31. Rosie “My bodyguards can have guns but you can’t” O’Donnell recently claimed there’s no difference between Islamic Fundamentalists and Christian Fundamentalists. An opinion of this nature can only result from a severe case of mental retardation or a severe case of stupidity.
Last time I checked, the most vocal wing of Christian Fundamentalism wanted to teach evolution in public schools, outlaw abortion, and take Christina Aguilera off MTV (and both of those last two points have a smidgen of merit).
Also last time I checked, the most vocal wing of Islamic Fundamentalism wanted to tax unbelievers for the privilege of not being killed, institute Sharia law all over the world, and just generally sally forth and kill anyone not found kneeling in an easterly direction five times a day.
If you can’t tell the difference between the two, you need to have your head examined.
32. Anything and everything is a perversion when taken to extremes. There’s a little tribe in New Guinea that practices institutionalized cannibalism, the men hold raunchy conversations with the spirits that live in the rafters of their huts, and the citizens are occasionally accused of witchcraft and killed if they can’t cook a perfect torte (or the small, strange New Guinea tribal equivalent).
Confined to a small portion of a small island, they’re an anthropological oddity, interesting to study and watch.Now imagine that small, strange New Guinea tribe spread over the entire world. Their laws are our laws. Their religion is our religion. Their customs are our customs.
Yeah.
Ain’t pleasant at all to think about, is it.
You take anything too far, it becomes horrible. Christianity. Islam. Communism. Capitalism. Democracy. Eating. Drinking. Driving. Love. Pets. When ideology or belief becomes obsession, and obsession becomes religion, and that religion becomes the center of the world, something that once was beautiful is destroyed by the hold it has on someone, and the hold someone has on it.
When Christianity becomes the sole object of the mind of everyone on earth, to the exclusion of all else, there WILL be Hell on earth. When capitalism becomes the sole object of the mind of everyone on earth, to the exclusion of all else, we will have the tyranny it keeps in check. When good health becomes…fastforward…life won’t be worth living.
I think it was the Greeks who had a saying about this. “Nothing over much.” Wise words.
33. My dad once told me that ironically, the freest people are those who exercise the most control over themselves. I’ve attempted to live all my life by this credo. Control is all that separates human beings from animals.
34. It is now time to be inflammatory. Not without reason or intelligence however. Avert your eyes if your are easily offended.AOL recently had a feature on how the twin girls making up the white supremacist pop-folk band Prussian Blue have been ostracized by their hometown. They’ve received death threats and “get out by high noon” style missives, have had signs posted on their fences and yard, etc and so forth.
Their message, roughly translated from the propaganda, is that they want white people to recognize how wonderful being white is.
Ahem.
When you’re caught modeling Hitler Smiley-Face shirts, you’re not celebrating your race, you’re celebrating mass murder on the scale of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Armenian genocide…that one defining piece of legislation enabled all +120 million homicides is not something we’ll cover today. Anyhoo, Hitler isn’t a racial pride symbol, he was a murderous nutcase.
And then I got to thinking.
Sometimes that can lead to unpredictable results. I hesitate to say these next words, honestly. But I will.
What would happen to me if I started an organization called the Nation Association for the Advancement of White People? Petitioned Congress for a White History month? Demanded certain acceptance quotas of white students in colleges across the country? Started a television channel called White Entertainment Television?
Do you have any idea how fast I would be excoriated in the media? How fast thousands of people would call me an evil, bigoted racist? How fast my symbolic head would be hoisted upon a symbolic pike? How every acquaintance of mine would be put in the public fishbowl, their association with me examined by pundits and talkshow talking heads? How fast doctors and psychologists would be examining my psyche on national television, saying I had one mental malady after another.
Seems to me we’ve got entrenched racism, or at the very least preferential discrimination in this country, and we don’t even know it. At least the white-colored racists marginalize themselves.
35. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the inhabitants of the planet Stupidia lived in nearly perfect freedom. After a long, bloody war they had secured a democratic republic much like our own was intended to be. Peace reigned for a hundred years.
After a hundred years, a small segment of the population caught the disease of radical religion. Now, growing on the planet of Stupidia was a plant called the Amora plant. Since the Stupidians had crawled out of the oceans and discarded their fins, they’d chewed the berries of this plant. When ingested, the berries made the Stupidians very happy, and loosened their inhibitions for a short period of time. The various varieties of the Larom plants had the very same effect, to different degrees. Due to the effects to the different types of plants, a statistically small percentage of the Stupidians chewed the berries to excess, lost their jobs, became addicted, sold their possessions to buy more the plants, etc and so forth. This has been the way of things for thousands of years. Many people enjoy the effects of the Amora and Larom plants to moderation, and a handful use them to excess.
So: A group of Stupidians get the radical religion virus. And they decide that the cause of society’s evils is the Amora plant. With much arm-twisting of the elected representatives, they get the berries of the Amora plant banned from public consumption. The Stupidians can no longer buy, sell, or grow the Amora plant. These actions, which have been legal for thousands of years, are now crimes.
But strangely enough Stupidians go on doing what Stupidians want to do. They form underground organizations to grow and distribute the “A” berries to those who want them. Because those caught with the plant risk jail time, they demand a higher price for their risk. Local police forces have to be bribed and corrupted to overlook the crime going on under their noses. Due to the profitability, the underground organizations go to war with one another to eliminate competitors, secure distribution territory, etc.
After ten years of skyrocketing crime, the Stupidian representatives realize that human behavior can’t be controlled, only guided. They legalize (despite much crying and hand-wringing from the religiously sick) Amora again. Crime does not skyrocket further. Now that “A” sellers and growers can do so openly, and market their products freely, they have no reason to bribe the police, go to war, stay underground… Crime goes down.
However, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people who’s work it was making sure that Stupidians didn’t use “A” as they had for thousands of years were now out of work. So with the help of the religiously sick, they sold the Stupidians on the notion that Larom was now the cause of all society’s evils.
No one thought to ask…but weren’t you wrong last time? Or, why wasn’t it the cause of society’s evils last year, or the year before, or any year in recorded history…
So now Larom is illegal. The same crime skyrockets, the same people who used Larom before are still using it. But this time something is different. The Stupidians DON’T abandon the prohibition of Larom. As crime grows and grows, and its citizens demand action, the Stupidian government does things it would never have dreamed of doing before. It starts whittling away at the Stupidian’s rights to privacy. And to travel. And to defend themselves. When last checked, the Stupidians were still slowly sinking into tyranny, all while looking at the failure and its evidence around them and shrieking “Something must be done.”
Now, the question for you is: Why hasn’t anyone told us about this planet yet?
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Reflections On Conspiracies
Not a far distance from my house, well within the limits of the city I inhabit, 3 teens were recently arrested for conspiring to perpetrate a Columbine style school shooting. According to reports, articles, and interviews on tv, radio and in the paper, they’d been planning this attack for years, had amassed an arsenal to rival that of Frank Castle, and were training to, among other things, commit mass murder on a grand scale and blow up their school.
The newspapers waxed horrific about the dozens of weapons found at the kids home, the bombs, the training sessions, yadda yadda yadda…and I must’ve seen the same footage of the box of guns being carried out of one of the kids’ home a gross of times.
If you will pardon the pun, I’m about to shoot a few holes in this story.
First off, the majority of the “weapons” the kids had were BB and airsoft guns. Easily identifiable in the tv clip by their bright orange muzzles. The remainder of their weapons were single shot .22s, a shotgun, an SKS, and .40SW handgun. If the mayor and the police chief consider that enough of an arsenal that a televised press conference is desperately required, they’d have a heart attack if they looked under my bed most nights, never mind the basement shelves. (By the way, if anyone from the Green Bay Press Gazette is reading this, you can't use AKS rounds in an SKS. But what I'm sure you meant to confuse the issue by confusing the AK47 with the SKS. Leave the paper, grow a brain stem, and THEN go back to journalism.)
Second, target practice for these young reprobates consisted of firing airsoft pellets into Styrofoam heads. This is to target practice what writing a letter to granmaw is to winning a Pulitzer. Their “bombs” were toilet paper tubes filled with bbs and gunpowder, detonated by firecracker – certainly capable of causing injury, but if you’ve ever spent the weeks leading up to the 4th playing with all manner of fireworks conceivable, you know that single firecrackers have about the same fuse time as a sneeze. Yeah. Blown up criminals.
Their much ballyhooed napalm was gasoline and Styrofoam shavings. That ain’t napalm folks, that’s a cheap imitation.
I certainly hope the mayor wasn’t watching that night we buried artillery shells in the lawn and used them to launch bricks and basketballs…they'd probably get the electric chair out of mothballs just for me...
And the “years” of planning…three kids plan an attack on a highschool for years, even before they get there? You know what that means? They were THINKING about it. “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if…” And they never had the guts to do it. For years. If thinking about something earns you a conspiracy charge, we’re all in deep trouble. Calvin of Calvin And Hobbes fantasized one Sunday about nuking his kindergarten with an F-16. Innumerable fiction writers have written innumerable books describing in graphic detail terrorist and criminal acts. I myself am currently engaged in writing a novel about the start of the third American Revolution.
Obviously, these kids were seriously disturbed individuals. They could’ve done some seriously bad stuff, had “luck” been on their side or if they’d been a hair more competent. We can’t do a catch and release here, they WERE planning on trying to hurt a whole bunch of people. That’s unacceptable. They need to be punished. But the question remains, what is the best punishment for coming up with a half***ed plan to kill your classmates with contrived and unworkable bombs, fewer and lower-quality weapons than the average Texan household, and chickening out on it a dozen times?
How do you punish evil defeated by one's own cowardice?
The newspapers waxed horrific about the dozens of weapons found at the kids home, the bombs, the training sessions, yadda yadda yadda…and I must’ve seen the same footage of the box of guns being carried out of one of the kids’ home a gross of times.
If you will pardon the pun, I’m about to shoot a few holes in this story.
First off, the majority of the “weapons” the kids had were BB and airsoft guns. Easily identifiable in the tv clip by their bright orange muzzles. The remainder of their weapons were single shot .22s, a shotgun, an SKS, and .40SW handgun. If the mayor and the police chief consider that enough of an arsenal that a televised press conference is desperately required, they’d have a heart attack if they looked under my bed most nights, never mind the basement shelves. (By the way, if anyone from the Green Bay Press Gazette is reading this, you can't use AKS rounds in an SKS. But what I'm sure you meant to confuse the issue by confusing the AK47 with the SKS. Leave the paper, grow a brain stem, and THEN go back to journalism.)
Second, target practice for these young reprobates consisted of firing airsoft pellets into Styrofoam heads. This is to target practice what writing a letter to granmaw is to winning a Pulitzer. Their “bombs” were toilet paper tubes filled with bbs and gunpowder, detonated by firecracker – certainly capable of causing injury, but if you’ve ever spent the weeks leading up to the 4th playing with all manner of fireworks conceivable, you know that single firecrackers have about the same fuse time as a sneeze. Yeah. Blown up criminals.
Their much ballyhooed napalm was gasoline and Styrofoam shavings. That ain’t napalm folks, that’s a cheap imitation.
I certainly hope the mayor wasn’t watching that night we buried artillery shells in the lawn and used them to launch bricks and basketballs…they'd probably get the electric chair out of mothballs just for me...
And the “years” of planning…three kids plan an attack on a highschool for years, even before they get there? You know what that means? They were THINKING about it. “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if…” And they never had the guts to do it. For years. If thinking about something earns you a conspiracy charge, we’re all in deep trouble. Calvin of Calvin And Hobbes fantasized one Sunday about nuking his kindergarten with an F-16. Innumerable fiction writers have written innumerable books describing in graphic detail terrorist and criminal acts. I myself am currently engaged in writing a novel about the start of the third American Revolution.
Obviously, these kids were seriously disturbed individuals. They could’ve done some seriously bad stuff, had “luck” been on their side or if they’d been a hair more competent. We can’t do a catch and release here, they WERE planning on trying to hurt a whole bunch of people. That’s unacceptable. They need to be punished. But the question remains, what is the best punishment for coming up with a half***ed plan to kill your classmates with contrived and unworkable bombs, fewer and lower-quality weapons than the average Texan household, and chickening out on it a dozen times?
How do you punish evil defeated by one's own cowardice?
Monday, September 18, 2006
Random Reflections Pt8
27. There was a recent warning about an obesity “pandemic.” My dictionary defines that (pandemic) as a wide-spreading, near universal disease. When did making the conscious decision to put more food into your mouth than needed become a disease? Seriously here folks, if I choose every day to slam my head in a car door, do I have disease? If I choose to drink water to excess every day, do I have a disease? If I choose to spend 16 hours a day playing Donkey Kong, do I have a disease? NO! I’m choosing to do something that I know is bad for me, and I’m doing it anyway.
Everyone knows, if they eat to excess, they’re going to get fat. It’s a fact of life people, get over it. It is a choice that they make. It’s not a disease. Again, my dictionary defines disease is an ailment afflicting the body, caused by infection, environment, heredity, or diet. Note the diet isn’t the disease, it can help cause the disease.
Calling it a disease is the sunshine-and-bunny-rabbits way of letting those people who eat themselves towards diabetes, strokes, and heart attacks off the hook. It’s not a choice anymore, it’s a disease. You don’t weigh more than a Honda Civic because you ate 6 Big Macs, 5 Fries, 4 Cokes, 3 Pies, 2 Onion Rings, and the partridge in the pear tree AT EVERY MEAL – it’s a sickness you have. It’s not your fault – you can’t choose to get sick with SARS, influenza, or obesity. Go eat another 3rd world country’s GNP in Snicker’s bars, you’ll get fat or you won’t. Don’t worry, be happy!
28. As I write this a major flight somewhere in the United States has been diverted. Not because of explosives found on board, not because a 50 year old “student” from Saudi Arabia with razor-burn tried to set his shoes on fire, not because Grandma realized the wire in her undergarments didn’t set off the metal detectors at the TSA groping checkpoint, but because…wait for it…an unclaimed Blackberry was found on board. Oh the humanity. I expect much rending of clothing and wearing of sackcloth will be seen on the nightly news. A major flight, chock full of people who have to go somewhere, maybe jobs, maybe vacations, maybe to see their ailing cousin twice removed have been detoured and detained for hours because a phone was found without being attached to the side of someone’s head.
If you can’t find the owner, give it to a flight attendant. Bonus. Or just press redial and ask the person on the other end, “Who did you last speak to?”
Note: My reaction would’ve been different if said Blackberry had been found attached to an ominous looking pile of whitish silly putty. There’s a difference between reasonable fear and freaking out – something a lot of people would do well to learn. A little responsibility goes a long way, especially when so few people are in possession of it.
29. Would you, if possible, help a person getting mugged on the street? I think we all would, that’s basic human decency – “help out your fellow humans” is ingrained into our minds. Now, upon dousing said mugger with a RAID sized can of pepper spray and picking muggee’s wallet up off the ground, would you call the robber back if you found that wallet to contain a sizeable stack of hundred dollar bills? I doubt anyone would. Would you choose NOT to help that person if you had prior knowledge that they were rich? Again, probably not? Why?
Shouldn’t that rich person contribute a little bit to that misfortunate youth, driven to a desperate act by a life of poverty and minimum wage jobs? Shouldn’t that rich person have to give more than the rest of us, I mean, they have so much more, they should feel absolutely compelled to give it to that mugger to help him along in life…
Editing out the words involving crime from that last paragraph, you have pretty much verbatim the “hate the rich” position of the majority of this country and the world. This boggles my mind, this hatred of material gain through hard work, or the hard work of one’s ancestors, or intelligence, or simple dumb luck. If I make a lot of money, it is MINE. NO ONE has ANY claim on it whatsoever, for any reason. IF I am feeling charitable, I will do something to help someone else. My possession of MORE does not give anyone else the right or privilege to take my property and redistribute (remember, all laws involve the threat of violence) it to those who have less. The same goes for any money my parents would leave me – they didn’t work hard and save so that some jackboot could come along when they’re dead and gone and take what they wanted me to have.
My money is MY MONEY. YOU may NOT have it simply because I have more. Yes, that is selfish. Anything else is theft. At threat of violence, don’t you forget. You wouldn’t come try and knock me over and take my wallet *snicker* so don’t try and have someone in government do your dirty work for you. You want my money, Molon Labe.
Come and get it.
30. Why do companies call yellow cake mixes “Moist yellow” cake mixes? Do some companies sell “Incredibly dry yellow” cake mixes? Are there moist WHITE cake mixes? If all yellow cake mixes are moist as they are advertised, doesn’t that mean that none of them are special by virtue of being moist?
Everyone knows, if they eat to excess, they’re going to get fat. It’s a fact of life people, get over it. It is a choice that they make. It’s not a disease. Again, my dictionary defines disease is an ailment afflicting the body, caused by infection, environment, heredity, or diet. Note the diet isn’t the disease, it can help cause the disease.
Calling it a disease is the sunshine-and-bunny-rabbits way of letting those people who eat themselves towards diabetes, strokes, and heart attacks off the hook. It’s not a choice anymore, it’s a disease. You don’t weigh more than a Honda Civic because you ate 6 Big Macs, 5 Fries, 4 Cokes, 3 Pies, 2 Onion Rings, and the partridge in the pear tree AT EVERY MEAL – it’s a sickness you have. It’s not your fault – you can’t choose to get sick with SARS, influenza, or obesity. Go eat another 3rd world country’s GNP in Snicker’s bars, you’ll get fat or you won’t. Don’t worry, be happy!
28. As I write this a major flight somewhere in the United States has been diverted. Not because of explosives found on board, not because a 50 year old “student” from Saudi Arabia with razor-burn tried to set his shoes on fire, not because Grandma realized the wire in her undergarments didn’t set off the metal detectors at the TSA groping checkpoint, but because…wait for it…an unclaimed Blackberry was found on board. Oh the humanity. I expect much rending of clothing and wearing of sackcloth will be seen on the nightly news. A major flight, chock full of people who have to go somewhere, maybe jobs, maybe vacations, maybe to see their ailing cousin twice removed have been detoured and detained for hours because a phone was found without being attached to the side of someone’s head.
If you can’t find the owner, give it to a flight attendant. Bonus. Or just press redial and ask the person on the other end, “Who did you last speak to?”
