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Tilting at Windmills,.But Someone Needs to Do It

Striderweb fisks an anti-smoking op-ed by trying to explain to a nanny-state type the concept of personal freedoms and choice versus collectivist edict. Excerpt:

Okay, let’s pause right there a moment. “[W]e understand that the issue presented is convenience vs. health”. Clearly you understand nothing, then. The issue at hand is personal freedom in an ostensibly free society. You curtailing others’ rights for your own convenience, Ms. Grady, is the issue. Business owners have a right to allow their customers to smoke (well… should). You have the right to either patronize those establishments, or not, as you choose.

Good piece.

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“We will be left alone when we leave others alone.”

It’s nice to think that.

It’s not a thought more than tenuously connected to reality, but it’s nice to think it. That quote is part of a comment left by “OtherWhiteMatt” in relation to my post on Hollywood propaganda.

I strongly suggest that Matt, and everyone else concerned about the topic, watch this video about Islamism in Brussels, Belgium.

When even Deutsche Welle television starts running alarmist pieces on Islamism, you can bet it’s worse than you think. It’s worth your five minutes.

Don’t MAKE Me Come Over There!

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Don’t MAKE Me Come Over There!.

Mr. Completely reports that commitments for this year’s Gunblogger’s Rendezvous have been light. Hotel reservations must be made and guaranteed by Sept. 11 (there’s an ominous date) in order to ensure the discount room rates, and enough total nights of stay must be registered in order to ensure the free hospitality suite where we all congregate and bullshit hold discussions. Less than half of the necessary room-nights have been reserved.

Time is running out, y’all, and Mr. Completely is on the hook for this thing. The dinner Saturday is for 25 people whether 25 show up or not. If they don’t, he’s left holding the bag for the balance. Thousands if not tens of thousands of people rush to their computers to protest Jim Zumbo. Hundreds of people show up for the DailyKOS convention. And we can’t get 25 people to show up to a Reno casino for a little get-together, dinner, and a trip to the range?

An Open Letter to Robyn Ringler

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Dear Ms. Ringler:

I read with some interest your latest post in which you declare that you will no longer accept comments at your site due to the abuse you have received both in comments and on other sites across the internet:

If you google “Robyn Ringler”—my formerly good name—You will find many similar comments about me. I have been called a liar, a rapist, a moron, an idiot, a racist, a bigot, Hitler, stupid, and so many other names—it’s enough to last a lifetime. I’ve been told I should be dead and how my death should take place. I’ve been accused of being singlehandedly responsible for the deaths of every Virginia Tech victim, as well as all other victims of gun violence because these children should have been carrying concealed weapons to defend themselves. The tired phrase “There is blood on your hands” has been repeated to me ad nauseum.

I’m sorry that this has happened to you, I truly am, but perhaps now you understand how many of us on this side of the fence feel when we are called precisely the same things. Oh, perhaps not the rapist part, but everything else, surely. Every time there is a high-profile crime committed with a gun, those of us who believe in a right to arms are painted with precisely those other descriptions, most especially the “blood on your hands” canard.

It’s not pleasant, is it?

I was first pointed to your blog in May, and at that time – twice – I invited you, in the comments to your posts, to debate the topic of gun control. Unfortunately, after gleaning through your archives it would appear that you have deleted both, though I did find this one comment that refers to my invitations:

23.

Robyn,
why are you so afraid of debating Kevin?

Comment by Leonidas — June 2, 2007 @ 11:03 am

Continuing on in your most recent piece, I found this heartfelt paragraph:

I believed when I started this blog that “Under Fire” would provide a venue for reasonable voices on both sides of the gun debate. I knew there would be passion, sometimes anger, but I thought these emotions would remain focused on the issues, not the people.

That, Ms. Ringler, is precisely what I offered you.

And other than the deletion of my invitations, I received no response.

But that offer remains open. I am willing to debate the topic of gun control with you; without invective, without ad hominems. I offer you clear, clean, honest discussion on the topic. All you need do is reciprocate. I’ll even recommend a format. We can post each others pieces and responses at our respective sites so that the readers can check to ensure that no untoward editing is going on: no deletions or additions to our posts after the fact.

