America

NO! I’m not PARANOID!

I love my new (to me) cellular telephone.  Smart?  Hell, she’s brilliant!  Me, not so much…

One of the many things I’ve programmed into her is a function to my credit union.  To see when a deposit appears.  And when it does, my cell phone instantly alerts me.  It’s nice to know when I’ve a little more money.  Or any money.

So, the other morning, I’m working on the blog, and she makes noise.  I investigate.  A deposit for a small amount has appeared in my account!  Cool.

Wait a minute?

I wasn’t expecting any money.  And, it’s not my usual payday, and it’s a small amount…hmmm.  Maybe some kind person hit my PayPal link on the blog sidebar? (hint-hint)  (It has been known to happen!)  So, I check my PayPal account, no dice.  No money either.  Hmmm.

Then it hit’s me – what if someone compromised my account number and was testing it, waiting for my next disability check to post, then WHOOSH – siphons it all away?  Crap.

Next, I contemplate calling my Credit Onion to determine the source of the deposit.  But first I need to get worked up and worried.  (Remember When in Danger or in Doubt?)  There are protocols for such things.

Suddenly it occurs to me.  The State of Arizona owed me $25.00 from my income tax filing last month!  That’s it!

Whew.

Nope, not paranoid.  Just neurotic.

“Gun Violence” in America

Stormbringer points us to a Pew Research Center study, which shows that…well you can read…

Recent Pew Research of Gun Violence in America found gun violence has dropped at an incredible level between 1993-2010, however, in spite of these FACTS, 56% of American’s believe gun violence is higher than 20 years ago.

The primary findings of the research center on these salient points:

1. Homicide rates are down 49% using a time-series analysis between the years of 1993 and 2010.

2. Victimization rates for violent crimes with a firearm are down 73% during that same time period.

3. Despite incredible decline of gun-related violence, 56% of those surveyed (which was a scientific representative sample) 56% of American’s believe gun crime is higher than 20 years ago.

GEE, how did THAT happen?

Public mass shootings are rare crimes that account for less than one percent of gun homicides. They are a matter of great public interest and concern. The mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., and Tucson, Ariz., were among the public’s top news stories in recent years.

And, of course, the number of States with licensed concealed firearms carry or Constitutional Carry have increased.  And the Clinton Assault Weapon Ban went away.  Then how could this perception be?

Can you say there’s an agenda in the mainstream media (sorry Biff).  Sure you can.  Visit his link and read the rest.  If you dare0

The issue is NOT gun violence – the issues are crime and terrorism.  And Constitutional rights.

h/t Sean Linneane

Well, Call Me A RACIST, Yet Again!

The NAACP.  The Vanguard of the Rights of the Negro, colored, , African-American, Black since when?  1909?  Over 100 years of service.  And thank you for much of it!

EXCEPT, in recent years, they’ve been compromised by a progressive political agenda.  No longer is it about the right to vote, or work, or use the same soda fountain, water fountain or restroom.  It’s about how much can we get from the government, and how much can we distort history toward this aim?  And further a progressive agenda.

To wit.  Weasel Zippers shares THIS with us.  (Hang on to your butts!)

Cop-Killer Mumia Abu-Jamal Nominated For NAACP’s “Unsung Hero” Award…

Tyranny of the Majority

The Liberty Sphere advises us as follows:

US tyranny to increase for foreseeable future

A close friend who is politically astute, a Tea Party activist and Christian conservative, stated Wednesday in a private conversation that America as we know it is already lost, gone, destroyed.

And not a single shot was fired. This was done entirely through the electoral process, the courts, and a clear majority of the electorate that does not share the philosophy, the mindset, or the world-view of the Founders, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or our nation’s rich religious heritage.

An all-important threshold was crossed, quite imperceptibly and thus totally without notice, that brought the nation into what the Founders referred to as “the tyranny of the majority.”

I seem to remember the difference between a Republic and a Democracy was defined exactly by this.  That a democracy elicited ‘tyranny of the majority’, and a Republic protected the rights of all.

When I was growing up, the phrase was, “Majority rules – Minority rights!”

However the education of the youth has devolved as described above.  In our Civics classes of yore, we were taught to revere, honor and respect The Constitution.  Now, the meme seems to be something akin to ‘whatever the United States is or has done is WRONG and BAD.  This country needs to progress beyond the old, outdated document forged by rich White guys to a New World Order.  ‘Leveling the playing field’ by fiat or diktat is more efficient and certainly more FAIR!

