Pragmatism…

…and an utter lack of principles.

The NRA elbows its way into the McDonald Case

One wonders if NRA members should be proud of their organization’s apparent newfound fiduciary conservatism. The so-called “premier” gun rights organization has now managed to finagle its way into the spotlight after someone else’s sweat and money rented the hall, built the stage, and set up the sound system.

NRA lawyers are now second guessing pro-gun lawyer Alan Gura’s expertise. And this, after Gura masterminded and navigated the vitally crucial landmark Heller case to a victorious decision in favor of the Second Amendment.

The NRA’s leadership must have looked at each other and realized that (coming so close on the coat tails of Heller) McDonald actually had a good chance at victory. I can just hear them clinking their drinks in toast and chuckling: “Gura will likely win this one too. Let’s get on board now!”

All that might not be so bad, but look who the NRA has hired as their head counsel in this wedge into McDonald: Paul Clement, the very attorney who advocated against our gun rights in Heller!

That’s right, Clement led the federal government’s charge to protect the Washington D.C. ban on handgun ownership!

JPFO gives us the scoop.

“Morality is personal”

Morality is personal. There is no such thing as collective conscience, collective kindness, collective gentleness, collective freedom. To talk of social justice, social responsibility, a new world order, may be easy and make us feel good, but it does not absolve each of us from personal responsibility.

Excellent quote and one I agree with and believe in. Go to The Devil’s Kitchen to see who said it and read the rest of a great post.

Changing the rules

StarTribune:

That means that any stimulus money used to cover payroll will be included in the jobs credited to the program, including pay raises for existing employees and pay for people who never were in jeopardy of losing their positions.

If you had a job and kept it, you count as “job saved by stimulus money.” Same goes even if your job was never in danger of being eliminated, or even if stimulus money was used to give you a raise.

via Captain of a Crew of One and The Reluctant Paladin

The Mythical Roots of U.S. Drug Policy

Article:

Soldier’s Disease — widespread addiction following massive administration of opiates during the Civil War — is the earliest and most often repeated example of a drug problem before the narcotics laws. The story exemplifies several basic themes used in support of continued drug prohibition — addiction is easy to acquire, hard to kick, and is a publicly noticed, i.e. asocial, problem. Soldier’s Disease, though, is a myth. Not one case of addiction was reported in medical records or the literature of the time; under ten references were made in the Nineteenth Century to addiction the cause of which was the Civil War; and no perjorative nickname for addicted veterans, like Soldier’s Disease, appeared in the literature until 1915, and it did not become part of the Conventional Wisdom of drug experts until almost a century after Appomattox.

How contemporary drug policy is based on something that never existed.

Criminalizing homeschool in Britain

HSLDA | Criminal Background Checks Part of Draconian Law Proposed for Homeschoolers

It is troubling to many homeschool advocates that the British government has gotten its facts wrong. It appears the government is trying to use any means necessary to justify their actions against homeschoolers. And though the report is currently the subject of a special inquiry by a parliament committee to determine whether it was conducted properly, its implications have raised concern with homeschool leaders outside Britain as well.

Emphasis mine.  It appears that way because it is that way.  The collective can tolerate no deviation.  The hell-hole that “Great” Britain has become was predicted by both George Orwell and Anthony Burgess, and it is a pattern for what they want the United States (and Canada for that matter) to also become.

Global Warming, Shmobile Shmarming

In case you haven’t heard yet, there is something of a ruckus going on because a global warming “think tank” has been hacked and many damning documents and emails have been released into the wilds of the internet.  Or possibly an insider has intentionally leaked them.

Good comment at Samizdata:

Until now scientists have tended to be regarded by the public as white coated, rather otherworldly and impartial seekers of The Truth. Now it seems at leaset some of them are willing to be government stooges, who will to tow the government line in order to keep their jobs and pensions. This was demonstrated a few weeks ago when a scientist was sacked by the British government for contradicting their policy pronouncements on drugs. Now this.

About the only good thing to come out of this is that people might be more skeptical (pun intended) when, in future, government proposes yet another restriction on their liberties in the name of “the science”.

Follow the link to Samizdata as a starting point and spend a while following links and reading for yourself.

A searchable database of the material may be found here.

