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Tough History Coming – Part Whatever

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Recent question over at Quora: “What’s pretty much over but society hasn’t quite given up on it yet?”

My answer:

As much as I hate to say it, America. The idea of America. That we’re a representative Republic that practices Rule of Law and protects the rights of individuals.

It becomes more apparent each day that the nation has descended into oligarchy, and that there’s (at least) a two-tiered “justice” system – one for the politically powerful and one for the rest of us. And that the politically powerful don’t care if we know it anymore.

Our “Representatives” think themselves our rulers, our police forces are increasingly militarized and have the mindset to go with it. As one writer put it, “The military protects the state, the police protect the people. When the military become the police, the people become the enemies of the state.”

We’ve got one political side convinced that the other isn’t just wrong, misguided or ignorant, but EVIL. Since you don’t debate with evil, you don’t compromise with evil, you don’t tolerate evil, you destroy evil, that has been their goal since the 1960’s.

When the other side finally understands this is when we give up. An acquaintance recently observed:

A friend of mine who is a political activist said something interesting the other day, and that was for most people on the left political violence is a knob, and they can turn the heat up and down, with things like protests, and riots, all the way up to destruction of property, and sometimes murder… But for the vast majority of folks on the right, it’s an off and on switch. And the settings are Vote or Shoot Fucking Everybody. And believe me, you really don’t want that switch to get flipped, because Civil War 2.0 would make Bosnia look like a trip to Disneyworld.

The General Public

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Always remember:  In any group of people, half are at or below the median level of intelligence.

From my friend the Merchant of Death™ comes this text message (ALLCAPS are his):

OH MY GAWD!!! TWO MASS SHOOTINGS THIS WEEK!  POLITICIANS TALKING ABOUT GUN CONTROL!!  NEED TO GO BUY A GUN!!!! NEVER THOUGHT OF OWNING ONE BEFORE BUT I NEED ONE NOW!!!  IT CAN’T COST MORE THAN $200 AND CAN’T HAVE ANY RECOIL AND HAS TO LOOK BADASS!  AND I WILL NEVER LEARN HOW TO USE IT PROPERLY…HELL, I WILL NEVER EVEN TAKE IT OUT OF THE BOX!!  BUT I NEED ONE RIGHT NOW!!!!

(*sigh*)

Universal Background Checks

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I have previously written about the ineffectiveness of the Brady Background Check law, that supposedly “stops” prohibited persons from purchasing a firearm from a federally licensed dealer, but then doesn’t prosecute the prohibited person for signing a confession (BATFE Form 4473) that should get them five years in Club Fed.
But I’m not against the idea of background checks per se. What I am against is the requirement that ALL interpersonal “transfers” of firearms must be run through such a background check – the so-called “gun show loophole” that isn’t a “loophole” at all. Why? Well if I want to give a gun to my grandson, background check. My wife buys me a rifle for Father’s day? Background check when she buys it, background check when she gives it to me. And I already own several firearms. Duh. The recently passed “universal background check” law in Washington was so poorly written that if you left your firearm at home with a loved one and they had access to it, it COULD BE interpreted as an illegal transfer. But, we are assured that the law will NEVER be abused like that…. Go ahead, pull my other leg.
I live in Arizona, where if you have an Arizona CCW permit, you don’t have to have a background check run on you when you purchase a firearm. You undergo a very thorough check before the permit is issued. Fill out form 4473, sign it, show your permit and your ID, get your gun.
Everything you do in the U.S. (with the notable exception of VOTING) requires a state-issued photo ID.
  • Alcohol? ID
  • Tobacco? ID
  • Buy or rent a place to live? ID
  • Buy a car from a dealer? ID
  • Travel by commercial air? ID
  • Check into a hotel? ID
  • Purchase Sudafed? ID
Anyway, you get the point. So here’s my suggestion:
Everybody who needs a state-issued ID gets a background check and a new ID. If you are a prohibited person, somewhere on that ID will be this symbol:
If you’re not prohibited, you get a green circle (don’t want to trigger the sensitive by putting an icky gun on their ID). Everyone that already has a driver’s license or a state-issued photo ID gets a new one with one of the two symbols. Any new IDs issued, the applicant gets the background check.
You want to buy a gun, whether from an individual or a FFL dealer? Show your ID. If the red symbol is on it, no sale. If NO symbol is on it, no sale. If you don’t have ID, no sale. If you do something that makes you a prohibited person, you must turn in your ID for one that has the red symbol. If you don’t, five years in Club Fed on top of whatever sentence you got for the crime that disqualified you.
The state can’t build a database of gun owners, and everybody who wants to buy a gun gets a background check. That’s what I call “compromise.”
It’ll cost a lot of money and won’t prevent any crimes, but that’s what “gun control” usually does. But hey, we’re DOING SOMETHING!!

Stupid Should Hurt

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By far the most viewed, upvoted and commented on answer I have ever given at Quora was a question about concealed-carry vs. open carry.  I mentioned it here a little while ago.

Since the three mass shootings last week I’ve been answering a slew of gun control questions.  Someone I respect over on Facebook today posted about this yo-yo: “You’re presuming guilt of a crime he hasn’t committed. Want attention, surely. Up to no good? Debatable.”

