"We Need To Repeal Gun-Free Zones"
Gun Owners of America has a thorough rebuttal of the President's speech.
Nihilism, Plus Security
Consider these password security questions, whose answers are a little hard to dig up on the internet.
The Pack Almost Stopped the Oregon Shooting
A heroic US Army veteran charged the murderer in Oregon. He was shot five times, but fortunately survived and is recovering. If he'd had the tools to go along with his brave heart and strong will, he might have prevented these crimes.
A US Air Force vet at the school's veteran center nearby actually did have a handgun, and moved to intervene along with a number of other veterans. Unfortunately, they obeyed lawful authorities who herded them back inside their own building for their safety.
The government is the only thing that kept American citizens from stopping this attack. We need to comprehensively rethink the role of citizens in dealing with these sorts of distributed threats. The pack response to a threat of this type is exactly the right one. It has worked time and again, sometimes in spite of the government's best efforts to prevent it from working.
If you are a pro-government sort, perhaps it will help to remember that the citizen is also a kind of officer of the government. We entrust the office of citizen with a number of functions central to the common peace and lawful order, such as voting for other officers of the government, serving on juries, and the power of making citizens' arrests.
This is the only office adequately enough distributed to answer a threat of this particular kind. It is also the least likely office to devolve into tyranny, because its power is the least concentrated and most distributed among the American people.
We can take these guys. They are generally weak, full of anger but without virtue. It is only the differential power created by stripping Americans of our means of self-defense that allows them to carry out these attacks. We can stop them.
UPDATE: Loyalty is a two-way street. The wounded Army vet who fought for our fellow citizens is being supported by his former unit mates. You are invited to participate.
A US Air Force vet at the school's veteran center nearby actually did have a handgun, and moved to intervene along with a number of other veterans. Unfortunately, they obeyed lawful authorities who herded them back inside their own building for their safety.
The government is the only thing that kept American citizens from stopping this attack. We need to comprehensively rethink the role of citizens in dealing with these sorts of distributed threats. The pack response to a threat of this type is exactly the right one. It has worked time and again, sometimes in spite of the government's best efforts to prevent it from working.
If you are a pro-government sort, perhaps it will help to remember that the citizen is also a kind of officer of the government. We entrust the office of citizen with a number of functions central to the common peace and lawful order, such as voting for other officers of the government, serving on juries, and the power of making citizens' arrests.
This is the only office adequately enough distributed to answer a threat of this particular kind. It is also the least likely office to devolve into tyranny, because its power is the least concentrated and most distributed among the American people.
We can take these guys. They are generally weak, full of anger but without virtue. It is only the differential power created by stripping Americans of our means of self-defense that allows them to carry out these attacks. We can stop them.
UPDATE: Loyalty is a two-way street. The wounded Army vet who fought for our fellow citizens is being supported by his former unit mates. You are invited to participate.
This is from some of Chris' 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment Brothers:He's going to have a lot of bills while his broken legs heal, which is going to put him out of work for a while. We need to take care of each other. He did his part.
"There is a PayPal set up to help Chris in his recovery. It's on our NPO 5/20 brotherhood set up to help our brothers we served with. The website is 520brotherhood.org the PayPal link is on the page just earmark for Chris Mintz and it all goes to help his recovery and bills"
http://520brotherhood.org/donate.html
There's also a "Go Fund Me" account that's been set up:
https://www.gofundme.com/375getwc
Giving value for the wage
A developing story that should be fun to watch: Remember Joe Wilson, the shady "yellowcake" ambassador at the center of Scooter Libby's conviction for misleading federal investigators? He has sued a company called Symbion for nonpayment of $20K/month in consulting fees. Symbion, which builds projects of some sort in Africa, is quarreling with Mr. Wilson over the services he was supposed to provide, including perhaps special access starting in 2009 to then Secretary of State Clinton. Symbion has countersued, alleging that Wilson took credit for things he didn't really cause, such as Clinton's visit to a Symbion project. Clinton's email, heavily redacted to obscure "confidential" issues (though of course she never used her private email for state business, let alone classified business), suggests that Wilson was accustomed to approach her via Sid Blumenthal, and that she was at least in some degree open to his advances.
The dispute already has turned up gossipy bits about Wilson's use or abuse of company perks, in true "master of the universe" style, and his subcontracting of work to another shady ambassador, since indicted on federal charges. But what will be really fascinating about this suit is that, in order to get his pay, Wilson will have to prove that he delivered on things like access to Clinton. If I were he, I'd hire a food taster.
