From CNN– The mayor of Los Angeles, California, called Tuesday for a plan to shut down all city services — except for public safety and revenue-generating positions — twice a week beginning Monday in an effort to solve the city’s budget crisis.
“There are no easy decisions or simple ways to solve this budget crisis,” Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said. “But as the CEO of this great city, it is my responsibility to make these difficult, but necessary, decisions to steer the city out of this crisis and onto solid financial ground.”
He said he was asking the city administrative officer to develop a plan to shut down the city for two days a week and calculate the money the city would save from the move….
I think this is the wave of things to come. California sets the tone for everything in America, including politics and spending. When you have decades of bailing out everyone with taxpayer-funded “social justice”, this is what you get.
It sort of reminds me of the squirrel in my yard. He barely noticed me for a long time. One day, I put some peanut butter out for him. He gobbled it up. Then I gave him some more, for several days in a row…..
One day I didn’t have any peanut butter, and he stood on my window sill, watching me eat my lunch inside, looking like “Hey buddy, quit stuffing your pie hole and feed me, or I’ll kill you.”
That’s California in a nutshell. Damn glad we got out while the getting was good.
–Michael W. Dean
p.s. When Los Angeles says they’re cutting off everything except for public safety and revenue-generating positions, I believe the second part – hell, they’ll ADD more meter maids. But public safety? They laid off a bunch of cops and firemen six months ago and let a lot of people out of prison early, including some violent offenders and kiddie touchers.
As soon as they give out vouchers for welfare, as they’ve talked about, the result will rival the LA Riots.
or this wonderful YouTube video of a cop shooting himself in the foot in a classroom full of kids, after bragging that he’s the only person in the room “professional enough” to use a gun.
60s leftist radical William Ayers (shown above in a recent photo, standing on an American flag) was scheduled to speak at our state university. But now he’s been UN-invited. They also canceled Ayers’ teleconference indoctrination speech scheduled with all the state high school principals.
There were some threats, but mostly there were threats of people who regularly give money to the university saying they will STOP giving money to the university.
“The University of Wyoming is one of the few institutions remaining in today’s environment that garners the confidence of the public. The visit by Professor Ayers would have adversely impacted that reputation.
“During the past few days, controversy over Professor Ayers’s visit has been intense. While this episode illustrated an opportunity to hear and critically evaluate a variety of ideas thoughtfully, through open, reasoned, and civil debate, it also demonstrates that we must be mindful of the real consequences our actions and decisions have on others.”
“Observers in and outside of the university would be incorrect to conclude that UW simply caved in to external pressure. Rather, I commended the director of the center for a willingness to be sensitive to the outpouring of criticism, evaluate the arguments, and reconsider the invitation.”
Though, there were a lot of letters and comments written to the Casper Paper and elsewhere about alumni and others cutting off donations. That is the way to seriously stop most crap…..cut it off at the wallet, not the knees.
I’d like to take some small credit in stopping Ayers from coming to our state. I was the first person to blog about it (post below), before the local news picked up on it, and I tirelessly networked other people (including some politicians and alumni) into action. Kinda felt good to wake up today to the news that we’d actually gotten something done.
We didn’t stop his thoughts from being in our state. You can see what he has to say by reading his blog or his books. He’s very consistent in what he says, and if you’ve read his blog or books, I guarantee there’s nothing new he would have said in person.
Stopping him from coming to the state was symbolic. Letting someone speak at a University is an honor. He doesn’t deserve that honor.
Everyone who helped with keeping Ayers out of our state (especially folks from WyWatch and FSW) deserves a pat on the back. Well done.
Here’s my open letter to the Casper Tribune about it:
Do we want a terrorist speaking at the University of Wyoming?
—-
University of Wyoming has scheduled convicted domestic terrorist William Ayers as a 2010 Spring guest lecturer for Monday, April 5. Ironically, the name of the speech he’s scheduled to give is “Trudge toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action.”
In the early 70s, William Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Department headquarters, the United States Capitol building, and the Pentagon. He is unrepentant about these acts, and is currently a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Ayers wrote a blurb for the back of President Obama’s autobiography, though Obama has downplayed their relationship.
I think having Ayers speak in Wyoming, especially to impressionable youth, is a HORRIBLE idea. And I think having it paid for by our taxes is a travesty.
I’m all for free speech, but I think Ayers’ past actions and present attitude goes far beyond free speech. I also think it’s a crazy world we live in when former enemies of the state are considered role models, and have a relationship with the president. Wyoming seems more secluded from this sad decline than the rest of the country, and I think we should help keep it that way.
I urge people contact to the public relations coordinator, Jim Kearns at 307.766.2670 or jkearns@uwyo.edu and event coordinator Tanaya Moon Morris, sjrc@uwyo.edu, 307-766-3422 and POLITELY ask them to cancel this event.
Respectfully,
Michael W. Dean,
Casper
Wyoming contact for the Republican Liberty Caucus http://www.rlcwy.org/
Article in the New York Times, written by some law student (!!!), MICHAEL SERINGHAUS, says we should ALL give DNA samples to law enforcement.
…The president was correct in saying that we need a more robust DNA database, available to law enforcement in every state, to “continue to tighten the grip around folks who have perpetrated these crimes.” But critics have a point that genetic police work, like the sampling of arrestees, is fraught with bias. A better solution: to keep every American’s DNA profile on file.
Your sensitive genetic information would be safe…..
Really? Safe?
Again, I’m reminded of this quote:
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’.”
—Ronald Reagan
I also wonder when he says we should “give” DNA samples, does he mean voluntarily, or “voluntarily” at the barrel of a gun.
About two weeks ago, a 16 year old kid who was known among his friends for being a clown picked up a courtesy phone at Wal-Mart, punched in the code to access the PA system, and announced, “Attention Wal-Mart customers: All black people leave the store now”. I had an odd sense of deja-vu as the media blew this story up like it was a Klan lynching. I remembered Don Imus, who was fired from two jobs after making his ‘nappy-headed ho’s’ joke in reference to the Rutgers female basketball team- which wasn’t even an issue until a week after it was made thanks to Media Matters. I recalled how Michael Richards was made out to be Hitler after he blew up at two black hecklers in the audience and dropped all kinds of N-bombs on them. Even earlier, Senator Trent Lott was painted as a racist for telling Strom Thurmond at his birthday party that if he had been elected when he ran for president 50 some-odd years before, the country would be better off. Of course, that means Trent Lott wants separate drinking fountains, right? I also fondly recalled how South Park (see image above) ripped to shreds the race pimps and the politics of racial destruction with their ‘naggers’ episode.
This 16 year old kid, whose name is not being released due to his age, has been charged with harassment and bias intimidation. He was arrested. Let me repeat that. HE WAS ARRESTED. Now, granted, his prank was not in the best of taste, to some it was definitely offensive. I don’t even think it was all that funny of a joke, I think it could have been much better had it been thought out beforehand. But I am absolutely appalled that this teenager is being charged with a criminal offense because of what he SAID.
The libertarian in me would leave it up to Wal-Mart to decide whether or not to pursue criminal trespass, after all, the kid did use Wal-Mart’s property and did harm to their ability to do business. That I can understand. What I can’t understand is the thought-policing going on here. Nevermind actual racism, which this was not, but you can’t even make a joke involving race or you will face JAIL TIME.
