More Locke vs. Rousseau

This time from Brigid:

My work has value. My mind has value. I won’t do it for free. those that do that, are amateurs (coming from the Latin amator – meaning lover), not professionals. As a professional I expect to be paid. Nor will I do it to pay the rent and gas and food of those who aren’t willing to put forth their own effort to the best of their own ability. A hard working person, down on their luck, I will help in many ways. I’ve added to the tip jar of many a hard working blogger, caught up in exploding cars, dysfunctional pets, and bad experiences with Comcast. I’ve helped people in my community, neighbors, suddenly and through no fault of their own, out of a job, with food and/or child care while they went to an interview; with assistance with crafting a new resume and getting them some job contacts. Helping those that actively worked to help themselves.

But do not ask me to support, through work or taxes or even my time, which has value of it’s own, a class of people who only wish to take, because they feel they are owed it for breathing, for crossing the border illegally, or for being a specific race, creed or religion.

Tam said something similar a while back:

It makes one look like a savage to say so, but if your house burns down, blows over, or floats away, it’s not the job of the federal government to fix it for you. Charity is one thing, but federal tax dollars coerced at 1040-point from a single working mother of two in Dubuque (and then filtered through a morbidly obese federal agency) to rebuild your bungalow in Destin is not charity, okay? It’s extortion.

I was having a conversation with a co-worker this afternoon, the one outspoken Obama supporter in the office. He kept talking about the right to health care. I kept correcting him – and he agreed, repeatedly – that “health care” is not a right because it obligates another to provide something, but each time he began expounding on health care he kept using the “right” language.

And I kept interrupting him and repeating the lesson.

A large part of the population is much like him, or Brigid’s hairdresser. They’re A-OK with extortion, because they’ll benefit from it, and they think others like them will benefit from it. (Yes, yes, I can hear the anarcho-capitalists now shouting “Hypocrite! Hypocrite!” Sorry, but I do see a difference between, say, taxation to support the Constitutional requirement to defend the nation vs. taxation to support the welfare state. I’d be more than happy to abolish the income tax and operate the government strictly off of tariffs if we could pare the .gov back to its Constitutional limits. In the mean time I’m more interested in trying to stop .gov growth.)

But what it all boils down to is what Jonah Goldberg expressed in Liberal Fascism, and in his podcast interview with Glenn Reynolds and Helen Smith:

All public policy issues ultimately boil down to one thing: Locke versus Rousseau. The individual comes first, the government is merely an association protecting your interests, and it’s transactional, versus the general will, the collective, the group is more important than the individual. Everything boils down to that eventually. And the problem with “compassionate conservatism” is the same problem with social gospelism, with Progressivism and all the rest: it works on the assumption that the government can love you. The government can’t love you. The government is not your mommy and it’s not your daddy, and any system that is based on those assumptions will eventually lead to folly.

Barack Erkel Obama, and to a lesser extent, McCain, are promising a government that will love you.

And to hell with the individual. It all goes back to philosophy, and the fact that we’re not teaching Locke’s to our kids. Instead we’re allowing our educators and our media to haphazardly feed them Rousseau’s.

And it’s led us here, to folly upon folly. It will eventually lead us to ruin.

And I fear that eventuality is not far off.

Well, THIS Sucks

Clayton Cramer is getting laid off from his job at Hewlett Packard after moving to Boise Idaho and building a home there. Anybody know of a job opening for a software engineer / semi-pro historian / part-time college professor / amateur astronomer / gun-rights activist?

I blame George Bush.

“Terrorist Rifles” Hot Sellers in Louisiana

“Terrorist Rifles” Hot Sellers in Louisiana

According to Outdoor Life:

We just got a call from Devline Rossell, a charter captain based out of Venice Louisiana. He was shopping in New Orleans to get some supplies before the arrival of Gustav (currently listed as a tropical storm that has left at least 22 dead in the Caribbean) and reported that the item most in demand was not food, clothing or shelter.

“I just left a sporting goods store and you would think that the number-one selling item would be plywood or potable water or gasoline right now,” he said. “Apparently it is AR-15s and .223 ammo. I watched at least 20 people buy AR-15s and cases of .223.”

RTWT.

(h/t: Instapundit)

Quote of the Day

From a post that’s just full of them, Tam’s ParaUSA LTC After-Action Report:

The special pistol was outfitted with Para’s adjustable rear sights of a BoMar pattern (fauxMars, if you will,) and a fiber optic front. These give a phenomenal, fast-to-acquire sight picture, but their sharp, sure-snag corners make as much sense on an alloy-frame 4.25” carry gun as a kickstand on a tank.

Where does she come up with these phrases?

Going into this event, Tam wasn’t really interested. At the 2nd Amendment Blogger Bash she made it apparent that Para-Ordnance was not high on her list of manufacturers to do business with based on her long experience as a merchant of death at Coal Creek Armory, but this weekend converted her:

The acid test? Well, if I have to sell a kidney or get a paper route to do it, I am buying this gun. I may be a starving artist, but even a starving artist knows the value of a dead reliable, deadeye accurate pistol when she sees one.

Attention Thanos Polyzos and Kerby Smith (not to mention Dan Smith of ICC): You just received the highest praise possible from the gunblogosphere for your product.

Expect orders.

Freudian Slip?

Former Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson — yes, that Charlie Wilson — was speaking at an anti-war rally when he, um, flubbed a line:

“We should be led by Osama bin Laden,” he said, then quickly corrected himself. “I mean Obama and Biden.”

Osama bin Laden, Obama and Biden, hey, it’s a mistake anybody could make.

And will keep making all the way ’till election day.

Obama bin Biden 2008!

I’m suddenly feeling a little less sick to my stomach over this year’s election.

From Real Clear Politics via Glenn

This one needs to be spread far and wide.

UPDATE: New bumpersticker!

Lasergrips

As noted, the pistols we shot over the weekend were equipped with Crimson Trace Lasergrips that, if I understood correctly, were sighted in personally by Todd Jarrett for about 12 yards. The laser emitter is located on the right side grip, about half an inch below the centerline of the bore, so the point of aim and the point of impact are not necessarily the same. As a training aid, the laser allows you to see just how much movement you have while aiming. Todd demonstrated this in the classroom by putting the dot from his pistol on the wall about 10 yards from where he was standing.

I didn’t think a human being could be that still. I know I can’t.

On Sunday in the shoot house he had us, three at a time, doing drills on targets while the rest watched. One of the things he wanted us to notice was how high the dot went when a pistol was fired – regardless of whether that pistol was chambered in .45 or 9mm. As you can see in this photo, my .45 comes up quite a bit at full buck. The other thing he wanted us to notice was how far down it comes during recovery. When the pistol is held properly, the dot simply returns to the original point of aim. (He showed us that with a couple of full mags, rapid fire.) Held improperly the dot is all over the target, moving in big loops. This is something you can’t really notice with iron sights only.

Going through the shoot house, a couple of the targets were so close that using the sights was practically redundant, but on the second trip through there were two “long shots” – bad guys behind no-shoots – at about 12 yards. I decided to use the laser, rather than the front sight. I deliberately put the red dot on the left shoulder of a target and touched off a round. A hole appeared where the dot had been.

And I did that three more times in quick succession.

Crimson Trace gave us t-shirts with their logo on it, and this un-PC marketing blurb:

Helping Bad-Guys Make Informed Decisions
To that I would like to add: Helping Put Rounds On Target, FAST.