Note: My reaction would’ve been different if said Blackberry had been found attached to an ominous looking pile of whitish silly putty. There’s a difference between reasonable fear and freaking out – something a lot of people would do well to learn. A little responsibility goes a long way, especially when so few people are in possession of it.
29. Would you, if possible, help a person getting mugged on the street? I think we all would, that’s basic human decency – “help out your fellow humans” is ingrained into our minds. Now, upon dousing said mugger with a RAID sized can of pepper spray and picking muggee’s wallet up off the ground, would you call the robber back if you found that wallet to contain a sizeable stack of hundred dollar bills? I doubt anyone would. Would you choose NOT to help that person if you had prior knowledge that they were rich? Again, probably not? Why?
Shouldn’t that rich person contribute a little bit to that misfortunate youth, driven to a desperate act by a life of poverty and minimum wage jobs? Shouldn’t that rich person have to give more than the rest of us, I mean, they have so much more, they should feel absolutely compelled to give it to that mugger to help him along in life…
Editing out the words involving crime from that last paragraph, you have pretty much verbatim the “hate the rich” position of the majority of this country and the world. This boggles my mind, this hatred of material gain through hard work, or the hard work of one’s ancestors, or intelligence, or simple dumb luck. If I make a lot of money, it is MINE. NO ONE has ANY claim on it whatsoever, for any reason. IF I am feeling charitable, I will do something to help someone else. My possession of MORE does not give anyone else the right or privilege to take my property and redistribute (remember, all laws involve the threat of violence) it to those who have less. The same goes for any money my parents would leave me – they didn’t work hard and save so that some jackboot could come along when they’re dead and gone and take what they wanted me to have.
My money is MY MONEY. YOU may NOT have it simply because I have more. Yes, that is selfish. Anything else is theft. At threat of violence, don’t you forget. You wouldn’t come try and knock me over and take my wallet *snicker* so don’t try and have someone in government do your dirty work for you. You want my money, Molon Labe.
Come and get it.
30. Why do companies call yellow cake mixes “Moist yellow” cake mixes? Do some companies sell “Incredibly dry yellow” cake mixes? Are there moist WHITE cake mixes? If all yellow cake mixes are moist as they are advertised, doesn’t that mean that none of them are special by virtue of being moist?
Saturday, September 16, 2006
The Happy Dance
I'm a laid back kinda guy. Takes quite a bit to ruffle my feathers, good or bad. But right now I feel like doing a Snoopy-style happy dance. Calvin and Hobbes in their pajamas, listening to classical at 700RPM, that sort of thing.
Thursday afternoon I picked up Max Payne 1. Fantastic game. Not as good as Far Cry, but beautifully gritty, with a film noir feel straight out of a Dennis Lehane novel. I'm 2/3 done with it, which is good - it's sucking up all the time I should be spending doing productive stuff, like schoolwork or writing.
Thursday evening sucked. I've felt lower, I know I have. I just can't remember when.
Friday afternoon rocked. I'll share more when I feel it's appropriate, but I still can't help but smile.
Friday evening we had a bonfire. Great fun, throwing old financial documents and ammunition receipts into a huge blaze.
Saturday afternoon, on the way to the range, I picked up another magazine for my battle-rifle and 60 more rounds of ammunition. Ran into 2 ex-soldiers out at the range, got an eye-witness account of what Iraq is like. Kinda busts your world view when the soldiers you believe are the bad guys are just like you.
Anyway, they were great company on the range. I shot my battle-rifle off a rest (I need time to develop my muscles, that's why I'm shooting 50 rounds a week with my brother, in addition to range time with my dad), at 25, 50, and 100 yards. Even with the added pressure of 2 soldiers and my dad hanging over my shoulder I put a 25 yard, 20 round group together that you could cover with a measuring cup. Taking it out to fifty, I fired an around-10-round string, 8 of which grouped together on the paper plate in such a way that you could cover them with a vertical tongue depressor.
I've never used my battle-rifle at 100 yards before. A 16 inch barrel and a target you can't see the bullseye for isn't a good combination. After working my flinch out, I line up the sights and discover that the front post is the same size as the plate. Dang. I managed to make paper by lining up the top of the front sight with the top edge of the plate. Out of about 20, between 5 and 10 made the plate.
Now, that's not good shooting. But given the fact that I fired my battle-rifle for the first time in nearly a year LAST WEEK, that's pretty dang good. I'd rather be shooting my CX4, truth be told, but I'm going to get proficient with this gun. And come November, I'm going to buy 2 more as insurance.
Oh yeah, and Gander Mtn. is working over my malfunctioning BAG Day gun, to get that working again.
I am so pumped right now.
Thursday afternoon I picked up Max Payne 1. Fantastic game. Not as good as Far Cry, but beautifully gritty, with a film noir feel straight out of a Dennis Lehane novel. I'm 2/3 done with it, which is good - it's sucking up all the time I should be spending doing productive stuff, like schoolwork or writing.
Thursday evening sucked. I've felt lower, I know I have. I just can't remember when.
Friday afternoon rocked. I'll share more when I feel it's appropriate, but I still can't help but smile.
Friday evening we had a bonfire. Great fun, throwing old financial documents and ammunition receipts into a huge blaze.
Saturday afternoon, on the way to the range, I picked up another magazine for my battle-rifle and 60 more rounds of ammunition. Ran into 2 ex-soldiers out at the range, got an eye-witness account of what Iraq is like. Kinda busts your world view when the soldiers you believe are the bad guys are just like you.
Anyway, they were great company on the range. I shot my battle-rifle off a rest (I need time to develop my muscles, that's why I'm shooting 50 rounds a week with my brother, in addition to range time with my dad), at 25, 50, and 100 yards. Even with the added pressure of 2 soldiers and my dad hanging over my shoulder I put a 25 yard, 20 round group together that you could cover with a measuring cup. Taking it out to fifty, I fired an around-10-round string, 8 of which grouped together on the paper plate in such a way that you could cover them with a vertical tongue depressor.
I've never used my battle-rifle at 100 yards before. A 16 inch barrel and a target you can't see the bullseye for isn't a good combination. After working my flinch out, I line up the sights and discover that the front post is the same size as the plate. Dang. I managed to make paper by lining up the top of the front sight with the top edge of the plate. Out of about 20, between 5 and 10 made the plate.
Now, that's not good shooting. But given the fact that I fired my battle-rifle for the first time in nearly a year LAST WEEK, that's pretty dang good. I'd rather be shooting my CX4, truth be told, but I'm going to get proficient with this gun. And come November, I'm going to buy 2 more as insurance.
Oh yeah, and Gander Mtn. is working over my malfunctioning BAG Day gun, to get that working again.
I am so pumped right now.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Sent In My Taxes Today, Reposted from elsewhere
Sent off my taxes a few days ago, and my anger over the evil of it has been percolating in my bloodstream like Folgers coffee.
For those not familiar with the standard US employee pay setup, here's how it works. Your earnings are taxed at a certain rate by the federal and state governments, and a certain amount is assessed for the cost of Medicare, Social Security, whatever communistic Ponzi scheme they're using. I don't even care to know. All of this is deducted from your paycheck before you ever even see it. And lest one think they only hit the employees, your employer has to match your Medicare/SS/whatever deduction with their own money, money they could A)Be paying you or B)Be using to benefit their store. Every spring your employer sends you a statement, called a W-2, showing how much each parasite has sucked from your paycheck. It is then your obligation to fill out paperwork showing how much money you made, and how much of it is "taxable." Taxable means if you were a productive member of your company and were paid in an equal proportion to your productivity, you may owe the government more simply because you worked harder and got paid for it. (W-2 forms should be considered null and void under the 5th Amendment "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" protection, however comparing Constitutional behavior to 99.6% of any level of government is like comparing apples to...bobsleds) Now, if you got paid less than a certain amount, you still have to go through this whole dog and pony show, and they'll send you back everything except the SS money, that stuff you'll NEVER see. I was lucky. I'm getting all the money that was stolen from me back.
Why am I torqued off about this?
It's my ******* money. And it was stolen from me in the first place.
I worked for that money. That money is a measurement of the life and energy I gave to my employer. I TRADED valuable time out of my finite lifespan for that money. Anyone can tell you, I worked HARD. That money represents my life, and it was taken from me without my permission. Whether I receive it all back or not is irrelevant. It was stolen from me.
For society not to have a serious breakdown of the social order, thieves should still be punished for their theft even after they returned their misgotten goods. They shouldn't get a time with a duncecap on merely because they weren't good enough to avoid getting caught. Nor should theft be ignored as long as the thief assures us that he'll drop a few bucks from our stolen wallets in the Salvation Army bucket - charity is meaningless when you perform it with money other than yours. The argument that all the nice and wonderful (and by the way unconstitutional) services the government performs or offers would cease to exist without the IRS coercing us into funding them with the threat of death or jailtime is moot.
I guess that would explain, why, while filling out my tax forms, I kept seeing Nazis lined up against a wall, justice being delivered to them in excess of 2000 feet per second.
And the absolute most hilarious thing about this is: It's all illegal! By the rules of their own agency, the IRS has absolutely no claim on your money. If you can find a copy of the IRS rulebook and are willing to wade through the morass (emphasis on those last three letters please) of sickening legal-ese, you'll find this little gem: "The tax system is based on voluntary compliance"
Thus spake the Federal Tax Regulations, Section 601.602.
Is it voluntary? Of course not. But by filing your taxes to avoid all that unpleasantness involving courtdates, judges, and trolls with guns, you give the IRS permission to continue looting your paycheck. Don't see it that way? Go talk to our court system. They've repeatedly held that by requesting permission to exercise a right, you thereby give the government permission to deny that permission to you, turning a right into a privilege. Basically, they can make your life an unbearable hell in order to force you to give them the ability to loot your paycheck, after which you have no legal leg to stand on. And your employer is prohibited by law from hiring you until you've filled out a REQUEST for withholding, otherwise known as the W-4 form.
Further wading through the tax code turns up a few more beautiful nuggets of rage-inducing regulation. Check out form Paragraph A of form 668W (the one authorizing the IRS to seize your paycheck, home, bank account, and property for lack of tax payments)...oh wait...it starts at Paragraph B. Guess what? That's because Paragraph A authorizes the IRS sieze money NOT as taxes from...only government employees. Which completely defangs the IRS.
Yet another interesting piece of information is the fact that the tax regulations to enforce the aforementioned paycheck seizure statute, come under the heading 27 CFR in the Code of Federal Regulations, not 26 CFR (Internal Revenue Code). 27 CFR is otherwise known as *drumroll please* Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearm. Which again completely defangs the IRS since this means they can only levy penalties on government employees who've made income relating to those three areas. (That taxation is a form of infringment, and it is therefore illegal under the 2nd Amendment to apply it to firearms is another story)
And another funny little tidbit about withholding. Remember that other onerous deduction, taken from your paycheck and flushed down the soiled Porta-john of Social Security? Check out Title 26, Chapter 21, Subtitle C, Section 3121 of the United States Code. Social Security deductions can only be made from the paychecks of employees within the United States. Which sounds legal enough, until they define the United States - as being the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. Pretty much anywhere under US jurisdiction except the 50 states.
Real nice.
There's really no point in my posting this except to get it off my chest. The most infuriating thing about all of this is not the Constitutional and legal abuses, but the principle behind it. My money was taken from me, I want it back and the thieves punished. At the same time however, I don't really want to be a martyr for the tax movement, so I'll shuffle along and fill out all those self-incriminating forms like a good little serf. The pains of making a principled stand far outnumber the benefits. I can only hope, one day, every Na...I mean IRS agent gets their day in court. A real court, not the tax courts that they haul us off to for tax violations, the ones where the above facts are inadmissable as evidence. After which, hopefully, everyone who's been coerced into turning over their money (and especially those RUINED by the IRS) will have a chance to decide their fate.
Wow. That started off as what LawDog and Kim du Toit (google those names) would call a proper rant, and veered sharply off course for nearly 40 minutes into legal waters. Thanks to Vin Supryowicz for writing the most EXCELLENT book "The Ballad Of Carl Drega" without which I would know very little of this infuriating information.
For those not familiar with the standard US employee pay setup, here's how it works. Your earnings are taxed at a certain rate by the federal and state governments, and a certain amount is assessed for the cost of Medicare, Social Security, whatever communistic Ponzi scheme they're using. I don't even care to know. All of this is deducted from your paycheck before you ever even see it. And lest one think they only hit the employees, your employer has to match your Medicare/SS/whatever deduction with their own money, money they could A)Be paying you or B)Be using to benefit their store. Every spring your employer sends you a statement, called a W-2, showing how much each parasite has sucked from your paycheck. It is then your obligation to fill out paperwork showing how much money you made, and how much of it is "taxable." Taxable means if you were a productive member of your company and were paid in an equal proportion to your productivity, you may owe the government more simply because you worked harder and got paid for it. (W-2 forms should be considered null and void under the 5th Amendment "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" protection, however comparing Constitutional behavior to 99.6% of any level of government is like comparing apples to...bobsleds) Now, if you got paid less than a certain amount, you still have to go through this whole dog and pony show, and they'll send you back everything except the SS money, that stuff you'll NEVER see. I was lucky. I'm getting all the money that was stolen from me back.
Why am I torqued off about this?
It's my ******* money. And it was stolen from me in the first place.
I worked for that money. That money is a measurement of the life and energy I gave to my employer. I TRADED valuable time out of my finite lifespan for that money. Anyone can tell you, I worked HARD. That money represents my life, and it was taken from me without my permission. Whether I receive it all back or not is irrelevant. It was stolen from me.
For society not to have a serious breakdown of the social order, thieves should still be punished for their theft even after they returned their misgotten goods. They shouldn't get a time with a duncecap on merely because they weren't good enough to avoid getting caught. Nor should theft be ignored as long as the thief assures us that he'll drop a few bucks from our stolen wallets in the Salvation Army bucket - charity is meaningless when you perform it with money other than yours. The argument that all the nice and wonderful (and by the way unconstitutional) services the government performs or offers would cease to exist without the IRS coercing us into funding them with the threat of death or jailtime is moot.
I guess that would explain, why, while filling out my tax forms, I kept seeing Nazis lined up against a wall, justice being delivered to them in excess of 2000 feet per second.
And the absolute most hilarious thing about this is: It's all illegal! By the rules of their own agency, the IRS has absolutely no claim on your money. If you can find a copy of the IRS rulebook and are willing to wade through the morass (emphasis on those last three letters please) of sickening legal-ese, you'll find this little gem: "The tax system is based on voluntary compliance"
Thus spake the Federal Tax Regulations, Section 601.602.
Is it voluntary? Of course not. But by filing your taxes to avoid all that unpleasantness involving courtdates, judges, and trolls with guns, you give the IRS permission to continue looting your paycheck. Don't see it that way? Go talk to our court system. They've repeatedly held that by requesting permission to exercise a right, you thereby give the government permission to deny that permission to you, turning a right into a privilege. Basically, they can make your life an unbearable hell in order to force you to give them the ability to loot your paycheck, after which you have no legal leg to stand on. And your employer is prohibited by law from hiring you until you've filled out a REQUEST for withholding, otherwise known as the W-4 form.
Further wading through the tax code turns up a few more beautiful nuggets of rage-inducing regulation. Check out form Paragraph A of form 668W (the one authorizing the IRS to seize your paycheck, home, bank account, and property for lack of tax payments)...oh wait...it starts at Paragraph B. Guess what? That's because Paragraph A authorizes the IRS sieze money NOT as taxes from...only government employees. Which completely defangs the IRS.
Yet another interesting piece of information is the fact that the tax regulations to enforce the aforementioned paycheck seizure statute, come under the heading 27 CFR in the Code of Federal Regulations, not 26 CFR (Internal Revenue Code). 27 CFR is otherwise known as *drumroll please* Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearm. Which again completely defangs the IRS since this means they can only levy penalties on government employees who've made income relating to those three areas. (That taxation is a form of infringment, and it is therefore illegal under the 2nd Amendment to apply it to firearms is another story)
And another funny little tidbit about withholding. Remember that other onerous deduction, taken from your paycheck and flushed down the soiled Porta-john of Social Security? Check out Title 26, Chapter 21, Subtitle C, Section 3121 of the United States Code. Social Security deductions can only be made from the paychecks of employees within the United States. Which sounds legal enough, until they define the United States - as being the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. Pretty much anywhere under US jurisdiction except the 50 states.
Real nice.
There's really no point in my posting this except to get it off my chest. The most infuriating thing about all of this is not the Constitutional and legal abuses, but the principle behind it. My money was taken from me, I want it back and the thieves punished. At the same time however, I don't really want to be a martyr for the tax movement, so I'll shuffle along and fill out all those self-incriminating forms like a good little serf. The pains of making a principled stand far outnumber the benefits. I can only hope, one day, every Na...I mean IRS agent gets their day in court. A real court, not the tax courts that they haul us off to for tax violations, the ones where the above facts are inadmissable as evidence. After which, hopefully, everyone who's been coerced into turning over their money (and especially those RUINED by the IRS) will have a chance to decide their fate.
Wow. That started off as what LawDog and Kim du Toit (google those names) would call a proper rant, and veered sharply off course for nearly 40 minutes into legal waters. Thanks to Vin Supryowicz for writing the most EXCELLENT book "The Ballad Of Carl Drega" without which I would know very little of this infuriating information.
Patriots Day 4/19, Reposted from elsewhere
Today is Patriot's Day.
Today, 231 years ago, a few dozen men and boys stood in a town square in Virginia, stared down the barrels of their own government's rifles, and told the soldiers (who were just doing their appointed duty) that they'd rather die than allow them to take their military arms. A handful of them did die, and after the British had destroyed their arms depot, the militia extracted a terrible price from the British on their march out of town, killing well over a hundred them.
Today is the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's illegal blockade of Southern ports, marking the beginning of the War Of Northern Aggression.
Today marks the anniversary of the final defense of the Warsaw ghetto in Poland. A handful of poorly armed men, women, and children- many barely older than the patrons of this message board - stared down the barrels of the rifles of the Nazi army and told the soldiers (who were just doing their appointed duty) they would rather die fighting than be treated as a subhuman race. Most did die, but during their several-week defense of the ghetto, they killed dozens if not hundreds if not thousands of Nazi Germany's finest.
