Do it Again, Only HARDER

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Do it Again, Only HARDER

Sebastian has a very interesting British Public Service advertisement on his blog. His reaction:

You’d almost think the laws were ineffective, and only resulted in criminals having guns. Nah! Can’t be. That’s crazy talk!

Or, as Uncle puts it, “That’s unpossible!”

Here are two screenshots from near the end of the piece that say it all, now eleven years after the UK banned all handguns:


They admit that banning legally-owned firearms has failed. But the philosophy cannot be wrong!

The answer? DISARM BRITAIN!

Wait… I thought the handgun ban was supposed to do that…?

I left this comment at this blog post there. I doubt seriously it will make it through moderation:

OF COURSE “these laws don’t seem to matter.”

Are any of you familiar with the concept of “cognitive dissonance”? Here’s an excellent definition:

“When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as ‘escalation of failure’.)”

You’ve TRIED “disarming Britain,” and you’ve FAILED. Al you’ve done is disarm your victims and made them fearful of the consequences of defending themselves. Your ideology says “Violence is bad. Weapons are at fault. Remove the weapons and the violence will go away.” The ideology is FLAWED. But you’ve tried to follow the logic of the ideology, and it has failed. Since the ideology cannot be wrong, you keep turning up the power, and escalating the failure.

What you’ve lost is the understanding that there is a difference between “violent and predatory” and “violent but defensive.” Instead, you see only “violent.”

Human predators exist. A brick, a pipe, a chisel, a bottle – broken or not – can be a weapon in the hands of someone willing to use it. Knowing that their prey will be defenseless merely encourages them. How many of you avoid even looking at a hoodie-wearing chav on a bus or riding the tube, afraid that they might find an interest in YOU?

If any of you still have an open mind on the subject, read this. All three parts.

No wonder Brits are emigrating en mass.

UPDATE: Needless to say, my comment wasn’t approved. So I sent the blog authors, Natalie Harrison and Kyle MacRae an email directing them to this post and asking them “why not?”

Nat, Kyle:

I visited your website, “Disarming Britain” yesterday and read several of the posts after one of your adverts was posted to a web site I frequent. I left a comment on the post in question, “Knives and the Law” which was held for moderation.

It appears it didn’t pass muster.

I posted my entire comment, with a link to your site, at my own blog. I was wondering if you could tell me just what was it about my comment that got it rejected?

Thank you for your attention.

Kevin

Further updates as events warrant.

Four More Years, Indeed

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Four More Years, Indeed

Mike Ramirez, two-time Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist scores again:

Only I believe Obama is, if anything worse than Carter. Carter was a (relatively mild) Christian Socialist. I think Obama is the real Marxist type, but perhaps without the atheism.

Either way, the next four years ain’t gonna be fun.

Another Addition to the Blogroll

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Another Addition to the Blogroll…

…because I grok how this guy thinks. Rustmeister linked to my recent “Reset Button” post, and commented at length on the topic, and then got a comment of his own from The Mad Rocket Scientist, with a link to a similar piece. RTWT.

I don’t know about you, but I think he’s right – I worry the chaos will come first, as well.

Hell, I expect it.

Welcome to the blogroll, Mad Rocket Scientist.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

Five years ago, when I told people that my eventual goal was to build a house out in the middle of nowhere that was totally off the grid, powered by solar panels, a wind turbine, with my own well and gravity fed water tower, I was a psycho right-wing militia type. Now, apparently I’m “environmentally aware” and “Green.” – Larry Correia, I’m not feeling warm fuzzies about this election…

RTWT. Most especially the opening paragraph that was almost the QotD.

So What’s the Answer?

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I had an interesting lunch with a coworker today, an Obama enthusiast. We’ve traded barbs and had some extended discussions over our differences in political outlook in the past, and he acknowledges that some of my positions are, even to his worldview, not wrong.

He’s an open-minded kinda guy.

So he asked me, “How do we fix it?”

I’ve been thinking about it ever since. And tonight when I got home and checked the blog and the comments, I ran across this:

Kevin, if there is an honest history written of these times, it will agree with your premise that the gubmint school system was the essential mechanism by which the American people were tamed, neutered, and fitted with their slave collars.