Here we’re going to part company. Somebody shows up at a public venue carrying a long gun who is not obviously law enforcement, I’m going to assume the worst and try to put them down. I’m glad the firefighter didn’t dump a mag into this idiot, but had he I would have voted to acquit. The “debate” can occur in the courtroom. If he was wrong, only ONE person would have been shot.

I’m glad the CCW carrier didn’t do a mag-dump into the idiot, but if he had I would vote to acquit.

It may not be illegal to walk around in public tacticooled out, but it’s STUPID, and stupid should hurt.

The Jordan Peterson Phenomenon

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I finally got around to reading the op-ed linked below on Jordan Peterson. I’ll admit right up front that I’ve read neither of the two books he’s published, but I have listened to a LOT of his lectures and interviews. The author of the op-ed objects that Peterson’s Maps of Meaning is obscure, that he uses a lot of words but doesn’t really say anything, much less anything new, and he gives examples. I cannot argue with him over the selections he made. It reads like a PhD thesis.

But having heard the man speak, I think I understand why so many people pay money and stand in line to hear him. What I kept thinking while I read the criticism of Peterson was that a LOT of people seem to have benefited from what he has to say. This puzzles the people who hate him. He talks about personal accountability, duty, struggle, and most of all MEANING. And this morning my brain went “click” when I thought of a song that could be the anthem for a couple of generations of young men, and for that matter, women – John Mayer’s “Why, Georgia?” If you’re unfamiliar, the lyrics go:

I am driving up 85 in the
Kind of morning that lasts all afternoon
Just stuck inside the gloom
4 more exits to my apartment but
I am tempted to keep the car in drive
And leave it all behind

Cause I wonder sometimes
About the outcome
Of a still verdictless life

Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?
Why, why Georgia, why?

I rent a room and I fill the spaces with
Wood in places to make it feel like home
But all I feel’s alone
It might be a quarter life crisis
Or just the stirring in my soul

Either way I wonder sometimes
About the outcome
Of a still verdictless life

Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?
Why, why Georgia, why?

So what, so I’ve got a smile on
But it’s hiding the quiet superstitions in my head
Don’t believe me
Don’t believe me
When I say I’ve got it down

Everybody is just a stranger but
That’s the danger in going my own way
I guess it’s the price I have to pay
Still “everything happens for a reason”
Is no reason not to ask myself

If I am living it right
Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?
Why, tell me why
Why, why Georgia, why?
Peterson tells them there’s meaning in life and how to go look for it. And that eventually there will be a verdict.

And that’s a good thing.

The Intellectual We Deserve

Quote of the Day – Cultural Revolution Edition

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Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Left seeks to destroy every recollection of the past, not because our ancestors were so wicked, but rather because it wants to clear the ground for its Frankstein-like experiments in the creation of a New Man. That is what Mao did in the 1960s during China’s horrible Cultural Revolution. A Chinese acquaintance comments, “Now America is having its own Cultural Revolution.”

David P. Goldman, No-One’s Life Matters. That’s Why There Are Mass Shootings.

RTWT.

More Quora Content

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Quora has been inundated by question about last week’s mass shootings and gun control.  Here’s one answer I left recently:

Original question: “Another shooting in a mall and Americans still don’t want to ban weapons, why?”

Democracy.

Yes, I’m serious. Here’s what the rest of the world doesn’t seem to grasp about the U.S. We have a population of more than 250,000,000 people of voting age. Of those, probably a third own a firearm. Well over half know someone who owns a firearm, and in a majority of cases, they live in the same home with someone who owns a firearm. As someone once said, “Basically, I figure guns are like gays. They’re kind of scary until you get to know a couple, and once you have one in your home you get downright defensive about them.”

Other nations don’t have that kind of familiarity with firearms, and the unknown is frightening. For example, this news “story” from the UK:

MOST TERRIFYING GUN IN THE WORLD SEIZED

That’s extreme, but indicative of the mentality. For citizens of the UK the pearl-clutching is completely normal. They know hardly anyone who owns a firearm, and if they do, it’s most probably a nice old 12-gauge double-barreled bird gun. Here most people recognize that “MOST TERRIFYING” weapon as the machine pistol wielded by Morpheus in The Matrix movie.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQmzGhtwTfY]
Yeah, not that terrifying. Because a lot of people actually know how guns WORK.

So we have a population that owns and is comfortable with guns, and you know what we think when some whack-job shoots up a public venue? This:

“Where the hell do you get off thinking you can tell me I can’t own a gun? I don’t care if every other gun owner on the planet went out and murdered somebody last night, I didn’t. So piss off.”

We refuse to be collectively shamed for the actions of an individual. And we make up a significant portion of the voting public. So when our supposed “betters” tell us what’s best for us is to give up the guns we didn’t kill anybody with, we go to the polls and tell them “Piss off.”

For example.

OP, do you know anyone who owns a firearm?

The “guns are like gays” quote comes from acknowledged lefty Teresa Neilson Hayden. The “piss off” quote comes from Tam off of Facebook.

Today is Milton Friedman’s Birthday

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He would have been 107 today.

On May 13, 2010 at the Cato Institute’s Milton Friedman Prize dinner, pundit George F. Will gave the keynote speech.  I transcribed it back then.  I recommend you read it (or watch it) if you haven’t before.  Hell, if you have, I recommend you do it again.  It’s every bit as valid today, if not more, than it was then.

It’s entitled Learned Feudalism.