Are you fucking kidding me? Seriously?
If this is where we’re going as a country then we deserve to be wiped out. A bunch of thin-skinned, whining nellies who can’t even shrug off a poor joke, something so obvious as a kid playing with the PA system. What gets me is that it’s not black people who are outraged about this, except for the black mouthpieces who are always outraged. It’s white people who are falling over themselves to be outraged because they think it makes them look not-racist to black people. It’s this sickening, nauseating, and condescending pandering that guilt-ridden white liberals engage in that is characterized by faux outrage and hypersensitivity to anything racial, whether it’s a joke or a serious point in discussing race relations or politics involving race. They want to be seen as so-not-racist that their racism is clear as day for anyone who looks past their holier-than-thou auras. They think that they have to defend black people from stupid pranks, jokes from Don Imus, angry outbursts from Michael Richards, and innocuous comments made by Trent Lott. Stop it. Black people are capable of deciding for themselves what is offensive and what isn’t. They’re even capable of chuckling at a racial joke or poking fun at the stereotypes associated with black people. They don’t need a white savior to protect them from bad jokes or even real racism. Enough with the pandering and thought policing. This kid does not deserve to be arrested for the content of his joke and charged with bias crimes, especially when racially motivated assaults from blacks against whites are happening more and more in cities all over the country. No more double standards and no more patronization, please.
NIAGARA FALLS — The “Slaughter Solution” on health care isn’t the only thing that has come under attack in U.S. Rep. Louise M. Slaughter’s world this week. Sometime early this morning, someone threw a brick through the front window of her Pine Avenue office.
The damage was discovered about 12:30 a.m., city police said.
The brick put a hole in the outer-most window at the office at 1910 Pine Ave., but did not damage a second interior window, police reported. A piece of broken brick believed to have caused the damage was found at the scene.
Damage was estimated at $350.
Slaughter, D-Fairport, is head of the House Rules Committee, which will structure the debate on health care reform votes set for this weekend.
By the way, the Constitution-shredding Slaughter not only is disgracing the fact that she’s distantly related to Daniel Boone, she’s a hypocrite. Because in April 2006 Slaughter, along with John Conyers, brought action against George W. Bush alleging violations of the Constitution.
Michael W. Dean talks about filmmaking, art, life and politics
podcast episode 38
Michael W. Dean sits in his back yard on a glorious spring day, pets his cats and talks about digital filmmaking, art, life and politics…while answering interview questions from a college student in India. His name is Anamitra Roy and he’s no-budget filmmaker from Kolkata, Westbengal, India and a student of film studies at the Jadavpur University. He has sent me these questions while preparing his dissertation paper on no-budget film making worldwide.
Questions I was asked, then talked for 40 minutes:
1) What does it mean by ‘no-budget film’ ? ( Definition or the concept)
2) What is the philosophical aspect of these non/anti-industrial films? (Marxism, people’s art or Post-modern individual effort / potential role in a democratic state)
3) What Cameras and Edit suits have you used for your films? Why? (availability of digital technology in today’s world)
4) Unless there have been a DV revolution, do you think that the concept of no-budget had flourished to this extent? (The festivals organized all over the world, people making films on their own — could this be real in the era of celluloid too. Please elaborate.)
5) Will you go to Hollywood if they call you? Why? (center – periphery relationship / cultural hegemony)
(I forgot to answer this one, but the answer is “No.” I plan to never ever set foot in the state of California again, mainly because it’s a dangerous place and I can’t legally bring my guns. The California chapter in my life is over. I lived there from 1986 to 2009. That’s well long enough.)
6) How does Digital technology help in organizing screenings? (budget)
I ran across the story of how there were 26 attacks in downtown Denver in four months last year of black gangs targeting and assaulting random white people, while yelling “f*&^ You whitey!” and things like that while they gang up and beat them senseless. No mention of the phrase “hate crime” in that story though: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/21868721/detail.html
If it were whites doing that to blacks, Obama would be making a statement, Eric Holder would put together a task force, and Jesse Jackson & “Reverend” Al Sharpton would both be camped out in the Denver mayor’s office demanding action and apologies.
“Why do you hate white people?” the man recalled asking. “That’s when I got hit. They beat the crap out of me,” he added, saying that 15 to 20 men beat him to the ground. “They just swarmed you,” said the man who curled up on the ground to shield his face. “You basically just had to protect yourself and hope they didn’t kill you.” The victim, who suffered bruised ribs and a cut head, said he was protected by a padded motorcycle jacket. He asked that his name be withheld for his safety.
A couple dozen arrest warrant affidavits unsealed Friday offer chilling insights into the 26 racially-motivated “blitz attacks,” which stretched from July 17 to Nov. 17.One unidentified suspect told police “that the members of his gang earn status in the gang by beating up ‘white dudes,’” according to court records. He added that the gangs targeted “drunk white guys,” exiting bars and nightclubs in the entertainment district.
The suspects allegedly bragged about knocking out white victims with one punch to the head. Victims lying on the ground were “stomped” and even tossed through glass windows. In the more than two dozen attacks, victims’ injuries included a skull fracture as well as broken noses and eye sockets when they were blindsided by punches that often knocked them unconscious. One man was so savagely attacked that he was hospitalized in a coma for a while, police said. Several of the 35 young male and female suspects arrested by police recently said the gangs often targeted lone white and Hispanic men because they didn’t “fight back” and they had money, iPods and other valuable gadgets that attackers coveted.Another goal: to drive whites away from their downtown turf, including a hip-hop nightclub, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
The gangs “own that area,” one suspect told police.
Police also held off on making this public, which put more people in danger. Can you imagine that would be possible of the races were reversed?
Paid anti-gun lobbyists engaged in anti-gun edit war on Wikipedia (allegedly).
I’m saying “allegedly” because these folks probably have an army of lawyers and I’m just stating opinion here, reporting what others on Wikipedia have said.
There are a few people on Wikipedia who have been making edits to gun-rights articles, (allegedly) removing even encyclopedic wording that shows open carry, CCWs and gun ownership in a positive light.
Do the other editors realize that ForwardThinkers is the NEW EDITING NAME of a full-time paid lobbyist for The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV)–a gun control group? In fact, “CSGV “was his old editing sign-in name. Talk about conflict of interest! ForwardThinkers has been repeatedly warned in the past not to make substantive edits to gun rights pages by other editors and admins, yet he persists in doing so. This sort of meddling by paid lobbyists and their cronies is POISONING wikipedia, and compromising its neutrality.
Here’s where ForwardThinkers admits he’s “the Director of Communications” for anti-gun rights group the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence:
ForwardThinkers stripped most of the useful and true information from the article on Concealed Carry. (It was later reverted by more neutral and senior editors.)
they pretty much sit around all day, every day, making edits on Wikipedia, and these edits are later reverted by other editors. Me thinks they might be paid to do this.
Also, this user, PeaceLoveHarmony, is “engaged in an edit” war, according to more senior Wikipedia editors, and has been threatened with getting kicked off the site for editing gun-rights articles in a negative light.
But that user is unlikely to get spanked, he abides by the rules of Wikipedia, and also edits non-RKBA articles, stuff on sports, etc. That goes a long way on Wikipedia for not seeming “spammy” or “sockpuppty.” In fact, he’s been awarded a “BarnStar” (Wikipedia award for outstanding service.)