Each of us has a sacred obligation not only to resist the coming Night, but to teach the ones behind us the difference between Night and Day.

See this quote from Fjordman here:

I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that the system cannot be fixed, and perhaps shouldn’t be fixed. Not only does it have too many enemies, it also has too many internal contradictions. If we define the “system” as mass immigration from alien cultures, globalism, Multiculturalism and suppression of free speech in the name of “tolerance,” then this is going to collapse.

It’s inevitable.

The goal of Western survivalists — and that’s what we are — should not be to “fix the system,” but to be mentally and physically prepared for its collapse, and to develop coherent answers to what went wrong and prepare to implement the necessary remedies when the time comes. We need to seize the window of opportunity, and in order to do so, we need to define clearly what we want to achieve.

Let’s roll. – Cabinboy

So, what’s the answer? What went wrong? Assuming we get the chance, how do we correct the problems for Constitutional Republic of the U.S. V2.0?

I told my colleague the same thing that Fijordman said, the system cannot be fixed. Two hundred-plus years of entropy have eroded the mechanism past the point of repair. The basic design was outstanding, but nothing is ever perfect.

Unfortunately it started off with an inherent flaw, the acceptance of chattel slavery. Granted, the whole thing was a no-go without that compromise, but we’re still suffering the after-effects 219 years later. And, as pragmatic as the Founders were about human nature, I still think they underestimated human corruptibility and the human will to power. Back when I first saw Joss Whedon’s film Serenity, these lines struck me perhaps the hardest:

Sure as I know anything, I know this – they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They will swing back to the belief that they can make people… better. And I do not hold to that.

It faintly echos Robert A. Heinlein from my favorite novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:

Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws – always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up.

In fact, I just had an argument discussion with a commenter on that very topic a couple of days ago. And I admit that to some extent I’m on the “stop people from doing as they please” side when I think they’re bats*!t crazy. Sorry. Guilty as charged. But at least I don’t think we can make people better.

But we have to design around entropy.

Back when I wrote Game Over, Man, I quoted Mike from the now-defunct Feces Flinging Monkey on the topic of our legal system:

Personally, I think that the (unfortunate) bottom line is that the future of our freedom ultimately rests with the court’s willingness to periodically reexamine the law. Lawmakers, and law enforcers, will always push the limits, and they will always win occasional gains. If the court is unwilling to revisit these issues over time and correct the damage done, then it’s “game over” no matter what we do. This makes it a little easier for me to accept changes in the law where the cost is low and the benefits are significant. If I can’t count on an occasional review, then the game is already lost.

I then went on to point out to him that no such review really exists. Judges who wish to (in Alex Kozinski’s words) “Constitutionalize their personal preferences” go ahead and do so, leaving honest and honorable judges below or on the same judicial level stuck with bad precedent. And if higher courts refuse to review (and they can), or worse, refuse to overturn (and they have), then cancer sets in, and cutting out that cancer later is painful and difficult, as we may be about to learn once again.

Second, as I noted in When Your Only Tool is a Hammer, and again Saturday in Pressing the “Reset” Button, Part II, the job description of legislator is “lawmaker“. It’s what they do. Rev. Donald Sensing put it quite graphically a while back:

A long time ago Steven Den Beste observed in an essay, “The job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left to themselves, they will regulate everything they can.” Celebrated author Robert Heinlein wrote, “In any advanced society, ‘civil servant’ is a euphemism for ‘civil master.'” Both quotes are not exact, but they’re pretty close. And they’re both exactly right. Big government is itself apolitical. It cares not whose party is in power. It simply continues to grow. Its nourishment is that the people’s money. Its excrement is more and more regulations and laws. Like the Terminator, “that’s what it does, that’s all it does.”

So for me, Priority Number One is limiting the number of laws, decrees, edicts, ordinances, precepts, proscriptions, regulations, and rules. Priority Number Two is periodic review of all existing laws, decrees, edicts, ordinances, precepts, proscriptions, regulations, and rules. ALL of ’em. That ought to keep the legislatures and courts busy enough to at least help with Priority Number One.

