hybrid vehicles and cram them down everyone's throat.  Right after we rewrite the menus and remove everything you might like.  Don't complain about it using any improper language ("badspeak") derived from poor ideas ("wrongthink").  That would be insensitive, and the UN may have to write you a strongly-worded-letter about that.  At your new address, in the FEMA camp down the street.  Which you paid for.  With what used to be the Social-Security money stolen from your paychecks without your consent.
It's 2012 and the population of our country is losing its' collective mind.  As we approach the Mayan-doomsday which, as media is wont to remind us, is the probable end of everything-as-we-know it, your neighbors are eagerly seeking a way to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Did you have plans for the future?  Sorry.
Even NASA just bothered itself to remind us, after the fact, that a 3-mile-wide asteroid capable of a planetary mass-extinction-event just had a near-miss on us Tuesday.  Wouldn't want to miss out on any of that holiday cheer now, would they?
As the new year approaches, the fiscal-cliff looms, North Korea is perfecting ICBMs, Syria contemplates gassing its population and Iran contemplates incinerating its neighbors ...We can all look forward to the fact that perhaps the $16-trillion debt won't matter and our past freedoms matter even less in the New World Order.  It all doesn't concern you, since we're never going to see January anyway.  But if we do, Civil War II will keep us busy for another decade or more as we render a bloodbath more hideous than mankind has ever seen - right here in your own hometown.
So enjoy the holidays, and if you're lucky enough to survive, well... to quote from John Carpenter's wonderful film "Prince of Darkness" -- "pray for death."

The Partisan Potential

Partisanship is kind of like an electric field.

On the one end, you have the liberal progressives, and the other extreme is conservative.

People are like charged particles in this "partisan field".  The field draws particles one way or another.  The stronger the field, the faster things move, and more particles are drawn toward the extremes ...

If our national partisan divide was a battery, it's like something keeps charging it all the time.  It keeps getting a higher potential all the time, and drawing the particles (the people) more strongly to one side or another, leaving fewer in between.

I think major events, world-shaking events for good or bad, are like a resistance, something that can discharge the battery and keep the potential in check.  The resistance drains off energy from the potential, reducing it, preventing it from getting to intense.  Things like stock market crash, WWII, the moon landings, presidential assassinations, the 9/11 attacks.  The events don't have to be bad, but it seems like most are.  When they happen, people unify - the partisan divide shrinks a bit, for a while - like somebody connected a resistance to the national battery for time.

What's continously charging this battery, anyway?

Most people will know that different charges attract one another, while like charges repel from each other.  But people are different.  Like views attract, and differing views seem to repel.  Democrats and Republicans repel.  Just the opposite of electric charge.  What are the consequences of this?

Well, a battery that is subject to these rules wouldn't have a + and - terminal, it would have two identical terminals.  Two + terminals.  Or two - terminals.  I guess there would in fact be two different kinds of batteries; a + one and a - one.

Maybe there's an infinite number of battery types, all the way between + and - and everything inbetween.  Perhaps the national battery is, or should be, neutral.  Nah, neither the + nor - charges would be attracted to that.  Remember, similar charges attract in this weird world.  + and 0  repel; - and 0 repel.  Or do they?

Neutral charge would be analogous to centrism, and both the left and right seem to repel from that most of the time.  Interestingly, both the left and right want to claim this middle-of-the-road as their own.

Maybe the battery would still have a + and - side.  A charged particle of either kind would move through that kind of circuit still.  Yeah, that's probably it.

So what IS the national partisanship "battery" analogous to?   Is it just a stupid analogy to begin with?  Maybe.

Brilliant Idea

I was reading about the French elections this morning.  Looks like our pal Nicolas Sarkozy is not going to be with us much longer.  I think that's too bad.  Sure, he's pompous, audacious, and his economy hasn't exactly sprung back with vitality and prosperity.  But I kinda like the guy.  He has put a decent face on France over the past years, making it almost respectable internationally again.  He planted his foot firmly on the side of Good in the jihad-wars, and been a pal of the US in its various endeavors of late (however dubious some may have been).  I guess it's just great not to have a whimpering idiot at the French helm for a change.

However, it looks like the French public is about to undo all of that.  Sarkozy's primary opponent, socialst Francois Hollande, advocates the usual - more taxes, more spending.  Even a 75% top-tier income tax rate.  It's only a fair share - right?  Having three of every four dollars you make seized by the government seems fair enough to me.  And he looks like the typical sniveling liberal know-it-all.  Of course, he's leading the polls.




But then, there's another candidate vying - a distant third or fourth with no real chance - kind of like the Green party here in the US.  His name is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and he's even further left, advocating essentially an overthrow of any remaining elements of capitalism left in France.  But we don't need to go there, so I'm not going any further with him.

But I got to thinking, "Geez, how can we get politicians to stop coming up with ludicrously high progressive tax scales?"  They really have no incentive to do otherwise.  They just command that more money be wrung from the populace (at least the part that pays any taxes at all), and it is done.  Fail to comply, and go to jail.  The French seem completely unconcerned about the possible impact a 75% tax will have on their business community.   I would expect to see high-earners fleeing the country soon after such a tax was enacted, taking all that lovely tax money with them, no?

Then I had an idea.  Probably not an original one, yes - just about everything has been thought of already.  But I don't recall hearing this one.



Suppose we give each person voting power in proportion to their top-tier tax rate?  Not their tax paid, just to their top-tier rate.  Let's say that a 25% tax payer gets the equivalent of one vote in an election.   So, if your top rate was 50%, you'd get essentially two votes toward your choice, when a 25%-taxed individual would get just one.  A 75%-taxed person would have three.  And someone paying only 5% tax would get 1/5 of a single vote.  Of course, pay no tax, get no vote whatsoever.

It's a perfect negative-feedback to the taxation loop!  As politicians up the top tax rate, they'll lose their voting base in proportion.  They have a definite incentive not to raise the top tax to obscene levels, lest they be voted out more easily by the people they've taxed the hardest.

In our current system, the poorest vote almost universally for the democrats who promise the highest rates of taxation and punitive assessment.  Why not?  They have no reason not to - and the democrats woo them with seductive language about "fairness" and massive rewards ("entitlements") for those that support their plans.

But scale that voting power in proportion to taxation - and people who pay virtually no tax at all will not be able to flood the polls with votes for candidates who would soak-the-rich ever more viciously.

The more I think about this, the more I like it.

The Fractional Reserve System

If you want to be scared -- really, really scared -- watch the following video.  It excellently, and understandably, explains serious flaws in our system of commerce and finance.  Most chillingly, it explains:

1. That all the debt we have (as a nation) can never be repaid fully, because we must repay debts with interest, and nobody creates the "interest" money - it just drains the money supply over time.
2. Without an ever-increasing spiral of debt, the economy would not be able to function.  How can we have an ever-increasing spiral of debt, where we are now?
3. In the long term, banks must eventually (by the math) hold all "real" money AND property, leaving nothing - money or otherwise - for anyone else.

Olbermann Gets a Proper Tongue-Lashing

I know I haven't written anything for a while now.  I think I've been in "Breitbart-Coma" since he passed - it sure didn't help any.   Anyway, I may be coming out of it now.  So with that, the point of my post:  a pleasant video that I got a nice grin out of today....  Do enjoy. 
Original Link Here