This non-spammy user GB fan, actually removed the link to OpenCarry.org link on the Open Carry article on Wikipedia, but it was simply a “notability challenge”, a common and needed filtering technique on Wikipedia. Several users challenged the challenge, here,
I’m only pointing this out. I’m not asking people to challenge this on Wikipedia, unless they are long-time Wikipedia users with many useful edits, and who understand the way Wikipedia works. Any new user who jumps in and starts making feisty edits will usually have their edits deleted. There’s a protocol, and it has to be followed. And old users have more sway than new users, especially old users with many useful edits, with attribution, on a number of topics.
I’d say if there are any long-time Wikipedia users with many useful edits, and who understand the way Wikipedia works, they keep an eye on the anti-gun editors and challenge edits, with verification, and with explanation on the talk page for the article.
I hang a United States flag outside my house most days. (When the wind is under 40 MPH in Wyoming, when it’s higher than that it will bend the pole. It’s happened before.)
But most days, it becomes a “burrito flag” within hours:
I go outside several times a day and un-burrito it:
We had a flag up in California the last few months there, but someone stole it off our house. (Probably to perform some Satanic ritual with it, or to disgrace it in some way and call it “art.”)
We are patriotic. Not in a “my country, right or wrong” way. More in a “love it or leave it” way. I don’t trust my government, but I love my country.
And I love Johnny Cash. I’m listening to him right now. Seems to fit somehow.
We are just loving every moment in Wyoming. It’s what we always wanted but just didn’t know it existed. Here are some photos:
DJ happy:
Below: on the left is the Dick Cheney Federal building. To its right is the William Jefferson Clinton post office. (Do you think they fight when no one’s looking? Or….if you’re a NWO conspiracy theorist, do you think they drink blood and sacrifice virgins together?)
DJ happy downtown:
Me happy downtown, with a gun on my hip under my coat, in front of some REAL public art:
(re-post of a blog post I did in June 2008 about George W. Bush. I’m re-posting to quash beliefs that I only dislike liberals and love all Republicans.)
Is the president being impeached? (I hope so.)
I have been watching a lot of C-SPAN lately. It’s basically the only thing worth watching, now that all TV pretty much sucks.
Not a lot of people watch C-SPAN. So I’m one of the small percentage of Americans who know, at this moment, that Representative Dennis Kucinich is on the Congressional floor presenting his resolution calling for Bush’s impeachment. It’s a list of 35 charges, (list here) mostly Constitutional violations and Geneva Convention violations, and he’s been reading it for about an hour, and he’s about halfway through it. A member of the House of Representatives presenting a resolution detailing charges is one of the first steps in impeachment proceedings.
The charges range from election fraud, including disenfranchisement, to illegal wiretapping to illegal torture, to lying about our reasons for going to war, to handing out padded military contracts to his buddies. And a lot more. I can barely keep up. And I’m as giddy as a kid in a candy store about this. So is Debra Jean. She’s glued to the screen. We both love the Constitution. A lot.
It’s history in the making, and it’s not even on CNN.com or Yahoo News yet. I think it’s an emergency meeting, because it’s 10:30 PM in DC right now. I remember seeing the effort to impeach Richard Nixon as news coverage on TV when I was a kid, but he was never actually impeached. (He quit before that could happen, and Ford pardoned Nixon as soon as he took office.) And Nixon was basically just going to be charged with, as I recall, one thing (conspiring to pay people to bug a hotel room). The charges being read against Bush are many, and many are far more serious.
Kucinich is quoting the US Constitution a lot. I wish Kucinich had made it to run for president. He’s smart, and has other things going for him.
I have a prediction: tonight on the Colbert show, Colbert will report this out of character, as he really is, not as his “alter ego” who would be outraged by this. He’ll just state it, and let people cheer.
Here’s a quick 20-minute podcast I recorded, and uploaded while the proceedings were still being read live. It’s about 17 minutes of the charges being read, and about three minutes of us commenting on it. We’re pretty much in shock. And pretty happy.
(behind every great short man is a smart, better looking, and often taller, woman)
TS asked on a comment on another thread: “Please explain how people are being ‘forced’ to give away their private assets to help others.” (in regard to progressives/liberals/Democrats).
This really is libertarianism 101, but deserves its own post.
But here ya go:
When you vote in people who want to increase social spending (welfare, for instance, or foreign aid), those people raise taxes. If someone who did not vote for that person disagrees, he has to pay those taxes anyway. If he doesn’t pay taxes, agents of the government will come to his house and arrest him. If he refuses to come out, they will come in his house and put a gun to his head.
Therefore, the social services you “benevolently” and “compassionately” vote for are paid for with taxes collected at the barrel of a gun. This is an initiation of aggression and a use of force and is NOT compassionate.
Moreover, Democracy is undemocratic, because 51% can tyrannize 49% with things like this.
This joke explains it well:
I recently asked my friends’ little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, ‘If you were President what would be the first thing you would do? ‘
She replied, ‘I’d give food and houses to all the homeless people.’
Her parents beamed with pride.
‘Wow…what a worthy goal.’ I told her, ‘But you don’t have to wait until you’re President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I’ll pay you $50. Then I’ll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house. ‘
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘ Why doesn’t the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50? ‘
I said, ‘Welcome to the Republican Party.’
Her parents still aren’t speaking to me.
Another quick explanation is found in one of my lyrics, the Right Arm of Wyoming song “Freaky Liberal Mammal Sex“:
If my neighbor had three cars and I stole one
I’d rightly go to prison
If this “progressive” gub’ment mugs my neighbor for his car
to tax-support crack babies
Liberals think that’s justice
The younger people are, the more they think their own rules are set in stone. The older you get, the more you realize you have to sometimes re-evaluate them.
Personal “moral” rules change. It’s not selling out, it’s evolution.
When I was 10, I thought it was immoral to smoke pot.
When I was 13, I was a vegetarian, and thought it was immoral to eat meat.
When I was 14, I was a born-again Christian and thought it was immoral to say “Goddamn.”
When I was 15, I was a pacifist and thought it was immoral to hit back if someone hits you.
When I was 21, I thought it was immoral to carry a gun. And I thought it was immoral to deal with major corporations or vote Republican.
And I believed it was immoral to deal with major corporations until my late 20s, and believed it was immoral to carry a gun or vote Republican until I was in my early 40s.
You get old the moment you stop being teachable.
–Michael W. Dean
—-
I’d love to hear how your “absolutes” have changed with age.
Alaska Governor Sean Parnell is proposing a bill that will pay for a students schooling depending on grades (A=%100, B= %75, C=%50). I think this is bullshit. No one has the right to make you pay for another person’s college. And now while this is probably paid for by taxes from the oil companies and other corporation and not individuals, it’s still wrong. Taxation is theft, whether by a mugger in the street or a politician in DC. And what is a corporation but a group of individuals.
And the price of this?:
Parnell is proposing to pay for it by carving out $400 million of the state’s $8 billion Constitutional Budget Reserve Fund savings account as its own separate endowment, saying interest and investment profits from that would be used to pay for the scholarships. State Education Commissioner Larry LeDoux said it’s not clear how much the program would cost the state each year but he figures $20 million could be available annually for covering the costs of the scholarship program.
