The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
Once again by the mistress of snark, that inimitable quipsmith Tam:
Of course, the initial reaction to this is to head for the history section of the library in search of the appropriate “Decline and Fall of Rome” quote. I mean, what could possibly be more decadent than adjusting the tint knob on one’s cornhole? – from Anus niveus, stupor mundi.
That she writes like this at all is enough to engender envy. That she does it at 2:00AM is astounding.
Tam on the 17th Amendment.
All you ever needed to know about that particular example of cranial flatulence.
Honestly, given the fact that the 16th (income tax) and 17th (popular election of Senators) Amendments passed in 1913 (both inarguably due to “progressive” influence) followed by the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) in 1919 and the 19th Amendment (women’s suffrage) in 1920, we have the briefest period of massive (and on the part of the first three, destructive) change to the Constitution since its ratification.
Yes, I blame the Left. Yes, I think it was intentional.
Arizona Political Bloggers Make the Front Page.
Well, it’s only the Arizona Daily Star, but still…
Bloggers becoming a potent force in politics
Call it moonlighting.
By day, Michael Bryan is an attorney. But nights and weekends, you’ll usually find him hanging out at political events and public meetings.
He’s a blogger, and since launching “Blog for Arizona” in 2003, Bryan has watched the practice go from being viewed as a “marginal, cranky kind of thing to do” to being just another way for people to get their news.
I’ve tangled with Mr. Bryan before. We’ve even traded emails. Given the quality of his thinking, I’m surprised that he’s an attorney. I cannot help but wonder what his specialty is. He actually started as a Deaniac, and the name of the blog was originally Dean4Arizona. He’s now an Obama supporter, so at least he’s consistent!
RTWT, it’s actually kinda interesting. It’s not all about Mr. Bryan, but I was surprised this morning to see his name above the fold on the front page.
Memed.
I’ve been tagged by two bloggers with this meme, so I guess I’ll be a conformist and play along.
Here are the rules:
1. Write your own six word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4. Tag at least five more blogs with links.
5. Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play….
Here we go:
Liberty, sovereignty, the pursuit of happiness.
Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It’s worth it.
It’s a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else’s rights, because if you don’t there is no one to defend yours. – MaxedOutMomma
Here I will break out of the conformist mold, and decline to tag anyone else. If you’re inspired to respond, please do.
Too Long to be the QotD, Too Good to Pass Up:.
The press coverage of Iraq, the WoT, and conservatives generally seems to be getting worse almost by the day. I see an analogy between hunger and the story the lefty press is hankering for – the one that busts the “we’re making progress” idea wide open. Imagine a small animal in cover that would have to leave the cover and risk predation to get food. The species has evolved a sensible moderate fear of being in the open – too willing to leave cover, the animal gets eaten. Too unwilling, it dies of starvation. Over generations, a roughly sensible degree of willingness to leave cover evolves. But now suppose food becomes scarce. The value of staying in cover rapidly drops as starvation threatens, so the animal becomes more willing to leave cover in search of food – becomes reckless, even, if food is scarce enough. Recklessness in search of food becomes a better bargain as hunger increases.
The reporter looking for the big story that finally, finally gets Bush – the story Chimpy McHitlerBurton cannot escape – that reporter is facing an increasing threat of starvation. 10 months and counting down. Time is running out. The animal must leave cover. The press must dispense with even the pretense of objectivity and go out into the open. I predict more and more recklessly open bias in reporting between now and January. They’re getting hungrier and hungrier. They’re staring starvation right in the eye… – “Hyperpotamus” in a quote at Confederate Yankee: MSNBC Games McCain Speech with Irrelevant “Breaking News”
As I told him, he just described the end of Dan Rather’s career!
Want a Quick Overview on “Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming”?
I strongly recommend you watch the 50-minute film produced by Warren Meyer, the proprietor of Coyote Blog and Climate Skeptic. (Of course Warren can be ignored by the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming faithful – he once worked for Exxon, and admits it!)
Warren offers multiple options for viewing his video. I just downloaded and watched the Windows Media version.
Compare the information in his video to this 30-second “Public Dis-Service” commercial designed to frighten our children:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU7BO35n47I&hl=en&w=425&h=355]
I am now thoroughly convinced that “Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming” is nothing more or less than the latest incarnation of Rachael Carlson’s “Silent Spring” and Paul Erlich’s “Population Bomb” – another excuse to politicize all aspects of life, and to frighten the population into giving unlimited power to government officials in order to “save us from ourselves.”
As Richard Thripp at the YouTube site commented on the “Tick, Tick” video:
Together we can obliterate self-sovereignty!
That is the plan. And that is the Quote of the Day.
OMG, That is Just So… WRONG!
And yet, so appropriate:
(Click for full size – if you really need to.)
I don’t know where Van Der Leun found it, but I found it there.