The dispute already has turned up gossipy bits about Wilson's use or abuse of company perks, in true "master of the universe" style, and his subcontracting of work to another shady ambassador, since indicted on federal charges. But what will be really fascinating about this suit is that, in order to get his pay, Wilson will have to prove that he delivered on things like access to Clinton. If I were he, I'd hire a food taster.
Whoever Has No Sword Is To Sell His Coat...
Early updates on the shooting in Oregon.
The President has issued his predictable call for more gun control. Every time one of these thing happens, he sees a need to strip more Americans of arms. I see a positive demonstration that the police can't protect you, and a duty to try to protect my fellow citizens, and thus become more firmly intent on never surrendering my arms nor the right to bear them. This is the sort of thing that could have been stopped, but once again, the victims were disarmed under color of law.
The President has issued his predictable call for more gun control. Every time one of these thing happens, he sees a need to strip more Americans of arms. I see a positive demonstration that the police can't protect you, and a duty to try to protect my fellow citizens, and thus become more firmly intent on never surrendering my arms nor the right to bear them. This is the sort of thing that could have been stopped, but once again, the victims were disarmed under color of law.
The Nairobi mall attack
Someone has pieced together eyewitness accounts of the terrorist attack a couple of years ago in Nairobi, which don't sound quite like what we heard at the time:
Nura and his two colleagues were having an early lunch of beef stew with chapati while the mechanic worked nearby when a call came through on the radio. “All units: Shooting going on at Westgate. Robbers inside.” Nura spoke on the phone to his commanding officer, who told him to get to the mall “and do whatever is necessary to handle it.” Nura left his plate of food on the table and jumped into the car. He was excited, eager even. As the unmarked squad car sped up the road, Nura hung out the window, waving his radio and shouting at drivers to move out of the way.
News of the assault was beginning to spread via frantic phones calls, texts, and WhatsApp messages. Westgate is in the heart of a Kenyan-Indian part of the city, and the close-knit community there knew better than to rely on the authorities to send help. Instead, the call went out to the community’s own licensed gun holders, who were organized into self-appointed armed neighborhood watch units.
Let's Play A Game
The New York Times published an article called "27 Ways to Be a Modern Man." Low score wins.
I have to confess to numbers 4, 5, and 11 (although not for 'modern' reasons -- I just refuse to use Twitter). That's a score of three for me.
You might be curious about number 16: "The modern man lies on the side of the bed closer to the door. If an intruder gets in, he will try to fight him off, so that his wife has a chance to get away."
That's not me. Oh, I sleep on the side closest to the door, in part because of the possibility of intruders. But if I get up to deal with one, my wife can sleep in.
Knowing her, though, she'd probably go for her Glock. Who wants to be left out of a good time?
I have to confess to numbers 4, 5, and 11 (although not for 'modern' reasons -- I just refuse to use Twitter). That's a score of three for me.
You might be curious about number 16: "The modern man lies on the side of the bed closer to the door. If an intruder gets in, he will try to fight him off, so that his wife has a chance to get away."
That's not me. Oh, I sleep on the side closest to the door, in part because of the possibility of intruders. But if I get up to deal with one, my wife can sleep in.
Knowing her, though, she'd probably go for her Glock. Who wants to be left out of a good time?
Let's not be hasty
From Ralph Peters:
Want to know how low we’ve sunk? The president of France just repeated his demand that Assad has to go. Secretary of State John Kerry, following the pattern of his surrender to the Iranians, has already said that, well, maybe Assad can stay for a while until there’s a “managed transition.”
Never before has a US presidential administration combined such naked cowardice, intellectual arrogance and willful blindness. We don’t have a president — we have a scared child covering his eyes at a horror movie. And Putin knows it.
The pickle crisis
Lileks has completely internalized the media narrative on income inequality. He could write these things in his sleep now.
Meet Your Meat
I assume you know the punchline to the joke about the pig with the wooden leg.
This only works with a certain kind of city folk. The rest of us knew where the meat came from, have cleaned and dressed our own meat, and understand how this works. You don't eat it while it's a cute piglet. You eat it once it's a mean old hog that would be just as happy to eat you, too.
What Do We Do Now?
Richard Fernandez of the Belmont Club mourns the coming to pass of several of his core predictions. Fernandez, who also writes under the pen name Wretchard the Cat, has long written a strategically insightful narrative that strikes a kind of middle position between what you hear from me and what you hear from Cassandra. This stretch of his post, for example, couldn't have been written by either of us, but might have been written by a committee designed to edit our work into a common theme.