I would much rather struggle to pay for college and live off of ramen and live on a couch through my schooling than make others pay for my college.
Got my Wyoming concealed carry permit today. Meant more to me than when I got my driver’s license. (I didn’t get a driver’s license until I was 21, and never really drove much.) Getting a concealed weapon permit is a large part of the reason I moved to Wyoming….getting one is pretty much impossible in Los Angeles County, unless you’re a movie star or a judge.
You have to live in Wyoming six months before you can apply, and it took a month to get it. I’ve been here seven months, and have been open carrying the whole time. It was a trip to actually conceal carry, walk down the street, go to the library, go eat lunch with the wife. It felt good, like walking on the moon.
The libertarian in me doesn’t like the idea of needing a government-endorsed card to practice an inalienable right, but the Republican in me digs being able to get the card, and getting it.
Ironically for me, the Wyoming legislature is currently mulling a bill that would allow concealed carry without a permit, and that bill may pass. (Yay!). But my permit will still allow me to carry in Utah, the Dakotas, Montana and a bunch of other states. (Not New York or California though! Those places are no friends of freedom.)
Also ironic is that my permit was available yesterday for pickup, but it was Presidents’ Day, so the office was closed. “President’s Day” is what they call it, but it’s officially called “George Washington’s Birthday”, and I think George would have been appalled at the idea of needing a permit to carry a gun. He didn’t need no stinking papers to carry!
Anyway, it’s a really good day, and I’m very happy!
East Palo Alto Police Det. Rod Tuason apparently posted the remarks on his Facebook page in response to a friend’s status update, which suggested that gun advocates who carry unloaded weapons openly — which is legal in California — should do so in places like “Oakland, Richmond and East Palo Alto” and not just in “hoity toity” cities.
“Haha we had one guy last week try to do it!” Tuason replied. “He got proned out [laid face-down on the ground] and reminded where he was at and that turds will jack him for his gun in a heartbeat!”
Several comments later, the detective suggested shooting the gun rights advocates, some of whom have carried firearms openly in recent weeks in California’s Bay Area, particularly at Starbucks locations.
“Sounds like you had someone practicing their 2nd amendment rights last night!” Tuason wrote. “Should’ve pulled the AR out and prone them all out! And if one of them makes a furtive movement … 2 weeks off!!!” — referring to the modified duty, commonly known as desk duty, that typically follows any instance in which an officer is investigated for firing his weapon…..
Man. I am SO glad in EVERY way that we moved out of that state. I really feel like it’s almost a different country.
MWD
Here’s a screengrab of the exahange, before they deleted it to destroy evidence:
Really, if all writing was distilled to its essence, books would be about five pages long, and most internet forums would be blank.
I could say this with a lot more words, but I’ll boil it down “America is doomed.” And America is the last best part of the world, so the world is doomed.
Really, the right may have a “comeback” in the next few years, but within two or three presidential election cycles, there will be enough new kids turning 18, who were educated in public schools, that there will probably be a leftist majority running this country forever.
There will be enough resistance for the next 40 years to have some semblance of “America” into my old age, but the 20 years after that, and beyond, will be hell. The 20 years after I die of old age and people just getting old enough to vote now, that will be the point it really hits the fan.
I predict in 60 years America will look like Haiti. Or Blade Runner. Or Idiocracy. Or Communist Russia. Or Demolition Man. Most likely, some mix of all five.
Here’s what I predict:
– hyperinflation
– to take Tom Waits out of context “everything’s broken and no one speaks English”
– no free speech, “hate speech” a felony
– very high taxes
– All phones and e-mail tapped all the time.
– most everyone works for the government, the rest are on welfare
– total Affirmative Action. Straight, white, Christians will be treated like blacks were in America just post-slavery.
– rewriting of Constitution
–re-writing of history, scrubbing of Constitution, Founding Fathers
– no private ownership of weapons (y’all think I overstate guns, but when the guns are gone, the tyrants can do anything to you. Citizens just having them, not even using them, makes a difference)
So when you say I’m silly for making the modest proposal that we should eliminate voting for people who will only vote in more nanny-tyranny, I really believe that the above is your alternative.
The girls had cocaine, and the music was loud. It was total happiness. And both of them had ten long, red fingernails with an endless supply of beautiful white powder….The feds spent a million bucks trying to figure out whether, when those fingernails passed under my nose, did I inhale or exhale, and I ain’t telling.
— Charile Wilson
In 1980, Wilson was accused of using cocaine at the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas; however, the investigation by Justice Department attorney Rudolph Giuliani was dropped due to lack of evidence.
Wilson was presented with the Honored Colleague Award by the CIA. He is the first civilian to receive the award. However, Wilson’s role remains controversial because most of the aid was supplied to Islamist hardliner Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, now a senior Taliban leader and a supporter of al-Qaeda.
Someone on ConPunk asked “Why not just split it into the red states and the blue states? I think at this point, both sides would be happy with that.”
I replied:
The left would never go for it. They need the red states to steal from, since we’re all in better shape financially. We don’t bail out bums as much, and we have more natural resources. Places like Wyoming, Texas, West Virginia and the Dakotas have all the oil and coal, natural gas and uranium. (And much of the wind and sun.)
People in New York and California think they should be administering that stuff from a comfy office, not out drilling for it.
Also, the leftie blue states would be driven mad by the thought that there are people in the next state raising their kids the way they want, carrying guns, going to church and not supporting crack babies. It would drive the lefties even more nuts than they are now.
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) dies today – they’re already predicting a tough battle for his seat in the House of Representatives…
They’re dropping like flies on poison garbage, they are.
And I like it.
To anyone who says “That’s horrible! Don’t disrespect the dead!” I say “Fuck it, and fuck you. Those nanny statist bastards are stealing from us, robbing us at gunpoint and fucking up America to try to make it socialist.” I say “Good riddance to bad trash.”
He was revered among Democrats — and even some Republicans — for his skill over 19 terms in using the power of the federal purse to make kings and deals. A right-hand man of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he was considered one of the most influential lawmakers on Capitol Hill and credited with her ascension.
and
A hint of scandal lingered over much of Murtha’s career. The FBI named Murtha an “unindicted co-conspirator” in its ABSCAM sting operation in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. ABSCAM resulted in the conviction of five House members and one senator. The FBI recorded Murtha on videotape declining a $50,000 bribe from federal agents posing as Arab sheiks. But the Congressman did say he could be interested in future dealings.
This death couldn’t come at a worse time for the King George Obama-led administration. But you know what they say, “Coincidences are God’s way of staying anonymous.”
Michael W. Dean and Nunzio do another double-ender podcast over the miles and formulate and explain the idea of 4th Dimensional Politics.
Our grandparents had the one-dimensional left/right continuum. The Libertarian Party invented the two-dimensional x/y axis (see: World’s smallest political quiz:
Debra Jean Dean invented three-dimensional politics (points on a sphere to represent going beyond the two-dimensional, and allowing for nuances in stands on various issues among people who live on the same point on the x/y libertarian chart).
But Nunzio and Michael Dean explain 4th Dimensional Politics, which is the Debra Jean Dean sphere moving through time as we evolve. Because as ex-liberal Michael says, “Once you stop being teachable, you start being old.”
