Afterburner 1/31

I really don't want to hear any of you folks out there crying about how you just can't believe such & such is happening (gun ban/confiscation schemes, freedom of speech restrictions, surprise taxes, intrusive questions from your doctor, rising tides of violence and mistrust, inflation and economic woe, and so on), because when we tried to warn you, you dismissed us with an impatient wave.

Those folks are still in power, and drunk on that power.  They do not recognize any limit to their power nor any accountability to the rule of law.  They are above the law, and you are their subjects.

This ride is going to get bumpier, by far, before it smooths out.



Consider the possibility that next, they'll kick a feller's door in because he posted a Bill Whittle propaganda piece on his blog. Don't think it could happen? What's to stop them?

For Sale

JCPennys happily announce their new line of dress pants.  The Steve Kroft trouser.

Comes with padded knees and a zipper in the back.

In Their House (Updated)

Unless the Dhimmicrat Jackboots come kicking in my door to search for the offending high-capacity magazine clips, my whole Saturday gets to be planned around a televised skirmish, the UNC vs. NCSU basketball game, slated to tip off at 7PM.  Not because of who it is the Tar Heels are playing, it's the same at the House of Livermush for every game.

What time is the game?  Okay, that's take out the trash here, get tires here, write blog post here, eat here, here, and here, fend off unforeseen household drama (which isn't planned, but set aside time for it anyway) here.  And have Jones, Eric, Adam, et al giving me the pregame atmosphere by 6, then...action!

My red-clad friends with the little woofy hand-signals will behave much the same way, but not because this is the way they block out time for any game.  This is the only game that matters, or has mattered, for at least the past week and the following week, but possibly since the moment Gio broke their pitiful little hearts with his magical punt return a few months ago on the Kenan Stadium football field and onward for months, as well.

It must truly stink to be perennially defining your team's success by its outcome versus only one opponent.  Honstly, I can't imagine thinking that it was okay to lose four games, so long as we won this one game.  But, that very mindset of theirs is exactly why Adam Lucas warns you not to assume logically lofty expectations for tonight: Uh-Oh.

For little UNC-Raleigh, it counts as more than one game.  To Wolfpack fans, it may be a single move of the pawn, but it's the one step to the far end of the chessboard that regains them their queen.  Nevermind that nobody but them considers that single move "queen-worthy".  Oh, the unparalleled glory!...If only in their pathetic little minds.

It is their house, and there will be much venomous energy.  Well, their "rented" house, that is, the RBC-come-PNC Arena.  And the game is just a pawn, in the bigger game of a season's success.

Hope we can capture this pawn, anyway.  If we do, for us it's just another pawn...but for their season, it's Check and Mate.

Go 'Heels.

UPDATE: Nevermind.

NUTHER UPDATE: Told ya so.

Hillary Clinton

Secretary of Skank

Imagined editorial segment on Fox News...

Brit Hume: Thanks, Brett.  Today's testimony before the Senate No-oversight Committee on Blaming Things On An Obscure Flavor Of Jello Pudding, acting Secretary of Skank, Hillary Clinton said...

Brett Baier: Excuse me, Brit.  Don't you mean, Secretary of State?

Hume: Sorry, but no.  We're expected to believe from her testimony, that either she's so inept that she couldn't envision a need for basic security (much less enhanced security) in Libya, on 9/11, for the single American in that country most likely to need enhanced security...or she just did not and does not care.  What part of her skankified life holds priority over her doing this most basic part of her job? She's unqualified to be the Secretary of anything but Skank.

At the very least, the next time she's called to testify, I hope one of those Senators has the balls to say, "Instead of smiling and smirking Mizz Clinton, and before you start pounding your fist indignantly, weigh your impertinance against these two phrases: 1) treasonous subterfuge versus the American people, involving the death of an American diplomat, and 2) firing squad."

On other, seemingly unrelated, imaginary news happenings...

If you watch this Katie Couric interview with Manti Te'o, think about the likelihood that there was a recent production meeting that featured Mizz Couric saying, "If there's a massive hoax, involving a pillow-biting odd,  juiced-up reknowned football player from a Catholic school, why aren't we in on it?  Furthermore, how can we get in on it?"

Dear Dr. Thomas Sowell,

NO.

You are wrong, sir.  Not in the presentation of, or solution to, your argument, but primarily in the basic answer to its title: Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns?  And secondarily, to your notion within that argument that "the over-riding factual question is whether gun control laws actually reduce gun crimes in general or murder rates in particular."