Today marks the anniversary of the final defense of the Branch Davidian Church in Waco, Texas. +80 men, women, and children stared down the barrels of their own government's rifles and told the soldiers (who were just doing their appointed duty) that yes, they did have the right to possess military arms and use them in defense of their lives, property, and families, and that they were innocent of all charges against them. They were then burned to death in their own church/living quarters, the culmination of a siege starting with perjured warrant stating that the Branch Davidians were making methamphetamines in the church basement, and an illegal and intentionally lethal attack on the Branch Davidian homestead.
Today marks the anniversary of the detonation of the Murray Building in Oklahoma, City. Whoever is responsible for it (and we'll never know), it was a terrible tragedy, and it marked the beginning of the American government's crackdown on the legal groups it believes to be a threat to its power - civilian militias. Militias are defined as civilian soldiers, or all able-bodied civilians capable of bearing weapons in defense of their nation, state, city, or family.
The Virginians standing before the guns of the British military were a militia.
The Southerners standing before the guns of the Northern military were a militia.
The Jews standing before the guns of the Nazi military were a militia.
The Branch Davidians standing before the guns of the American military were a militia.
They were Patriots.
Today, 231 years ago, a few dozen men and boys stood in a town square in Virginia, stared down the barrels of their own government's rifles, and told the soldiers (who were just doing their appointed duty) that they'd rather die than allow them to take their military arms. A handful of them did die, and after the British had destroyed their arms depot, the militia extracted a terrible price from the British on their march out of town, killing well over a hundred them.
Today is the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's illegal blockade of Southern ports, marking the beginning of the War Of Northern Aggression.
Today marks the anniversary of the final defense of the Warsaw ghetto in Poland. A handful of poorly armed men, women, and children- many barely older than the patrons of this message board - stared down the barrels of the rifles of the Nazi army and told the soldiers (who were just doing their appointed duty) they would rather die fighting than be treated as a subhuman race. Most did die, but during their several-week defense of the ghetto, they killed dozens if not hundreds if not thousands of Nazi Germany's finest.
Today marks the anniversary of the final defense of the Branch Davidian Church in Waco, Texas. +80 men, women, and children stared down the barrels of their own government's rifles and told the soldiers (who were just doing their appointed duty) that yes, they did have the right to possess military arms and use them in defense of their lives, property, and families, and that they were innocent of all charges against them. They were then burned to death in their own church/living quarters, the culmination of a siege starting with perjured warrant stating that the Branch Davidians were making methamphetamines in the church basement, and an illegal and intentionally lethal attack on the Branch Davidian homestead.
Today marks the anniversary of the detonation of the Murray Building in Oklahoma, City. Whoever is responsible for it (and we'll never know), it was a terrible tragedy, and it marked the beginning of the American government's crackdown on the legal groups it believes to be a threat to its power - civilian militias. Militias are defined as civilian soldiers, or all able-bodied civilians capable of bearing weapons in defense of their nation, state, city, or family.
The Virginians standing before the guns of the British military were a militia.
The Southerners standing before the guns of the Northern military were a militia.
The Jews standing before the guns of the Nazi military were a militia.
The Branch Davidians standing before the guns of the American military were a militia.
They were Patriots.
Happy 4th Of July, Reposted from elsewhere
Imagine going to prison.
The cold steel of the manacles on your wrists, the way the chains make your footfalls clumsy, the chafing of the bracelets through the ankles of your orange jumpsuit. The feel of the guards hands on your arms. Your heart rate quickens as you approach the door to your cell.
There. An intake of breath as you cross the threshold, never quite enough. The atmosphere here seems stifling, too little for too many people to breathe. The door to your cell slams shut. The metal clashing – not clanging – against the doorframe, the locks engaging.
There’s a hot dull pain in your chest as you contemplate your future behind these bars. You are totally at the mercy of someone else. Your life is no longer your own. The choices presented to you throughout your day are totally without meaning.You live at the capricious whim of Someone Else.
You have no freedom.
I made that sound really bad, didn’t I? Now imagine it being real. Imagine being incarcerated. I want you to feel it, if just for a moment.Today is the 4th Of July. Today we celebrate, with marching bands and parades and cookouts and (where permitted by law) fireworks. We celebrate the birth of the American nation, the freest country on earth. We celebrate 230 years of freedom, and the reasonable expectation of many, many more.
But that’s a lie.
Handed down through generations, as a matter of fact. The 4th of July has nothing to do with the birth of America. Neither the Constitution nor the Bill Of Rights, both of which secure inviolable individual freedom against encroaching government, were written on this day. The Articles Of Confederation where not written on this day. It does not mark the date of any battle, though if a battle occurred on this day somewhere in the past, it has been lost to history.
No, today marks the approval by the Second Continental Congress of the Declaration Of Independence – a document that has as much to do with the birth of the United States as apples do to bobsleds. The Declaration Of Independence was a statement of grievances the Congressional Representatives of the colonists had with England. It is also their kiss-off to the fatherland, a literary middle-finger to the king, a “screw you” to the legitimate authority of the time.Emphasis on “legitimate.” See, the Representatives of the Second Continental Congress, were not citizens of America, or of the United States. Such words had not yet entered the language to describe the government of the North American continent. They were citizens of England. They had no country to go to – they had not formed one yet. They were in a state of insurrection, armed rebellion…to their own government. They were, in the purest sense of the word, terrorists. They had betrayed their nation, taken up arms against it, preached the gospel of resistance to such masses as would listen, encouraged the killing of their brethren, those that supported the king. They were the very definition of the word “criminal.”
The English government was the legitimate ruling power of the day. It is not too much of a logical leap to compare it to the government of America – it had the legal authority to enact legislation, pass and collect taxes, punish criminals, do anything and everything that any government throughout time has done. It had as much claim to the lives and loyalty of the founding fathers as our government has upon us today, you and me, right now.
The Declaration Of Independence lays out, in detail, the grievances held against this legitimate authority:
The king refused to pass certain laws his citizens requested.
He disbanded legislatures that attempted to pass said laws without his consent.
He refused to pass re-districting laws for the convenience of the provincial governments.
He requested the provincial legislatures to meet in places they did not desire.
He dissolved public assemblies that opposed his laws.
He put judges on English - not local - salary.
He created new government offices.
He kept the army ready during times of peace.
He convened military tribunals for soldiers convicted of crimes against civilians, refusing to let his soldiers be tried by a biased civilian court.
He blockaded cities that refused to obey his laws.
He enacted taxes his citizens did not agree with.
And that’s just transcribing a few of the beefs they had with the king.
That list reads like something from the Anarchist Cookbook. Imagine the sheer stupidity if one were to go to war with the American government today because the president created a new government office. Or because he didn’t pass re-districting laws. Today is the day we celebrate the criminal actions of a handful of rich high-society men against reasonable authority. A small minority created, out of whole cloth, an entire philosophical rebellion against the “president” of the day, and the government he led.
Why?Because, through even the lightest touch of the hand of English law, they felt that cold steel around their wrists, the guards’ hands pushing them forward, the halting steps as their chains impeded their progress. They had one guiding star, one supreme belief that led them to call some of their brethren to arms, that they might kill some of their other brethren who believed something different than them.
They believed in freedom - the right of every man, woman, and responsible child to do WHATEVER they so wished, so long as they harmed no other. Such an extraordinary thought, handed down, almost in secret, as generation after generation passed on earth – people have the right to live as they want, do as they want, BE what they want, and as long as they cause no harm to another, no single person or group of people on earth has the legitimate authority to interfere with their lives. It did not matter to these men whether a tax was a penny or a thousand pounds – it was illegitimate if those it affected did not have a say in its passage.
They believed the words of John Locke: People are most free in a state of nature i.e. people are most free when they are governed by the fewest laws. Put another way: The government governs best that governs least.
Furthermore, they knew where the legitimate authority of the time would take its laws…to the logical conclusion we’ve seen legitimate authority take its laws throughout the 20th century. Millions of civilians dead at the hands of their own legal governments – China, Russia, Cambodia, Germany, Armenia, a whole host of small African nations…a laundry list of homicides enacted by government against those who believed it would protect them and played by the rules.
Our own government is not immune. Look up Operation Keelhaul.
Feel the dirt under your knees? See the shallow pit you just dug, open before you? Feel that metal dig into the back of your head? Your family will be billed the cost of the bullet...
Or maybe: Your family is kneeling beside you.
This was what the founding fathers feared so, that they pledged their Lives, Fortunes, and sacred Honor to oppose – power, unchecked, unfettered power exercised over those who had harmed no other.
Yes, the broke the law. Yes, they were criminals. Yes, they betrayed their fellow citizens, their nation, their leader. All over taxes that amounted to less than a handful of pennies they could spend without thought. All over courts and judges who held allegiance, not to the citizens they tried, but to a power that wished to control them. All over governmental edicts designed not to safeguard liberty, but to make criminals out of men and women and responsible children, who wanted to do as they wished, so long as they did no other harm.
All over the clashing shut of the prison door. The orange jumpsuit. The metal bands around your wrists.
They opposed the legal authority of the day, because they believed in freedom. In their right, you right, my right to be left alone. They opposed legal authority because since it opposed that right, it was no longer legitimate, as no government is that opposes that right.
They declared war on their own government, on their own country, because in the hand illegitimate law they felt the chains. Heard the cell door slam shut. Felt the muzzle of the gun pressed to the back of their head.
So today we honor the actions of criminals, who in declaring war on their own legitimate government, gave true freedom the only chance it has ever gotten to grow and prosper. They watered the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants – its natural fertilizer – and gave us a chance to live without fear of chains, of cell doors slamming shut, of the gun pressed to the back of our head.
We honor men like Carter Braxton, a wealthy trader, who lost his business to the war and died a pauper.
Thomas Nelson Jr. aimed the first cannon of the battle of Yorktown at his own home after Cornwallis took it over as his headquarters. He died bankrupt as a result.
Francis Lewis lost his home and property to the English. His wife and son died in English prison.
John Hart was driven from his dying wife’s bedside by the advance of the English troops. They destroyed his farm, his home, all his property. He took to the forests and lived more than a year there before dying of exhaustion and a broken heart.
Today, we honor these criminals.
These heroes.
Happy 4th Of July.
The cold steel of the manacles on your wrists, the way the chains make your footfalls clumsy, the chafing of the bracelets through the ankles of your orange jumpsuit. The feel of the guards hands on your arms. Your heart rate quickens as you approach the door to your cell.
There. An intake of breath as you cross the threshold, never quite enough. The atmosphere here seems stifling, too little for too many people to breathe. The door to your cell slams shut. The metal clashing – not clanging – against the doorframe, the locks engaging.
There’s a hot dull pain in your chest as you contemplate your future behind these bars. You are totally at the mercy of someone else. Your life is no longer your own. The choices presented to you throughout your day are totally without meaning.You live at the capricious whim of Someone Else.
You have no freedom.
I made that sound really bad, didn’t I? Now imagine it being real. Imagine being incarcerated. I want you to feel it, if just for a moment.Today is the 4th Of July. Today we celebrate, with marching bands and parades and cookouts and (where permitted by law) fireworks. We celebrate the birth of the American nation, the freest country on earth. We celebrate 230 years of freedom, and the reasonable expectation of many, many more.
But that’s a lie.
Handed down through generations, as a matter of fact. The 4th of July has nothing to do with the birth of America. Neither the Constitution nor the Bill Of Rights, both of which secure inviolable individual freedom against encroaching government, were written on this day. The Articles Of Confederation where not written on this day. It does not mark the date of any battle, though if a battle occurred on this day somewhere in the past, it has been lost to history.
No, today marks the approval by the Second Continental Congress of the Declaration Of Independence – a document that has as much to do with the birth of the United States as apples do to bobsleds. The Declaration Of Independence was a statement of grievances the Congressional Representatives of the colonists had with England. It is also their kiss-off to the fatherland, a literary middle-finger to the king, a “screw you” to the legitimate authority of the time.Emphasis on “legitimate.” See, the Representatives of the Second Continental Congress, were not citizens of America, or of the United States. Such words had not yet entered the language to describe the government of the North American continent. They were citizens of England. They had no country to go to – they had not formed one yet. They were in a state of insurrection, armed rebellion…to their own government. They were, in the purest sense of the word, terrorists. They had betrayed their nation, taken up arms against it, preached the gospel of resistance to such masses as would listen, encouraged the killing of their brethren, those that supported the king. They were the very definition of the word “criminal.”
The English government was the legitimate ruling power of the day. It is not too much of a logical leap to compare it to the government of America – it had the legal authority to enact legislation, pass and collect taxes, punish criminals, do anything and everything that any government throughout time has done. It had as much claim to the lives and loyalty of the founding fathers as our government has upon us today, you and me, right now.
The Declaration Of Independence lays out, in detail, the grievances held against this legitimate authority:
The king refused to pass certain laws his citizens requested.
He disbanded legislatures that attempted to pass said laws without his consent.
He refused to pass re-districting laws for the convenience of the provincial governments.
He requested the provincial legislatures to meet in places they did not desire.
He dissolved public assemblies that opposed his laws.
He put judges on English - not local - salary.
He created new government offices.
He kept the army ready during times of peace.
He convened military tribunals for soldiers convicted of crimes against civilians, refusing to let his soldiers be tried by a biased civilian court.
He blockaded cities that refused to obey his laws.
He enacted taxes his citizens did not agree with.
And that’s just transcribing a few of the beefs they had with the king.
That list reads like something from the Anarchist Cookbook. Imagine the sheer stupidity if one were to go to war with the American government today because the president created a new government office. Or because he didn’t pass re-districting laws. Today is the day we celebrate the criminal actions of a handful of rich high-society men against reasonable authority. A small minority created, out of whole cloth, an entire philosophical rebellion against the “president” of the day, and the government he led.
Why?Because, through even the lightest touch of the hand of English law, they felt that cold steel around their wrists, the guards’ hands pushing them forward, the halting steps as their chains impeded their progress. They had one guiding star, one supreme belief that led them to call some of their brethren to arms, that they might kill some of their other brethren who believed something different than them.
They believed in freedom - the right of every man, woman, and responsible child to do WHATEVER they so wished, so long as they harmed no other. Such an extraordinary thought, handed down, almost in secret, as generation after generation passed on earth – people have the right to live as they want, do as they want, BE what they want, and as long as they cause no harm to another, no single person or group of people on earth has the legitimate authority to interfere with their lives. It did not matter to these men whether a tax was a penny or a thousand pounds – it was illegitimate if those it affected did not have a say in its passage.
They believed the words of John Locke: People are most free in a state of nature i.e. people are most free when they are governed by the fewest laws. Put another way: The government governs best that governs least.
Furthermore, they knew where the legitimate authority of the time would take its laws…to the logical conclusion we’ve seen legitimate authority take its laws throughout the 20th century. Millions of civilians dead at the hands of their own legal governments – China, Russia, Cambodia, Germany, Armenia, a whole host of small African nations…a laundry list of homicides enacted by government against those who believed it would protect them and played by the rules.
Our own government is not immune. Look up Operation Keelhaul.
Feel the dirt under your knees? See the shallow pit you just dug, open before you? Feel that metal dig into the back of your head? Your family will be billed the cost of the bullet...
Or maybe: Your family is kneeling beside you.
This was what the founding fathers feared so, that they pledged their Lives, Fortunes, and sacred Honor to oppose – power, unchecked, unfettered power exercised over those who had harmed no other.
Yes, the broke the law. Yes, they were criminals. Yes, they betrayed their fellow citizens, their nation, their leader. All over taxes that amounted to less than a handful of pennies they could spend without thought. All over courts and judges who held allegiance, not to the citizens they tried, but to a power that wished to control them. All over governmental edicts designed not to safeguard liberty, but to make criminals out of men and women and responsible children, who wanted to do as they wished, so long as they did no other harm.
All over the clashing shut of the prison door. The orange jumpsuit. The metal bands around your wrists.
They opposed the legal authority of the day, because they believed in freedom. In their right, you right, my right to be left alone. They opposed legal authority because since it opposed that right, it was no longer legitimate, as no government is that opposes that right.
They declared war on their own government, on their own country, because in the hand illegitimate law they felt the chains. Heard the cell door slam shut. Felt the muzzle of the gun pressed to the back of their head.
So today we honor the actions of criminals, who in declaring war on their own legitimate government, gave true freedom the only chance it has ever gotten to grow and prosper. They watered the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants – its natural fertilizer – and gave us a chance to live without fear of chains, of cell doors slamming shut, of the gun pressed to the back of our head.
We honor men like Carter Braxton, a wealthy trader, who lost his business to the war and died a pauper.
Thomas Nelson Jr. aimed the first cannon of the battle of Yorktown at his own home after Cornwallis took it over as his headquarters. He died bankrupt as a result.
Francis Lewis lost his home and property to the English. His wife and son died in English prison.
John Hart was driven from his dying wife’s bedside by the advance of the English troops. They destroyed his farm, his home, all his property. He took to the forests and lived more than a year there before dying of exhaustion and a broken heart.
Today, we honor these criminals.
These heroes.
Happy 4th Of July.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
My Anarchic Roots
So I’m talking fireworks down at a neighbor’s house, and there’s this woman, looks to be in her sixties, going door to door. My neighbor holds up the flyer he got from her, and by golly, she’s out campaigning for a state rep. So, me being a somewhat political person and smelling a debate on the wind, run down the street, stop her for a flyer, and ask her what her candidate thinks of the second amendment (in the most neutral terms, if you tip your hand, they have something to play to). She says she’s not sure, but points to the phone number on the bottom of the paper and says I should call and ask. I return to my neighbor’s garage and discussion resumes.
About five minutes later a beat up Grand Prix shows up in the driveway, the woman yells “You don’t need to call him” and this similarly aged man hotfoots it across the lawn. I meet him halfway, shake his hand, tell him I applaud his campaign style and that every candidate should be willing to shake the hands and talk to prospective voters. He then gives me a 20 minute discourse on how he carries a .357 everywhere but his hometown when he’s out for his electrician business, he’d vote for concealed carry, and he thinks we should repeal 2 laws for every 1 we enact.
