The Smallest Minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. – Ayn Rand
Geek WithA.45 left this in a comment:
The reality is that a segment of our society abuses the mechanisms of democracy to seek the authority of law to destroy the lives of honest men who offer harm to none, but who reject ideological compliance. Apparently, “comply or be destroyed” is now an acceptable American modus operandi.
How can that be characterized as anything but evil?
How, indeed?
Remember this passage from that novel?
There is no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking the law. Create a nation of lawbreakers and then you can cash in on the guilt. Now that’s the system!
Were you aware that in at least one jurisdiction sneaking into a movie you haven’t paid for in a multiplex is a FELONY?
Couple Faces Felony Rap For Movie Sneak
The married couple went to the movies Saturday night at a multiplex in Portage, Indiana, where they watched “Snitch,” starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. When the action flick ended, the Harbins exited theater #13 and headed into theater #15, where the zombie film “Warm Bodies” was about to start.
The Harbins, however, had not purchased $6.75 tickets to the second movie, which resulted in the duo’s arrest for felony theft, according to a Portage Police Department report.
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The duo was “taken into custody without incident” and transported to the Porter County jail, where they were booked on the felony count and later released on their own recognizance.
A $13.50 felony.
Once again, I’d like to point out that 18 U.S.C. § 922(d) states:
It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person –
(1) is under indictment for, or has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
And 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) says:
It shall be unlawful for any person –
(1) who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year
to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.
In general, a felony crime is one defined as:
(A)n offense for which a sentence to a term of imprisonment in excess of one year is authorized. Felonies are serious crimes, such as murder, rape, or burglary, punishable by a harsher sentence than that given for a misdemeanor.
So, if they plead to anything that could result in a jail term “exceeding one year” – regardless of what the sentence actually is – then they have forever lost their right to arms.
Over a $13.50 theft.
This is a “serious crime”? On what planet?
Via Oleg Volk:
From Boris Karpa, a man who was an American born elsewhere by accident: “Let me be clear about this: background checks for private transfers is gun registration.
“Not ‘could lead to gun registration’, it literally IS gun registration.
“It does not matter if they put in a little sentence that says ‘the government is not allowed to keep records’ – that sentence will go away at the next mass-shooting – and then the government will simply start hitting the SAVE button after it processes your next gun purchase. We’re in the world of computers now. Keeping terabytes of data only costs a few dollars.
“If Tom Coburn argues that putting a little proviso in there to say ‘you are not allowed to keep records’ makes it anything other but gun registration, that only helps us know who Tom Coburn is.
“What this will decide is nothing less but the answer to the question – is America a unique nation, that trusts its citizens to own weapons – not ‘hunting implements’, not ‘sporting firearms’, but weapons – or it is just another country, and jut like everywhere else, the gun control movement wins battle after battle, and the gun rights organizations are only fighting a delaying action.
“Because if this passes, it will never be repealed. The NRA is not capable of, and does not have the stomach for – attacking existing Federal gun laws. They will promise to work to repeal it. They will lie, just like they lied about the Hughes amendment, where they made some symbolic move to try and strike it down and then surrendered too. But they will not repeal it if it passes.
“If they win this fight, then the gun rights movement in America is over, and everything else is a long delaying action.”
I do not disagree with a single word there.
If you don’t recognize him, that’s Sgt. Schlock from Howard Tayler’s Schlock Mercenary. And if you don’t recognize him, you should be ashamed of yourself!
Interesting piece in The American Spectator, His Queeg Moment. Excerpt:
In Herman Wouk’s classic World War II novel, The Caine Mutiny, there is a moment when a group of the ship’s officers are getting away from the increasingly eccentric Captain Queeg by relaxing ashore.
Suddenly the malcontent Lieutenant Keefer asks the others: “Does it occur to you that Captain Queeg may be insane?
In fact Queeg is not insane, at least not at that time. He is simply grappling, more and more disastrously, with a job too big for him. Come the crisis of a typhoon, he becomes paralyzed and nearly sinks the ship by failing to give the obvious orders. At the subsequent court-martial he appears quite normal until he breaks down under the pressure of cross-examination. Before this, the officers have searched the regulations for guidance, but the regulations refer only to a captain who is clearly and unmistakably insane, not one who is merely guilty of eccentricity and bad judgment. At a lower level of responsibility, Queeg might have performed adequately, but with Keefer’s question, the remaining respect for Queeg’s office has gone.
Obama’s second inauguration speech may be his Queeg moment — an undeniable demonstration that, in an emergency, he is incapable of grappling with reality.
RTWT.
Reader David Turner has sent me a follow-up on those targets. It seems that the manufacturer has taken them off their website and apologized:
We apologize for the offensive nature of our “No More Hesitation” products. These products have been taken offline due to the opinions expressed by so many, including members of the law enforcement community.
This product line was originally requested and designed by the law enforcement community to train police officers for unusually complex situations where split-second decisions could lead to unnecessary loss of life.
Consistent with our company mission as a training supplier (not a training methods company), we will continue to seek input from law enforcement professionals to better serve their training objectives and qualification needs. We sincerely appreciate law enforcement professionals for the risks they take in providing safety and defending freedom.
As InfoWars explains, though:
The company’s excuse that the targets were designed to help police prevent “unnecessary loss of life” is highly dubious given that the images were all of armed individuals termed “non-traditional threats,” designed to ensure “no more hesitation” from police officers encountering them.
As one respondent to the company explained, “Look, each of the supposed “threats” appeared to be in their own home settings. They were also all holding a weapon… It is obvious these paper targets were never intended to be decoy (don’t shoot targets). It is apparent this was designed to assist in desensitizing the trainee.”
In addition, the company had previously struck a different tone when it told Reason’s Mike Riggs that the targets were designed to combat, “hesitation on the part of cops when deadly force is required on subjects with atypical age, frailty or condition.”
Although the targets have been taken off the company’s website, it’s unclear whether or not they have been removed from sale entirely.
That’s a question I would like answered.
I occasionally take a break at the office and do a little web-surfing (yeah, shocker, no?). I have both Firefox 19.0 and IE 10.0 installed. Both load pages glacially slow. I’ve determined it’s because of Java scripts. If I turn off Java, BOOM! Pages load right now, but without much of the content. For example, checking my personal email, I have to use gmail’s standard HTML version of the page. The more versatile one doesn’t run w/o Java.
Anybody else have this experience? I’m tired of waiting for pages to load, but I can’t just turn Java off – too many pages are dependent on Java scripts. Suggestions?
Publicola has written an excellent piece, Resolve, that I strongly recommend you read. Today’s QotD comes from it:
We have to be more determined than our enemies, but our focus does not have to be on them exclusively, or rather not on who we think our enemies are. Bluntly, our enemy isn’t flesh and blood – that’s just a manifestation. Our enemy is the idea that our culture is not worth saving. Our enemy is the notion that our culture can compromise on its values. Our enemy is the practice of appeasement.
From the Investor’s Business Daily article, The disturbing pattern: Obama rids America’s military of yet another top general:
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a special ops veteran who was McKiernan’s successor. He resigned when his staff was quoted making derogatory comments to an embedded journalist about the administration in general and VP Joe Biden in particular. If mocking Megamind Biden is worthy of resignation, then most of America needs to step down by lunch today.
It’s a pretty serious piece, though, and I recommend you read the whole thing.