Archive for the 'Politics' Category

News from Virginia.

Thousands flooded the surrounding streets of the Capitol Monday for a gun-rights rally, however, some locals in the area say the roads are the cleanest they’ve seen in quite some time.

There’s a reason for that, says Matthew Keisling, a protester who made sure that once he shared his message, he went above and beyond to protect it.

“I’ve been in the area when there have been other protests and demonstrations and people leave a lot of trash behind and it waters down the message,” Keisling said.

Good.  It’s the right and decent thing to do.  If you pack it in, pack it out, and make sure to pack anything else you see out.

This leaves a good impression on impressionable people, regardless of what it does or doesn’t do for the communists.

Ammo.com.

The question after reading this becomes: What should be done, if anything?

It’s difficult to imagine a situation where government interference in Big Tech is going to have the desired outcome. The result might be more and greater censorship than existed before. However, it is worth noting that Sen. Ted Cruz, not exactly known as a proponent of Big Government, has been at the forefront of attempts to hold Big Tech accountable for its censorship of conservative voices on the Internet.

But it’s quite possible that new laws and regulations are not required. What is instead required is a more rigorous enforcement of the laws and regulations that are already on the books. To wit: Are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube content-neutral platforms or are they editorial platforms? If the former, then it would seem that their case for being able to censor legal speech on their platforms is legally flimsy. If the latter, then they are responsible for everything posted on their platforms by every user. Similarly, if Google is intentionally manipulating its results to yield a politicized result, that is likely in violation of existing telecommunications statutes.

The American shift from capitalism to corporatism has had dire unintended consequences: Power has coalesced in both Washington, D.C. and many tech and media companies, such that the latter can undermine American rights and manipulate American political opinion with impunity, while the former abdicates its oath to defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.

I do have one quibble.  I don’t think corporatism + government creating power coalescence in the viper pit known as D.C. is unintended.  I think it’s all quite intentional.

At this hour, there is a USAF U-28A aircraft circling the Capitol.

Make of it what you will.  I know what I think.

From reddit/firearms, this picture of the Virginia capitol.

I don’t believe in caging men.  I’ve said it before in the context of imprisonment.  I don’t believe in incarceration and rehabilitation, nor prison camps of any sort.

If a man has committed a crime worthy of death (e.g., rape, murder or kidnapping), then put him to death.  If he has stolen from you, he becomes your slave until the debt is paid.  There is no such thing as a “debt to society.”  Debts are to individuals, not groups.  That’s the Biblical model.  There isn’t a model better than that.

What the democrats are doing in Virginia is caging men, just like incarceration.  Democrats believe in caging men.  And most republicans too.

“And if your speech is calling for the elimination of people based on race or gender, or religious – like, for whatever reason, things that people can’t change, then you should expect a f****** violent reaction.”

No one I know or have ever been exposed to has ever called for the elimination of anyone.  But you are, douche bag.

But it’s okay when you do it, right?  Because that’s different, and shut up.  He goes on to say this.

Jurek went on to explain “there’s a reason Joseph Stalin had gulags,” adding “And actually, gulags were a lot better than what the CIA has told us that they were. Like, people were actually paid a living wage in gulags, they had conjugal visits in gulags, gulags were actually menat (sic) for like re-education.”

Via WiscoDave and Insty.

I’ll tell you what.  If you’re a grown-ass man and don’t understand the value of burning the undergrowth and dead fall, if you don’t know what a prescribed burn is (or controlled burn, or managed burn), you need to turn in your manhood card.  You’ve apparently never been in the woods backpacking and collecting dead fall for a fire and wondered how this all keeps from going up in a gigantic conflagration.  I’ve driven through controlled burns and hiked through them as well.

Well, unless you burn it, it doesn’t.  But if you’re a Hollywood or globalist type, you make up some bullshit story about carbon footprint or anthropogenic global warming in order to get rich.  If you’re a gullible sucker like most college students today, lacking any religious beliefs, you believe that story in order to give value to your miserable life.

Oh, and then there’s that little thing of forest fire jihad.

Via Whiskey Tango Texas, this ridiculous news.

(Chase Purdy) With six agricultural giants on the verge of merging into three separate companies, consumers and farmers are feeling uneasy about the global implications and how it might impact the food system.

Top executives from Bayer, Monsanto, DuPont, Dow Chemical, and Syngenta today (Sept. 20) testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, making a case for why federal regulators should approve the mega-mergers, which stand to fundamentally reorganize global agriculture. (Executives from the sixth company involved in the consolidation, China National Chemical Corp., declined an invitation to appear at the hearing.)

The executives in attendance argued that the proposed mergers would combine their companies’ expertise and allow for greater efficiency in serving farmers and consumers. But whether that efficiency is worth the side effects of massive consolidation—possible price hikes and less competition in the marketplace—is an open question. In essence, should people put faith in three big companies to shepherd consumers and farmers into a world that can responsibly feed a growing global population?

I’m sure that’ll work out just fine.  Make a conglomerate of the largest Ag-manufacturers and combine them in with Chinese owners.