Fred Feitz at Fox News makes a brave but conventional attempt to outline a strategy to recover America’s position in the Middle East. It’s worth reading but suffers from the assumption that the same set of actors in Washington who landed us in trouble will do different things in the future. That is an assumption which Ted Cruz’s epic speech on the corruption in Washington does its best to refute.There's a lot of worth in what he has to say after that, where he talks about the way forward. It's worth taking a moment to realize that the last week -- as the last six months -- have involved a coming-to-be of a new world and a passing-away of the world we knew. The ramifications have only begun to appear in reality. What we knew is slipping away. We will have to be bold, but the good news is that we will have the opportunity to be bold. The death of institutions and easy assumptions means a birth of possibility. New things will come to be, and we will have at least some power to shape them. We must be wise in what we make of that potential, insofar as it is in our power to shape.
Cruz explains at convincing length that Congress — the Republican Party included — has been bought off. The whole place is rotten; there is no balm in Gilead nor cavalry to ride to the rescue. In Cruz’s telling political America stands condemned because it is financially, morally and internationally bankrupt. If that’s what Obama has done Cruz explains that’s what the Republicans helped him do.
To the question “what do we do now” Cruz’s answer is “don’t wait for Washington”.
The virtues of Cruz’s indictment are also its limitations, because while his speech accurately portrays the oncoming danger, it does so at the cost of convincing the viewer that America had it coming. Washington in Cruz’s characterization is not the result of bad luck but the accretion of national vices. In that sense, there is about Cruz’s analysis the flavor of Crime and Punishment.
The problem with the retributive narrative is that it sounds too much like a story from out the old books and most politicians, reluctant to sound hokey, are loathe to take it up, however true it may be. For in the retributive story there is one unpleasant feature; disasters continue until the sinners “repent” and repentance is something most of us are by and large averse to.
Much as the voters despise politicians, most of them are attached to life as it is. They love the normal; the predictable, the comforting and the routine. Therefore they love without realizing it the liberal narrative, which falsely promises a painless progression from cradle to grave without the need for virtue, courage or even industry.
How Dark Were the Dark Ages?
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTT!
Congress saved the A-10 today. It's not often that I have much good to say about Congress, so let's take a moment to recognize them for having what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity.
None of us deserve to vote
Oh, not seriously, that's just Jimmy Kimmel's tagline. More Kimmel man-on-the-street video to make you feel good about the franchise.
Comprehensively Missing the Point
Defenders of Planned Parenthood have managed to get the 5th Circuit to force the release of the unedited videos to the public. In the eyes of the defenders, the unedited videos -- all caps in the original -- "PROVE they did nothing wrong."
The people making these videos set out to prove that Planned Parenthood was an ongoing criminal enterprise profiting from the unlawful harvesting of fetal tissues. I think the videos, even the edited ones, failed to prove that claim.
That isn't what people are upset about who have actually watched the videos. No one is upset that Planned Parenthood might have been violating some technical regulation about the exact manner of extracting fetuses in order to better harvest organs. No one is soothed to learn that, thank goodness!, the regulations have all been scrupulously obeyed.
What people are reacting to is the horrifying state of what is legal, not the accusation that something is criminal. To learn that the practices are legal only makes it worse.
There is a huge difference between proving that Planned Parenthood obeyed the law, and proving that "they did nothing wrong." The whole video series is a carnival of horror, discussed over lunch or in an easy manner, sometimes a vision of little feet.
Upton Sinclair wrote a book called The Jungle that he hoped would cause people to become outraged about the working conditions of the poor in food factories. Audiences were horrified, but not by the things Sinclair thought would horrify them. They were horrified to learn how their food was made.
By the same token, the people who are defending Planned Parenthood over these videos are comprehensively missing the point. They are talking right past everyone who is upset or disturbed by what they've seen. For some reason, they just don't see what is bothering anyone about all this.
It is a shocking sort of moral blindness.
The people making these videos set out to prove that Planned Parenthood was an ongoing criminal enterprise profiting from the unlawful harvesting of fetal tissues. I think the videos, even the edited ones, failed to prove that claim.
That isn't what people are upset about who have actually watched the videos. No one is upset that Planned Parenthood might have been violating some technical regulation about the exact manner of extracting fetuses in order to better harvest organs. No one is soothed to learn that, thank goodness!, the regulations have all been scrupulously obeyed.
What people are reacting to is the horrifying state of what is legal, not the accusation that something is criminal. To learn that the practices are legal only makes it worse.
There is a huge difference between proving that Planned Parenthood obeyed the law, and proving that "they did nothing wrong." The whole video series is a carnival of horror, discussed over lunch or in an easy manner, sometimes a vision of little feet.
Upton Sinclair wrote a book called The Jungle that he hoped would cause people to become outraged about the working conditions of the poor in food factories. Audiences were horrified, but not by the things Sinclair thought would horrify them. They were horrified to learn how their food was made.