I’m out running that night and I think “What a cool guy this guy is” and “I should vote for him, he’s exactly the kind of person I w…” And then I stop.
He’s exactly the kind of person I want ruling me? Huh? Where did that come from? I don’t want to be ruled. I might like this guy, think he’s a really cool person, but I don’t want him telling me what I can and can’t do.
I am an individual. I was born free. I’ll die free. How I choose to live my life in the interregnum is nobody’s business ‘til I infringe upon their business.
I am a sovereign nation.
The only rules I am bound to follow besides my own are those that are in accordance with natural law, or How Things Should Be. Any laws I follow beyond those I do so out of fear.
The only reason I associate myself with the Libertarian party or is because their ideals most closely match my own. The only reason I strive to see the Constitution Of The United States upheld is because the ideals enshrined within match my own closer than most any other document.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I am a sovereign nation.
Strange, that one little meeting can shake up one's world-view, and yet make so little difference in the long run.
I still believe the United States Constitution is possibly the greatest document and definitely the greatest example of government ever written. I think the Libertarian party, despite its internal cracks and slightly out-there focus holds in its sights the true picture of human freedom. I believe the Republicans are only slightly less evil-slash-stupid than the Democrat party. I believe the Democrats and other sundry leftists are positively inimical to the foundations of liberty and human values.
I still don't want any of them ruling me though.
Because I am a sovereign nation.
About five minutes later a beat up Grand Prix shows up in the driveway, the woman yells “You don’t need to call him” and this similarly aged man hotfoots it across the lawn. I meet him halfway, shake his hand, tell him I applaud his campaign style and that every candidate should be willing to shake the hands and talk to prospective voters. He then gives me a 20 minute discourse on how he carries a .357 everywhere but his hometown when he’s out for his electrician business, he’d vote for concealed carry, and he thinks we should repeal 2 laws for every 1 we enact.
I’m out running that night and I think “What a cool guy this guy is” and “I should vote for him, he’s exactly the kind of person I w…” And then I stop.
He’s exactly the kind of person I want ruling me? Huh? Where did that come from? I don’t want to be ruled. I might like this guy, think he’s a really cool person, but I don’t want him telling me what I can and can’t do.
I am an individual. I was born free. I’ll die free. How I choose to live my life in the interregnum is nobody’s business ‘til I infringe upon their business.
I am a sovereign nation.
The only rules I am bound to follow besides my own are those that are in accordance with natural law, or How Things Should Be. Any laws I follow beyond those I do so out of fear.
The only reason I associate myself with the Libertarian party or is because their ideals most closely match my own. The only reason I strive to see the Constitution Of The United States upheld is because the ideals enshrined within match my own closer than most any other document.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I am a sovereign nation.
Strange, that one little meeting can shake up one's world-view, and yet make so little difference in the long run.
I still believe the United States Constitution is possibly the greatest document and definitely the greatest example of government ever written. I think the Libertarian party, despite its internal cracks and slightly out-there focus holds in its sights the true picture of human freedom. I believe the Republicans are only slightly less evil-slash-stupid than the Democrat party. I believe the Democrats and other sundry leftists are positively inimical to the foundations of liberty and human values.
I still don't want any of them ruling me though.
Because I am a sovereign nation.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Random Reflections Pt7
21. Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson irritate me. They’re further examples of how to get ahead in the world by promoting your image rather than your talents. Their highly publicized breakup was supposedly a terribly tearful and awful experience, but what do they do? Besides going out and finding new pals to slum with immediately (dissolving a 3-5 year marriage should merit a time out for reflection of at least a year, or so one would think) but they each come out with CDs, the selling point of which is that each is about the breakup. I’m just cynical enough to believe that maybe just maybe they orchestrated the whole thing to give their careers a little Bam! (as a well known cook would say) Jessica Simpson’s certainly gotten a fair share of publicity from the divorce, and Nick Lachey’s music was ignored beforehand, now it gets some airplay. Gah, the whole thing makes me sick. Have some class you morons.
22. California seems to be racing New Jersey and Massachusetts to see who’s going to be the first to nationalize health care. We all know how well socialist medicine works – look at Russia. During the heyday of the USSR, every good little peasant had the right to free healthcare paid for by all the other good little peasants. As such, their lifespans were 10-20 years lower than every other civilized country, infant mortality was twice as high as in every other civilized country, mental retardation afflicted 25% of the children, 80 million people had chronic illnesses, and 68% of the public was health-deficient by accepted international standards. Every good little peasant had the “right” to free heart surgery, but the reality was 98% of those needing a bypass died waiting to get one.
Russia’s best and brightest went to work churning out MiG fighters and AK47s, because that’s where the fame and opportunity were. Canada (who also has socialized medicine) is seeing a dramatic decline in doctors going into specialty fields, because there’s no pay incentive to continue on through college. They may have cheap or free medication, but their waiting lists are interminable, and their free physicals last somewhere around 2 seconds. Their best and brightest are jumping into the lifeboats and paddling away from the sinking wreck of socialist medicine – and coming here, where they have a financial incentive to do well.
What’s even funnier about all of this is that those advocating socialist medicine get extremely irritated with me when I compare them to the communists of yore, and do things like quote Communist party platforms and literature at them. If you’re going to look like a commie, have feathers like a commie, and quack like a commie, then be proud of it – you obviously think you’re doing the right thing – and don’t be offended when I call you, of all things: A commie. Take some responsibility for your political beliefs. That I can at least respect.
While pointing and laughing of course.
23. There are those out there who are drawn to religion because it gives them a position of power. Having an “in” with your all-powerful invisible friend makes it really easy to cast declarations of damnation down on the average folks, while maintaining your own superiority. In all seriousness, I’m religious. But my religion is between me and the Creator I’ve chosen to believe created me. It’s not between me and you, you and Him, or anyone else and anyone else. If you wanna know, I’ll be happy to tell you what I believe, but I have no vested interest in seeing you have the same invisible friend as me. Those who use religion as a step-stool to raise themselves above everyone else are incredibly dangerous – because they believe they have the ear of the most high, they WON’T stop, they’ve been appointed by God himself. They also give real religion a bad name. If you see one of these people, tear them down, publicly. Or, if you’re assured of their being disliked, let them prattle on until they self-marginalize themselves.
These religious types that love power – they never, ever listen to reason. Or rational thought. You can bring it to bear against them, but they don’t understand it. What is rationality compared to a mission from God?
Religion is a matter of choice, of opinion. From a purely rational standpoint, there’s no right answer – one is just as good as another. There is a “right” answer in relation to human affairs however, and that is what ensures the freedom of the most people. Let that be your guiding light in whatever you do.
24. All laws have a basis in force. They must, otherwise they would not be law. In order for any law to have any power, there’s gotta be some guy somewhere, who puts on a uniform, straps on a gun, and goes out and cracks some heads when people don’t obey the law. Understand this, and you’ll have a leg up on the rest of society, because no one else gets it. To enforce any law, there ABSOLUTELY MUST be the threat of force, of violence, of death, behind it to extract compliance.
I have a diploma in Constitutional Law from Patrick Henry University out of Virginia. My teacher, Michael Farris, was an *expletive*. Not only was he one of those folks who loved the power that having the religious “high ground” gave them (I was suitably unimpressed), he could not get it through his head that every law is enforced with, in the end, violence. He wanted to outlaw the state of being gay – I asked him if he himself was willing to put on a gun and go out and kill people who broke the law and resisted coming to court. He blustered and said that’s not what the law was about. This was a man who wanted to round up gays and put them in concentration camps (couldn’t figure out how to do it without violating everyone else’s rights, so he reserved that fate for people who’s orientation was discovered during the course of a criminal investigation), and yet he didn’t understand what obvious principle Comrade Mao stated – all political power comes from the barrel of a gun.
Legislating without the knowledge that it will be enforced by violence is a huge problem. Everyone wants special benefits, everyone wants the next cozy, cuddly, help-everyone, sunshine and bunny-rabbits West Wing law to be passed. No one wants to go out and evict a family from their home because they didn’t pay the taxes to fund that law though. No one wants to go burn that family to the ground because they refused to leave that home. No one wants to break into the house, smash the father’s teeth in with a rifle-butt, and drag him off to court. Yet, that is precisely what happens when the laws you advocate are broken. That is what HAS to happen.
Which is precisely why law should be used so sparingly. The threat of violence should only be applied in the most extreme cases, lest it be applied liberally, randomly, and to the innocent.
You can have peace, security, the illusion of safety, sunshine and bunny-rabbits for all, or you can have freedom. If you choose the first option, you’ll have to kill or imprison everyone who disagrees with you. Are you willing to do that? Are YOU willing to do that? Are you WILLING to do THAT?
If you’re not, you can just wait for the government-run schools to breed all the courage and intelligence out of our population, that should only take another 20 years or so. But that’s a story for another day.
25. Choice is the one of the few things in the world worthy of respect. Choosing, of your own free will, the right over the easy, the difficult over the wrong, is the hallmark of greatness. If there is any truth or reality to the concept of value or worth in the world, choice is the yardstick by which value is measured.
9/6/2006
26. We need to return to a culture of respect and responsibility. Respect for each other and each other’s intelligence, and responsibility, as in taking responsibility for our actions. There’s a video floating around the internet as I type, showing a highschool football player slamming another player during downtime. Shortly thereafter, slammed player’s father charges onto the field and flattens the teen who tackled his kid for no reason. Not the best thing to do, certainly not appropriate.
What’s even less appropriate is the fact that the father is getting slapped with felony child-abuse charges. What the heck, over? Used to be a time in America, a couple of guys could work out their differences in a rousing fight, loosen each other’s teeth, blacken each other’s eyes, pay for any damages they caused to the venue, shake hands, and agree to disagree. Not any more – now it’s a felony.
Not that I’m saying we should all go out and start picking barfights for fun, but we’d be better off with the days of guys getting thrown out of saloons than getting hauled down to the precinct and then off to jail for 5 years ‘cause they pounded some loud-mouth jerk into the floor.
Yet another case of the law getting used too much.
Another example: Up until about the 60s, couples mis-matched in age weren’t a problem. Lots of kids got married at 15, 16, 17, 18, etc. and if their partner was a year or two younger than them, it wasn’t a big deal. Teens around our ages pledged themselves to each other, got jobs, started families, and began responsible life a whole lot younger than the morons I see every day in college. Today a deeply-in-love-couple aged 16 and 18 would get married and whichever one was older would be hauled out in cuffs ‘afore the rice was thrown. Hell, you can’t even date a year or two down if you’re over 18, no matter what the younger feels for you – their whim changes and it doesn’t take more than an allegation to get you branded as a child molester an’ lose all your rights for life.
What’s funny is, kids my age are still having kids, almost like this was something nature intended. They’re just not getting married, not taking on any of the responsibility of a committed relationship. We had a lot fewer societal problems when we had less law and more of a sense of responsibility.
22. California seems to be racing New Jersey and Massachusetts to see who’s going to be the first to nationalize health care. We all know how well socialist medicine works – look at Russia. During the heyday of the USSR, every good little peasant had the right to free healthcare paid for by all the other good little peasants. As such, their lifespans were 10-20 years lower than every other civilized country, infant mortality was twice as high as in every other civilized country, mental retardation afflicted 25% of the children, 80 million people had chronic illnesses, and 68% of the public was health-deficient by accepted international standards. Every good little peasant had the “right” to free heart surgery, but the reality was 98% of those needing a bypass died waiting to get one.
Russia’s best and brightest went to work churning out MiG fighters and AK47s, because that’s where the fame and opportunity were. Canada (who also has socialized medicine) is seeing a dramatic decline in doctors going into specialty fields, because there’s no pay incentive to continue on through college. They may have cheap or free medication, but their waiting lists are interminable, and their free physicals last somewhere around 2 seconds. Their best and brightest are jumping into the lifeboats and paddling away from the sinking wreck of socialist medicine – and coming here, where they have a financial incentive to do well.
What’s even funnier about all of this is that those advocating socialist medicine get extremely irritated with me when I compare them to the communists of yore, and do things like quote Communist party platforms and literature at them. If you’re going to look like a commie, have feathers like a commie, and quack like a commie, then be proud of it – you obviously think you’re doing the right thing – and don’t be offended when I call you, of all things: A commie. Take some responsibility for your political beliefs. That I can at least respect.
While pointing and laughing of course.
23. There are those out there who are drawn to religion because it gives them a position of power. Having an “in” with your all-powerful invisible friend makes it really easy to cast declarations of damnation down on the average folks, while maintaining your own superiority. In all seriousness, I’m religious. But my religion is between me and the Creator I’ve chosen to believe created me. It’s not between me and you, you and Him, or anyone else and anyone else. If you wanna know, I’ll be happy to tell you what I believe, but I have no vested interest in seeing you have the same invisible friend as me. Those who use religion as a step-stool to raise themselves above everyone else are incredibly dangerous – because they believe they have the ear of the most high, they WON’T stop, they’ve been appointed by God himself. They also give real religion a bad name. If you see one of these people, tear them down, publicly. Or, if you’re assured of their being disliked, let them prattle on until they self-marginalize themselves.
These religious types that love power – they never, ever listen to reason. Or rational thought. You can bring it to bear against them, but they don’t understand it. What is rationality compared to a mission from God?
Religion is a matter of choice, of opinion. From a purely rational standpoint, there’s no right answer – one is just as good as another. There is a “right” answer in relation to human affairs however, and that is what ensures the freedom of the most people. Let that be your guiding light in whatever you do.
24. All laws have a basis in force. They must, otherwise they would not be law. In order for any law to have any power, there’s gotta be some guy somewhere, who puts on a uniform, straps on a gun, and goes out and cracks some heads when people don’t obey the law. Understand this, and you’ll have a leg up on the rest of society, because no one else gets it. To enforce any law, there ABSOLUTELY MUST be the threat of force, of violence, of death, behind it to extract compliance.
I have a diploma in Constitutional Law from Patrick Henry University out of Virginia. My teacher, Michael Farris, was an *expletive*. Not only was he one of those folks who loved the power that having the religious “high ground” gave them (I was suitably unimpressed), he could not get it through his head that every law is enforced with, in the end, violence. He wanted to outlaw the state of being gay – I asked him if he himself was willing to put on a gun and go out and kill people who broke the law and resisted coming to court. He blustered and said that’s not what the law was about. This was a man who wanted to round up gays and put them in concentration camps (couldn’t figure out how to do it without violating everyone else’s rights, so he reserved that fate for people who’s orientation was discovered during the course of a criminal investigation), and yet he didn’t understand what obvious principle Comrade Mao stated – all political power comes from the barrel of a gun.
Legislating without the knowledge that it will be enforced by violence is a huge problem. Everyone wants special benefits, everyone wants the next cozy, cuddly, help-everyone, sunshine and bunny-rabbits West Wing law to be passed. No one wants to go out and evict a family from their home because they didn’t pay the taxes to fund that law though. No one wants to go burn that family to the ground because they refused to leave that home. No one wants to break into the house, smash the father’s teeth in with a rifle-butt, and drag him off to court. Yet, that is precisely what happens when the laws you advocate are broken. That is what HAS to happen.
Which is precisely why law should be used so sparingly. The threat of violence should only be applied in the most extreme cases, lest it be applied liberally, randomly, and to the innocent.
You can have peace, security, the illusion of safety, sunshine and bunny-rabbits for all, or you can have freedom. If you choose the first option, you’ll have to kill or imprison everyone who disagrees with you. Are you willing to do that? Are YOU willing to do that? Are you WILLING to do THAT?
If you’re not, you can just wait for the government-run schools to breed all the courage and intelligence out of our population, that should only take another 20 years or so. But that’s a story for another day.
25. Choice is the one of the few things in the world worthy of respect. Choosing, of your own free will, the right over the easy, the difficult over the wrong, is the hallmark of greatness. If there is any truth or reality to the concept of value or worth in the world, choice is the yardstick by which value is measured.
9/6/2006
26. We need to return to a culture of respect and responsibility. Respect for each other and each other’s intelligence, and responsibility, as in taking responsibility for our actions. There’s a video floating around the internet as I type, showing a highschool football player slamming another player during downtime. Shortly thereafter, slammed player’s father charges onto the field and flattens the teen who tackled his kid for no reason. Not the best thing to do, certainly not appropriate.
What’s even less appropriate is the fact that the father is getting slapped with felony child-abuse charges. What the heck, over? Used to be a time in America, a couple of guys could work out their differences in a rousing fight, loosen each other’s teeth, blacken each other’s eyes, pay for any damages they caused to the venue, shake hands, and agree to disagree. Not any more – now it’s a felony.
Not that I’m saying we should all go out and start picking barfights for fun, but we’d be better off with the days of guys getting thrown out of saloons than getting hauled down to the precinct and then off to jail for 5 years ‘cause they pounded some loud-mouth jerk into the floor.
Yet another case of the law getting used too much.
Another example: Up until about the 60s, couples mis-matched in age weren’t a problem. Lots of kids got married at 15, 16, 17, 18, etc. and if their partner was a year or two younger than them, it wasn’t a big deal. Teens around our ages pledged themselves to each other, got jobs, started families, and began responsible life a whole lot younger than the morons I see every day in college. Today a deeply-in-love-couple aged 16 and 18 would get married and whichever one was older would be hauled out in cuffs ‘afore the rice was thrown. Hell, you can’t even date a year or two down if you’re over 18, no matter what the younger feels for you – their whim changes and it doesn’t take more than an allegation to get you branded as a child molester an’ lose all your rights for life.
What’s funny is, kids my age are still having kids, almost like this was something nature intended. They’re just not getting married, not taking on any of the responsibility of a committed relationship. We had a lot fewer societal problems when we had less law and more of a sense of responsibility.
Friday, September 08, 2006
So As I Don't Go Forgetting
So as I don't go forgetting what I want to remember - September 8th, 2006. 99% certain.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Never been much of a joiner...
I've never been much of a joiner in my life. Closest thing I've ever come to a real, honest-to-gosh team is either my driver's ed class or the 3 jobs I've had. I'm one of those guys who prefers to hang with my back to the wall at the far edge of the crowd and just watch.