One more comment from Samizdata to boil it down:

The defence barriers are going up. Roger Harrabin (Link)talks about these being peripheral issues and it being normal in science for comments to be made. He would be right except for a three minor points in the presentation of the science.

- the claims that the science is settled.
- the claims that anyone who does not agree is a crank or has ulterior motives (e.g. in the pay of oil companies)
- the claim that the demarcation between climate science & deniers is peer reviews.

All this shows is that climatology, like other empirical sciences, is partisan. The difference is that in climatology, only one viewpoint is funded and given repsctful consideration. More importantly, this is no mere ivory-towered scandal. On the basis of such partisan opinions are governments being manouvered into embracing world government and a major reduction in global living standards.

Related and pertinent: Crazy Talk at The War On Guns.

eTrace = National Gun Registry

In regard to this JPFO alert comes this response:

Are you aware that the BATFE has for several years been aggressively offering eTrace to local law enforcement agencies? They have the agency sign a memorandum of agreement and then the agency can run traces on any firearm they wish. The catch is that the agency has to agree to run a trace on ALL CRIME GUNS. The MOU defines a CRIME GUN as:

“The parties agree that a ‘crime gun’ is defined as “any firearm that is illegally possessed, used in a crime, taken into police custody, or suspected by law enforcement officials of having been used in a crime.”

The key word in this definition is “taken into police custody.” I have been a law enforcement officer for over thirty years and held positions up to the rank of Detective Commander. Only a very small portion of firearms that are taken into custody could possibly be considered a “crime gun.” TV and movies aside, we run into very few “smoking gun” cases where we have a firearm left at the scene a crime, and it is a rare instance that knowing who was the first lawful purchaser of a firearm would serve any investigatory purpose. We take hundreds of firearms into custody as found property, safe-keeping, recovered-stolen or in possession of individuals who have been arrested. In all those cases, including arrests, it is of very little consequence who bought the gun from Acme Sporting Goods ten years ago.

Please follow the link and read the whole thing.

A reminder

Obama’s communist cronies Ayers and Dohrm dedicated their manifesto to Robert Kennedy’s assassin.

Significance via Zombietime, The Daily Telegraph and Billy Beck.

(One of) The Big Lie(s)

A good fisking by Robert Higgs, via The Independent Institute:

As soon as I saw the headline of an August 10 article by financial columnist Peter Cohan, I knew that something was terribly wrong. It reads: “How did the politics of small government lead to big government bailouts?” This is akin to asking, How did the extinction of the elephants lead to Barack Obama’s election as president? If you make a claim of the form “A caused B,” but A never happened, then you are wasting your time by delving into the historical details of this bogus relationship.

Yet we continue to see one example after another of what suspicious readers may be tempted to view as the Big Lie that deregulation or other obliging government measures caused the present economic mess. I won’t go so far as to characterize this claim as a Big Lie. Although some of its purveyors, acting out of partisan motives, surely know that they are blowing smoke, others may simply suffer from economic ignorance, analytical confusion, or loss of historical memory. In any event, the public is ill-served by commentators who purport to speak with authority about our current economic troubles and related government’s policies, yet peddle this worse-than-sophomoric tale.

The enemy of my enemy is not my friend

But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy watching one enemy destroy another.

Pass the popcorn.

via Two–Four

Reasoned Discourse breaks out at the 2A Blog Bash

Read about it at The War on Guns.

The evil of democracy

Columbia Conservative Examiner: Democracy = Majority Rule = Tyranny

Suppose that the entirety of our society, from top to bottom, from the federal government to local government, was run according to ‘majority rule,’ which is commonly known as ‘democracy.’

I can state unequivocally that such a move would be the single largest disaster to be perpetrated on the human race since the Holocaust.

And he is absolutely correct.  In numerous discussions with hive-minded collectivists who think we live in, or should live in, a pure democracy, there are easy points to be made that will have them shutting up fairly quickly.  But I think my favorite is this:  In a pure democracy, 51% of the people can vote to exterminate the other 49%.

My goodness

A new DHS report that puts ALL “conservatives” into the “domestic terrorist” classification seems to have caused something of an uproar.

Well, it’s nice to be able to welcome so many new people into the fold, but really, we did try to warn you.

via The Liberty Sphere

Kumar appointed Minister of Cinematic Propaganda

Worthy comments here.