Let me be clear on this: I do not expect to convert you from your positions, nor do I expect you to convert me. This isn’t about us, it’s about our topic and our audience. It’s about the people who are interested in the subject, but sit on the fence – the ones we each wish to reach. I certainly understand that hurling insults does not aid in persuasion. It has its place, but debate of this type is not the place.

I will, if possible, be posting this invitation to the comments of your most recent post, since in it you note that comments will be accepted through September 8. If this comment does not appear there, or is later deleted, I will know your answer.

I remain,

Yours very truly,

Kevin Baker

UPDATE: The comment is up, #39 in her most recent post. At least, I can see it.

Now we wait….

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Well, this is fascinating. Robyn didn’t just delete my invitation, she apparently hid an entire POST – the one on “Let’s Ban the Fifty Caliber Sniper Rifle.” You can get to it if you have this link, but it does not appear if you click on her archives for May.

Interesting, that.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE TO THE… (you get the idea.) I’m informed by email that you can get to the “Ban the .50” post by going to “page 2” of her blog. I also found it by clicking on the “.50 Caliber Sniper Rifle” category. It would appear to be not so much a matter of deletion, but of vagaries in how the TimesUnion archives posts on its blog pages.

My apologies to Ms. Ringler for assuming too quickly that the both invitations had been deleted.

FINAL UPDATE: Wednesday, Sept. 12 – One full week has passed since the issuance of my open letter. Robyn’s comments are closed now, but my invitation is still posted at her site. In direct contrast to JadeGold’s last shot at me there, it would appear that I am not the one afraid of debate in this case.

Imagine that.

Parker Goes to SCOTUS… as D.C. v. Heller

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Not surprising. We knew this was coming. (PDF file.) Give me a couple of days and maybe I’ll fisk it. Now the question is whether SCOTUS will grant certiorari.

There was an interesting online “debate” held on the case over at The Federalist Society recently. The parties involved were:

Ohio State professor Saul Cornell, University of Tennessee Law professor Glenn Reynolds, Legal Director of the Brady Center’s Campaign to Stop Gun Violence, Dennis Henigan, Executive Director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Joshua Horwitz, and lawyers for the plantiffs in Parker, Alan Gura (Gura & Possessky, PLLC.), Bob Levy (Cato), and Clark Neily (the Institute for Justice)

It was an interesting read, especially when Glenn Reynolds echoed my position:

I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that the Supreme Court will deny certiorari on this case. I think that’s likely because of the difficult position the Court would be placed in if it failed to find an individual right to arms under the Second Amendment. As Prof. Mike O’Shea wrote Concurring Opinions : How many Americans would view District of Columbia v. Parker as the most important court case of the last thirty years? The answer must run into seven figures. The decision would have far-reaching effects, particularly in the event of a reversal. Here is one way to think about the message the Supreme Court would be sending if it reversed the D.C. Circuit on the merits in Parker . . . That’s a comparison between the Court’s handling of the enumerated rights claim at issue in Parker, and its demonstrated willingness to embrace even non-enumerated individual rights that are congenial to the political left, in cases like Roe and Lawrence. “So the Constitution says Roe, but it doesn’t say I have the right to keep a gun to defend my home, huh?” The Court’s jurisprudence of unenumerated rights (with which I’m largely in agreement, by the way) would make it politically very difficult for the Court to eviscerate a clearly enumerated right to which many Americans attach great importance. At the same time, I don’t think the Court is willing to affirm in Parker. If I’m right, a denial of certioriari is the only way for the Court to avoid a very difficult situation.

I said as much back in May.