Then they talk about abortion, politics, the president, idiots, guns, dope, Robert Anton Wilson, The Guns and Dope Party, and a whole bunch of other cool shit.
Daniel Andreas San Diego (born February 9, 1978) is an American straight edge vegan, animal liberationist and fugitive wanted for his alleged association with the Animal Liberation Brigade cell responsible for two bombings in 2003. He is the first American, environmentalist and domestic terrorist added to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.….
I would like to point out that organizations like the SPLC stoke the fires of government officials and law enforcement that there is more of a threat than there truly is when it comes to militias. Some government agencies even ignorantly use the SPLC “Hate Groups List” and their bogus “reports” as legitimate. This causes law enforcement both at the local, state and federal level to overreact…..
…There is no mention in this report on the Black Muslim man who shot up a recruiting station killing one soldier and wounding another. There is no mention of the DC snipers, both who were black and influenced by information they had. No mention of the Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philadelphia in 2008. Those acts are no less tragic than the ones they do mention…..
…Potok automatically associates any American who identifies themselves as a “Patriot” as a potential terrorist militia member. Any information these self-declared patriots send out, whether it be forwarding an email about your disagreement with a piece of legislation or your outrage at some action by a member of congress, is propaganda in the SPLC’s eyes and not of a legitimate concern…..
…It’s also quite telling that Potok does not identify who the sources of the information and statements are from. He notes “authorities” and “says one”. According to section two of the report – which I address below – they didn’t want to be identified. How convenient. The real reason is that the SPLC is “cherry picking” who they listen to. They will quote only those whom they agree with and those who use their reports and information as in “Anonymous sources”……
…Keller states: “In the words of a February report from law enforcement officials in Missouri, a variety of factors have combined recently to create ‘a lush environment for militia activity.’”
The report caused outrage because it specifically targeted supporters of presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as “militia” influenced terrorists and to watch out for citizens with bumper stickers regarding the Constitution, Campaign for Liberty and Libertarian parties.
The most amazing thing is that even after the retraction by the MIAC, Keller’s portion of this current militia report reads almost verbatim what “The Modern Militia Movement” report said. The MIAC report cites the SPLC as the source for a good portion of the report….
…On page 5 of the report Keller tries to play a game. In this game he sites a report which had information supplied to it by the SPLC. In other words he is trying to trick you by using the law enforcement agency’s name, but it is really their info that they had supplied to that agency. They are referencing their own statements….
With the economy still in peril, troops still on the ground in two theaters, and rogue nations developing nuclear weapons, we would think that our federal government would have a lot to occupy their time. Apparently, nothing can be more important than getting involved in matters that should never be discussed by the Legislative or the Executive. The most pressing issue of the day is the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) for college football.
Of course we all hate the BCS. A playoff series would be more fair, and exponentially easier to understand. We shouldn’t have to have a degree in Statistics to understand the ranking system, but is this how senior members of the Senate and the Obama administration need to be spending their time? Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has requested a review by the Justice Department concerning the matter. Apparently he agrees with President Obama that the BCS ranking system is just too much to bear. Obama stated before his inauguration that he disagreed with the system in place for determining a National Champion football team. I believe the direct quote was “Throw my weight around” to nudge the BCS into a playoff system. Now we have the Justice Department reviewing whether an Anti-Trust investigation is needed. Now I suppose we must sit back and wait for the Justice Department to find a law that would invade into college football. Statist intervention at its finest.
On a positive note, when the issue is big enough, Republicans and Democrats can work together in a beautiful demonstration of bi-partisanship to accomplish far reaching goals. Economy, health care reform, and war are just trivial issues that should be politicized, but college football…
I don’t really have much of a problem with the Democratic Party. I have a problem with the so-called progressives, the far-Left, which usually lives these days in the Democratic Party (Pelosi, Obama, Reid, Frank, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Ted Kennedy, whom I want to congratulate on getting five months sober this week!) But there are progressives on the Right too. John McCain is one. Rudy Giuliani is another.
The only legitimate, Constitutional, moral role of government is to protect the borders and protect the Constitutional rights of the citizens. This is right-wing/libertarian ideology in a nutshell.
By definition, progressives are people who think that government should grow and should attempt to “solve” everyone’s problems (often the problems created by the government). Progressives are busybodies. They think they’re smarter than you. They tend to say “THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW!” and “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” a lot. To which I say “You think of your children, I’ll think of mine.”
A good example of progressive thought in action is the financial crisis: progressives (like Obama, but also George W. Bush in his “lame duck” period) caused a problem. Then they try to solve the same problem, using the people who caused it (Ben Bernanke). Then they do exactly what should NOT be done (printing more money, going into debt).
Any eighth grader who’s good at math can tell you that’s the wrong way. The right way is to get out of the way, remove regulations, and let the economy flourish.
Here’s a good video explaining this. It’s sort of “School House Rock” for the new generation:
It is not the role of government to “create jobs.” At best, the role of government is to create an environment (low taxes, no nanny laws) where jobs are created by a free market.
There are tens of thousands of gun laws in America, at the federal, state and local level. Yet not one of them has ever prevented a crime. They only serve to make politicians look like they’re doing their job, and make law-abiding citizens into criminals.
Progressives want to outlaw guns to solve the problem of gun violence, a problem the progressives created!
Right-wing states like Utah and Wyoming have a very low incidence of gun violence. And guns are common, and treated with respect. People are also treated with respect. (The ironic thing is that less “redneck” places look at places like Utah and Wyoming as “primitive.” They laugh at us. They are wrong. We’re far more socialized and decent places to live. I know. I’ve lived in Los Angeles, and I’ve had a knife held to my throat in a mugging in New York City.)
Left-wing progressive places like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C. have high rates of gun violence. Sure, part of this has to do with population, but a lot of it has to do with culture.
I’m not a Christian, but I believe that Christian upbringing ain’t a bad thing. Back when that was the norm, gun crime was much lower. Even the “Wild West”, often considered the go-to example of gun violence, didn’t have that much gun violence. That impression is the work of Hollywood. Which is filled with progressives. When is the last time you saw a person in a movie use a gun in a moral way, in pure self-defense? Almost never. Yet movies are filled with people using guns, almost always in an immoral way. Using a gun in a movie is “shorthand” for excitement. The prevalence of guns in movies is the result of lazy screenwriters, and gun-hating producers.
Right-wing places teach children to work for their goals. Left-wing places teach children that they are “entitled”, that they only have to “dream it, and they’ll get it.”….”I gots to get mine“….. Which place do you think produces more bitter, disappointed people willing to shoot up a crowd of innocents?
Progressives also downplay the role of family. Conservatives tend to have stronger families, and teach that “family is all”. Progressives teach that the family unit is an impediment, that you should “spread your wings and find your own way.”
Which group do you think has a better foundation for dealing with problems?
Progressives are revisionist with history. They downplay the role of guns in the founding of America, especially in the American Revolution. The whitewash the role of hard work in the foundation and strengthening of America. They consider wealth a bad thing, something that only exists to be stolen and redistributed to those who “deserve it” just for existing. This creates an angry underclass of people who not only think the world owes them a living, but reinforces it with a bi-monthly check.
