A voice of experience on what it means to be bought out by SAF

I put this in comments on today’s earlier post. But I hear that JPFO’s board and SAF are continuing to move ahead with their plans as we speak.

So it seems time to remind everybody what SAF does to its acquisitions. The following is a Facebook exchange. I know the people involved but have deleted their names for privacy:

Former KeepAndBearArms Insider: KeepAndBearArms.com is nothing like it was before the SAF takeover.

The original writers were all hard line, “no compromise” firebrands. So it attracted that kind of stalwart.

Now it’s vanilla by comparison, with a small fraction of the reach and influence.

A similar motivation was at play: financial dire straits and raw fatigue.

Hindsight is 20/20. Shoulda coulda woulda frustration has plagued me for a decade.

JPFO friend: So having read Claire’s blog, what would your advice be?

Former KeepAndBearArms Insider: Her general idea of a member/owner group that keeps JPFO real and honors Aaron is essential.

Selling to SAF is going to cost JPFO’s identity. The word “merger” is disingenuous. “Absorption and dilution” are more like it.

At some point, after it’s done, current JPFO leaders won’t even be able to get Gottlieb on the phone — let alone get their voices out to JPFO members.

Trust me. I know.

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Sign the petition! Stop SAF from looting Aaron Zelman’s legacy.

David September 1, 2014 10:11 am

I ran across this the other day, and perhaps it has some aspects that might seem a bit familiar…

The Zwangswirtschaft Type of Socialism
It is, of course, true that this type of socialism preserves some of the labels and the outward appearance of capitalism. It maintains, seemingly and nominally, private ownership of the means of production, prices, wages, interest rates and profits. In fact, however, nothing counts but the government’s unrestricted autocracy. The government tells the entrepreneurs and capitalists what to produce and in what quantity and quality, at what prices to buy and from whom, at what prices to sell and to whom. It decrees at what wages and where the workers must work. Market exchange is but a sham. All the prices, wages, and interest rates are determined by the authority. They are prices, wages, and interest rates in appearance only; in fact they are merely quantity relations in the government’s orders. The government, not the consumers, directs production. The government determines, directs production. The government determines each citizen’s income, it assigns to everybody the position in which he has to work. This is socialism in the outward guise of capitalism. It is the Zwangswirtschaft of Hitler’s German Reich and the planned economy of Great Britain.
Zwangswirtschaft or Specifically, the stresses the inherently destabilizing and retrogressive characteristics of the interventionist dynamic within a market system and argues that the dislocations produced by political intervention in the market system ultimately require the replacement of the price mechanism by a completely different system for the allocation of resources based on arbitrary political decision-making If you don’t know what Zwangswirtschaft is, I suggest you take 15 minutes and read the linked article then do an internet search. Let’s call this what it is, we Spend 1.75 Trillion Dollars annually for compliance cost’s, who in the hell can afford that and survive?
http://mises.org/midroad.asp

3 Comments

R.L. Wurdack August 23, 2014 5:40 am

Has this been picked up by talk shows like John Carlson and Armed American Radio?
Claire August 23, 2014 6:02 am

One of JPFO’s stalwarts has been in touch with the media. Can only wait and see who picks up the story, but she’s working on it for sure.
David September 1, 2014 10:11 am

I ran across this the other day, and perhaps it has some aspects that might seem a bit familiar…

The Zwangswirtschaft Type of Socialism
It is, of course, true that this type of socialism preserves some of the labels and the outward appearance of capitalism. It maintains, seemingly and nominally, private ownership of the means of production, prices, wages, interest rates and profits. In fact, however, nothing counts but the government’s unrestricted autocracy. The government tells the entrepreneurs and capitalists what to produce and in what quantity and quality, at what prices to buy and from whom, at what prices to sell and to whom. It decrees at what wages and where the workers must work. Market exchange is but a sham. All the prices, wages, and interest rates are determined by the authority. They are prices, wages, and interest rates in appearance only; in fact they are merely quantity relations in the government’s orders. The government, not the consumers, directs production. The government determines, directs production. The government determines each citizen’s income, it assigns to everybody the position in which he has to work. This is socialism in the outward guise of capitalism. It is the Zwangswirtschaft of Hitler’s German Reich and the planned economy of Great Britain.
Zwangswirtschaft or Specifically, the stresses the inherently destabilizing and retrogressive characteristics of the interventionist dynamic within a market system and argues that the dislocations produced by political intervention in the market system ultimately require the replacement of the price mechanism by a completely different system for the allocation of resources based on arbitrary political decision-making If you don’t know what Zwangswirtschaft is, I suggest you take 15 minutes and read the linked article then do an internet search. Let’s call this what it is, we Spend 1.75 Trillion Dollars annually for compliance cost’s, who in the hell can afford that and survive?
http://mises.org/midroad.asp