- Even a gun controller calls Obama’s response to the UCC campus killings a tantrum and correctly states that nothing Our Glorious Leader wants will end violence.
- Here’s a pretty good fisk of Hillary Clinton’s latest opportunistic anti-gun knee-jerking, too. Again, it’s by somebody who’s hardly a pro-gun purist. Here’s another good one.
- I’d expect this sort of thing in over-regulated, over-zoned cities, but when rural Colorado tries to keep people from living off-grid on their own land, we’re truly in a pickle. (Via jed in comments)
- Have you ever complained about how some arbitrary credit score governs too much of your life (from the ability to rent an apartment to whether or not you can get a job)? Well, if this article is accurate, you should be glad you don’t live in China. Where your political opinions and those of your friends might soon be scored. (I must stress, though, that I don’t yet know how correct this info is. A writer on the ACLU site confirms the original piece, but more solid info is needed.)
- TPP negotiations are finished and the Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the (still largely secret) pact a betrayal.
- The old-fashioned way to say this is, “The Bill of Rights isn’t a Chinese menu.” Pretty good thinking for a New York lawyer. 😉 (H/T S)
- Sorry for the Schadenfreude, but I’m still laughing at “Zuckerberg’s $100 Million Lesson”.
Though I appreciate that the TPP is likely a horror show, I’d really like to be able to read it, or at least read an executive summary by someone I trust, before going all protest mode.
I’ve been having a rational discussion on Twitter with some European hackers (in ESR’s sense of that word). They really don’t at all GET the American gun culture. Neither do lots of Americans. Sigh…
I don’t believe most anti-liberty bigots actually want to end mass murders. They provide too many opportunities to blame liberty and advocate for its elimination.
“Mr. Zuckerberg is not the first private donor to fail at reforming public education by working with government”
Seems the writer doesn’t understand what “public” schools (“education” [sic]) are. If you do anything with “public schools”- anything at all- you are working with government. “Public schools” are the government’s gonads. Stop playing with them or you may catch a disease.
I don’t really consider snorting at the (entirely predictable) failure of Zuckerberg’s attempt to improve Newark’s public schools as “schadenfreude”. He’s certainly not suffering from it (he can probably find a spare $100 million under the cushions of his sofa). To me it seems more to fall into the category of “bemused puzzlement”. Clearly Zuckerberg’s intentions were good; he just lacks the experience to know that his effort was doomed from the start. For all his wealth he is, after all, still basically a child, with a touching but naïve faith in the ability of good intentions and money to solve any problem. For that matter, Bill Gates still suffers from that syndrome, and he is certainly no longer a child. Perhaps it’s a function of acquiring vast wealth too young, before having had the time to develop wisdom. Still, I wish him well, and hope that maturity eventually catches up with him.
Kent – my guess is that it’s all about eliminating the ability of citizens to defend against government. The US is not the last nation to have guns in the hands of citizens, but it’s the ONLY one where that is a part of our basic legal system and where it’s clearly stated that it’s to keep our government in check, and responsive to citizens. If we ‘go down’ in confiscation, that very idea will disappear from the earth.
I further believe that it’s all orchestrated by some ‘NWO shadow cabal / would be government’ -from the media shilling gun control to those stupid and or cowardly enough to buy into it, to the so apparently staged blood-dancing events that all have suspicious similarities behind them. IMO, it’s all connected at the top by the puppet strings, no matter how unrelated it might seem on the face. And no matter how much the puppet-masters try to hide it, all the mass shootings, the Boston bombing, and 9/11 all have huge inconsistencies and ‘bad actions’ associated with them which all seem to repeat through the chain of events. A few of those are destruction of evidence, sealing other public documents that constitute evidence, huge gaps in the scenario that can’t be logically explained, and often times appearances of some mysterious (apparently) ‘fedgov’ agents.
Do I think those things are 100% consistent? No. But there are things that appear too often in these events to be strictly co-incidence. Some of it looks like MK Ultra techniques brought out of research and put into practice.