Today marks 60 days until the midterm elections. Thus, all support given to any political candidate is strictly prohibited, even in print or on the internet. Voicing your opinion favoring one candidate over another is considered the same as a campaign contribution, and in order to make the electoral process more fair, those two *expletives* John McCain and Russ Feingold authored a bill to prevent such horrible exercizing of one's rights. A majority of both houses of Congress voted to pass this bill. Then President George Bush Jr. signed this bill into law. Then 5 Supreme Court Justices upheld this law.
According to McCain-Feingold, exercizing my God/Nature/Other-given right to say whatever I damn well please on a blog of my creation is illegal. If I post anything indicating a preference for one candidate over another, I'm a criminal.
Well screw that.
I'm here to tell you I prefer Libertarians over Republicans, and Republicans over Democrats. I'd rather see Mark Green elected governer of my benighted state than see Jim Doyle remain in office. I'd rather see John Gard take his place than Steve Kagen, the retarded looking Nancy Nusbaum, or that spineless whiner Jamie Wall.
It is my absolute, inalienable, un-infringeable right to say that, and I will NOT brook any interference in my exercise of that right.
And furthermore, I believe anyone involved in the passage and upholding of the McCain-Feingold finance reform bill should be convicted of treason, and summarily hung within 48 hours of the prouncement of guilt.
It's my right to say that as well.
So yeah, I've never been a joiner. But today, I join ranks with the other bloggers who stand in defiance of tyranny - those souls calling themselves the McCain-Feingold Insurrection.
To those who would act in total contradiction of +200 years of Constitutional protections on human rights, y'all can take your McCain-Feingold bill, shove it where the sun doesn't shine, and set fire to it.
Today marks 60 days until the midterm elections. Thus, all support given to any political candidate is strictly prohibited, even in print or on the internet. Voicing your opinion favoring one candidate over another is considered the same as a campaign contribution, and in order to make the electoral process more fair, those two *expletives* John McCain and Russ Feingold authored a bill to prevent such horrible exercizing of one's rights. A majority of both houses of Congress voted to pass this bill. Then President George Bush Jr. signed this bill into law. Then 5 Supreme Court Justices upheld this law.
According to McCain-Feingold, exercizing my God/Nature/Other-given right to say whatever I damn well please on a blog of my creation is illegal. If I post anything indicating a preference for one candidate over another, I'm a criminal.
Well screw that.
I'm here to tell you I prefer Libertarians over Republicans, and Republicans over Democrats. I'd rather see Mark Green elected governer of my benighted state than see Jim Doyle remain in office. I'd rather see John Gard take his place than Steve Kagen, the retarded looking Nancy Nusbaum, or that spineless whiner Jamie Wall.
It is my absolute, inalienable, un-infringeable right to say that, and I will NOT brook any interference in my exercise of that right.
And furthermore, I believe anyone involved in the passage and upholding of the McCain-Feingold finance reform bill should be convicted of treason, and summarily hung within 48 hours of the prouncement of guilt.
It's my right to say that as well.
So yeah, I've never been a joiner. But today, I join ranks with the other bloggers who stand in defiance of tyranny - those souls calling themselves the McCain-Feingold Insurrection.
To those who would act in total contradiction of +200 years of Constitutional protections on human rights, y'all can take your McCain-Feingold bill, shove it where the sun doesn't shine, and set fire to it.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Random Reflections Pt6
16.A meditation on rights and privileges.Rights are something you’re born with. They are inalienable. You have them from the moment you have brain waves until the moment your soul leaves your body. They can be restricted, but they can’t be taken away. I have the inalienable, God/Nature/Other given right to do whatever I want, as long as I don’t hurt anyone. You can restrict that, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have that right.
Privileges, by their very definition, can be given and taken. I have the privilege to stay out until certain times of the night. That privilege is granted by my parents, who “rule” the household I live in. That privilege can be revoked.Rights and privileges are not the same thing. Rights cannot be taken from you, they can only be oppressed. Privileges can be granted and revoked at whim.
EVERY human being on the entire planet has the right to free speech, a jury trial, keep and bear arms, be safe from unreasonable search and seizure. Those are RIGHTS. They cannot be taken from you, they can only be oppressed. Either they apply to every man, woman, and child, or they apply to no one, and not being tortured when convenient is a privilege that can be revoked. Yes, this is America-centric. Our founding fathers described and enumerated in the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution what HUMAN rights were. Rights aren’t divisible into “American” and “Other” categories. They apply to every member of the human race.
People don’t understand the difference between rights and privileges any more, and that’s one of the reasons we have the problems we do.
17.Country music is straying from its “my wife left me, I’ll drink some beer and kick my dog” stereotype. I’m noticing a lot more pop and rock type country songs these days than I used to. Sure, there’ll always be the Garth Brooks and Toby Keiths of the genre, but I’m seeing a lot of pop-rock music coming out of the country charts. Meanwhile, rock seems to be splitting from its excess-and-grunge days. Seems to be going in one of two directions – either zany punk-type rock or dark, death and gloom oriented music with a standard rock edge. Obviously this is the stuff that’s selling, but I’d hate to see rock undergo the transformation rap did way back when. They went from really voice-oriented standard rock fare to oily, mumbled tales of crime.
18.Paramount fired Tom Cruise. This is what happens when you go flat barking bugnuts. All the attention surrounding him recently has been the result of his personality, (or change in personality) rather than his talent. This guy is one of the greatest actors in Hollywood right now, and he’s currently unemployed (though not destitute) simply because he made (whether consciously or not) his image his job, instead of acting.
People who capitalize on their image rather than talent irritate me. Are we to think that some music exec actually found Paris Hilton to be a good singer, and didn’t just greenlight her album because she’s popular? Show of hands here folks, who’s heard her music and thinks she’s going to spend the next 30 years singing? Or acting? Can anyone honestly see her, on-stage, at age 50? Of course not. She’s spent the last 5 or so years promoting her vacuous personality rather than any talent she might possess, and all this does is show the American people are stupid for making her popular and she’s got fantastic marketing skills.
That’s what’s wrong with the entertainment industry right now – there are too few people who have the skill and stick-to-it-iveness to remain in the game for the long haul. If they’re not committed to doing it until at least 50, they’re not worth the time or money.
19. (REPOSTED) If ANYONE voted for any kind of restrictions on free speech they are a traitor. If ANYONE voted for any restrictions on the manufacture, import, availability, or ability to carry any kind of weapon anywhere, they are a traitor. If ANYONE voted to hold anyone in this country in prison without bail, notification of the charges against them, without access to an attorney, without medical care, without notification of the public or even their relatives, they are a traitor. If ANYONE voted to establish special courts for the prosecution of a "special class" of crimes, not under the supervision of the US justice system, they are a traitor. If ANYONE voted to restrict the movement of individuals through this country, they are a traitor.
ANYONE who authorizes or voted for the spending of money on anything not listed in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is a criminal. ANYONE who voted or authorized the use of military force prior to a declaration of war by Congress is a criminal. ANYONE who authorizes or voted for the funding of an army for more than 2 years is a criminal. ANYONE who authorizes or voted for a federal tax other than a capitation tax is a criminal.
These are incontrovertible facts. Any public official who cast a vote (or supported through financing or legislation) as described in the first paragraph at any time is in clear violation of the Bill Of Rights, and as such is a traitor. Any public official who cast a vote (or supported through financing or legislation) as described in the second paragraph at any time is in clear violation of the Constitution, and is a felon.
20. It makes no sense to restrict possession of anything. Those you would mistrust with something are just as bad without it being illegal. Prohibition or laws regarding the prevention of anything make as much sense as trying to cut down on drunk driving by restricting the sale of alcohol to teetotalers. Or cutting down on speeding by lowering the speed limit. This is a fundamental truth of life that no one seems to get – Bad People are still going to be Bad, no matter how much you control Good People. The laws are written for the bad, the good already carry the law in their hearts. Anything beyond natural law is a restriction of essential, rightful liberty.
Privileges, by their very definition, can be given and taken. I have the privilege to stay out until certain times of the night. That privilege is granted by my parents, who “rule” the household I live in. That privilege can be revoked.Rights and privileges are not the same thing. Rights cannot be taken from you, they can only be oppressed. Privileges can be granted and revoked at whim.
EVERY human being on the entire planet has the right to free speech, a jury trial, keep and bear arms, be safe from unreasonable search and seizure. Those are RIGHTS. They cannot be taken from you, they can only be oppressed. Either they apply to every man, woman, and child, or they apply to no one, and not being tortured when convenient is a privilege that can be revoked. Yes, this is America-centric. Our founding fathers described and enumerated in the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution what HUMAN rights were. Rights aren’t divisible into “American” and “Other” categories. They apply to every member of the human race.
People don’t understand the difference between rights and privileges any more, and that’s one of the reasons we have the problems we do.
17.Country music is straying from its “my wife left me, I’ll drink some beer and kick my dog” stereotype. I’m noticing a lot more pop and rock type country songs these days than I used to. Sure, there’ll always be the Garth Brooks and Toby Keiths of the genre, but I’m seeing a lot of pop-rock music coming out of the country charts. Meanwhile, rock seems to be splitting from its excess-and-grunge days. Seems to be going in one of two directions – either zany punk-type rock or dark, death and gloom oriented music with a standard rock edge. Obviously this is the stuff that’s selling, but I’d hate to see rock undergo the transformation rap did way back when. They went from really voice-oriented standard rock fare to oily, mumbled tales of crime.
18.Paramount fired Tom Cruise. This is what happens when you go flat barking bugnuts. All the attention surrounding him recently has been the result of his personality, (or change in personality) rather than his talent. This guy is one of the greatest actors in Hollywood right now, and he’s currently unemployed (though not destitute) simply because he made (whether consciously or not) his image his job, instead of acting.
People who capitalize on their image rather than talent irritate me. Are we to think that some music exec actually found Paris Hilton to be a good singer, and didn’t just greenlight her album because she’s popular? Show of hands here folks, who’s heard her music and thinks she’s going to spend the next 30 years singing? Or acting? Can anyone honestly see her, on-stage, at age 50? Of course not. She’s spent the last 5 or so years promoting her vacuous personality rather than any talent she might possess, and all this does is show the American people are stupid for making her popular and she’s got fantastic marketing skills.
That’s what’s wrong with the entertainment industry right now – there are too few people who have the skill and stick-to-it-iveness to remain in the game for the long haul. If they’re not committed to doing it until at least 50, they’re not worth the time or money.
19. (REPOSTED) If ANYONE voted for any kind of restrictions on free speech they are a traitor. If ANYONE voted for any restrictions on the manufacture, import, availability, or ability to carry any kind of weapon anywhere, they are a traitor. If ANYONE voted to hold anyone in this country in prison without bail, notification of the charges against them, without access to an attorney, without medical care, without notification of the public or even their relatives, they are a traitor. If ANYONE voted to establish special courts for the prosecution of a "special class" of crimes, not under the supervision of the US justice system, they are a traitor. If ANYONE voted to restrict the movement of individuals through this country, they are a traitor.
ANYONE who authorizes or voted for the spending of money on anything not listed in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is a criminal. ANYONE who voted or authorized the use of military force prior to a declaration of war by Congress is a criminal. ANYONE who authorizes or voted for the funding of an army for more than 2 years is a criminal. ANYONE who authorizes or voted for a federal tax other than a capitation tax is a criminal.
These are incontrovertible facts. Any public official who cast a vote (or supported through financing or legislation) as described in the first paragraph at any time is in clear violation of the Bill Of Rights, and as such is a traitor. Any public official who cast a vote (or supported through financing or legislation) as described in the second paragraph at any time is in clear violation of the Constitution, and is a felon.
20. It makes no sense to restrict possession of anything. Those you would mistrust with something are just as bad without it being illegal. Prohibition or laws regarding the prevention of anything make as much sense as trying to cut down on drunk driving by restricting the sale of alcohol to teetotalers. Or cutting down on speeding by lowering the speed limit. This is a fundamental truth of life that no one seems to get – Bad People are still going to be Bad, no matter how much you control Good People. The laws are written for the bad, the good already carry the law in their hearts. Anything beyond natural law is a restriction of essential, rightful liberty.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
There's A Chipmunk Over There
I recently celebrated a birthday. My birthday day rocked. My birthday night...not so much. Two, count 'em two completely unrelated events that kept us up until the wee hours of the morning.
To understand part of the story, you have to know something of the geography of our house. My bedroom resides all the way down on the right end. I sleep next to an outside wall, on the other side of which there's a garden, a tree, birdbath, window wells, all the stuff you normally find in a side yard. The inside of our house, with the the exception of both ends where there are bedrooms, is open concept. The living room is open to the kitchen and dining room, and takes up the middle third of the front of the house.
Whew. Now that that's out of the way.
Last night I heard bump from outside my bedroom window. Sounds like someone tripped over the short garden fence or a window well cover. I think "squirrel" and forget about it. This is about 11:40, maybe. Around 12:25, I hear footsteps outside my room (I figure it's a parent), and then something from the main body of the house, it sounds like someone's trying to rattle our patio door against the block in the track, or maybe pry open a window. My curiousity piqued, I get out of bed, consider and then discard the idea of taking a knife with me (it was a weird noise, ok?), and stumble out into the hall.
My mom's out in the hall, looking confused. She got up AFTER the rattle (who's footsteps were those?) and thinks there might be someone in the house. One person hearing something suspicious is understandable - houses settle. Two people hearing it is not coincidence. This coupled with the sound like someone tripping outside my window (I explained this to her) leads me to believe we have either a home invader or a prowler on the premises. I go back to my room, briefly consider the advantages of a carbine against a pistol, and retrieve my 9mm from under my bed. Suitably armed, I return to the hallway, tell my mom to wake my dad, and watch the darkened rest of the house from the back of the hall. It's cold in the house, I'm wearing only athletic shorts, my heart sounds like a dang jackhammer, and I'm wondering how fast someone can get down the hall from the kitchen and if I'll get enough time to put a round in the chamber, aim, and find it within myself to fire.
My dad gets up, takes my gun and does a walkthrough of the house, turning lights on and examining the outdoors as he goes. All the doors and windows are locked, no signs of entry. That's good. From there he checks the basement, retrieves my freaked-out brother from his basement bedroom, and once we've made sure the house is secure, we all return our various weapons to their places of origin, and go back to bed, my brother choosing to sleep upstairs in his old bed in my room.
It's now about 12:45, and the fun is just beginning.
We have two birds. A parrot lives in front of the patio door in our kitchen. A 900 year old finch resides in a cage on a chest in front of the living room window.
At about 12:50, we hear the parrot freaking out. My mom and my dad get up to comfort him, and me and my brother follow.The parrot appears to be fine. My brother looks over by the finch and utters those infamous words "There's a chipmunk over there."
Yeah. The absolute LAST thing you want to hear at 1 in the morning.
This critter ain't a chipmunk. It's about the size of a rat, with a flat bushy tail as long as itself, big black bug eyes, and an angelic face, sort of like a squirrel/chipmunk/possum cross. Everyone's since commented that it looks like something out of Australia. He's sitting on the finch's cage. At our slightest movement, he transfers himself about 3 feet over and 3 feet up to the top of a potted plant. We grab towels, a spatula, and a laundry bucket and head into the living room. He jumps another few feet into the air, and proceeds to do upside-down hand-over-hand along the curtain rod, then runs the length of the curtain back to the plant he came from. By this time we've shoved towels under all the doors in the house, opened the front door, and are considering plans to remove the offending house-guest.
Using a long piece of wood, my brother pushes the plant-box over to the now open front door. From there, my dad, shielding himself with the laundry bucket, chases the animal down the tree with the spatula, and out into the yard.
We all got to bed around 1:30.The happenings with the animal are all funny in retrospect (The phrase "There's a chipmunk over there" will be a punchline for years to come, and we've got several photos of the furry guest that are quite cute) but at the time it was most aggravating.
Our theory is someone tried to break in, and then while we were clearing the house, we woke up the critter that had been come in (unknown to the rest of us) earlier in the day and had been napping under the couch. We know the 2 events were not connected because the noises we heard that we attribute to a human were A)Outside and B)Not capable of being made by a critter of the small four-legged variety.
This is just great - this is the second time in a year that someone's tried to break in.
To understand part of the story, you have to know something of the geography of our house. My bedroom resides all the way down on the right end. I sleep next to an outside wall, on the other side of which there's a garden, a tree, birdbath, window wells, all the stuff you normally find in a side yard. The inside of our house, with the the exception of both ends where there are bedrooms, is open concept. The living room is open to the kitchen and dining room, and takes up the middle third of the front of the house.
Whew. Now that that's out of the way.
Last night I heard bump from outside my bedroom window. Sounds like someone tripped over the short garden fence or a window well cover. I think "squirrel" and forget about it. This is about 11:40, maybe. Around 12:25, I hear footsteps outside my room (I figure it's a parent), and then something from the main body of the house, it sounds like someone's trying to rattle our patio door against the block in the track, or maybe pry open a window. My curiousity piqued, I get out of bed, consider and then discard the idea of taking a knife with me (it was a weird noise, ok?), and stumble out into the hall.
My mom's out in the hall, looking confused. She got up AFTER the rattle (who's footsteps were those?) and thinks there might be someone in the house. One person hearing something suspicious is understandable - houses settle. Two people hearing it is not coincidence. This coupled with the sound like someone tripping outside my window (I explained this to her) leads me to believe we have either a home invader or a prowler on the premises. I go back to my room, briefly consider the advantages of a carbine against a pistol, and retrieve my 9mm from under my bed. Suitably armed, I return to the hallway, tell my mom to wake my dad, and watch the darkened rest of the house from the back of the hall. It's cold in the house, I'm wearing only athletic shorts, my heart sounds like a dang jackhammer, and I'm wondering how fast someone can get down the hall from the kitchen and if I'll get enough time to put a round in the chamber, aim, and find it within myself to fire.
My dad gets up, takes my gun and does a walkthrough of the house, turning lights on and examining the outdoors as he goes. All the doors and windows are locked, no signs of entry. That's good. From there he checks the basement, retrieves my freaked-out brother from his basement bedroom, and once we've made sure the house is secure, we all return our various weapons to their places of origin, and go back to bed, my brother choosing to sleep upstairs in his old bed in my room.
It's now about 12:45, and the fun is just beginning.
We have two birds. A parrot lives in front of the patio door in our kitchen. A 900 year old finch resides in a cage on a chest in front of the living room window.