Somewhere within Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries, he makes a statement to the effect that the cry of THAT’S NOT FAIR is the epithet of pre-schoolers who learn as they get older that the World is just that.  Not fair.  And they demand their due.  Just like the OWS criminals terrorists protestors did – whom I suspect are those same children, older, but not yet mature.

And now, many of those children have done as Van Jones suggested.  They’ve left the collegiate quadrangle protest groups for government service.  Just as Saul Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals.  A cancer inside the mechanism of the Nation.  To make it ‘better’.

But, it’s not.

h/t Jeff Cooper

Happy New Year 1950!

…okay, so I was off by a few years…OKAY 63!

Happy New Year Lovers of the United States and Individual Freedom EVERYWHERE!

Thanks for bothering to continue to stop by.  I’m still in amazement.

Guffaw in AZ

Love/Hate Cops

I have a love/hate relationship with cops.

On the one hand, I hate extremely dislike the ever-encroaching laws permitting law enforcement to run roughshod over our rights.  I’m not speaking of doing a Terry frisk (for weapons) and finding a baggie and making an arrest (although that does bug me), I’m speaking of those things many of us have written about:  NSA wiretapping, Internet monitoring, no-knock warrants, warrantless GPS, cameras everywhere, checkpoints etc.

On the other hand, I still contend that while most local police do their job – and some use it for abuse, others go above and beyond.

Paying it forward

Hayden Carlo of Wylie was pulled over recently for an expired registration

Asked why he hadn’t renewed, the married father of two told the officer that he had no excuse, other than times have been tough.

“It was either feed my kids or get this registration done,” he told Channel 11.

The officer wrote him a citation and tucked a little something extra into the envelope: a $100 bill. The gift brought Carlo to tears.

I’ll call this a late Birthday gift for me.

We, as humans, have amazing compassion. Helping our fellow man doesn’t require the force of the state to make us do what is required or what is right.

God bless this officer.

Speaking as someone who lived on the edge of poverty for years, and was ticketed many times for Not Current Registration, I can relate.  Part of my problem was (and is) I just hate giving the government money!  But I just know this officer is a good person.  Perhaps, it was the Christmas spirit?

h/t Tango, Robb Allen

The Triumvirate On Gun Control

There has been much gnashing of teeth in the past few days over the most recent school shooting.  Surely, the fact that I must use the term ‘most recent’ gives one pause.  Or the term ‘school shooting’ that doesn’t involve marksmanship practice.

And the Internet is all abuzz with sorrowful pleas for ‘they’ to do ‘something’.  I believe it’s human nature in that we all feel so helpless when such things occur.  We want ‘something’ to be done.

The President himself just released his proposals, including another assault weapons ban, a magazine capacity ban and restrictions on private sales of firearms.  (Of course, none of these measures would have stopped the homicidal, unbalanced criminal from the recent massacre of innocents.)

I’ve mentioned recent events a couple of times, and even wrote a couple yet unpublished posts, but many other bloggers have addressed the issues in a much more eloquent and informed manner than I.  If you’ve not seen these three recent postings, you should go to the links and read.  And think about what you have read.  And hope The Nation has enough wisdom to absorb these things, as well.  Links and excerpts below…

A Couple of Elephants by Old NFO

~The mental health community has morphed away from actually treating and committing people due to numerous lawsuits by, among others, the ACLU.  Also, due to ‘privacy’ concerns, many institutions will not report a person with mental health problems to NICS or even to local police.  You can go find articles that point out that the ONLY way to get someone committed is to have charges filed against someone.~

~A few school systems use School Resource Officers (SROs) who are either retired LEOs or are LEOs specifically hired to work in schools both for security. those SROs are armed, have full police powers and are directly connected to the local police departments via radio if they need assistance/backup.

Many were funded under programs from the Federal Government after Columbine…

However, those programs were de-funded by the current administration.~

Stop Teaching Our Kids To Kill by Dave Grossman, Lt. Col. USA (ret.) (via Maddened Fowl)

~Research on the background of our juvenile mass murderers show they have one thing in common:  they ALL dropped out of life and filled their lives with nothing but violent movies and violent video games.  The sickest video games and the sickest movies are very very sick indeed.  And the sick sick kids who immerse themselves in this “entertainment” are very sick indeed.

