Category: Uncategorized

I Had No Idea!

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I posted about my first car last week, a 1969 Simca 1118, an underpowered French import that was just about the last of its kind brought into the country.  A pretty underwhelming automotive experience.

Not so for the rest of the world, apparently:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yprEHh8d6sQ]
The Simca 1000 series was very popular around the world, and as everybody knows, it there are a lot of something, someone will race it. And if it gets raced, it will get hopped up.

Like I said, I always wondered how that car would have run with a motor transplant from a Honda CBX.

Quote of the Day – Social Contract Edition

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A long time ago, I quoted Ezra Taft Benson, Eisenhower’s Secretary of Agriculture on “the proper role of government”:

It is generally agreed that the most important single function of government is to secure the rights and freedoms of individual citizens. But, what are those right? And what is their source?

There are only two possible sources. Rights are either God-given as part of the Divine Plan, or they are granted by government as part of the political plan. Reason, necessity, tradition and religious convictions all lead me to accept the divine origin of these rights. If we accept the premise that human rights are granted by government, then we must be willing to accept the corollary that they can be denied by government.

…Frederick Bastiat, phrased it so succinctly,

‘Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.’

In a primitive state, there is no doubt that each man would be justified in using force, if necessary, to defend himself against physical harm, against theft of the fruits of his labor, and against enslavement of another.

Indeed, the early pioneers found that a great deal of their time and energy was being spent doing all three – defending themselves, their property and their liberty – in what properly was called the “Lawless West.” In order for man to prosper, he cannot afford to spend his time constantly guarding his family, his fields, and his property against attack and theft, so he joins together with his neighbors and hires a sheriff. At this precise moment, government is born. The individual citizens delegate to the sheriff their unquestionable right to protect themselves. The sheriff now does for them only what they had a right to do for themselves – nothing more.

I didn’t fully agree with Mr. Benson and still don’t, but it was a good citation at the time. This, however, says it far better:

The social contract exists so that everyone doesn’t have to squat in the dust holding a spear to protect his woman and his meat all day every day. It does not exist so that the government can take your spear, your meat, and your woman because it knows better what to do with them. 

(h/t to Glenn)

Heard Down the Hall

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My 11 year-old grandson has spent the weekend with us.  Friday night he and I went to see Real Steel (good flick, BTW).  This morning he and my wife made banana bread.  Just a second ago, Kaoru said to him, “CJ, I need you to clean the living room.” 

“What does it need?” he asked.

“It needs to look good!” she replied.

“It does look good!” he replied.

“WHY ARE YOU SO MALE?!?” my wife said.

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In response to my laughter from down the hall, she yelled “You’re not helping!”

10/22/96 – 10/22/11

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All the cool kids are doing it, so here’s mine.

For Father’s Day, 1996 my wife bought me a Ruger 10/22 – the standard carbine with the pencil barrel and the youth-sized stock.  “Oh my love,” I told her, “you don’t know what you’ve started.”

Within three weeks I had converted it to this:

I don’t even want to know how much money I’ve got tied up in that thing.  The only original parts are the receiver and the bolt assembly.

More Truth in Fiction

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This time from Ian Banks’ Matter:

“Perhaps it is different for humans, dear prince,” she said, sounding sad, “but we have found that the underdisciplined child will bump up against life eventually and learn their lesson that way – albeit all the harder for their parents’ earlier lack of courage and concern. The overdisciplined child lives all its life in a self-made cage, or bursts from it so wild and profligate with untutored energy they harm all about them, and always themselves. We prefer to underdiscipline, reckoning it better in the long drift, though it may seem harsher at the time.”

“To do nothing is always easy.” Ferbin did not try to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“To do nothing when you are so tempted to do something and entirely have the means to do so, is harder. It grows easier only when you know you do nothing for the active betterment of others.”

I was reminded by this passage of a quote from an earlier piece, I Guess I’m Not… HUMAN. Former Representative Adam Putnam has said,

Government does only two things well: nothing, and overreact.

In current times government has been likened to a parent to the people, with the Republicans being the “daddy party” and the Democrats being the “mommy party,” but as someone else said:

This guy is our uncle and that’s as close as I want the fucker.

I don’t need the government to be my big brother, my parent, my nanny, or my caretaker. It needs to maintain public services (roads, etc.), maintain foreign relations and the military, keep the states from squabbling, and stay the fuck out of my life.

Perhaps someday our putative “leaders” will learn enough to do nothing, rather than overreact.

(Who am I kidding?)

The American Dream

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I’m watching TLC’s replay of the CBS show Undercover Boss.  This week’s episode follows the CEO of the Baja Fresh restaurant chain as he goes to several stores as a prospective management candidate.  The stores he goes to are ones performing exceptionally well, and he wants to find out what makes these stores different from the average franchise.

At the first, the manager is a young Mexican immigrant, only in the country for two years, who is busting his ass.  At the second, a young man from the Phillipines – ditto.  The third, a young man recently immigrated from Jordan with his parents.  At the fourth, a young woman who is not a recent immigrant, but she has a two year-old daughter.  Her husband works nights, and she works days.  All of them are busting their asses and running their stores with dedication and enthusiasm.

At two of the stores the managers said outright that they were living the American Dream, working hard to create a better future for themselves and their families.  All of them understand the American work ethic, and are doing what it takes to make their stores the successes that have drawn the attention of corporate management.

It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.