Tag: QotD

Quote of the Day – Michael Bane Edition

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From his post How it Works in Gun-Free Paradise:

After those rollicking crazy Boston boys blasted an eight-year-old into oblivion, they did a little workout at the gym and planned to head to New York City to party party party. A problemo surfaces…they only had one pistol. I mean, two terrorists, one pistol, not gonna look good on FaceBook, n’est-ce pas? So did the boys race to an Internet cafe to buy maybe a dozen or so full-auto assault weapons off the Internet, with same-day shipping? Speed to a LGS for the “Tuesday Terrorist Two-Fer, No NCIS No Way”? Wait for the weekend gun show where they could stock up on RPGs, grenades and those rifles with the shoulder thingie that sticks up?

None of the above. Instead, they went to the one firearms superstore where they were sure guns would be in stock…they walked up to the police car of MIT Officer Sean Collier, killed him in very cold blood and tried to grab his gun. The reason those lovable Holden Caulfield-esque urchins failed on that task was that apparently the Islamic Terrorism 101 class on the Internet doesn’t include retention holsters, disabling of. Don’t worry…I’m sure the curriculum will be updated any moment now!

Man, if we’d only had a law that made it illegal to transfer a gun without a background check! That would have stopped them dead in their tracks!

Quote of the Day – Reynold’s Laws Edition

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Reynold’s First Law:

Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them.

Reynold’s Second Law:

The more a government wants to run its citizens’ lives, the worse job it will do at the most basic tasks of government.

Reynold’s Third Law:

Whatever politicians control, they will use against you to get what they want.

Can’t say I disagree with any of ’em.

Quote of the Day – Megan McArdle Edition

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If you want to actually understand why gun control failed, let’s try a simple exercise. Raise your hand if you had a strong opinion about the background check bill that was in front of Congress.

Keep your hand raised if you know how your own Senator voted on it. Otherwise put your hand down.

Keep your hand raised if you actually live in a state that might plausibly elect a Republican to congress.

Okay, now keep your hand raised if that bill was in the top one or two issues that you’ll be voting on in 2014 or 2016. By which I mean, if your Senator votes the wrong way on that bill, you will vote for anyone who opposes them. Anyone–even someone with the wrong opinions on gay marriage, social security reform, transportation subsidies, the Keystone XL pipeline, carbon taxes, marginal tax rates on people who make more than $250k per annum, the deficit, and student loan repayment programs.

Now look around. Aside from those three guys in the back from Handgun Control Inc., do you know who still has their hand raised? NRA members.

— Memo: The Aaron Sorkin Model of Political Discourse Doesn’t Actually Work

Quote of the Day – Compromise Edition

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Michael Z. Williamson wins today’s Quote of the Day with this beauty from his Facebook page:

I am the counter to the extreme “no guns” camp. I am the “legalize nukes” camp. Somewhere in the middle is a bargaining point. As long as it includes machine guns and cannon, I’m willing to compromise on nukes.

What I am not willing to do is say, “We gave up nukes, arty, machine guns, so let’s compromise on rifles.” Because that is NOT compromise, it is piecemeal surrender, with nothing given in return.

In exchange for compromising on nukes, I expect the CMP to not only sell weapons to civilians, but to furnish a crate of ammo per buyer every 5 years, to support its Congressionally mandated charter of equipping the militia–all able bodied adults.

See? Compromise. 🙂

Two in a Row for Marko

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Mr. Munchkin Wrangler (aka Maj. Caudill) gets his second Quote of the Day in a row:

Take away your ability to defend yourself against armed criminals, then send the 82nd Law Enforcement Division (Mechanized) into your residential neighborhood to flush out said criminals. Once again, government breaks your legs, hands you a pair of crutches, and tells you that if it wasn’t for government, you wouldn’t be able to walk. And people APPLAUD that shit?

Amen.  (Internal link is mine, not his.)

Go Ahead, Pull My Other Leg

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“We never decide what to cover for ideological reasons, no matter what critics might claim. Accusations of ideological motives are easy to make, even if they’re not supported by the facts.” — Martin Baron, Executive Editor, Washington Post on why the Post had not covered the trial of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell

I am reminded of “The Narrative,” a QotD by author Stephen Hunter from his book I, Sniper I posted back in November, 2010:

You do not fight the narrative. The narrative will destroy you. The narrative is all-powerful. The narrative rules. It rules us, it rules Washington, it rules everything.
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The narrative is the set of assumptions the press believes in, possibly without even knowing that it believes in them. It’s so powerful because it’s unconscious. It’s not like they get together every morning and decide “These are the lies we will tell today.” No, that would be too crude and honest. Rather, it’s a set of casual, nonrigorous assumptions about a reality they’ve never really experienced that’s arranged in such a way as to reinforce their best and most ideal presumptions about themselves and their importance to the system and the way they’ve chosen to live their lives. It’s a way of arranging things a certain way that they all believe in without ever really addressing carefully. It permeates their whole culture. They know, for example, that Bush is a moron and Obama is a saint. They know communism was a phony threat cooked up by right-wing cranks as a way to leverage power to the executive. They know that Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, the response to Katrina was fucked up…. Cheney’s a devil. Biden’s a genius. Soft power good, hard power bad. Forgiveness excellent, punishment counterproductive, capital punishment a sin.
—
And the narrative is the bedrock of their culture, the keystone of their faith, the altar of their church. They don’t even know they’re true believers, because in theory they despise the true believer in anything. But they will absolutely de-frackin’-stroy anybody who makes them question that….

If you haven’t already, I invite you to read my January, 2008 essay The Church of MSM and the New Reformation.

“There’s a reason education sucks…”

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“…and it’s the same reason it will never, ever, ever be fixed.”  – George Carlin

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI?rel=0]

George is pretty close, but it’s not just the “greedy rich.”  No, it’s the people who don’t make anything but laws – for your own good, you know.  This is why those rich people spend billions of dollars lobbying – THEY KNOW WHERE THE POWER IS.

I am reminded once again of C.S. Lewis’ warning:

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

A tyranny of people who want to tell you what to eat, how much to drink, what job you’re allowed and how to do it in minute detail – even though they’ve never done that job or anything like it in their entire lives, what car you can own, and where and how fast you can drive it, how much money you can earn and what you can do with it, that your children aren’t really yours, they belong to the Collective (resistance is futile, you will be assimilated!). People who want to “fundamentally transform” the nation, to heal the planet and slow the rising of the oceans. People who believe that the purpose of Rule of Law is “human redemption.”

No, I’d rather be tyrannized by the rich and greedy. The rich and greedy can only hire a few people with guns to make people do things. The Uplifters are convinced they’re saving our souls (often while denying such things exist), and have military and police forces to impose their will on us.