Progressives support revolving-door prison systems, and are usually against the death penalty. Both of these put more violent people back on the street and don’t discourage violent behavior. Progressives generally consider violent felons to be a “victims of a bad upbringing” rather than simply broken machines. A good example is the ACLU, which has reams of writings on the rights of violent criminals in custody, but not one word on self-defense.
Progressives teach that any culture except American culture (including guns) is to be protected. Progressives teach that American culture is embarrassing, something to apologize for.
The progressive media also only ever reports immoral uses of guns. When was the last time you saw a news story about a little old lady using her gun to keep from being killed by some armed scumbag wanting to kill her to take her Social Security check for a fix? Yet it happens all the time.
Progressives teach their children not to have a Christian morality. They also teach their kids that “life is cheap” by telling them that abortion is a valid option if they “inconvenience” themselves with a pregnancy (due to their “fuck everything that moves” progressive morality).
I’m not making a case for anti-abortion or pro-Christianity or anti-”free love”, but I believe that “progressive” views on abortion, sex, family and religion, combined with Hollywood, have contributed heavily to gun violence seeming like a “solution” to many people. I am saying that the anti-Christian pro-abortion anti-family “I gots to get mine” agenda of progressives, and guns in Hollywood movies, are all the fault of the progressives, and contribute heavily to the prevalence of gun violence.
My brother was an Eagle Scout and participated in an after-school riflemanship program at his public school. When he was a high school senior in 1963 (back when America had a Christian morality), he used to bring his .22 rifle and ammo on the school bus and keep it in his locker for the after-school shooting classes. No one got shot, and no one cared. Whereas if you brought a boy scout pocket knife to school now, you’d be kicked out of school and likely arrested.
Obama’s DHS warns to look out for pro-American right-wing gun nuts. But almost all of the recent mass gun violence was done by people who were anti-American and left wing. The Ft. Hood shooter was anti-American. Even the shooter at the Holocaust Museum was a registered Democrat who hated Fox News.
Gun violence is the fault of the progressives. And it’s immoral that so-called progressives try to take away my guns just because they’ve wrecked so much of the world with their policies. Gun violence in secular New York City and Los Angeles has nothing to do with me in Christian Wyoming. So back the fuck off.
So, someone asked me today about “sensible” gun control. I maintain that no such thing exists.
First…
Most people who want to regulate guns don’t know much about them.
This comment on another post on this blog is typical:
I do believe that we do have the right to protect ourselves with a firearm like a shotgun or a rifle. The thing that I’m not convinced on is the need to own assault weapons like an AK-47 or an Uzi.
Here’s the thing: an AK-47 IS a rifle. And a pretty anemic one at that. Any .30 cal deer rifle has MUCH more destructive power. And range. And with a scope, it’s pretty much a sniper rifle that could kill a man at a quarter mile. (And most deer rifles are .30 cal, it’s pretty cruel to hunt deer with anything smaller, you need to kill deer in one shot, or they suffer.) An AK-47 cannot kill effectively at a quarter mile.
Not that any of that is reassuring to anyone who likes gun control, but you will NEVER get guns out of the hands of the millions of deer hunters in America. Never.
Gun control is immoral because all honest, free men have an innate right to self-defense, on a one-to-one level, like a violent mugger, but also on a larger, “opposing tyranny” level.
The Second Amendment has nothing to do with shooting deer. The right to shoot deer was a given in the rural community of early America. If you couldn’t shoot deer, you’d starve.
The Second Amendment has to do with being able to make sure that the government doesn’t get too large. To protect yourself from government. Though even uttering these words today gets you put on a watch list. Fedzilla has grown to the point that it wants to remove the Second Amendment. And they do it slowly, in bits and pieces. Give ‘em an inch and they take a mile.
Because of the Second Amendment, politicians cannot outright ban guns. So they go after them incrementally, and each bit of gun control (or ammo control, lately) legislation is a step toward the unstated goal of the government having all the guns and the people having none. Once that happens, they can cram anything down your throat, and there is nothing you can do about it.
America was founded by guys who were really pissed.
But if you quote the Founding Fathers now, you’re called a terrorist!
–”Liberty in Shards” by Right Arm of Wyoming
Most politicians who want to outlaw guns don’t do so for love of the public safety. They only do it for power: the power of having the government have the only guns, and the power of getting votes. Politicians love votes, and promising to be “tough on guns” (instead of being tough on actual crime, which is harder) usually gets a few votes with the “think of the children!” parrots.
Back to the original reason for the Second Amendment: you don’t have to use your guns to prevent encroaching tyranny, you only have to have them. And maybe be willing to use them if things get bad enough. And have the skill to do so.
By the way, you need rifles to oppose tyranny. No revolutions were ever won with pistols, and tyranny is not opposed with a shotgun.
“Progressive” leftists tend to be into banning guns, because leftists think that they know what’s best for everyone. People on the right have more trust in people. They don’t need to “nanny” everyone.
But most leftist gun grabbers have never held a gun, so why should they be in charge of regulating them? Here’s a typical gun grabbing leftist, trying to explain the random indicators that defined an “assault weapon” under the “assault weapon ban” that she helped create.
Would you trust someone who is that stupid about pharmaceuticals to regulate medicine? (Never mind, that’s what the Democrats are trying to do with health care.)
Note that she also uses the incorrect term “clip” (should be “mag” or “magazine”) Also, “assault weapon” is a made-up, meaningless term. As is the specious indicators that “defined” one under that law. A pistol grip on a rifle never killed anyone, nor does it help anyone kill anyone. There is something called an “assault rifle” (a full-auto, select fire AK-47 would qualify, so do the guns our boys carry in Iraq, but both of those are already illegal for private citizens in America), but gun grabboids’ definition of “assault weapon” often includes many shotguns and hand guns too. Basically, it banned anything that looked like a military weapon, was black, and looked scary. They banned some very underpowered guns, and didn’t ban some very powerful guns, based entirely on cosmetics. Some gun lovers even called the “assault weapons ban” the “scary looking ugly black gun ban.”
Obama’s boy Eric Holder tried to reinstate the “Assault Weapon” ban last year, and said it was to help Mexico in their War on Drugs! Trying to limit our Constitutional rights to help a foreign country is treasonous, in my opinion.
Gun control and gun registration does not prevent crime. There are thousands of gun laws on the books, and not one of them has made anyone safer. They have only made criminals out of law-abiding citizens. Gun control simply disarms citizens. If your daughter were being stalked, would you want her to have to wait ten days to get a gun, when the criminal stalking her likely already has a gun? And while we’re on the subject of waiting periods: if you think they’re a good idea, keep people from buying a gun when they’re enraged, why should there be a waiting periods on your second gun? And your third, fourth, fifth, etc. ?
A lot of places are going after ammo, since they think that’s more Constitutional than going after guns. But limiting the amount of ammo people can get, and requiring paperwork on ammo, will have some dark unintended consequences: criminals breaking into honest follks’ homes to get ammo, and honest folks not being able to practice much. I think people who shoot should practice often, and with a lot of rounds. If someone is having to use a gun in a self-defense situation, the more practice they’ve had, the less likely they are to hit an innocent bystander.
And when asked why I should be able to have a military-pattern semi-auto gun, I say why not? I’m an honest person. Should you be limited to a slow computer with little memory because hackers can work faster on fast computers? I have a military-pattern rifle because who the fuck knows what’s going to come to my door or my neighborhood? If there were an earthquake and people were looting and trying to kill me, en mass, a shotgun and a handgun (which I also have) wouldn’t save me.