At about 12:50, we hear the parrot freaking out. My mom and my dad get up to comfort him, and me and my brother follow.The parrot appears to be fine. My brother looks over by the finch and utters those infamous words "There's a chipmunk over there."
Yeah. The absolute LAST thing you want to hear at 1 in the morning.
This critter ain't a chipmunk. It's about the size of a rat, with a flat bushy tail as long as itself, big black bug eyes, and an angelic face, sort of like a squirrel/chipmunk/possum cross. Everyone's since commented that it looks like something out of Australia. He's sitting on the finch's cage. At our slightest movement, he transfers himself about 3 feet over and 3 feet up to the top of a potted plant. We grab towels, a spatula, and a laundry bucket and head into the living room. He jumps another few feet into the air, and proceeds to do upside-down hand-over-hand along the curtain rod, then runs the length of the curtain back to the plant he came from. By this time we've shoved towels under all the doors in the house, opened the front door, and are considering plans to remove the offending house-guest.
Using a long piece of wood, my brother pushes the plant-box over to the now open front door. From there, my dad, shielding himself with the laundry bucket, chases the animal down the tree with the spatula, and out into the yard.
We all got to bed around 1:30.The happenings with the animal are all funny in retrospect (The phrase "There's a chipmunk over there" will be a punchline for years to come, and we've got several photos of the furry guest that are quite cute) but at the time it was most aggravating.
Our theory is someone tried to break in, and then while we were clearing the house, we woke up the critter that had been come in (unknown to the rest of us) earlier in the day and had been napping under the couch. We know the 2 events were not connected because the noises we heard that we attribute to a human were A)Outside and B)Not capable of being made by a critter of the small four-legged variety.
This is just great - this is the second time in a year that someone's tried to break in.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Random Reflections Pt5
11.I’m going to come across sounding like an evil, racist young cuss and I don’t care.
In another life, I sold cellphones. Without fail, once a day, we got several Latino persons or families in the store, either looking to pay off their bill (Sprint will let you buy what amounts to a gift card, and once a month you present this card to someone like me, we punch a few buttons on the register, you hand me cash enough to cover your bill, and voila! you’re paid up for another month) or buy a cellphone. And also without fail, at least one person per day had absolutely no command of the English language. I’m not talking about poor grammar or a thick accent – I mean they SPOKE NO ENGLISH. They’d go up to each person in the store and say “Spanish?” If you said no, they’d try every other employee. If you said yes, or I’ll try, you spent the next 4 hours working out a cellphone deal caveman style.
Here’s the thing though – never once did I see one of these people have anything less than a $150 dollar cash deposit on their phone. They bought phones with a minimum $30 per month contract (usually $50+, to tell the truth) and a load of taxes, activation fees, and sundry expenses. Not counting the price of the phone, buying and activating a cellphone is EXPENSIVE. And they bought decent cellphones. Middle of the road, not crap phones, not top of the line phones, but solid, reasonably performing phones. And they paid in cash.
I remember this one transaction vividly, this family of Latinos come in, a husband, wife, older daughter and two to five kids between the ages of fifteen and five, and ALL of them have cellphones clipped to their belts or waistbands. Every single one of them. None of them spoke any English while they were there, and the husband understood barely enough to indicate which one of my inquiries (buy a phone, pay a bill, etc) was correct. He paid me nearly $250 in twenty dollar bills to cover his phone bill for the month.
Now maybe I’m just dense, but how does someone who speaks not a lick of English get enough cash to pay for a four or five hundred dollar cellphone package outright, and then keep coming back each month to pay a (usually) hundred and fifty dollar bill in cash? How? I wanna know – I want that job!
12.The benighted governor of my fair state recently proposed and passed two laws benefiting military veterans. One allowed veterans or their families to cancel their cellphone coverage at any time without monetary penalty. For the rest of us, that penalty after an average of one week is around $200. The second measure allows veterans and their families to attend any state university for no or little cost. What the hell, over?
We’ll pick these apart one by one. The first law is directly screwing with a private company, an act of government specifically targeting certain companies to give government employees better business than everyone else. Government legislating business practices, not to make them more fair (which is in itself a travesty) but to get their own employees better treatment…what…how…I’m speechless.
The second law may or may not be worse than the first. It’s of greater monetary value, but it doesn’t screw with private companies for selfish reasons. No one knows how we’re going to pay for the education of every “taker” vet and their family in the state. Even the governor admits he’s flying by the seat of his pants, though in far more eloquent and duplicitous terms. He’s taking money from every other person in this state to give government employees better treatment than anyone else gets.
Not that I’m complaining that everyone else doesn’t get this treatment. No one should get a free or partially free ride on anything, for anything, to anywhere. There’s no faster way to bankrupt something than to start offering free stuff to everyone and their brother’s cousin.
No, what I’m complaining about is interference in private companies’ business for the benefit of only certain people, and sticking you and me with the bill for someone else’s expensive education, based only on who they choose to associate with. This is tyranny. This is the creation of a new “landed” class of people, a fostering of the “Us Vs Them” mentality that’s going through society. Government has NO right to determine who gets special treatment, better perks, hell, they don’t have the right determining who gets average treatment or ANY perks.
13.9mm is a perfectly acceptable defensive caliber. I don’t want to get shot with it. Anything over a pellet gun is a perfectly acceptable defensive caliber, but only if you use decent hollowpoints, and can hit your target multiple times. If someone could build a reliable semi-automatic handgun that held 25-30 rounds of .22LR or .22MAG, I’d think long and hard about carrying it. Capacity is to a gun what endurance is to a runner. When it’s on, you want to stay in the game as long as possible. That said, .44AMP will put a guy on his back faster than .17HMR. Doesn’t mean we should all carry Automags though, it means we should puzzle and puzzle till our puzzlers are sore about what we want in a gun. I want rounds at least a third of an inch wide, and a lot of them, and I want them to come out of the gun as fast as I can pull the trigger. Make your own decision about what you want to shoot defensively.
14.More on clothes. Kohl’s department store has a pair of pants the tag of which proudly proclaims “Two legged pants.” Even amputees wear two legged pants, they just pin one leg up. Would pants with one leg be called a pant? Has anyone ever see three legged pants? I fail to see where having the same number of legs to your pants as everyone else is a selling point.
Why do socks come in Ziploc bags advertised as “easily resealable?” Does anyone buy a bag of socks, put them in the closet, and remove a pair and then reseal as necessary?
15.Some people are going to accuse me of being disrespectful after reading this one. I’m not. I’m just fed up with this public official adoration stuff. Just about any death is a tragedy. Being on the government dole does not elevate your death to a national crisis.
A firefighter died in my city a few days ago. He wasn’t doing anything particularly heroic at the time (carrying infants out of a burning building, giving mouth-to-mouth to a cat, that sort of thing), he was just walking through a flaming house, spraying water. He fell through the floor and rescue crews were unable to retrieve him. This is bad. His surviving family has my condolences. He is not, however, any more important than anyone else who dies in this town, at the rate of five or six a day.
He was on the front page of every local newspaper for, well, since he died. That’s been about a week. Today was his funeral, and boy, was it a doozy. Televised on four channels. Cameras dedicated to his wife and son. Coverage of the funeral from the first car pulling up to the last swing of the incense burner. THEN, he gets driven through the city by about half the police force. The city’s rented several super-duper hook-and-ladder trucks and set them up two-by-two along the route, with huge custom flags hanging from each. I bet the coffin doesn’t go more than three feet without passing under at least two flags. Firefighters from New York, that he DIDN’T even know, have been flown in for the event.
This guy was just a man. Just folk as Capt. Reynolds says. He ate, drank, slept, shopped, put his pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us. But Suzy Q. Public doesn’t get laid to rest with all the pomp and splendor that a firefighter or police officer does, because she’s not paid by the government.
Our firefighter didn’t NOT know that his job was dangerous. He accepted, of his own volition and without coercion, a job that paid him well in exchange for going into places the rest of us would rather flee. He was paid well to do dangerous stuff and try and outrun the numbers. The numbers caught up to him, as he was perfectly aware that they might.
Yes, his death is a tragedy, but there is positively no need for the city to blow several thousand of yours and my dollars (probably tens or hundreds of thousands, to tell the truth) to make sure that his coffin is protected from sun during its trip to the graveyard by flags hung from outrageously expensive rented firetrucks, or that there are men he didn’t know from New “Remind us incessantly of 9/11” York there to be visible at his funeral.
Let the man rest in peace.
In another life, I sold cellphones. Without fail, once a day, we got several Latino persons or families in the store, either looking to pay off their bill (Sprint will let you buy what amounts to a gift card, and once a month you present this card to someone like me, we punch a few buttons on the register, you hand me cash enough to cover your bill, and voila! you’re paid up for another month) or buy a cellphone. And also without fail, at least one person per day had absolutely no command of the English language. I’m not talking about poor grammar or a thick accent – I mean they SPOKE NO ENGLISH. They’d go up to each person in the store and say “Spanish?” If you said no, they’d try every other employee. If you said yes, or I’ll try, you spent the next 4 hours working out a cellphone deal caveman style.
Here’s the thing though – never once did I see one of these people have anything less than a $150 dollar cash deposit on their phone. They bought phones with a minimum $30 per month contract (usually $50+, to tell the truth) and a load of taxes, activation fees, and sundry expenses. Not counting the price of the phone, buying and activating a cellphone is EXPENSIVE. And they bought decent cellphones. Middle of the road, not crap phones, not top of the line phones, but solid, reasonably performing phones. And they paid in cash.
I remember this one transaction vividly, this family of Latinos come in, a husband, wife, older daughter and two to five kids between the ages of fifteen and five, and ALL of them have cellphones clipped to their belts or waistbands. Every single one of them. None of them spoke any English while they were there, and the husband understood barely enough to indicate which one of my inquiries (buy a phone, pay a bill, etc) was correct. He paid me nearly $250 in twenty dollar bills to cover his phone bill for the month.
Now maybe I’m just dense, but how does someone who speaks not a lick of English get enough cash to pay for a four or five hundred dollar cellphone package outright, and then keep coming back each month to pay a (usually) hundred and fifty dollar bill in cash? How? I wanna know – I want that job!
12.The benighted governor of my fair state recently proposed and passed two laws benefiting military veterans. One allowed veterans or their families to cancel their cellphone coverage at any time without monetary penalty. For the rest of us, that penalty after an average of one week is around $200. The second measure allows veterans and their families to attend any state university for no or little cost. What the hell, over?
We’ll pick these apart one by one. The first law is directly screwing with a private company, an act of government specifically targeting certain companies to give government employees better business than everyone else. Government legislating business practices, not to make them more fair (which is in itself a travesty) but to get their own employees better treatment…what…how…I’m speechless.
The second law may or may not be worse than the first. It’s of greater monetary value, but it doesn’t screw with private companies for selfish reasons. No one knows how we’re going to pay for the education of every “taker” vet and their family in the state. Even the governor admits he’s flying by the seat of his pants, though in far more eloquent and duplicitous terms. He’s taking money from every other person in this state to give government employees better treatment than anyone else gets.
Not that I’m complaining that everyone else doesn’t get this treatment. No one should get a free or partially free ride on anything, for anything, to anywhere. There’s no faster way to bankrupt something than to start offering free stuff to everyone and their brother’s cousin.
No, what I’m complaining about is interference in private companies’ business for the benefit of only certain people, and sticking you and me with the bill for someone else’s expensive education, based only on who they choose to associate with. This is tyranny. This is the creation of a new “landed” class of people, a fostering of the “Us Vs Them” mentality that’s going through society. Government has NO right to determine who gets special treatment, better perks, hell, they don’t have the right determining who gets average treatment or ANY perks.
13.9mm is a perfectly acceptable defensive caliber. I don’t want to get shot with it. Anything over a pellet gun is a perfectly acceptable defensive caliber, but only if you use decent hollowpoints, and can hit your target multiple times. If someone could build a reliable semi-automatic handgun that held 25-30 rounds of .22LR or .22MAG, I’d think long and hard about carrying it. Capacity is to a gun what endurance is to a runner. When it’s on, you want to stay in the game as long as possible. That said, .44AMP will put a guy on his back faster than .17HMR. Doesn’t mean we should all carry Automags though, it means we should puzzle and puzzle till our puzzlers are sore about what we want in a gun. I want rounds at least a third of an inch wide, and a lot of them, and I want them to come out of the gun as fast as I can pull the trigger. Make your own decision about what you want to shoot defensively.
14.More on clothes. Kohl’s department store has a pair of pants the tag of which proudly proclaims “Two legged pants.” Even amputees wear two legged pants, they just pin one leg up. Would pants with one leg be called a pant? Has anyone ever see three legged pants? I fail to see where having the same number of legs to your pants as everyone else is a selling point.
Why do socks come in Ziploc bags advertised as “easily resealable?” Does anyone buy a bag of socks, put them in the closet, and remove a pair and then reseal as necessary?
15.Some people are going to accuse me of being disrespectful after reading this one. I’m not. I’m just fed up with this public official adoration stuff. Just about any death is a tragedy. Being on the government dole does not elevate your death to a national crisis.
A firefighter died in my city a few days ago. He wasn’t doing anything particularly heroic at the time (carrying infants out of a burning building, giving mouth-to-mouth to a cat, that sort of thing), he was just walking through a flaming house, spraying water. He fell through the floor and rescue crews were unable to retrieve him. This is bad. His surviving family has my condolences. He is not, however, any more important than anyone else who dies in this town, at the rate of five or six a day.
He was on the front page of every local newspaper for, well, since he died. That’s been about a week. Today was his funeral, and boy, was it a doozy. Televised on four channels. Cameras dedicated to his wife and son. Coverage of the funeral from the first car pulling up to the last swing of the incense burner. THEN, he gets driven through the city by about half the police force. The city’s rented several super-duper hook-and-ladder trucks and set them up two-by-two along the route, with huge custom flags hanging from each. I bet the coffin doesn’t go more than three feet without passing under at least two flags. Firefighters from New York, that he DIDN’T even know, have been flown in for the event.
This guy was just a man. Just folk as Capt. Reynolds says. He ate, drank, slept, shopped, put his pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us. But Suzy Q. Public doesn’t get laid to rest with all the pomp and splendor that a firefighter or police officer does, because she’s not paid by the government.
Our firefighter didn’t NOT know that his job was dangerous. He accepted, of his own volition and without coercion, a job that paid him well in exchange for going into places the rest of us would rather flee. He was paid well to do dangerous stuff and try and outrun the numbers. The numbers caught up to him, as he was perfectly aware that they might.
Yes, his death is a tragedy, but there is positively no need for the city to blow several thousand of yours and my dollars (probably tens or hundreds of thousands, to tell the truth) to make sure that his coffin is protected from sun during its trip to the graveyard by flags hung from outrageously expensive rented firetrucks, or that there are men he didn’t know from New “Remind us incessantly of 9/11” York there to be visible at his funeral.
Let the man rest in peace.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Reflections On Firearms
This post wasn't planned. Someone somewhere rebutted Point Something-Or-Other, saying restrictions on weapons lower crime. Here's the rebuttal of that rebuttal:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The story begins on Halloween 2005. Well, actually, before that. Stephen has always been a rather bad person. He started off with theft and moved up to assault and animal abuse so heinous he got tossed in jail for 1.5 years. He ran a woman off the road and held her at gunpoint for nearly a day at one point. Around the time I was born, he was convicted of rape and sentenced to a very long stay in the county pen. While in prison, he writes threatening letters to his wife, claiming he's going to do some thing horrific when he gets out. In early 2005, it was determined through DNA evidence that he hadn't committed the crime after all. He is released, an innocent yet evil man. Once out of prison, Stephen buys handcuffs, leg irons, and illegally (because of his status as a felon) procures a rifle.
Enter Tereasa, a 25 year old photographer, who has, on at least one occaision, photographed Stephen's family salvage yard.~Halloween 2005, Stephen calls Tereasa's business, and using a fake name, requests that she (her specifically) take some more photos of the salvage yard. She shows up, snaps a few photos, and vanishes into thin air.Several days later, her burned and dismembered body is found in a pit in the salvage yard, her car and personal effects are found there too. DNA matches from pools of blood found around the property and in the car show a mix of his and her blood. Poor girl was a fighter. We'd be less one evil SOB and plus a young woman today if she'd been allowed to carry a gun. But on to the rest of the story. Stephen is arrested, held for murder. All seems as well as can be expected.
In February, Stephen's nephew Brendan (16yo)steps forward with new information. On Halloween afternoon, he'd come home from school, and heard screaming emenating from Stephen's house (the whole clan lives together in trailers), from a distance of one hundred yards. He walked to Stephen's house, knocked between screams, and was promptly informed by his blood-drenched uncle that he was raping and torturing Tereasa, and did he want to help? The nephew joined in the "games." Later that evening, they decided to kill her. They strangled her. She would not die. They cut her throat. She would not die. Finally they shot her with aforementioned blackmarket rifle. She died. They cut up her body, burned and buried it, and kept mementos of the incident.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Teresa Halbach wasn't killed because Stephen Avery had a gun. She was killed because SHE did NOT have one.
You see, every year, nearly 800,000 Americans use a gun to defend themselves. They don't dramatically down the dastardly villain in every instance, else we'd be seeing an explosive growth in the undertaker business. Nope, just the presence of a gun in the hand is sufficient +90% of the time to scare away the criminal. That 800,000 number, where does it come from? Well, that's the LOWEST number reached among 9 national surveys by such groups as the Los Angeles Times and the Gallup organization. The higher numbers reached into the lower millions. And a good many of those criminals doing the threatening were armed, so the whole "If you're both armed, you're screwed" position is patently false.
Guns do not equal crime. A paucity of guns in civilian hands equals crime. Florida enacted their state-wide concealed carry law around the time I was born, and their homicide has dropped by at least 10% for the last 13 years (for a total overal of 21%), while the US homicide rate has climbed 12%. What's happened in the gun free utopia of Washington D.C.? It's been voted the murder capitol of the country for at least six of those years, and the city was just recently declared a "crime emergency." In fact, according to FBI crime statistics, you're more likely to be a victim of violent crime (by 26%) in a state where concealed carry is restricted than in a state where it is not. 49% more likely to be murdered. 58% more likely to be robbed. And 15% more likely to be a victim of an Aggravated Assault.