Agenda 21 is alive and well in Colorado, apparently. It’s just more ‘zoning’ as defined by ICLEI, in an effort to control citizens use of private property, so that the fedgov (as an agent of UNgov) can eventually drive private property out of existence. No ‘small house”? What the heck is a ‘small’ house? FHA 235 housing? Under 2000 sq. ft? A hunting cabin? Ridiculous. What if I wanted to camp there while I actually assembled my kit home from scratch? No can do, unless I can do it in less than 14 days – which would have been a difficult task when it was 90 days and is impossible in 14,
And anyway, since when does a property owner need a permit to use it to live on? Raising hogs affects other folks, but living without sewers or electricity doesn’t. In fact it affects them less than said amenities, so leave me alone!
Zuck can easily spare a hundred million. And if young Mr. Zuckerburg learns from this swindle the proper lessons, then he got the better end of the bargain.
If only Hillary’s insanity was limited to her anti-gun thing… I found this article amusing… http://video.foxnews.com/v/4536097919001/?intcmp=hpbt2 She claims to be so “transparent.” In a lot of ways this is true… she’s a lousy liar and can’t even keep her stupid e-mail crimes a secret. I suspect it contains little of actual importance to anyone but her fellow criminals, and nothing that will truly harm anyone but them. But if it brings her down, I’m all for that kind of “transparency.”
“I’ve been having a rational discussion on Twitter with some European hackers (in ESR’s sense of that word). They really don’t at all GET the American gun culture. Neither do lots of Americans.”
Bear in mind that the only image they have of the American gun culture is what the media shows them. A lot of people truly believe that only monsters have guns, and that holding a gun will turn you into a monster. It’s been ingrained into them so deeply that they don’t realize it’s there.
The story from Colorado is perhaps less ominous than it might appear. I’ve read elsewhere that there is some resentment from San Luis Valley natives towards the influx of urban refugees from the front range megalopolis. The refusal to issue camping permits is part of a modern-day range war waged with bureaucracy rather than bullets.
That said, it’s also impossible to overestimate the appetites of the control freaks.
Bear in mind that the only image they have of the American gun culture is what the media shows them.
Europe and England also “grew up” believing in the Divine Right of Kings, that God appointed the King to run the country in His name.
England, with it’s longbow-wielding yeoman, came closest to throwing it off. But instead of a revolution followed by a constitution, they got the Magna Charta. It took power from the king and gave it to the nobles, and Parliament, instead of to the people.
The rest of Europe followed suit, including France. The common denomination there is revolutions by people who wanted more government, not less, more restrictions over people’s beliefs (because God or social justice) not less.
Something for those hoping for a new U.S. Constitutional Convention to be wary of.
Phyllis Schlafly has warned about the risks of a constitutional convention numerous times. Most recently, I believe, she raises 20 questions: http://www.eagleforum.org/alert/2011/pdf/20Questions.pdf
I have to laugh at the musings of lawyers in their blogs, even if that particular blog post was about as friendly to “RKBA” as one might hope for. It’s as if they are talking about an alternate reality where everybody actually pays attention to words on parchment.
[I don’t believe most anti-liberty bigots actually want to end mass murders.]
Wow, somebody even more cynical than me! 🙂
I agree that most in the ruling class don’t want to end mass murders; why should they? Such events tend to advance their agenda. However among ordinary peons, I think most want the murders to stop, and are merely confused about how to bring that about.
So, Hillary! wants to close the “gun show loophole”, does she?
She does realize that the “gun show loophole” has been well and truly closed in Oregon for many years, right? Even private sellers cannot transfer a firearm without a background check at a gun show (which is defined in statute as an event with 25 or more guns on site and available for transfer).
“Close the gun show loophole” is (and has been for some time) a euphemism for “ban private transfers”, which Oregon also did earlier this year with S.B. 941.
And all Oregon gun owners (and quite a few non-gun-owners) know this. That agenda will not receive a warm reception here.
Archer, I’m wondering what the actual compliance is to the Oregon “law.” Not that anyone could fully answer that, of course, because nobody can even guess all of the non-compliant sales/transfers. Which is the point. They can pass all the “laws” they want, but it is just about impossible to make anyone, especially significant numbers, actually comply. The gun grabbers never want to mention any of that, naturally. 🙂