Why should my handgun be limited to a ten-round mag? If a criminal (who, by definition, does not respect the law and does not follow it) tries to mug me, starts shooting, why should I have to stop to reload? That could get me killed. (And anyone who says “If ten rounds isn’t enough, you’re not a good shoot” knows nothing about guns or self-defense. Especially when trying to fend off more than one bad guy, and they’re not standing still.)
A common chirp of gun grabboids is “The Founding Fathers didn’t imagine Uzis and AK-47s when they wrote the Second Amendment.” Well, I can guarantee if they did, they would have included that. They had the cutting edge of battle technology at the time.
A good response I’ve heard to “The Founding Fathers didn’t imagine Uzis and AK-47s when they wrote the Second Amendment” is a response about the First Amendment: “I’m willing to only carry a brace of muskets if the New York Times is willing to only publish on hand-run presses and only deliver papers by horseback.”
A lot of people confuse Uzis and AK-47s with machine guns, because both are also available in full-auto (machine gun). Only criminals have those in America. I know people with AK-47s, but they’re legal semi-auto versions.
By the way, I have several semi-auto rifles that are FAR more powerful than an AK-47.
Which brings me to the “Why do you need so many guns?” question. Well, why do you need so many shoes? I have different guns for different things. Plus, I just like guns. I like the history of them (which is why I own a 1943 gun that was actually used to kill actual Nazis), I like the feel of them, the mechanics and the science of them. Why does a stamp collector have so many damn stamps?
My guns in Wyoming don’t effect you in your state. My guns don’t even affect you if you’re my next-door neighbor. Like most gun owners, I’m an honest person. Assault and murder are illegal, and rightfully so. I will not do those things, I wouldn’t do them even if they were legal. So lay off my guns.
Guns hurt far less people than cars and swimming pools. And you don’t need a gun to hurt people. You can kill someone with a rock or a hammer. So keep your immoral desire to control my guns to yourself, and go after actual criminals instead of trying to make me into a criminal.
Background: I don’t like the UN, but I have a lot of interest in the Freemasons, and it’s not negative. My dad was a Freemason. And so were many the Founding Fathers.
The Supreme Being and the Volume of Sacred Law
Candidates for regular Freemasonry are required to declare a belief in a Supreme Being. However, the candidate is not asked to expand on, or explain, his interpretation of Supreme Being. The discussion of politics and religion is forbidden within a Masonic Lodge, in part so a Mason will not be placed in the situation of having to justify his personal interpretation.[29] Thus, reference to the Supreme Being will mean the Christian Trinity to a Christian Mason, Allah to a Muslim Mason, Para Brahman to a Hindu Mason, etc. And while most Freemasons would take the view that the term Supreme Being equates to God, others may hold a more complex or philosophical interpretation of the term.
You know, the only other place I’ve heard this line of thought is Alcoholics Anonymous. the whole “create your own higher power”, “god of your own understanding” stuff. I’ve never heard of a connection of AA and Freemasonry. And as a still-sober former AA member, and while I was in AA, I’ve studied the hell out of the history of AA. But I think it’s possible.
I have seen a site that says that AA is a UN-sponsored New World Order plot to remove Christian influences in society and replace Christianity with Secular Humanism.
That’s somewhere on this sprawling site http://www.orange-papers.org/
written by a former AA member, still sober, but nuts and smart and waaaaay too much time on his hands…..all of it, for years, apparently devoted to debunking AA in a scholarly and heavily annotated fashion.
My 68-year-old mother-in-law refuses to take a bath but once a week. Is this healthy or even legally acceptable? Please help.
Is it LEGALLY ACCEPTABLE? Holy fucking hell….liberals want to regulate EVERYTHING. Can you imagine this call?: “Hello…911? My mother-in-law doesn’t bathe as often as I’d like. Please come arrest her.”
Fuck. Fuck these people. They should never have any power, and should probably all be sent at gunpoint to libertarian re-education camps immediately. (Just kidding.)
I’m all for it. I think it will favor conservatives. Big Business has a lot more money than the labor unions, and big business leans conservative. (Look how hard Obama is spanking big business, how much he’s helping the unions, and how worried he is about this bill. And how much “progressives” hate it and are trying to stop it.)
I like corporations. I used to hate them, wrote whole books saying they were evil, but I’ve seen the light. I trust big business far more than big government. Big business doesn’t like people nannied, quite the opposite. Big business doesn’t want regulations on tobacco, trans fats, ammo or other things I like.
And the NRA has a lot more money than the Brady gun grabboids.
I think it’s a great move, a gift to the people by the conservative supreme court justices.
How did the wise Latina vote on this? She voted against it. There’s your answer.
She’s been on the news a lot doing commentary because she was Ted Kennedy’s adviser.
I am of the opinion that she sounds like she’s on sedatives, and her voice does sound like Harvey Fierstein.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Fierstein
How come women who go into news and politics mostly have slightly shrill voices (think: Palin). Is it because they developed that trying to be heard above men?
I just heard top Obama adviser David Axelrod on MSNBC basically apologizing for the Democrats being “arrogant.”, and conceding that their agendas might not work. He said in passing, “….if Obama chooses to run in 2012….”
Is that a Freudian slip? Does he know something we don’t know? Because I assumed Obama would certainly run in 2012.
I think the Democrats are finally figuring out that treating the American people like childeren to be nannied is not going to work.
Though now Howard Dean (no relation!) is on MSNBC saying people in Mass voted for Scott Brown to “show their disgust with not getting healthcare passed.” !!???!!!
BUY A GUN, LOSE ALL YOUR FRIENDS. (A true story of Republitarian redemption.)
Copyright 2009, Michael W. Dean
I’m a peace lovin’ guy. I’d never hurt anyone who did not try to hurt me.
Though I used to vote Democrat. But couldn’t really tell you why. I hated authority and I hated big government. I guess I just wasn’t paying attention. I was one of those folks who thought that following the issues was too much work. So I voted by clipping out the little voting guide from the leftie City Paper.
That’s how, many years ago, I ended up voting for Feinstein and Pelosi. (Don’t tell my friends at the NRA, the GOA and the JPFO. I’m now a card-carryin’ member of all three.)
A couple years ago I was awake late one night in my home in Los Angeles when someone outside tried to pry open our bedroom window. The guy wasn’t very badass. Unarmed, I chased him away just by going outside and confronting him.
But we were shaken. The next day I told my wife, Debra Jean, “Baby, we’re buying a shotgun.” She was very against it. She said, “Buying a gun is admitting that the world is a horrible place.” I said, “Baby, sometimes the world is a horrible place, and I love you, and we’re buying a gun.”
And being the one California Democrat with his balls intact, I bought a shotgun anyway, even though my wife hated the idea.
Turns out, we both really liked guns, and we loved our dates to the range. We soon added his ‘n’ hers 9mm pistols and a couple .22 rifles to our collection. Debra Jean became a good shot in weeks. Took me a little longer.
All of our friends were lefties, and most of them were concerned about the “new us.” But they still kept talking to us, and we even took one of them to the range. Once.