Just a spoonful of sugar

Mary Poppins’ ghost appeared in a Google Street View photo.

How did it get there? Google put it there. They have done this in other places and with other fictional characters such as the Paddington Bear and Sherlock Holmes.

So what?

So this:  if they can put fictional characters where they aren’t, they can put real individuals where they aren’t.

This shouldn’t be news to anyone; the technology to do this has existed for quite some time.  But expect them to graduate from light-heartedly putting famous fictional characters into actual photos to light-heartedly putting actual individuals into actual photos.  Such falsified images will be recognized as false but used for propaganda anyway because the mindless herds will think it is so cool, and because to them, the idea is more important than the fact.

Just wait for it.  And don’t forget to use plenty of sugar.

Robert Powell has been allowed to resign

News snippet at NFL FanHouse.

That’s not good enough.  Until I hear he has been reduced to gathering aluminum cans from the side of the road because no one else will hire him, I won’t believe justice has been done.

Yes, remember

Whose Paranoid remembers Goliad:

“FELLOW SOLDIERS: In the order of Providence we are this day called upon to pay the last sad offices of respect to the remains of the noble and heroic band, who, battling for our sacred rights, have fallen beneath the ruthless hand of a tyrant.

I have not talked much about such things, but I was born, raised and live in Texas, and such events as this mean a great deal to me.

Go thou henceforth and read the whole thing.

Innocence is irrelevant

Guilty:  Because we say so, because we have the power to say so, and that’s how we keep you in your place.

DUI BLOG : Bad Drunk Driving Laws, False Evidence and a Fading Constitution

Minneapolis, MN. Mar. 25 – That Daryl Fleck , 55, may not have intended to drive when he was found sleeping drunk in the driver’s seat of his vehicle, parked in his home lot at 11:30 p.m. “is immaterial,” Judge Terri Stoneburner argued in a Minnesota Appeals Court decision that upheld Fleck’s drunk driving conviction…

A sleeping drunk with no intent to drive or motion to constitute driving can now be charged under Minnesota’s Driving While Impaired statute. Make no mistake: This ruling holds that the potential to commit crime constitutes actual crime, and one is guilty until proven innocent. “There is no evidence his purpose for being in the vehicle was inconsistent with driving,” the opinion stated.

By the same “logic,” if you are found admiring someone else’s cool car you are guilty of car theft, and if you are caught window-shopping you are guilty of burglary.

Via Two–Four, who has a quote that you also must read.

Obama-Jugend

From the Minneapolis Conservative Examiner: The secrets behind the GIVE Act passed by Congress

Other interesting verbiage from HR 1388 which passed with a 321 to 105 vote:

expand and strengthen service-learning programs through year-round opportunities, including during the summer months, to improve the education of children and youth and to maximize the benefits of national and community service, in order to renew the ethic of civic responsibility and the spirit of community to children and youth throughout the United States

Civilian Community Corps shall be called the “National Civilian Community Corps” [and that is a very interesting and telling change of a single word --Darkman]

the Director determines appropriate “Uniforms”

From the Misc. section, #6104: (6) Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.

Uniforms, nationalism mandatory service for young people.

Let me put this very bluntly:  before you take my children, you will have to kill me.

When we have an army…

Obama volunteers hunt budget support in Birmingham, Alabama:

Those who gathered at Kelly Ingram Park in downtown Birmingham were urged to enlist others who share Obama’s vision and to stay away from trying to convert naysayers.

“We’re looking for supporters,” said DeHaven of Hoover, one of the event’s organizers. “We’re not looking for a fight. That will come later, when we have an army.”

The volunteers are part of Organizing for America, the same grassroots, national network credited in large part with Obama’s quick rise from obscurity to president. Birmingham and 11 other sites statewide were part of a national push this weekend by Organizing for America to trumpet Obama’s spending proposal.

Across the metro area, volunteers gave their opinions about why Obama’s plan is good for the country’s future. Then they asked those willing to sign a pledge of support for the budget. Supporters’ e-mail addresses and other contact information were collected, to keep people engaged and to recruit more volunteers.

Did you get that? This is the first step: building a database of like-minded allies for further “education,” and motivation to bring in still more in a governmental pyramid scheme.  When the collective gets big enough, their operations will change from persuasion to force.

via Sipsey Street Irregulars