By the same token, the people who are defending Planned Parenthood over these videos are comprehensively missing the point. They are talking right past everyone who is upset or disturbed by what they've seen. For some reason, they just don't see what is bothering anyone about all this.
It is a shocking sort of moral blindness.
Changing of the Guard
Philosopher Jeffrey Woolf, who has a strong background in Medieval thought, notes that his native country of Israel is undergoing a moment akin to a moment in early American history.
There comes a time in the life of nations, that the founders cede dominance to others. It happened in the United States in the 1820’s. In his magisterial study of Andrew Jackson, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., describes how Virginians and (to a lesser degree) Bostonians strove mightily to maintain their control over the nation that they (and their fathers) had founded. They sought control of its resources, its policies, its values and its culture. They saw all of these being usurped by the uncouth pioneers on the western fringes of the country. These were represented by their bête noire, Andrew Jackson (himself, ironically, a Virginian). As Schlesinger notes, the declining elites made their last stand in the Supreme Court. In the end, they failed.In Israel's case, the founders were secular and not very interested in reviving religious Judaism. It was a much more popular country in Democratic circles back then. In reviewing this history of government shutdowns, I notice that back during the long era of Democratic control, shutdowns were sometimes resolved in part by increased support to Israel. In those days, this was a concession to Democrats.
Shutdown #9: Tip O'Neill takes on a nuclear missile and winsIt is an interesting fact that this state founded along secular nationalist lines -- Jews as ethnic nation, not Jews united by faith in the God of Israel -- has been drifting somewhat away from its secular foundation. The majority there still consider themselves secular, but a rising intensity is on the side of those who are faithful. It's a counterexample to the thesis that modernity and secularism go hand-in-hand, and not the only one.
When did it take place? Dec.17-21, 1982
How long did it last? 3 days
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 53-47; Howard Baker was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 244-191; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? House and Senate negotiators want to fund $5.4 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively, in public works spending to create jobs, but the Reagan administration threatened to veto any spending bill that included jobs money. The House also opposed funding the MX missile program, a major defense priority of Reagan's.
What resolved it? The House and Senate abandoned their jobs plans but declined to fund the MX missile, or the Pershing II missile (which was a medium-range missile, while the MX was intercontinental). They also provided funding for the Legal Services Corp., which provides legal support for poor Americans and which Reagan had wanted abolished, and increased foreign aid to Israel above what Reagan wanted. While Reagan criticized these moves, he grudgingly signed the bill following a short shutdown.
Shutdown #10: So you can have your missiles but Israel gets some, too
When did it take place? Nov. 10-14, 1983
How long did it last? 3 days
Who was president? Ronald Reagan
Who controlled the Senate? Republicans, 55-45; Howard Baker was majority leader
Who controlled the House? Democrats, 271-164; Tip O'Neill was speaker
Why did it happen? House Democrats passed an amendment adding close to $1 billion in education spending. They also cut foreign aid below what Reagan wanted, adding money for Israel and Egypt but cutting it substantially for Syria and El Salvador, and cut defense spending by about $11 billion relative to Reagan's request. The dispute wasn't resolved before a short shutdown could occur.
What resolved it? House Democrats agreed to reduce their education spending request to about $100 million. They also funded the MX missile, which they had successfully cut funding for during the last shutdown battle. However, they kept their foreign aid and defense cuts, and got a ban on oil and gas leasing in federal animal refuges. The spending bill also added a ban on using federal employee health insurance to fund abortions, except when the mother's life was in danger, similar to the ban already in place for Medicaid (see above). That wasn't as partisan an issue at the time; it was a win for anti-abortion members of both parties (including Reagan and O'Neill) and loss for pro-choice Democrats and Republicans (including Baker).
Killing women
This Hot Air OpEd gets it right about yesterday's execution of Kelly Gissendaner for the murder of her husband almost 20 years ago. Gissendaner was not the trigger man; she got her boyfriend to do it for her. He cut a deal, turned state's witness against her, and will be eligible for parole in seven more years.
Should this seem like a miscarriage of justice? It's much like the way we get an ironclad case against Mafia boss in exchange for a lighter sentence against the underling who did the wet work. It just seems weird because we're not used to seeing a woman in the role of mastermind. We also don't like the idea of the boyfriend testifying against her to save himself: wasn't he supposed to be acting as her white knight in knocking off the husband?
Should this seem like a miscarriage of justice? It's much like the way we get an ironclad case against Mafia boss in exchange for a lighter sentence against the underling who did the wet work. It just seems weird because we're not used to seeing a woman in the role of mastermind. We also don't like the idea of the boyfriend testifying against her to save himself: wasn't he supposed to be acting as her white knight in knocking off the husband?
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