But my absolute favorite part of the debate was the last post, where Gura, Levy, and Neily come down with both feet on Professor Cornell for living in his Jabberwocky world:

This debate has mostly been conducted on a high level. Regrettably, Saul Cornell’s final post has stooped to ad hominem attacks, barefaced attempts to promote Cornell’s book, and reliance on a quote for which Cornell inexplicably provides no source. Let’s focus on the strange quote – the only part of Cornell’s post that isn’t personally offensive or transparently self-serving. After we repeatedly pressed Cornell to identify a single contemporaneous source for the militia view of the Second Amendment, he produced what he trumpets as “a good illustration of how Americans in the Founding era viewed the right.” Essentially, the quote states that only “the use of arms in common defense” was constitutionally protected; other purposes, such as self-defense, were subject to interdiction by the state legislature. Was this the declaration of Madison, Hamilton, or another luminary among the Framers? Cornell didn’t say. Well, we checked. The quote is from the estimable [hold your hat] Scribble Scrabble, a newspaper essayist. Was this profound thinker published in a scholarly journal? Not quite: It was the Cumberland Gazette, a newspaper in Portland, Maine. Was Scribble Scrabble opining on the U.S. Constitution? No, he was writing about a provision in the Massachusetts state constitution. Moreover, the article appeared five years before the Second Amendment was ratified. Why has Cornell quoted this bizarre source, without citation, including its deceptive reference to “The Bill of Rights,” but no mention that the provision in question was from the Massachusetts Bill of Rights? Because he could not respond any better to our challenge: Name “a single 18th century voice explaining how the Second Amendment right is to be read collectively.” Suppose, however, we accept Scribble Scrabble’s analysis, as if it applied to the federal Constitution. The notion that the legislature may freely “interdict” citizens’ ability to own guns cannot be reconciled with any clear-headed conception of “the right of the people.” Indeed, one might also assert that “the people” enjoy a right to own pens and pencils “till the legislature shall think fit to interdict.” After all, the right to own writing instruments is implicit, but not explicitly recognized, in the First Amendment. Of course, every serious-minded person rejects interdiction of pens and pencils, even those that are ultimately used for something other than free speech or a free press. Those of us on the pro-freedom side reject interdiction of guns as well. The burden of persuasion for treating guns differently than writing instruments clearly lies with those who would make that distinction. Our opponents in this debate offered precious little beyond Scribble Scrabble.

That, friends, is a professional bitch-slap.

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The Latest News from the Petri Dish.

This is actually old news, but I just ran across it recently. In the August 26 Sunday Times of London, reporter David Leppard (I wonder if his nickname is “Def”?) informs us:

THE government was accused yesterday of covering up the full extent of the gun crime epidemic sweeping Britain, after official figures showed that gun-related killings and injuries had risen more than fourfold since 1998.

Remember, the UK banned all licensed, registered centerfire handguns in 1997, and extended the ban to .22 rimfire handguns in February, 1998. The Home Office reported in February of 1999,

162,353 handguns and 700 tonnes of ammunition have been safely surrendered at an expected cost of £95 million.

The National Audit Office’s main conclusions are:
On ensuring prohibited handguns were surrendered or otherwise accounted for

* 25,000 fewer handguns were surrendered than the police forces estimated would be handed in. Forces have since concluded that this was because their estimates were inaccurate and included, for example, firearms which could be retained lawfully under various exemptions.
* We visited more than half the police forces in Britain (26 of 51) and found that most had satisfied themselves that all legally held handguns had been surrendered or otherwise accounted for. In four cases police investigations found that handguns that should have been surrendered had been retained illegally.

Only four cases! Boy, licensing and registration sure are effective measures.

If you want to confiscate things.

Home Office Minister Alan Michael announced after passage of the Act: “Britain now has some of the toughest gun laws in the world. We recognize that only the strictest control of firearms will protect the public.”

Riiiiight.

To continue with the Times report:

The Home Office figures – which exclude crimes involving air weapons – show the number of deaths and injuries caused by gun attacks in England and Wales soared from 864 in 1998-99 to 3,821 in 2005-06. That means that more than 10 people are injured or killed in a gun attack every day.

Granted, this pales in comparison with, say, the fifteen people killed in Chicago over the long weekend, but remember: England is an ISLAND. They have “needs-based” licensing, “safe storage” laws, ammunition quantity and type restrictions, bans on machine guns, semi-automatic and pump-action rifles, and all handguns. Their gun crime has always been a fraction of ours, and while our rates were decreasing each and every year (despite 3+ million new firearms being purchased here annually), their rates were slowly but steadily increasing.