Meanwhile, our neighbors across the pond (in what one former UK citizen calls the "Benighted Kingdom") are experiencing skyrocketing crime rates despite the fact that all but a teeny tiny minority own anything more powerful than an airsoft pistol, and their Knife Amnesty programs have become a joke among American GUN CONTROL advocates. I believe it was a spokesperson for Handgun Control Inc that said "What's next? Pointy stick control?"
All of this talk of crime ignores, momentarily, the real reason behind the enumeration of the HUMAN (note I didn't say "American," but "HUMAN") right to keep and bear arms of military significance in the United States Constitution. The founders had just fought a long and bloody war against their fellow citizens and a handful of hired mercenaries, using privately owned rifles that were the military equivalent of those given to their enemies. They had seen government go tyrannical (tyranny then being small fry to what we have now), and knew the only way for a citizenry to reclaim lost freedom was at the point of a gun. They wrote the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution because they knew that guns in the hands of governments and criminals only meant dead innocents, and they knew we needed a cut-and-dried, in-writing guarantee of the ability to fight back.
They were right, about that dead innocents thing. In the 20th century, millions of innocent people (the estimates range from 20 to 120) were killed by their own government in genocides, ethnic cleansings, political attacks, what have you. In every example - EVERY EXAMPLE - these killings were preceded by absolute and total Victim Disarmament. Not in a handful of examples, not a few examples, not some of the examples, but every bloody time a Chinese political dissident knelt by a ditch, every time a Jew was gassed to death, every time a Russian was shipped to Siberia, every time an Armenian dropped dead on a forced march, they had been disarmed first.
That is the legacy of victim disarmament, your so-called "Gun Control." That is what happens.
Every. Single. Time.
But those people are so long dead, in countries so far away.
Very well. We have more recent examples. Tell me you'd rather I was in a gun-free house when that person came through my front door while I was home alone. Tell me you'd rather I'd been beaten to death in that parking lot rather than see a gun in my hand.
None of those incidents involved me dying though, obviously not, otherwise I wouldn't be telling you this. Tell Teresa Halbach then. Come, tell her to her face that given the choice and opportunity, you'd take a gun from her as Avery approached her car for that last time as she drove away from his trailer. Tell her to her face you'd rather see her tortured and raped for hours before being given a bloody, ugly death that was at an end to her suffering than see her armed. You can't. Because she's dead. Because she was killed, brutally. Because she didn't have a gun.
So, come tell me, to my face, what you want to tell Teresa. And stay out of arm's reach, because if you do say that to my face, I will hurt you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The story begins on Halloween 2005. Well, actually, before that. Stephen has always been a rather bad person. He started off with theft and moved up to assault and animal abuse so heinous he got tossed in jail for 1.5 years. He ran a woman off the road and held her at gunpoint for nearly a day at one point. Around the time I was born, he was convicted of rape and sentenced to a very long stay in the county pen. While in prison, he writes threatening letters to his wife, claiming he's going to do some thing horrific when he gets out. In early 2005, it was determined through DNA evidence that he hadn't committed the crime after all. He is released, an innocent yet evil man. Once out of prison, Stephen buys handcuffs, leg irons, and illegally (because of his status as a felon) procures a rifle.
Enter Tereasa, a 25 year old photographer, who has, on at least one occaision, photographed Stephen's family salvage yard.~Halloween 2005, Stephen calls Tereasa's business, and using a fake name, requests that she (her specifically) take some more photos of the salvage yard. She shows up, snaps a few photos, and vanishes into thin air.Several days later, her burned and dismembered body is found in a pit in the salvage yard, her car and personal effects are found there too. DNA matches from pools of blood found around the property and in the car show a mix of his and her blood. Poor girl was a fighter. We'd be less one evil SOB and plus a young woman today if she'd been allowed to carry a gun. But on to the rest of the story. Stephen is arrested, held for murder. All seems as well as can be expected.
In February, Stephen's nephew Brendan (16yo)steps forward with new information. On Halloween afternoon, he'd come home from school, and heard screaming emenating from Stephen's house (the whole clan lives together in trailers), from a distance of one hundred yards. He walked to Stephen's house, knocked between screams, and was promptly informed by his blood-drenched uncle that he was raping and torturing Tereasa, and did he want to help? The nephew joined in the "games." Later that evening, they decided to kill her. They strangled her. She would not die. They cut her throat. She would not die. Finally they shot her with aforementioned blackmarket rifle. She died. They cut up her body, burned and buried it, and kept mementos of the incident.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Teresa Halbach wasn't killed because Stephen Avery had a gun. She was killed because SHE did NOT have one.
You see, every year, nearly 800,000 Americans use a gun to defend themselves. They don't dramatically down the dastardly villain in every instance, else we'd be seeing an explosive growth in the undertaker business. Nope, just the presence of a gun in the hand is sufficient +90% of the time to scare away the criminal. That 800,000 number, where does it come from? Well, that's the LOWEST number reached among 9 national surveys by such groups as the Los Angeles Times and the Gallup organization. The higher numbers reached into the lower millions. And a good many of those criminals doing the threatening were armed, so the whole "If you're both armed, you're screwed" position is patently false.
Guns do not equal crime. A paucity of guns in civilian hands equals crime. Florida enacted their state-wide concealed carry law around the time I was born, and their homicide has dropped by at least 10% for the last 13 years (for a total overal of 21%), while the US homicide rate has climbed 12%. What's happened in the gun free utopia of Washington D.C.? It's been voted the murder capitol of the country for at least six of those years, and the city was just recently declared a "crime emergency." In fact, according to FBI crime statistics, you're more likely to be a victim of violent crime (by 26%) in a state where concealed carry is restricted than in a state where it is not. 49% more likely to be murdered. 58% more likely to be robbed. And 15% more likely to be a victim of an Aggravated Assault.
Meanwhile, our neighbors across the pond (in what one former UK citizen calls the "Benighted Kingdom") are experiencing skyrocketing crime rates despite the fact that all but a teeny tiny minority own anything more powerful than an airsoft pistol, and their Knife Amnesty programs have become a joke among American GUN CONTROL advocates. I believe it was a spokesperson for Handgun Control Inc that said "What's next? Pointy stick control?"
All of this talk of crime ignores, momentarily, the real reason behind the enumeration of the HUMAN (note I didn't say "American," but "HUMAN") right to keep and bear arms of military significance in the United States Constitution. The founders had just fought a long and bloody war against their fellow citizens and a handful of hired mercenaries, using privately owned rifles that were the military equivalent of those given to their enemies. They had seen government go tyrannical (tyranny then being small fry to what we have now), and knew the only way for a citizenry to reclaim lost freedom was at the point of a gun. They wrote the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution because they knew that guns in the hands of governments and criminals only meant dead innocents, and they knew we needed a cut-and-dried, in-writing guarantee of the ability to fight back.
They were right, about that dead innocents thing. In the 20th century, millions of innocent people (the estimates range from 20 to 120) were killed by their own government in genocides, ethnic cleansings, political attacks, what have you. In every example - EVERY EXAMPLE - these killings were preceded by absolute and total Victim Disarmament. Not in a handful of examples, not a few examples, not some of the examples, but every bloody time a Chinese political dissident knelt by a ditch, every time a Jew was gassed to death, every time a Russian was shipped to Siberia, every time an Armenian dropped dead on a forced march, they had been disarmed first.
That is the legacy of victim disarmament, your so-called "Gun Control." That is what happens.
Every. Single. Time.
But those people are so long dead, in countries so far away.
Very well. We have more recent examples. Tell me you'd rather I was in a gun-free house when that person came through my front door while I was home alone. Tell me you'd rather I'd been beaten to death in that parking lot rather than see a gun in my hand.
None of those incidents involved me dying though, obviously not, otherwise I wouldn't be telling you this. Tell Teresa Halbach then. Come, tell her to her face that given the choice and opportunity, you'd take a gun from her as Avery approached her car for that last time as she drove away from his trailer. Tell her to her face you'd rather see her tortured and raped for hours before being given a bloody, ugly death that was at an end to her suffering than see her armed. You can't. Because she's dead. Because she was killed, brutally. Because she didn't have a gun.
So, come tell me, to my face, what you want to tell Teresa. And stay out of arm's reach, because if you do say that to my face, I will hurt you.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Random Reflections Pt4
6.DON’T trust anyone who says they’re the good guys. The good guys won’t need to tell you they’re the good guys, you’ll know them, respect them, and they’ll sense that respect. The bad guys always have to pretend to be the good guys in order to get anywhere. NO ONE portrays themselves or views themselves as evil. They’re always doing the best they can, just getting by, doing what they can, making the best out of it, trying to help the most people…yadda yadda yadda… And maybe, they aren’t the truly bad guys. Maybe they’re only a little rotten. But once they’re thought of as the good guys…the real bad guys have free reign, and since they’re still living off the credit their predecessors have built up…well, you’re gonna have a hard time convincing anyone what right and wrong are.
7.There are few things more beautiful than a summer day. A cloudless sky so blue it can hurt your eyes, the sound of the leaves being rustled by the same gentle, cool breeze that’s playing off your face, the way the sunlight filters through the swaying leaves and makes yellow patterns on the green grass, the particular slant of the light between 4:30 and 7:00pm. The smell of a grill, the sound of people talking a few houses down…
It’s almost beat by a snowfall at night, the way the snow sparkles in front of a porchlight, the soft clumping rustle the only interruption of absolute silence as it hits the foot or so of fluffy white already on the ground, purplish white of the sky against the black trees, the way the wind doesn’t feel too cold while watching the scene from your front porch. Then you wake up in the morning to a misty white slate sky, snow piled four inches thick along every branch and twig and horizontal surface it can find. Days like I just described are pure scenic heaven. They cannot be photographed, they cannot be described accurately, and more’s the pity that you can only live each unique one once.
8.I hate being unarmed. Absolutely hate it. If I leave my knife in another pair of pants, the fact that I am unarmed sticks in the back of my mind until I have it in my pocket again. This may be disagreeable to some people. They may think I’m paranoid. Well let me tell you something friend, that’s just too damn bad.
When you’ve stood in a cold parkinglot at 10pm and heard some foul mouthed punk say the immortal line “What’re you staring at?” as he starts walking towards you, then you can talk. When you’ve been the only one home during a home invasion, then you can talk. Most people are never placed in situations where they want/need a gun – ever – in their entire lives. I was placed in two, within a year of each other. When you can say the same, THEN we can talk about how my wishing for something other than a glorified razor blade conflicts with your vision of the perfect society. THEN we can talk about how my life means less than your dream of reality.
9.Pop-culture clothing continues to weird me out. Especially the kind designed for the female of the species. What’s up with short pants? Not shorts. Not pants. Short pants, the bottom-hem of which are about five inches above the shoes. Are their ankles too warm? Are they expecting a sudden flood? Where did they get the idea that this is fashionable? Guys don’t tend to look at girls’ feet, so showing off more skin down there makes no sense. And jackets that have short torsos, but long sleeves. *scratches head* Huh? The lack of material negates the need for the extra warmth of the jacket. And writing across the backside. I never thought of myself as much of a puritan, but that’s just…wrong. Is that where they want me to look first? During my favorite part of my life, when I was a third key at Sam Goody, I witnessed the most outrageous example of nonsensical/explicit clothing for girls – a young teen wearing a short skirt and a Martha-Stewart-In-Prison style knit shawl, with no shirt on underneath. I’m still speechless. Her parents should’ve had their heads slammed in a refrigerator door for hours.
Clothing for guys is nearly as strange. Jeans that have been worn out already. Doesn’t that mean you have to buy pants more often? How is that a good thing? When the knees of my jeans wear out, I go looking for another pair. Pastel-plaid cotton shorts – who buys these abominations? You look like you don’t know which way your gate swings if you wear pastel plaid anything as a guy. And now the “Writing on the fundament” style shorts have made their way into the men’s department. Sometimes I want to go blind. And those “ghetto” styles (yes, you know what I’m talking about, and I’m no, I’m not being racist) that think wearing sixteen sizes above yours is fashionable. Where does nine extra yards of fabric hanging off you get fun? And lest y’all think I’m unfairly criticizing women’s dress, here’s a guy example: A young, urban-dressed youth walking through Shopko, the only thing holding up his size 96XXXXL pants being the death grip he had on his crotch. I don’t want to see that. He should’ve had something ELSE slammed in a refrigerator door for his stupidity.
10.Fredrick Douglass’s memoirs were recently reprinted. The modern edition has footnotes explaining the meaning of words like “exculpate,” “arraign,” and “curried.” Granted, they talked mighty strange back in the day, but how is it that a book written by an ex-slave who never attended school should require translation to us, more than 100 years of free public school down the pike?
7.There are few things more beautiful than a summer day. A cloudless sky so blue it can hurt your eyes, the sound of the leaves being rustled by the same gentle, cool breeze that’s playing off your face, the way the sunlight filters through the swaying leaves and makes yellow patterns on the green grass, the particular slant of the light between 4:30 and 7:00pm. The smell of a grill, the sound of people talking a few houses down…
It’s almost beat by a snowfall at night, the way the snow sparkles in front of a porchlight, the soft clumping rustle the only interruption of absolute silence as it hits the foot or so of fluffy white already on the ground, purplish white of the sky against the black trees, the way the wind doesn’t feel too cold while watching the scene from your front porch. Then you wake up in the morning to a misty white slate sky, snow piled four inches thick along every branch and twig and horizontal surface it can find. Days like I just described are pure scenic heaven. They cannot be photographed, they cannot be described accurately, and more’s the pity that you can only live each unique one once.
8.I hate being unarmed. Absolutely hate it. If I leave my knife in another pair of pants, the fact that I am unarmed sticks in the back of my mind until I have it in my pocket again. This may be disagreeable to some people. They may think I’m paranoid. Well let me tell you something friend, that’s just too damn bad.
When you’ve stood in a cold parkinglot at 10pm and heard some foul mouthed punk say the immortal line “What’re you staring at?” as he starts walking towards you, then you can talk. When you’ve been the only one home during a home invasion, then you can talk. Most people are never placed in situations where they want/need a gun – ever – in their entire lives. I was placed in two, within a year of each other. When you can say the same, THEN we can talk about how my wishing for something other than a glorified razor blade conflicts with your vision of the perfect society. THEN we can talk about how my life means less than your dream of reality.
9.Pop-culture clothing continues to weird me out. Especially the kind designed for the female of the species. What’s up with short pants? Not shorts. Not pants. Short pants, the bottom-hem of which are about five inches above the shoes. Are their ankles too warm? Are they expecting a sudden flood? Where did they get the idea that this is fashionable? Guys don’t tend to look at girls’ feet, so showing off more skin down there makes no sense. And jackets that have short torsos, but long sleeves. *scratches head* Huh? The lack of material negates the need for the extra warmth of the jacket. And writing across the backside. I never thought of myself as much of a puritan, but that’s just…wrong. Is that where they want me to look first? During my favorite part of my life, when I was a third key at Sam Goody, I witnessed the most outrageous example of nonsensical/explicit clothing for girls – a young teen wearing a short skirt and a Martha-Stewart-In-Prison style knit shawl, with no shirt on underneath. I’m still speechless. Her parents should’ve had their heads slammed in a refrigerator door for hours.
Clothing for guys is nearly as strange. Jeans that have been worn out already. Doesn’t that mean you have to buy pants more often? How is that a good thing? When the knees of my jeans wear out, I go looking for another pair. Pastel-plaid cotton shorts – who buys these abominations? You look like you don’t know which way your gate swings if you wear pastel plaid anything as a guy. And now the “Writing on the fundament” style shorts have made their way into the men’s department. Sometimes I want to go blind. And those “ghetto” styles (yes, you know what I’m talking about, and I’m no, I’m not being racist) that think wearing sixteen sizes above yours is fashionable. Where does nine extra yards of fabric hanging off you get fun? And lest y’all think I’m unfairly criticizing women’s dress, here’s a guy example: A young, urban-dressed youth walking through Shopko, the only thing holding up his size 96XXXXL pants being the death grip he had on his crotch. I don’t want to see that. He should’ve had something ELSE slammed in a refrigerator door for his stupidity.
10.Fredrick Douglass’s memoirs were recently reprinted. The modern edition has footnotes explaining the meaning of words like “exculpate,” “arraign,” and “curried.” Granted, they talked mighty strange back in the day, but how is it that a book written by an ex-slave who never attended school should require translation to us, more than 100 years of free public school down the pike?
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Random Reflections Pt3
1.There’s a topic I’ve been hesitant to broach because of its sensitive and rather uh, volatile nature. However, a recent on-the-job experience has convinced me of the necessity of discussing it.
It is now time to talk about children.
Specifically, those ill-behaved lawn-apes that seem to show up everywhere there is a congregation of more than five people. I can forgive a lot from a critter the size of a football that only recently discovered what daylight looked like, really I can. Any irritation at that age is perfectly normal, that’s hardwired into them – annoy any nearby person until they get fed or removed from whatever mess they’ve created.
What I cannot brook, however, is extending the age of stupidity all the way up to five, six, seven, eight years old. Sensible, controlled, adult people should not have insensible, uncontrollable, little people running around rampant underfoot while these sensible adult people are trying to conduct business. While screaming nonsensical gibberish (despite having a passable command of the English language) while running may seem like a bonus to the weasels in question, the rest of us find it highly offensive.
Listen up: Having kids is not a novelty. It’s not a status symbol. It’s not a rite of passage, it’s not a fashion statement, it’s not an entry into a popularity contest. It’s the greatest responsibility the vast majority of us can entertain thoughts of possessing, and if you have no intention of bearing that responsibility with anything other than the gravest sense of honor possible, then for God’s sake DON’T HAVE KIDS. Yes, it IS that simple. For all practical intents and purposes, they are your property for 18 years. If you’re not going to keep them fed, watered, washed, waxed, covered, and under your control until they’re capable of exercising some control of their own (which you could teach to them if you took six seconds out of your Survivor marathon), don’t come crying to me and mine when popular culture raises them and you don’t particularly care for the results. I’m too busy dealing with the adult world to worry about your little monsters, unless and until they become big monsters and intrude into MY life with none of the control you didn’t teach them.