~And it is a world-wide phenomenon!  Germany has had two mass murders in their high schools with body counts that beat Columbine.  England had a massacre in the kindergarten class in Dunblain Scotland, tragically forecasting Sandy Hook.  Canada had the Taber, Alberta school massacre.  Finland has had three school massacres.  In Norway the killer got on an island and killed all their kids.  In China killers are going in the classrooms with knives and gutting and hacking the kids.  In Belgium a sicko got in the day care center and hacked 12 babies in the cribs, dressed as the Joker from the Batman movie.  (All those European gun laws made THEM real safe, eh?)

And we though it wouldn’t happen here!?

And you think its over now?  The worst is yet to come.  We will reap what we sow for a generation to come…. Until we stop teaching our kids to kill.~

Feeling Good by A Girl and Her Gun

~My extra bag of rice, my gun, my ammo, my kerosene heater are of real value to my survival. I used no government funds to purchase those items. In fact the purchase of those items only helped contribute positively to a failing economy. I have never harmed a single person. I am of no threat to you. Your desire to label me crazy and limit my rights will only serve to put me at more risk and it has ZERO chance of doing anything for you other than to make you feel good.

Please forgive me, but your facade of happiness just isn’t worth my life. I won’t hand it over without a fight.~

The mental health crisis/real school security, video games as parenting, and the desire to absolve our guilt – to feel better – all need to be addressed and solved, lest these behaviors continue.  And lest our rights be taken away for no good reason.

PS - Bobbi punctuates EVERYTHING with common sense!

~Know the facts.  Know the “official facts” even if you choose to doubt them — and get expert advice.  The “rifle found in a car” was contentious issue here at Roseholme Cottage, until Tam found video of it being removed: it’s a scary, black…pump-action shotgun! She was pretty sure of make and model from the low-rez image, thanks to her years shooting and working at gun stores. (Remember, the media talking heads reporting this stuff know a lot less about guns than you do — and they’re being briefed by police who are used to dumbing things down for them.)~

~Know your audience.  In my blog, I can talk about the deterrent effect of removing legal barriers to teachers and school employees being armed if they chose to be (and qualify for whatever carry permit their state offers!).  In the lunchroom at work, not so much.  Don’t be That Guy; we can’t afford it just now.~

OKAY, that’s really four, not three!  Regardless, take a few minutes and read each of these wise bloggers’ entire posts.  I’d say doing so is for the children, but that would just be pandering.  It’s for ALL OF US!

Bullet Points

Just in case you encounter someone with no knowledge of history or the Constitution in your travels.  Some appropriate responses:

h/t Blue’s Blog, Modern Musket

Misty

The Smallest Minority shares with us a tale…

Old Aviators and Old Airplanes….

This is a good little story about a vivid memory of a P-51 and its pilot, by a fellow who was 12 years old in Canada in 1967. It was to take to the air. They said it had flown in during the night from some U.S. Airport, the pilot had been tired.

It is a tale as described above, told with heart, and with truth.  Kevin’s friend Dave further states:

I know we still retain the possibility to be again what we once were, but I’m afraid that entropy will win in the end.  The culture of a nation reflects the philosophy of that nation, and ours is no longer that of John Locke and Adam Smith, but rather Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx, when it isn’t just “…a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown” as Ayn Rand put it.

Please visit the TSM link above and read the whole essay.  And perhaps get a little misty, as did I.

Thanks, Kevin (and his friend Dave)!

TANSTAAFL

I just finished a conversation with my Roomie today with regard to this Robert A. Heinlein (PBUH) concept.  There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Someone always pays.

Perhaps if capitalists who ran businesses were painted as helping their employees by providing jobs and benefits (or not), instead of evil rich robber barons praying on the poor, this concept would be more widely accepted.

I recognize in today’s United States, some folks have little choice on where to work or for what wage.  And relocating may not be a viable option.  There are company towns.  This is why unions developed.

But now, unions cost the workers (much as the robber barons did) and cost their employees jobs, or even careers (witness Hostess), while the companies go bankrupt and the union bosses get richer.

And card check deprives the union member of a secret vote, allowing undue influence and/or coercion to influence union votes.

It’s funny how the Internet weaves it’s news so some folks blame management for a business’ demise (by not knuckling-under to union demands), other folks blame the unions (the rank-and-file.  translation:  class warfare).  And some folks blame the union bosses.

And now it’s reported a Mexican baking concern may take over this confection bakery business.  Think of it – no HFCS, no GMO, no unions, cheap labor, jobs for the poor.  And free market/free trade in action.  And El Twinkies return!

Of course, fewer jobs here…