They thought gun bans would make them safer.

But firearm-related crime is up fourfold since the handgun ban. And most of it is committed with handguns.

So, what to do? Cook the books!

This weekend the Tories said the figures challenged claims by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, that gun crime was falling. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, tells her in a letter today that the “staggering findings” show her claims that gun crime has fallen are “inaccurate and misleading”.

And, of course, repeating the same behavior while expecting a different result:

Smith last night proposed the setting up of neutral “drop-off zones” where illegal weapons could be handed in. “This means we can actually take that gun out of circulation and stop it from doing harm,” she said.

That’s what the handgun ban was supposed to do. The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again, only HARDER!

The Home Office has repeatedly denied gun crime is rising. Last week it pointed to the latest annual crime statistics, which appeared to show that overall gun crime was 13% down on the previous year.

Denial. River. Egypt. You know the cliché.

But in his letter to Smith, released today, Davis said these claims were contradicted by figures “buried” in a Home Office statistical bulletin, published earlier this year.” [Here] we find the most revealing indication of the true gun-related violence sweeping Britain. Gun-related killings and injuries (excluding air weapons) have increased over fourfold since 1998,” he wrote.

The Home Office said: “We remain fully committed to tackling gang culture and gun and knife crime through responsive policing, tough powers and funding prevention projects.”

Otherwise known as “escalation of failure.”

Hey! I know! Let’s try it here!

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About Damned Time.

Broward County, Florida Sheriff Ken Jenne has finally resigned. Like Al Capone, they got him for tax evasion. If you don’t know who Ken Jenne is, I’ve covered that lying sack a couple of times previously; first with the deceptive mendacious “assault weapons” piece run on CNN in May of 2003, either taking advantage of the ignorance John Zarella and the army of editors and producers behind him, or with their complicity. Later, in April of 2005 when it came to light that Sheriff Jenne’s office had apparently falsified crime statistics, and he was making money on the side through kickbacks from subcontractors he just happened to be an officer of.

That investigation is what finally got him, and it was long overdue.

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Yeah, Hollywood Has Our Back…

…and is gleefully and repeatedly sticking a knife in it.

WARNING: FOUL LANGUAGE FOLLOWS, BECAUSE I AM PISSED.

Remember this post? I’d been to see The Bourne Ultimatum (a not too pro-American film itself) and had to comment on three of the trailers shown before the feature: The Kingdom, Rendition, and Lions for Lambs.

Apparently the trailer for Redacted wasn’t yet available.

A new film about the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who also murdered her family stunned the Venice festival, with shocking images that left some viewers in tears.

“Redacted”, by U.S. director Brian De Palma, is one of at least eight American films on the war in Iraq due for release in the next few months and the first of two movies on the conflict screening in Venice’s main competition.

Inspired by one of the most serious crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, it is a harrowing indictment of the conflict and spares the audience no brutality to get its message across.

De Palma, 66, whose “Casualties of War” in 1989 told a similar tale of abuse by American soldiers in Vietnam, makes no secret of the goal he is hoping to achieve with the film’s images, all based on real material he found on the Internet.

“The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people,” he told reporters after a press screening.

(All emphasis mine.)

OK, Brian, here’s my commentary on your film, which I have not seen and will not see:

If you want to make a film that brings “the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people” it had better include Al Qaeda suicide bombers deliberately targeting children and Mosques with VBIEDs. It had better include Al Qaeda torturing and murdering Iraqis with assistance from Iran and Syria. It had better include Americans providing medical care, building schools, providing supplies, training Iraqi police and military units, and all the other good things American soldiers do every single fucking day in Iraq. It had better include showing Americans what kind of living conditions our soldiers and Marines are experiencing as they do the damned hard job of nation-building that your fucking film makes even fucking harder. It had better show the coffins of our dead, and the effects those deaths have on their buddies, families and friends. It had better show our wounded – those who are injured, maimed, even those who lose limbs, and who still want to go back and finish the job. It had better show the “economic mercenaries” like Rocco DiPippo who go to Iraq to help them rebuild, and risk their lives to do so.

