Thursday, July 31, 2014

It's a Small World After All

I figured yesterday's column would be controversial.

A well-intentioned Facebook friend commented thusly:
Are we all assuming that these new arrivals aren't going to want the same things we do? I think that might be a bad assumption. As David just said: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Can we not co-opt them as easily as the progressives have?
That presupposes assumptions, rather than observations, were made. The burden is on anyone challenging the piece to address and refute each specific documented claim by presenting superior counter-documentation before making the ...uh... assumption that they are invalid and moving the discussion on to a new track. And in re suggesting it's just as easy to co-opt, again, the burden is on the proposer to flesh that out and explain what evidence he has to suppose that. Who is making assumptions here?

"Can't we all get along?" sounds like a great plan. I'm game. As long as getting along doesn't result in more dangers, burdens and infringements, and fewer Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. I need more than a hopeful heart and platitudes here. Flesh out how "we" are going to  do it.  And how easy "easily" is.

I was pleased to receive the following via email from WarOnGuns Correspondent JM, who has agreed to let me share it here:
Outstanding article on immigration and gun control! I just emailed it to several of the Vdare.com writers, so hopefully one of them blogs about it. As a matter of coincidence, the NRA sent a letter to me today asking me to sign up. I think I will print off and include your column in my response!

One other point: if people calling themselves "libertarian" or who follow Koch Brothers funded establishment type "libertarians" who are generally pro-gun rights attempt to object to your article, you can always respond with this by the guy who literally created the modern day libertarian movement.

Rothbard starts on the immigration issue on page six. He remarks how he completely changed his views on free immigration when he witnessed Russia encourage mass immigration to Latvia and Estonia to destroy their culture and language during the fall of the Soviet Union. On page nine, Rothbard references how Latvia, Estonia, and Switzerland dealt with mass immigration by refusing to allow the immigrants to vote - thereby maintaining their values and culture.

If the founder of the modern day libertarian movement is not enough, here is another major figure in the modern day libertarian movement making the same case, albeit in much greater detail.

The main point Rothbard and Hoppe make is that this isn't "free labor" - but instead centrally planned economic policy in the form of mass immigration by the government since the market is not making these decisions.
Read that last sentence again. Who is co-opting whom here? And for what purpose?

Celebrity Justice

You don't expect great people to be burdened by the same controls as we lesser beings, do you? [More]

Poor Ray. The nerve of those people.

As for Shaneen, who the hell does that nobody think she is?  Talk about nerve!

After all, what has Gwyneth taught us about the crosses our idols must bear?  And haven't we established she knows best what's good for us, the little people?

The Waterboy

Today, (Wednesday July 30th, 2014) Circuit Court Judge Toby S. Monaco granted motions to dismiss and for summary judgement in favor of his alma mater and granted sovereign immunity to UF President Manchen. The lower court Judge ignored the plain language of multiple Florida firearms laws, multiple binding court cases from Florida and the US Supreme Court, turned to blind eye to university policies that are promulgated in continued violation, and refused to conduct any analysis of the right to keep and bear arms. [More]
Gee, no conflict of interest there.

So now it goes to appeal. I'll have to find out if those other bench-sitters are carrying water for anyone.

Gun Appreciation

I DO appreciate 'em.

I appreciate 'em so much, I get irritated when rope-selling "capitalists" try to profit off the same people they're helping to hang.

And what's with all these gun company ads glorifying the "Only Ones" standing army?

Can't We Cut the Gal Some Slack?

The Bloomberg "real reporter" probably didn't mean to type "high magazine rounds." [More]

My guess is, she probably meant to type "cop-exploding air torpedoes of war" or something that makes sense.

You know, something that'll cook a deer from the inside:

Making Lemonade Out of Lemons

Connecticut Carry Responds to ‘Will You Stop This?’ Video Releases Transformative Video With a Worthwhile Message [More]
Watch the video here.

Just Can't Quite Cut It

I'm also outperformed in the category that counts by, respectively, Pet Rescue, Paranormal, Celebrity Fitness and Health, Finance, and #6 does not display -- probably Kardashian STDs or some such.

I went to the supermarket the other day and scanned through a checkout magazine rack I generally ignore. If you think about it, it's horrifying.

When "Progressives" Collide

... community and church leaders are calling on Fresno Unified School District to reconsider its hiring of a white teacher to instruct African-American, Latino and Southeast Asian studies there. [More]
If only we had ... I dunno ... racial discrimination?  Say, now there's a "progressive" idea!

Every day is Opposite Day.

And They Were Prepared to Do What, Exactly?

“I blame it on the society here, the health system and the police system. We called police on him more than 23 times in two-three years,”... [More]
Well, if it's "society's" fault, then I guess they'd have deserved to get shot down. That's ultimately what the fighter jets had scrambled for, right?

I can't shake the feeling there are several other outrageous factors at play here that have been left unstated.

It also reminds me of a story I once read, back when some of us were pestering anyone who'd listen about arming the pilots...

This Day in History: July 31

Journal of the House of Assembly on Wednesday 31 July 1782, P.169, the following 54 persons were Amerced (conscripted) into the Effingham County Militia at the rates which like persons are Amerced at... [More]