Prior: The Hillary Clinton – Monsanto Connection

Concerning the original post on Virginia House Bill No. 67, Mack sends this.

My analysis, brief though it may be, is that concerns about this bill are misplaced.

Lee Carted prefiled HB67 before the Sanctuary Movement really began (with the ‘We will not comply’ defiance).

Carter is a Progressive and a Labor activist. He’s part of the movement to repeal our great Right-to-work law.

It’s really been the VA FOP that’s been pushing this idea that’s it’s about cops.

Carter is spending a whole lot of time on his twitter feed on this:

Highlights:

* https://twitter.com/carterforva/status/1206026332980858881

* https://twitter.com/carterforva/status/1205939391383953408

* https://twitter.com/carterforva/status/1205768229458763776

His twitter:

* https://twitter.com/carterforva

I asked for alternate interpretations of the bill, and this is one.  I find it an odd one, and beyond that, my first inclination is not to trust a collectivist.

Reading his Twitter posts carefully, he had an original proposed bill that read differently, and I located this.  Based on other Twitter posts, he makes the claim that he amended his bill because the republicans objected that his bill leaves the police able to go on strike.

So we are to believe that he wanted republican help with this bill when it’s not likely that a republican in Virginia would have ever voted for the bill in either its original or amended form.  Furthermore, he doesn’t need republican help in a democrat-controlled legislature.

But let’s assume for a moment that he’s telling the truth.  Go back and read his amended bill in light of his claims and tell me if the bill makes any sense at all.

It doesn’t to me.  I’ve read and interpreted state laws and the federal code for 38 years, and it reads like a chop job by someone in a hurry, leaving the final section (40.1-58.1) to muddle the issue.  With that last section, the proposed bill even seems to roll back in every other state employee as forbidden from striking.  I see no reason at all for this last section to be in the regulation given the other changes he’s made.

At any rate, you now have a different interpretation.  I find it dubious.  I’ve never seen such a mixed up regulation before.  The author is obviously an idiot, or he didn’t get a lawyer’s help with it.  Or perhaps both.

Brett MacDonald.

Millions of American tax dollars are being funneled into an organization that’s pushing for more gun control in the United States—and has been for some decades. The organization, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), ostensibly supports a cause near and dear to the hearts of almost every conservative American: supporting law enforcement officers throughout the country.

But, while the organization does some admirable work assisting the families of slain officers who have fallen in the line of duty, or attempting to mitigate the rising suicide rate among officers, much of PERF’s real attention is focused on destroying the Second Amendment rights of private citizens. They’re also keenly interested neutering the ability of law enforcement agencies throughout the country to effectively police and protect the communities under their wing. And that’s something that constitutionally minded Americans should be paying attention to. In short, your hard earned dollars are being taxed by the government and then funneled into an organization that desperately wants to disarm you and render impotent the brave men and women who serve your community.

The article is short on links, so I did a little research of my own, and ended up with this: “Key Findings and an Action Plan to Reduce Gun Violence.”  In it, you’ll find advocacy for the following.

• Universal background checks
• Red flag laws
• Limits on magazine capacity
• Banning of future sales of semi-automatic weapons to citizens.
• Bump stock ban.

In short, a laundry list suitable for a Michael Bloomberg wet dream of gun control, staffed by professional cops, and all underwritten and funded by your tax dollars.

Because the controllers are all smarter than you and know what’s best for you.  You are the raw material for their globalist, Utopian designs.

UPDATE: See also this link.

Survival Blog, quoting Bastiat.

Again, it is claimed that persons are nothing but raw material. It is not for them to will their own improvement; they are incapable of it. According to Saint-Just, only the legislator is capable of doing this. Persons are merely to be what the legislator wills them to be. According to Robespierre, who copies Rousseau literally, the legislator begins by decreeing the end for which the commonwealth has come into being. Once this is determined, the government has only to direct the physical and moral forces of the nation toward that end. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the nation are to remain completely passive. And according to the teachings of Billaud- Varennes, the people should have no prejudices, no affections, and no desires except those authorized by the legislator. He even goes so far as to say that the inflexible austerity of one man is the foundation of a republic.

In cases where the alleged evil is so great that ordinary governmental procedures cannot cure it, Mably recommends a dictatorship to promote virtue: “Resort,” he says, “to an extraordinary tribunal with considerable powers for a short time. The imagination of the citizens needs to be struck a hard blow.” This doctrine has not been forgotten. Listen to Robespierre:

“The principle of the republican government is virtue, and the means required to establish virtue is terror. In our country we desire to substitute morality for selfishness, honesty for honor, principles for customs, duties for manners, the empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of poverty, pride for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity, love of glory for love of money, good people for good companions, merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for glitter, the charm of happiness for the boredom of pleasure, the greatness of man for the littleness of the great, a generous, strong, happy people for a good-natured, frivolous, degraded people; in short, we desire to substitute all the virtues and miracles of a republic for all the vices and absurdities of a monarchy.”

Collectivists know more than you.  They’re more virtuous than you.  They know what is best for you.  You are just the raw material for social engineering projects to achieve utopia, as defined by them, of course.

Learn your place, peasants.