It’s not THAT hard to teach small children not to behave like savages at the bookstore, grocery store, any public place. The rest of us don’t find that behavior cute, and we dread what kind of whirlwind that’ll reap down the road. So either do your job or stop dabbling in matters of which you know nothing.
2.My former best friend has been converted into more of an acquaintance because he’s gotten hooked on alcohol. While I don’t know the depth and extent to which this hook is embedded in him, I do know that it has brought with it many of the ugly consequences that are the known and foreseeable results of imbibing to excess. I just wish I had the strength of will and the coldness of heart to shake the hand of the friend that is encouraging this behavior, and then beat him to the point where someone needs to pull me off. It might not do squat, but it’d make me feel dang good.
It's ironic, but not only do kids my age believe themselves to be invincible due to their youth, they believe themselves to be wise and worldly at least 3-5 years older than they truly are. I need two hands and possibly a foot to count off all the people who I’ve known who have done truly stupid things with addicting substances. Some have pulled back from that brink. Some have not. That is a cliff’s edge on which you do NOT want to play Twister.
None of us had the fortune to be born immortal. More’s the pity.
3.Do not trust any organization that has some derivation of the feminine gender in the title. Do not trust any law that has the words “Children,” “Free,” “Equal” or some mutation of the quoted in the title, or that intends to appeal to the patriotism of the reader. These two categories have done and have the capacity to do untold damage to the freedom of the American people. I bring before you the examples of the UN Convention On The Rights Of The Child - which would ban home schooling, and would make spanking a federal offense (the treaty is stalled in Congress) – and Mothers Against Drunk Driving – mandatory sobriety checkpoints, anyone?
4.I work across the street from the biggest mall in the city, and once a week I run over there during my lunch break. So I’m standing at the entrance, looking at the huge building across the way – where I work – and I realize, we’re nothing. I mean, humanity is so dang small compared to the world we’re barely more substantial than dust motes. We’re tiny in comparison with the world, the universe, everything. And yet the tiny buildings and cars and people we surround ourselves with mean everything to us, despite the fact that they and we could disappear in an eyeblink and everything else would go on without so much as a hiccup. The things perspective will make you think about. We’re ants, crawling around on the skin of something we don’t even think about, surrounded by bright blue sky, and we’ll never know anything else. We don’t even stop to think like that, usually.
5.There’s a saying I’ve grown up with – “Pick the rock you want to die on.” It means pick the cause or belief for which will stand your ground and from which you will not retreat under any circumstance, and then draw your line in the stand. You’ve gotta pick carefully though. You don’t get a last-minute do-over when you things don’t go your way. Be sure of where and for what you make your stand, and then do NOT budge.At the same time, don’t be stupid about something that means a lot to you – NOW. You can get yourself in a world of hurt picking something moronic as the rock you want to die on, and it’ll come back and bite you when you least expect it. And remember, the point is not to die on, but to defend that rock. Be crafty, be cunning, be a master of strategic retreat, but make sure you can live with your chosen stand, the things you have to do to defend it, and the consequences that follow.
It is now time to talk about children.
Specifically, those ill-behaved lawn-apes that seem to show up everywhere there is a congregation of more than five people. I can forgive a lot from a critter the size of a football that only recently discovered what daylight looked like, really I can. Any irritation at that age is perfectly normal, that’s hardwired into them – annoy any nearby person until they get fed or removed from whatever mess they’ve created.
What I cannot brook, however, is extending the age of stupidity all the way up to five, six, seven, eight years old. Sensible, controlled, adult people should not have insensible, uncontrollable, little people running around rampant underfoot while these sensible adult people are trying to conduct business. While screaming nonsensical gibberish (despite having a passable command of the English language) while running may seem like a bonus to the weasels in question, the rest of us find it highly offensive.
Listen up: Having kids is not a novelty. It’s not a status symbol. It’s not a rite of passage, it’s not a fashion statement, it’s not an entry into a popularity contest. It’s the greatest responsibility the vast majority of us can entertain thoughts of possessing, and if you have no intention of bearing that responsibility with anything other than the gravest sense of honor possible, then for God’s sake DON’T HAVE KIDS. Yes, it IS that simple. For all practical intents and purposes, they are your property for 18 years. If you’re not going to keep them fed, watered, washed, waxed, covered, and under your control until they’re capable of exercising some control of their own (which you could teach to them if you took six seconds out of your Survivor marathon), don’t come crying to me and mine when popular culture raises them and you don’t particularly care for the results. I’m too busy dealing with the adult world to worry about your little monsters, unless and until they become big monsters and intrude into MY life with none of the control you didn’t teach them.
It’s not THAT hard to teach small children not to behave like savages at the bookstore, grocery store, any public place. The rest of us don’t find that behavior cute, and we dread what kind of whirlwind that’ll reap down the road. So either do your job or stop dabbling in matters of which you know nothing.
2.My former best friend has been converted into more of an acquaintance because he’s gotten hooked on alcohol. While I don’t know the depth and extent to which this hook is embedded in him, I do know that it has brought with it many of the ugly consequences that are the known and foreseeable results of imbibing to excess. I just wish I had the strength of will and the coldness of heart to shake the hand of the friend that is encouraging this behavior, and then beat him to the point where someone needs to pull me off. It might not do squat, but it’d make me feel dang good.
It's ironic, but not only do kids my age believe themselves to be invincible due to their youth, they believe themselves to be wise and worldly at least 3-5 years older than they truly are. I need two hands and possibly a foot to count off all the people who I’ve known who have done truly stupid things with addicting substances. Some have pulled back from that brink. Some have not. That is a cliff’s edge on which you do NOT want to play Twister.
None of us had the fortune to be born immortal. More’s the pity.
3.Do not trust any organization that has some derivation of the feminine gender in the title. Do not trust any law that has the words “Children,” “Free,” “Equal” or some mutation of the quoted in the title, or that intends to appeal to the patriotism of the reader. These two categories have done and have the capacity to do untold damage to the freedom of the American people. I bring before you the examples of the UN Convention On The Rights Of The Child - which would ban home schooling, and would make spanking a federal offense (the treaty is stalled in Congress) – and Mothers Against Drunk Driving – mandatory sobriety checkpoints, anyone?
4.I work across the street from the biggest mall in the city, and once a week I run over there during my lunch break. So I’m standing at the entrance, looking at the huge building across the way – where I work – and I realize, we’re nothing. I mean, humanity is so dang small compared to the world we’re barely more substantial than dust motes. We’re tiny in comparison with the world, the universe, everything. And yet the tiny buildings and cars and people we surround ourselves with mean everything to us, despite the fact that they and we could disappear in an eyeblink and everything else would go on without so much as a hiccup. The things perspective will make you think about. We’re ants, crawling around on the skin of something we don’t even think about, surrounded by bright blue sky, and we’ll never know anything else. We don’t even stop to think like that, usually.
5.There’s a saying I’ve grown up with – “Pick the rock you want to die on.” It means pick the cause or belief for which will stand your ground and from which you will not retreat under any circumstance, and then draw your line in the stand. You’ve gotta pick carefully though. You don’t get a last-minute do-over when you things don’t go your way. Be sure of where and for what you make your stand, and then do NOT budge.At the same time, don’t be stupid about something that means a lot to you – NOW. You can get yourself in a world of hurt picking something moronic as the rock you want to die on, and it’ll come back and bite you when you least expect it. And remember, the point is not to die on, but to defend that rock. Be crafty, be cunning, be a master of strategic retreat, but make sure you can live with your chosen stand, the things you have to do to defend it, and the consequences that follow.
A few things first
Gun Stuff
I picked up a Beretta CX4 Storm around the 4th of July. Absolutely phenomenal rifle. I don't have a single bad thing to say about it other than I prefer post-and-notch Russian sights to post-and-circle American sights. It feels like a .22. Yeah, there's more recoil than with a .22, but there's something about the feel and sound that make it seem like I'm shooting my uncle's Marlin. And accurate... All 21 rds on a paper plate at 25 yards, standing, and all except 2 or three in a group small enough to cover with a measuring cup. My dad gets the same groups at 50 yards(showing up your son with his own rifle is a mean thing to do!) and got 1 out of 4 in a 3 inch bullseye at 100 yards, despite the fact that the only thing we've ever taken out to 100 is a borrow CETME that we could barely shoot for the recoil. I love this gun. That it takes the same magazines as my 92FS is a bonus too. Now I need to find a small pistol to keep in the drawer of the desk I'll get when my brother moves out of my room. Oh and, I found a Smith 1076 at Gander Mountain...too many guns, so little time and money...
I feel dirty
I don't know if I'll be able to do it, or live with myself if I did it, but there's a Democrat running Congress 'round here named Steve Kagen and from what I've heard, I like him alot more than his so-called "Conservative" opponent, John Gard. I'm sending a letter off to Kagen tomorrow asking him what he thinks of assault weapons, the draft, and McCain-Feingold. Gard will get a similar letter. I'm guessing Kagen will go the default Democrat postition (GUNS ARE BAD! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!), in which case I'll vote for Gard just because he's the lesser evil. But it'd be dang cool if Kagen were a cut above the rest of his communistic party. On second thought, maybe not, I'd never be able to show my face online again. I'll keep y'all posted.
I picked up a Beretta CX4 Storm around the 4th of July. Absolutely phenomenal rifle. I don't have a single bad thing to say about it other than I prefer post-and-notch Russian sights to post-and-circle American sights. It feels like a .22. Yeah, there's more recoil than with a .22, but there's something about the feel and sound that make it seem like I'm shooting my uncle's Marlin. And accurate... All 21 rds on a paper plate at 25 yards, standing, and all except 2 or three in a group small enough to cover with a measuring cup. My dad gets the same groups at 50 yards(showing up your son with his own rifle is a mean thing to do!) and got 1 out of 4 in a 3 inch bullseye at 100 yards, despite the fact that the only thing we've ever taken out to 100 is a borrow CETME that we could barely shoot for the recoil. I love this gun. That it takes the same magazines as my 92FS is a bonus too. Now I need to find a small pistol to keep in the drawer of the desk I'll get when my brother moves out of my room. Oh and, I found a Smith 1076 at Gander Mountain...too many guns, so little time and money...
I feel dirty
I don't know if I'll be able to do it, or live with myself if I did it, but there's a Democrat running Congress 'round here named Steve Kagen and from what I've heard, I like him alot more than his so-called "Conservative" opponent, John Gard. I'm sending a letter off to Kagen tomorrow asking him what he thinks of assault weapons, the draft, and McCain-Feingold. Gard will get a similar letter. I'm guessing Kagen will go the default Democrat postition (GUNS ARE BAD! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!), in which case I'll vote for Gard just because he's the lesser evil. But it'd be dang cool if Kagen were a cut above the rest of his communistic party. On second thought, maybe not, I'd never be able to show my face online again. I'll keep y'all posted.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
V For Vendetta
Watched V For Vendetta last Sunday. Good movie, definitely the most faithful adaptation of a comic book that I've seen (though I've not see too many comic-movies). It did miss some rather major details though - V was not portrayed as the terrorist that he was in the book, nor did Evey become V when he died. Hugo Weaving is a fantastic actor - he was tasked with conveying a character without a face, and he did so nearly perfectly, carrying an otherwise average movie. Natalie Portman did a passable job, but she got some real bad lines to read. Her transformation from average citizen to hardened rebel was handled moderately well. The movie dragged through the 3rd quarter, but not terribly so.The only major complaint I had with the movie was the ending. It was far to upbeat. We were left with the feeling that England was going to back to bunny rabits and sunshine because a bunch of people wore Guy Fawkes masks and watched the demolition of Parliment. I know they had to leave this part out, but they shouldn't have: The only reason things were going to change was because V had poisoned, choked, stabbed or otherwise eliminated everyone who opposed him.Besides that, it was a good movie. I was expecting an action/special effects extravaganza, and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of character development and plot.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Random Reflections Pt2
1.I don't mean anything harmful by this, I mean no insult to anyone, all the usual caveats and addendums apply, blah blah infinite blah...why is everyone overweight these days? We're not in the middle ages anymore, obesity is not a sign of prosperity and good breeding potential. And I'm not talking about 5 to 10 pounds overweight here...I'm talking about, like, Jabba The Hutt, and dressed like Gap beach models, which is nearly blinding to anyone who looks for more than 3 seconds in their direction. How does one let oneself get that large? Everyone has a mirror across from their shower...I can't believe they'd get out soaking wet and say "Hm, not bad." I mean seriously here folks, do they not notice it at 20 pounds overweight? 30? 50? It's not like you wake up one morning looking like that, there are various stages of transition and by the time you're the size of a small European sedan, you've had plenty of time to see it coming. The time to stop is not when you're begging Dr. Phil or Geraldo to reverse your mistakes FOR YOU and pay for your stomach stapling, it's when you stop dead in your tracks and momentum wants to take various parts of your anatomy forward. Better yet, don't start! And the hormones and glandular imbalance excuse holds no water - the number of people who can actually contribute obesity to diagnosable medical conditions is a fraction of a percent. That statistically tiny minority has my deepest sympathies...everyone else...don't complain about society's standards of attractiveness just because you've chosen NOT to live up to them. Lose your three spare tires and your family of chins and then come back and talk to me about how unhealthy it is for models and actors and actresses and musicians to be so thin.
I'm not a health freak. I eat alright, moderate my fat and sugar intake, run a mile every day and lift weights, but I feel dang near anorexic when I walk through the mall.
2.Why is it that most rap music is about crime? With the exception of a statistically nonexistant minority, they ALL make their careers rapping about various felonies - murder, the selling of women, and drug trafficking. And then, hypocritically, a majority of them refer to God reverentially on their CDs, support groups like the Million Mom March, and whine that the police harass them. Well dang folks, I'm fresh out out of sympathy here - if'n I was in the field of law enforcement and some local critter was proclaiming from the youth's boomboxes about his prowess in drive-bys, I'd cast more than a significant glance or two in his direction. And don't try and sell me on this poor, ghetto lifestyle - you're either downtrodden and living hand-to-mouth or you're living high on the hog, JUST LIKE YOU RAP. Pick one and stick with it.
3.My brother attended court to pay his fireworks ticket today. A hit-and-runner who capped a mailbox was up before us, was ordered to pay $1 plus replace the mailbox. My brother got nearly $200 in fines. What the hell, over? Let us consider for a moment the act of reckless driving and property damage, weighed against celebrating our country's birth ten days before the anniversary, in the manner in which the founding fathers told us they preferred - behavior that harms absolutely no one except, possibly, the perpetrators. The judge said to check out the hospital burn unit that it's "filled with people injured by fireworks. You could've hurt yourself or others." Nazzo fast there Clarence Darrow, the town newspaper reported 3 fireworks burn cases total for the summer, discounting of course, the terminally moronic man who torched his car by lighting a pack of sparklers while driving and setting them in a blanket on his lap. Go get yourself a new shtick with which to threaten and intimidate, this one's limp as a wet rag.
4.When did making effigies of public figures and mutilating said effigies (in public no less!) in protest go out of vogue. Nothing expresses your displeasure with your Congresscritter faster than hanging a statue of him from a lamp-pole or nailing his likeness to the Liberty Tree. Funny, but our country was freest when this was a common occurance.
5.Bush wants to take command of the national guard during emergencies (guess who gets to define emergency) without the consent of the governers of the called-upon's state. This was one of the grievances in the Declaration Of Independence:"He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power." Now I don't know about you, but I remember Katrina survivors disarmed at gunpoint, tossed from their homes, and put into veritable pits of degredation and crime like the Superdome...at the behest of the federal government and out-of-state guard units, and the thought of having fifty states worth of guard units roaming over the countryside during a disaster makes the hair on my arms stand on end. This is the very definition of Bad Idea.
I'm not a health freak. I eat alright, moderate my fat and sugar intake, run a mile every day and lift weights, but I feel dang near anorexic when I walk through the mall.
2.Why is it that most rap music is about crime? With the exception of a statistically nonexistant minority, they ALL make their careers rapping about various felonies - murder, the selling of women, and drug trafficking. And then, hypocritically, a majority of them refer to God reverentially on their CDs, support groups like the Million Mom March, and whine that the police harass them. Well dang folks, I'm fresh out out of sympathy here - if'n I was in the field of law enforcement and some local critter was proclaiming from the youth's boomboxes about his prowess in drive-bys, I'd cast more than a significant glance or two in his direction. And don't try and sell me on this poor, ghetto lifestyle - you're either downtrodden and living hand-to-mouth or you're living high on the hog, JUST LIKE YOU RAP. Pick one and stick with it.
3.My brother attended court to pay his fireworks ticket today. A hit-and-runner who capped a mailbox was up before us, was ordered to pay $1 plus replace the mailbox. My brother got nearly $200 in fines. What the hell, over? Let us consider for a moment the act of reckless driving and property damage, weighed against celebrating our country's birth ten days before the anniversary, in the manner in which the founding fathers told us they preferred - behavior that harms absolutely no one except, possibly, the perpetrators. The judge said to check out the hospital burn unit that it's "filled with people injured by fireworks. You could've hurt yourself or others." Nazzo fast there Clarence Darrow, the town newspaper reported 3 fireworks burn cases total for the summer, discounting of course, the terminally moronic man who torched his car by lighting a pack of sparklers while driving and setting them in a blanket on his lap. Go get yourself a new shtick with which to threaten and intimidate, this one's limp as a wet rag.
4.When did making effigies of public figures and mutilating said effigies (in public no less!) in protest go out of vogue. Nothing expresses your displeasure with your Congresscritter faster than hanging a statue of him from a lamp-pole or nailing his likeness to the Liberty Tree. Funny, but our country was freest when this was a common occurance.
5.Bush wants to take command of the national guard during emergencies (guess who gets to define emergency) without the consent of the governers of the called-upon's state. This was one of the grievances in the Declaration Of Independence:"He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power." Now I don't know about you, but I remember Katrina survivors disarmed at gunpoint, tossed from their homes, and put into veritable pits of degredation and crime like the Superdome...at the behest of the federal government and out-of-state guard units, and the thought of having fifty states worth of guard units roaming over the countryside during a disaster makes the hair on my arms stand on end. This is the very definition of Bad Idea.
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