The post below, I Love My People has been linked at Un-DemocraticUnderground
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118×165622
(Link left cold, on purpose.)
One “Iverglas,” hit the site some time after, I believe, I was ceremoniously kicked off after my own six month stint there – September 3 of 2002 by none other than Skinner, the site administrator. “Iverglas” appears to hate all firearms and anyone who does not hate all firearms, and posts this:
I see no reason for thinking that this post is anything other than the astroturf effort undertaken by the online “gun rights” community to take over discussion at that site:
http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-love-my-…
The original post is dated January 6, 2008, so it took a while for our grassroots to find it, but just damn!
I complained awhile ago about some of our more vocal elements sometimes being a detriment to our cause, but the comments to this post are outstanding, even given the inevitable minor errors. The entire tone is calm, logical, factual, and fierce.
Everybody who commented? Take a bow. You deserve it.
Everybody who linked? You are the difference between Joyce-funded astroturf, and the grassroots from the divots our opponents keep picking out of their teeth.
Ah, irony.
Indeed. Obviously, “Iverglas” has A) no understanding of the word “grassroots,” and B) no understanding of the word “irony.”
Because they just whacked him/her in the mouth.
Heh. How’s that divot taste, Iverglas?
This is another multi-parter. The first part comes from Mr. Dave Musgrove, a self-described “Democratic voter and blogger” who penned a piece for Pajamas Media about the Des Moines, Iowa Pizza Hut delivery driver who used his legally carried concealed weapon to defend himself against a mugger, and who subsequently lost his job, since carrying a pistol with the pizza is against Company Policy.
The whole piece isn’t very long, but the gist of it is that Mr. Musgrove doesn’t understand the difference between “violent and predatory” and “violent but protective.” No, in Mr. Musgrove’s world, if you carry a gun, you’re a threat (unless, of course, you’re an authorized agent of the State. – Remember my three–part series on that?)
Musgrove states:
Among the internet reader comments on James Spiers’ story are more than a few urging a boycott against Pizza Hut. I don’t think a boycott, per se, will be necessary. More likely, the next time I think about ordering pizza, part of me will be reminded that the delivery guy may be armed, and I’ll hear a whisper of Dirty Harry’s own voice asking, “Do I feel lucky?”
So I won’t be doing any boycotting. But wondering whether the pizza delivery guy trotting up my walk is packing heat along with my pepperoni isn’t likely to do my appetite any favors.
Because, you see, in Musgrove’s world Mr. Spiers, the victim of the robbery, is equally as dangerous as Kenneth Jimmerson, the man who tried to mug him, but who won’t be mugging anybody for a while.
Musgrove also put up a post at his own site, No Pizza for Old Men, where he noted the volume and tone of the comments to his PJM piece. What did he learn from those comments?
95 comments so far over at PJM. Here is what I have learned so far:
guns = safety
killing = courage
I dropped him a comment of my own:
Here’s what I’ve learned:
You = oblivious
You actually suggested that disarming the victim would be better than allowing him to defend himself. Have you actually tried to engage any of your critics?
No, that would require Mr. Musgrove to question his own philosophy. He took two additional comments, then closed the comment thread at his site, but not before he added what he thought would be the clincher argument, the one that made his point of the PJM piece:
Whether you agree or disagree with what I have written, I commend to you these words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who died 40 years ago today, himself the victim of gun violence:
“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”
Problem is, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. died from hatred. A rifle wasn’t the cause of his death. A bomb would have done the job James Earl Ray set out to do. Or a molotov cocktail, or any of dozens of other methods. But Musgrove blames the gun, ’cause, guns’r bad mmmmkay?
None of those are the Quote of the Day. This is, and it’s by The Geek with a .45:
In a truly civil society peopled primarily by enlightened, sober individuals, the carriage of arms might be deemed gratuitous, but it is nonetheless harmless. In a society that measures up to anything less than that, the option to carry arms is a necessity.
I’m sure Mr. Musgrove would read it and shake his head and move on. As Churchill put it, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
Amen. And good night.
…we People of the Gun. There are currently at least eight posts all linking to one very interesting post and comment thread at Sociological Images. They are as follows:
If You Read Nothing Else Today
WARNING: Possible tools of the gun lobby
Their Own Weapon Turned Against Them
The original post is dated January 6, 2008, so it took a while for our grassroots to find it, but just damn!
I complained awhile ago about some of our more vocal elements sometimes being a detriment to our cause, but the comments to this post are outstanding, even given the inevitable minor errors. The entire tone is calm, logical, factual, and fierce.
Everybody who commented? Take a bow. You deserve it.
Everybody who linked? You are the difference between Joyce-funded astroturf, and the grassroots from the divots our opponents keep picking out of their teeth.
I love all y’all.
UPDATE: If you’re visiting from DemocraticUnderground, you might want to read this response to Iverglas.