- Can CRISPR-Cas9, the new genetic modification tool whose works are soon to make their way onto our grocery store shelves, also increase human intelligence? And in the name of (gods forbid) eugenics, should it be used to do so? (H/T PT)
- Twenty-one signs you’re (already) mentally stronger than average.
- Vin Suprynowicz: an election about immigration … and guns.
- And Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com says the strangest path in this already-strange election lies through New Mexico — and potentially through the House of Representatives.
- In Minnesota, where Obamacare is near collapse, they’re desperately trying to “save” it by raising rates an average of 60 percent (with no mention of how bad the deductibles are also getting). Makes you wonder what their idea of “saving” is. Certainly isn’t the customers or the taxpayers being “saved.”
- Glenn Reynolds bails out of Twitter.
- Some dogs are heroic helpers. Others …
Finally, here are two I’d hoped to incorporate into a larger essay. But you know how that goes sometimes.
- Author Lionel Shriver condemns “cultural appropriation” as a mercifully passing fad.
- “After the Republic.” (H/T LS.) This is written from a conservative viewpoint. But if you inserted, for instance, the War on Drugs or the war against free speech for some of the author’s positions, you’d have just as valid a message.
After the republic is excellent. I had read it this weekend. Read the whole thing. And Claire is right, in my head I was adding my own paragraphs about federally owned land and gun control.
Related, from the same crew, from a week or two ago. Read this whole thing as well.
http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-flight-93-election/
The mainline GOP is falling apart. You may withhold celebrations for grave dancing later or you can celebrate now.
I did well on the “mentally stronger” list in general, but there are a few points I fail at pretty badly. Why can’t I be perfect? š
Vin is falling deeper into the “conservative” chasm. V*ting isn’t going to fix government- it will only make it worse, no matter which idiot takes the office. Immigrants aren’t a problem as long as property rights are strictly respected- which includes the absolute human right to own and to carry effective weapons and to USE them in defense of life, liberty, and property. And that is something no politician will ever really commit to. It goes against their interests as bullies and control freaks. That means you will always have to embrace your outlawry and do what’s right in spite of whatever “laws” you find around you. And, if someone attacks or violates property, you can’t go around worrying about where they were born or what government permissions they have. Just deal with them.
Yep. That first dog is heroic; the last two are destructive buffoons.
Vin Suprynowicz nails it in his column. Not voting for Trump is voting to have the gun industry shut down and your guns confiscated. It’s just that simple.
Unfortunately, v*ting for Trump may also be v*ting to have the gun industry shut down and guns confiscated.* Aside from Trump’s recent words, which may be nothing more than pandering to get v*tes, there is zero evidence Trump is pro gun and plenty of evidence that in the past he has been a typical anti-gun Clinton supporter.
* Attempted confiscation. Which will backfire hugely on the attempted confiscators.
“Not voting for Trump is voting to have the gun industry shut down and your guns confiscated. Itās just that simple.”
Let me fix that for you:
“Not voting for a guy, who thinks you should be denied a right without due process because your name is kinda close to that of someone on a secret list of possible suspects on whom they lack sufficient evidence to bring in for questioning much less indictment, and who likes stop & frisk — shut down not merely because it’s unconstitutional but was so ineffective that the city could not demonstrate an overriding public safety concern — is voting to have the gun industry shut down and your guns confiscated. Itās just that simple.”
Wait. What?
HRC’s demonstrably bad. So is Trump. Fortunately, we can still vote for the Libertarian candidates who… also favor universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence, “assault weapons” bans, and no-fly/no-buy.
Wait. What?
There’s always the Greens… and their gun control platform.
Go SMOD!
Me’emsaab and I are voting in the usual Irish and Jewish way- we’re leaving. Back to Prague we go, where most of our favourite things are legal and the cops can’t be bothered caring about the rest. If nothing else, we can watch the fireworks from a safeish distance while getting The Froggie a proper education.
“Author Lionel Shriver condemns “cultural appropriation” as a mercifully passing fad.”
Sadly, that’s not quite accurate. What she actually wrote was, “I am hopeful that the concept of ācultural appropriationā is a passing fad:”
Her speech was excellent and a sad commentary on our times. We can only hope that it will truly be “a mercifully passing fad” but I’m not holding my breath.
The difference between the certain, across the board evil of the Clintons and the possible betrayal by Trump seems significant to me, and Trump is at least solid on not starting WWIII and not letting in hordes of muslims….but this doesn’t seem to be an election where many minds get changed….
I dunno; I wasn’t there: The NRA claims that in a one-on-one interview with Trump, his views on the 2A have evolved to the point that he agrees with the NRA. I have been told by a credible source that Trump professed the same view to a very pro-2A US senator from Georgia.
[…] to Ms. Wolfe for this election season piece by a long-time freedom […]
Desertrat — You’re accepting the word of a politician, solely on … his own word?
And what about his contradictory words? His words that police should stop, frisk, and take away any guns they find? His words that anybody who ends up on some arbitrary government list should be denied the right to bear arms?
What about the fact that the man not only has no principles but doesn’t even have the concept of principles? Where will his “evolving” views take him tomorrow or the next day — and for what completely arbitrary, self-serving reason?
The only thing we can say about Trump is that he’s not as consistently and adamantly anti-gun as Clinton. And that ain’t sayin’ much.
The NRA claims that in a one-on-one interview with Trump, his views on the 2A have evolved to the point that he agrees with the NRA. I have been told by a credible source that Trump professed the same view to a very pro-2A US senator from Georgia.
I’d rather hear what Trump says to Mike Bloomberg and his checkbook, or in front of Everytown for Gun Control.
After the Republic is true, and wrong. (As Claire noted with the “conservative viewpoint” warning label.)
The author’s point is that the liberty-hating liberals have imposed all their immoral standards on everyone else and are going to cause the downfall of everything.
The author’s solution to save the republic is for liberty-enforcing conservatives to take over and impose all their high-moral standards on everyone else.
Even a vote for the “least evil” – Johnson/Weld, in my estimation – is a vote for guns to go away. Their positions are just too well documented to avoid that conclusion.
A protest vote for them (where it’s truly a protest vote) is still a vote for dismantling the Republican party, for loosening the 2-party grip on federal-level US politics, and maybe a good idea, but it’s not a vote for guns.
I’ll say what I’ve said elsewhere: I would prefer incompetent, evil government to competent, evil government. I would rather have left-leaning people of all varieties standing behind me if the right-leaning small gov’t types end up needing their guns. Domestic policies that matter to me don’t appreciably differ between the two of them. Foreign domestic policies that matter to me differ only slightly, but I think Clinton is significantly more likely to result in us in another mid-east mudpit with more young kids dying. I see a Trump presidency as less bad than a Clinton presidency, but only slightly less.
The empire is dying. I’d rather have enough time to equip my daughters with the age, mindset, and ability to weather it.