As with most other news and editorial pieces regarding the issue, you make valid points to rearrange deck chairs on a sinking ship.  And miss the opportunity to make a more-vital point.

Start with the question in the title, Do gun laws control guns?  And, instead of treating the symptoms, look at the sickness, get to the very real meat of the matter for your answer.  And it is this:

Gun control is not about controlling guns.  It is about controlling people.

To paraphrase your supposition, the over-riding factual question is whether the rights of government can abridge our natural rights.

I have as much respect for your political aptitude and Constitutional scholarship as I do anyone's.  So, it is my hope that you will redirect your focus on the genuine issue, rather than dance around the edges like most of the other editorialists.  There are plenty of folks ready to take the easy road, centering the dialog over my right to hunt and your right to fend off a burglar.

Those are valid and important uses for our guns.  But they have nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment.  Criminalizing guns is part of their victory.  Another part of that victory is fogging the issue on the Conservative Right.  Don't let that happen, please.

They'll come for my guns, and then for your voice.

It's about controlling us.  You and me, both of us.

Thanks to William Grigg at Pro Libertate (with a H/T to WRSA), here's the solution to your argument.  Well, not your argument, but what your argument should have been.  See here: it's not the gun being controlled; it's the citizen.  Regardless of his rights.  Regardless of his actions.  Regardless of his intent.



Dr. Sowell, we need you to keep your eye on the ball, sir.

These Will Stand

These North Carolinians will stand, and they will fight like they have Tar in their Heels.

Consider this from LT, NC Renegade:

But I am a soldier, and I know what must be done; and so I shall put away my sadness and I shall harness up the bitter steed of war, and gird myself up for the battle; and I shall ride out to meet the enemies of Liberty; not in rage, not for anger sake or the hope of vengeance; but because I swore an oath before God, to jealously guard our Republic and its Constitution against all enemies; Him I shall not disappoint, for He is my Hope and my Trust.

And this from Bob Owens:

From NFA ’34, to GCA ’68, to FOPA ’86, and the ’94 Crime Bill, the federal government has chipped away at the rights of gun owners in the name of “public safety.” Tellingly, the safety they’ve sought to protect in each and every one of those laws has been their own, attempting to defang the people so that when the people finally realize they have been cornered by their would-be masters, they have nothing left with which to strike back in their own defense.  

Not one step more. That is what I pledge to my children.

It is a crossroads we approach.  Our army from one direction.  Theirs, in opposition, from another.  And if I suggest that you will soon have to decide into which camp you'll make your allegiance, which one will it be?  If you haven't thought much (or any) about the possibility of having to choose, please go read those two linked essays, and get back to me.  Or, don't get back to me...but at least, start thinking about the ramifications of such a decision.

Their tyranny is not something on the horizon.  It is here now, and almost fully realized.  It is something with its cancerous tentacles already insinuated into our fabric.  The necessity for an incision is practically unavoidable.  Their tyranny and our Liberty cannot coexist, not peacefully or otherwise.  Sooner or later, one side or the other will have to be eliminated.

"Harnessing up the bitter steed of war."

Oh yeah.  I'll stand.  The Old North State is as good a place as any to start this thing up.  Not like it'll be the first time we picked a fight against a tyrant.

Looking at the folks on our side...I really like our chances.  God bless America.

Tactical Assault Rock For Sale On Ebay

The guy is getting bids at $37 right this minute: Tactical Assault Rock from CroMagnum Arms Int'l.

This is a market that is FAR from saturated, and I have lots of rocks.  Matter of fact, I know where there's a cache of Ancient Indian Throwing Stones.

Ka-ching...

(H/T to Sipsey Street Irregulars)

Thank You, Mr. Bracken

To Matthew Bracken, former Navy Seal.

Thanks for this very timely essay.  I'll be shopping for your books.

To my friends and relatives, and those who are neither, this essay is one of the most important things you will ever read.  And it comes to you at probably the most important time in the history of your country.

Seriously, imagine your own life as if you were going about your business in 1775, when King George was hatching his own schemes to keep you in your place, would you have been able to re-stick your head in the sand? Would you know which side was which when the bullets started flying?

Dear Mr. Security Agent, 

Federal, state, or local. You, the man or woman with the badge, the sworn LEO or FLEA and those who inhabit the many law enforcement niches in between and on all sides. This essay is directed to you, because in the end, how this turmoil about gun control turns out will depend largely upon your decisions and actions over the coming months and years.