I started reading up on California and Federal gun laws. I’ve never been arrested and intended to keep it that way. Debra Jean (a paralegal) and I decided that the laws seemed designed not to protect people from violence, but rather they were structured to make honest folks into criminals.
Our new view of nanny-state gun laws made us look at California (and the USA) in a whole new way. And that made us both start paying attention to government and politics.
We became Republitarians almost overnight.
I got there from “punk rock anarchist” on one end and apolitical Democrat on the other. I loved the process, but it kinda hurt. Debra Jean didn’t have as far to go…..Turns out she was registered Republican. Which if I’d known years earlier, I probably wouldn’t have married her. But it never actually came up, which shows you how much attention I paid to politics, and shows you how much she loved me to marry me even though I’d made it clear I was “a compassionate liberal, not one of those stuffy old selfish Republicans like my dad.”
My wife really liked my political “spiritual transformation.” (Her dad, by the way, had given her Heinlein books to read as a child, and he’d stumped door to door for Goldwater.)
Debra Jean and I got itchy. Being around leftists suddenly gave us hives. So it was clear what we had to do: GET OUT OF CALIFORNIA AND MOVE TO WYOMING.
Our leftist friends got really worried. The “hipper” ones said, “OK, I guess I can “get” having a shotgun for protection, if you must. But I really don’t feel comfortable coming to a house with handguns in it, and…WAIT….YOU DON’T HAVE THEM WITH YOU NOW, in MY house, do you?!!…”
Or, “Who is this ‘Bob Barr’ person you say you’re voting for? Libertarian? What’s a ‘libertarian’?” And “Obama is so cool and hip and…Wait, WHAT? YOU’RE SELLING YOUR HOUSE AND MOVING TO WYOMING? And you wanna buy a BATTLE RIFLE? What the hell is a BATTLE RIFLE?!”
Let me just say this: our outgoing Christmas card list was a lot shorter this year. And I doubt we’ll get any cards from California, but if we do, the card will not likely have the word “Christmas” on it. And it will probably be colored green and say “Reduce! Reuse! Rejoice!”
I will promptly take that “Seasonal Holiday Greeting Card” at its word and toss it in the recycling bin. (See? We did import ONE of our hippie ways from California. But we would never in a billion years try to force our new friends and neighbors to do the same, out of respect for their liberty. And we love that our new friends and neighbors are far less “in other people’s business” than most everyone we met in California. Which is partly because our new friends and neighbors are nicer people, and partly because most of them own and carry guns, too. “An armed society is a polite society.”)
We’ve lived in Wyoming for almost six months and WE LOVE IT. The air is clean, the people are sweet and we can open carry a pistol, or have our loaded battle rifle on the car seat next to us. Talk about “breathing in the sweet air of liberty”!
Carrying a gun could literally get you killed by SWAT in California. Here, people just say, “Oh, my husband has that one! Is that the .357 or the .38 special?” or “Nice rifle! Getting in practice for antelope season?”
We feel like we left California and moved to AMERICA.
Our few remaining California leftie friends who still talked to us followed this ongoing transformation in words and pictures on my blog. One by one they STOPPED BEING OUR FRIENDS. Their comments ranged from a good friend of eight years saying “Michael, I love you, but I’m really worried about you” to a good friend of 23 years (a guy I was in a band with) saying, “Michael…..Once someone gets talked into these right-wing ideas very rarely can they be talked back…..This new-found cocky way of life is very wrong, very immoral and very dangerous. I’m older than you so consider my opinion, if you still can…I doubt you will. This makes me very sad. Good luck, dumb fuck.”
Another “friend” actually talked about organizing an intervention and driving out here to “save us.” Didn’t happen though. I guess it’s easier to take the bottle out of a passed-out drunk’s hand than it is to take guns away from people who are more awake and alive than they’ve ever been.
Even strangers chimed in. Typical of the many slams I received was a fan of my older books and music who said “I can’t believe how quickly you went from being a hip, artistic guy to being a fat WalMart redneck Red Lobster-eating NRA asshole.”
The comments from strangers made me laugh, in a dropped-jaw kind of way. The comments from the actual friends hurt. But I remembered what my dear sweet mother would have said: “If they say things like that sweetie, they’re not really your friends.” And my dad told me, “Better to find out now than further down the road.”
I do not cling to my “victimhood” and you’ll never catch me at a support group or on Oprah bitching about this, (nor would she likely have me). All in all it has really just reinforced my resolve to reject idiocy in all its forms.
I just cannot wrap my head around the fact that so many people, including ones I thought were “cool”, cannot wrap THEIR heads around the fact that “social justice” is always accomplished by muggery and thuggery. And they get freaked out if I say “Guns aren’t bad, guns are good….And guns make it harder to be a victim of muggery and thuggery.”
I now have a lot more to talk about with my dad and my father-in-law. I no longer think they’re “square”, and I really love yakking with them now. They “get it.” They get liberty.
Those other folks can just stay in California, me and my wife will be in AMERICA. If you need us, we’re probably on a date to the rifle range. After that we’ll be at Red Lobster, then WalMart.
Michael W. Dean sings in the “feisty libertarian punk rock band” RIGHT ARM OF WYOMING LibertarianPunk.com
It looks as though the race for the vacant senate seat in Massachusetts has taken a turn against the Democratic Party. In a state as liberal as the Bay State, the election of a Republican by a solid margin cannot bode well for those that wish to experiment with socialism. This very well could be a gaze into the crystal ball concerning the 2010 Mid-term elections. At the very least, it will upset the “super majority” in the senate. Dick Durbin said that if Brown wins, that the Democrats will use reconciliation to force health care through the senate. Now that only 38% approve of the health care joke, and 56% oppose… Please Mr. Durbin, get desperate and send every moderate voter in the country away from your camp.
Chris “I felt this thrill going up my leg from Obama” Matthews is on TV right now covering the crucial Massachusetts Senate campaign…it’s looking like the Republican is winning, and Mathews is laughing about it all, and he’s criticizing Obama.
When MSNBC concedes defeat of their agenda, does that mean they are getting ready to just “back the winner” if the winner switches?
Reminds me of that Kent Brockman line on the Simpsons when he’s reporting about the alien invasion, “I for one welcome our new alien overlords….and as a seasoned broadcast professional, I could help them drum up support.”
Well before his decision (apparently in 1955) to embrace Ghandian non-violence as the best tactic in the national showdown over civil rights, King had been a committed civil rights activist, but also a man who believed in protecting himself and his family against constant threats of racist violence (which included the bombing of his home).
Accordingly, the pre-Ghandian King had been armed to protect himself and his family — to the point where his home was described by one activist as “an arsenal“:
King would later admit that at the start of the boycott be was not firmly committed to Gandhian principles. He had initially advocated nonviolence not as a way of life but as a practical necessity for a racial minority. When his home was bombed at the end of January, he had cited Jesus– “He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword”– rather than Gandhi in urging angry black neighbors to remain nonviolent. At the time of the bombing, King was seeking a gun permit, and he was protected by armed bodyguards. Only after the bombing did King alter his views on the use of weapons for protection. His reconsideration was encouraged by the arrival in Montgomery of two pacifists who were far more aware than he of Gandhian principles.
Charlie Wilson on a white horse while in Afghanistan. Photograph: AP (actual photo, not from the movie.)
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