You want to make a movie about the atrocities committed by criminals in war? WAIT UNTIL THE WAR IS FUCKING OVER. Otherwise what you are doing is actively, willingly, and yes, traitorously providing a propaganda victory for the enemy. (Yes, Mark, I mean every goddamned word.)

Do atrocities occur in war? In every war that has ever occurred. Are those atrocities standard operating procedure or are they aberrations? Depends on the war. But in this case the five soldiers involved have been arrested, and most have either confessed and been sentenced or tried and convicted. Spc. James P. Barker confessed and has been given a sentence of 90 years. SGT Paul E. Cortez confessed and has been sentenced to 100 years. Pfc. Jesse Spielman received a sentence of 110 years. PFC Bryan L. Howard, who knew about the plan but did not participate in the rape and murders was sentenced to 27 months. The “ringleader” of the crime, PFC Steven Dale Green had been discharged from the Army prior to the case coming to light. He faces rape and murder charges as a civilian in Kentucky Federal court. He faces the death penalty when the case comes to trial, and I hope like hell he gets it. Maybe Brian DePalma can make a movie about that.

THIS IS WHAT WE DO TO CRIMINALS. We don’t make fucking propaganda movies for the other side.

“The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war,” he said.

NO, YOU ASSWIPE! “These images” will anger and inflame the Middle East and cause the Iraqis to doubt and fear us. It will embolden Al Qaeda and bring them new recruits. AND IT WILL MOST PROBABLY RESULT IN MORE OF OUR TROOPS GETTING KILLED.

And not only do you not give a damn about that, I’m willing to bet you’re counting on it since more deaths will increase pressure on Congress to cut and run.

The film, shot in Jordan with a little known cast, ends with a series of photographs of Iraqi civilians killed and their faces blacked out for legal reasons.

Note that it does NOT end with the fates of the soldiers involved, just the victims. Thankfully this cast is not filled with big-name actors, though I’m personally amazed that Spicoli isn’t playing PFC Green (or the 14 year-old girl). I guess he was too busy hobnobbing with Hugo Chavez to make the film.

Brian DePalma just got added to the list of people I will personally kick in the balls if I am ever unfortunate enough to be in their presence. He shares that list with Ted Rall.

Hey Brian, why not make your next project about the rape and murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsome? There’s lots on the internet about that one. I mean, Americans need to know what’s really going on here in America, don’t we?

How in the FUCK did we ever produce a population that holds such hatred of their own country and countrymen? I really want to know.

UPDATE: Related pieces here and here. Without the invective.

UPDATE II: And here. WITH big-name stars.

UPDATE III: If Hollywood wants to make movies about war, here’s a list of books they can option.

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Only Democrats and Dictators Fear Elections.

That’s a line from James Hudnall, from a post no longer available on the web. It stuck with me, and I’ve quoted it a couple of times here. It seems once again pertinent.

OpinionJournal carries a piece today on the efforts of T.J. Rogers, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Dartmouth alum who got himself elected to the board of trustees at Dartmouth in an attempt to effect some positive change.

Things have not gone well. The powers-that-be in the board of trustees are not at all happy to have their power challenged by diversity of thought.

Here’s the quote of the day from that piece:

This is not a conservative-liberal conflict. This is a libertarian-totalitarian conflict.

Please read the whole piece.

This is just one more facet in something that’s been stirring in the back of my mind for a while, waiting to become another essay.

(h/t: Instapundit.)

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Just a Reminder:.

(Sorry, Peet! Last one! It’s little!)

The speaker at this year’s Rendezvous dinner will be Major Chuck Ziegenfuss, millblogger author of From My Position… On the Way! Major Zeigenfuss was wounded in June of 2005 shortly after being deployed to Iraq. He lost a finger, and has suffered significant damage to his hands. He was the inspiration behind Project Valour-IT which provides laptop computers with voice-recognition software to wounded and amputee soldiers. He received such a laptop while in Walter-Reed so he could continue to blog during his recovery, and that inspired him to begin the project.

I look forward to meeting the Major very much. Kudos to Mr. Completely for selecting and securing such a fine speaker.