[...]

Why is this essay titled Dear Mr. Security Agent, when it dwells mainly upon the media and coastal-dwelling urban liberals and their utopian belief in the benefits of new gun control laws in the United States? Mr. Security Agent will protest that he is no liberal, he is ex-military, he’s a cop, he’s a fed—he’s one of the good guys! He took the same oath to defend the Constitution that you did, Buster! He doesn’t need any lectures on defending the Constitution! So why single him out in this essay?  

Friends, this essay will take you a good thirty minutes to read.  And it will be thirty minutes well-spent.  Please don't dismiss it as just more hyperbole in the gun-rights versus gun-control dialog.  Set aside the time to do it.

Please.

(Tip o' the cap to Cold Fury.)

Fiscal Secession

First, let me state that this argument needs a more eloquent and forceful voice than I can give it.

The time is right for North Carolina to defund and deligitimize the federal government.  I might propose that our newly elected state legislators seize their mandate to lead the country toward fiscal responsibility, and away from rampant irresponsibility.  Affirm to the rest of the country that North Carolina is a safe-haven for business and personal tax-relief, eliminate income and revenue taxation in favor of a flat sales tax.  Pledge to submit a "fund" payment to the federal government to cover defense obligations.  Shelter NC citizens from federal law/regulation/fiat.  And fiscally sever all other ties.  Tell Washington, DC that our citizens are not their subjects.

Reassert our state sovereignty, as it were (and as it once WAS!)

We North Carolinians don't want to depart America, we want to take America with us.  We're America Classic (with apologies to Coca Cola), and they're New Coke.  We want our country to be as it was founded and intended, not that which it is being perverted into by the Progressive/Socialist/Modern Liberal/Left.  We can tolerate taxation, but have absolutely reached our boiling point with the thievery and misuse of our monies.  Not to mention the cancerous intrusions into our personal space, and trampling on our Liberty and liberties.

Most of the rest of America is straining against their leashes to follow the lead that we'll set.  Truly, within minutes, South Carolina will jump in with both feet (and claim it was their idea).  Same thing for Texas.  Then, like dominos...the rest of the South, the Dakotas, the Southern border states (for obvious other reasons), the Midwest...

New York and California can simultaneously lead a charge for the New Coke crowd.

And just like North Dakota, our economy will explode.  Freedom and legislative predictability (if not certainty) will draw that hoarded wealth like a magnet.

Personally, I'd go so far as to have a swearing-in of Mitt Romney as Actual President, but that is perhaps a different argument.  Seriously, and even if it's only symbolic, we are owed a President that respects our Sovereignty.  One who wouldn't lie to us about Benghazi.  Who wouldn't deceive us about Fast & Furious.  Who wouldn't steal from us like Obamacare does.  Who wouldn't subvert the Constitution with Executive Orders.  Who wouldn't keep printing and borrowing money.  Invite Mr. Romney to Charlotte and sell tickets for the ceremony.  Do we have a big-enough venue?  Oh, I know, have it at the NC Moter Speedway!  The D's couldn't fill it, but WE can.

Okay, I'm getting too excited, and there is work to do.

Please tell me you like the idea.  Or, tell me why you don't.  Get some of our politicians into the discussion.  Our country was built on the notion that the individual States could peacefully walk away from the Union if they so chose.  We tried it once before and couldn't carry enough of the moral high ground.  We were right then, but right about a thing which was wrong.  The time has never been more right, and North Carolina should step out front to lead.

Secede!

Reading "Kindergarden" 0108-13

I'm reading Evan Sayet's The Kindergarden Of Eden.  Here's an excerpt:

About five years ago, I presented my thesis on "How the Modern Liberal Thinks" in a lecture to the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.  I began the talk by saying, "I've got to imagine that just about every one of us in this room recognizes that the Democrats are wrong on just about every issue.  Well, I'm here to propose to you that it's not just 'just about' every issue; it's quite literally every issue.  And it's not just wrong; it's as wrong as wrong can be."
 
Half a decade later, I am even more convinced that the Modern Liberal is, in fact, as wrong as wrong can be on quite literally every issue.  That is, I have no doubt that he will at every turn side with the lesser over the better, the wrong over the right, the ugly over the beautiful, the vulgar over the refined, the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success and, first and foremost, with the evil over the good.

There'll surely be more such excerpts in the coming days.

If They Aren't Going To Obey Any Laws...

...then why should you?