Honestly, that’s as far as I’ve gotten. So what are YOUR ideas?

We Never Intended the Law to Mean THAT!

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“Whenever you propose a new law, imagine what the results would be if that law was enforced by your worst enemy or the stupidest person you know.” – Anonymous

A while back, a real b!t*h of a mother allegedly managed to humiliate a young woman by the use of a fake MySpace page to the point that the young woman hanged herself.

There doesn’t seem to be a law on the books for that, but, since Prosecutors are as fond of Law & Order (the TV series) as most of America seems to be, one in this case has decided to do the Jack McCoy route, and stretch an existing law to fit:

Internet suicide case goes to federal court

A Missouri woman accused of taking part in a MySpace hoax that ended with a 13-year-old girl’s suicide has so far avoided state charges — but not federal ones.

Lori Drew, 49, a neighbor of the dead teen, was to make an appearance in federal court here Monday, accused of one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress.

The charges were filed in California where MySpace is based. MySpace is a subsidiary of Beverly Hills-based Fox Interactive Media Inc., which is owned by News Corp.

Drew, of suburban St. Louis, Mo., allegedly helped create a fake MySpace account to convince Megan Meier she was chatting with a nonexistent 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans.

Megan Meier hanged herself at home in October 2006, allegedly after receiving a dozen or more cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her. Drew has denied creating the account or sending messages to Meier.

U.S. Attorney’s spokesman Thom Mrozek said Drew is expected to enter a plea in federal court, then have her case assigned to a judge and be given a trial date. He said she would then be allowed to return to her home state pending trial.

Here’s what the law is for:

The statute used to indict Drew usually applies to Internet hackers who illegally access accounts to get information.

But:

James Chadwick, a Palo Alto attorney who specializes in Internet and media law, said he has never seen the statute, known as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, applied to the sending of messages.

He said it was probable that liability for the girl’s death would not be an issue in the case. “As tragic as it is,” he said, “You can’t start imposing liability on people for being cruel.”

No, but a U.S. Attorney is going to try.

When Only the Cops Have Guns

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When Only the Cops Have Guns

If there was ever a case of “justifiable homicide,” this is it:

Police: Officer kills man who beat child to death

TURLOCK, Calif. — Police killed a 27-year-old man as he kicked, punched and stomped a toddler to death despite other people’s attempts to stop him on a dark, country road, authorities said.

Investigators on Sunday were trying to establish the relationship between the suspect and the child they say he killed Saturday night. The Stanislaus County coroner said the boy appeared to be between 1 and 2 years old based on his size, according to county sheriff’s deputy Royjindar Singh.

“It’s been a long night of wondering, ‘Why?’ — not only for the officers and the passers-by who stopped and tried to help out, but for anyone. Why would somebody do this?” Singh said.

Singh said the coroner does not plan to confirm the identities of the suspect and victim until Monday. Because his injuries were so severe, the child will have to be identified through a blood or DNA test, he said.

The suspect had a child’s car seat in the back of his four-door pickup truck. The truck caught the attention of an elderly couple at 10:13 p.m. Saturday because it was stopped in the two-lane road facing the wrong direction, Singh said.

As they got closer, the couple saw the man brutally beating the toddler behind his truck and throwing the child on the ground, according to Singh. Two or three other cars stopped, an unusual number to be passing through the remote area surrounded by a dairy, a cow pasture, a cornfield and a farmhouse, he said.

“What we got from witnesses is he was punching, slapping, kicking, stomping, shaking,” Singh said. “They tried to intervene and get involved, but their efforts really didn’t have an effect. The suspect was engaged in what he was doing. He just pushed them off and went back to it.”

A sheriff’s helicopter responding to emergency calls from the area landed in a cow pasture at 10:19 p.m. carrying a Modesto police officer who shot the man to death after he refused an order to stop beating the child, Singh said.

Paramedics tried to resuscitate the toddler, who was not breathing when they arrived. The boy was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away…