Halloween, 2002
"Hunter's Thirty-Eighth Rule: If in doubt, go shooting."
From office email:
A skeleton walks into a bar and asks for a beer and a mop.
From kaba:
"Never could any increase of comfort or security be a sufficient good to be bought at the price of liberty." -- Hilaire Belloc
From The Federalist:
"I have never in my life seen a faster and bigger 180 on the death penalty than among white liberals in Virginia, Maryland, and the D.C. area." -- Rush Limbaughand:
"You know, I'm a fan of Clintonomics, and this administration is destroying in months our eight years of economic progress." -- Sen. Ms. Hillary Rodham-Clinton-Rodhamand:
"These days I can't read The New York Times' strong opinions without shaking my head sadly. Then I turn to its editorials." -- Paul Greenbergand:
"It occurs to me (years too late, of course) that Bill Clinton should have been known as 'The Wizard of Is'." -- Lyn Nofziger
From scopeny:
"The average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty - and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies." - H.L. Mencken
madmedic at ar15.com - From a discussion started by a newbie question about the difference between an AR-10 and an AR-15:
Umm,...Im sorry guys,...but I think you are all incorrect.
You see,...I spoke to the firearms experts over at The Brady Campaign, and they informed me that the AR15 is a highly accurate semiautomatic assault machine gun that is very inaccurate, and not suited for civillian purposes...and that only policemen, and soldiers should own them, because they are very accurate, and could be used to shoot people from hundreds of yards away.
Civillians should not own these weapons for target shooting, because they are very inaccurate, and civilians might accidentally shoot the person next to them.
Civilians might also be manipulated into a murderous rage by the pistol grip on these rifles, finding it hard to resist spraying volley after of volley of highly accurate gunshots at people.
They also said that the AR15 fires the very deadly, long range 223mm Magnum sniper bullet, capable of hitting a man right between the eyes from 6000 yards away.
The AR10, they informed me, is not a rifle. It is a portable, shoulder fired, fully automatic, radar guided, high capacity, assault sniper, anti aircraft, truck mounted, surface to air cannon.
They said that civilians should under no circumstances own AR10s, because one shot from one of these weapons can completely destroy a two story building.
MarkFiore.com - Why We Must Invade Iraq - a Flash animation on all the reasons we must attack, er..., Iraq? [smith2004]
Lady Liberty Fireworks is a Java applet that lets you create fireworks over an image of the Statue of Liberty. [trt-ny]
I talked last night with a young woman who lives in Switzerland. When I said that I liked Switzerland because they defend themselves with the citizen militia, that every male is a member of the army, and that they all have their military rifles in their homes, she told me that it was no longer that way. Many men now opt out of the army, and you now need a license to have a rifle in your home. Bummer. Bad bummer.
Hillary Rodham-Clinton-Rodham left a voice mail on my home phone yesterday urging support of the local socialist, er... democrat, for state assembly. It must have been a recording. Glad the "tape" is a disk drive at the phone company, not analog tape in an answering machine. I would have had to burn it.
I sent the following email to Bushmaster Firearms, the manufacturer of the rifle alleged to have been used by the DC "sniper":
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 22:18:16 -0500
To: customerservice@bushmaster.com
From: "Bill St. Clair" <bill@billstclair.com>
Subject: Thank you for helping to defend our freedom
Cc: bill@billstclair.com
To all who work at Bushmaster,
Thank you for helping us to defend our freedom. Defense of freedom requires powerful tools. The rifles you make are some of those powerful tools. As with any powerful tool, a rifle can be abused. Don't let anyone convince you, even for a moment, that Bushmaster is in any way responsible for the abuse of its products.
Bless you.
-Bill St. Clair
bill@billstclair.com
Nick Hull - Committees of Correspondence - I did a Google search for "Committees of Correspondence", the title of yesterday's issue, and found this gem. It eliminates taxation without representation. You pay taxes if and only if you vote. Start with Mr. Hull's Letter from the Secretary. He wants to return to voting allowed only by freeholders, people who own land free and clear. Probably a good idea, assuming you think that voting is a good idea... From the Bill of Rights page:
The Bill of Rights must be thoroughly protected from all encroachment. If a legislator introduces or votes for any law that would violate any part of the Bill of Rights, or if a judge rules in favor of such legislation, or if any civil servant enforces such legislation, such criminal action must be punished. This punishment needs to take two forms to make it fit the crime. First, the legislator, judge, or civil servant must be barred for life from holding any government employment or receiving any government payment. This would include at least pensions, social security, tax refunds, or any other money or non monetary compensation. Such people would be forbidden to vote, but would have to pay all taxes double. Second, the district that elected the legislator or judge will be removed from the voting lists for 10 years. The person who supervised the civil servant will be fired.
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The right of citizens to keep and bear weapons shall be absolute and include at least all firearms, destructive devices, chemical weapons, explosives, etc. All citizens have the absolute right to go armed, to carry weapons openly or concealed. Compulsory registration or taxation of weapons or ammunition is prohibited. This right applies even to convicted criminals, unless a jury decides to suspend parts of this right to a convicted violent felon or traitorous government worker.
Note: While this wording appears extreme, it is necessary to include all weapons that might be useful to defend yourself against criminals, as well as maintain the ability of Americans to protect themselves against government tyranny. For example, mace is a chemical weapon, and a primer is an explosive.
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The right of the people to trial by jury shall be absolute in all cases where the defendant is put at risk for $100 or any other non cash amount. The defendant shall have the absolute right to say anything to the jury for his defense. In any criminal trial, the victim or next of kin will have the same privilege, including introducing evidence that may have been illegally gathered. In any trial without jury, the defendant may at any time pay $100 and walk free.
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All property shall have the same rights as its owner. No property can be seized unless its owner is convicted by a jury. Any property taken as evidence must be replaced immediately by equal property lent by the seizing authority until the case is closed. Money must be replaced with money, cars with cars, etc.
No provision of the Bill of Rights shall be infringed, changed or voided by any foreign or domestic treaty or other legal trickery.
Jill Seiler at WFIE in Evansville, Indiana - Woman Arrested for Stripping at Evansville Airport - Eliane Aguillaume, a French woman removed her shirt and bra after being felt up by airport sekurity. She was arrested for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and indecent exposure. Too bad noone shot the cops and screeners involved. [smith2004]
Heather Wokusch at Common Dreams - Terrorist Training, American Style - it's good to remember, in these days of anti-terrorist rhetoric, that the United States has maintained a terrorist training center for quite a while now. it is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC, newspeak for the School of the Americas). School of the Americas Watch is planning a massive protest in Fort Benning on November 15-17. H.R.1810, which will shut down the WHISC, has been languishing since May in the House Armed Services Committee: "Executive Comment Requested from DOD". This bill has 112 sponsors, usually enough to get it out of committee. [grabbe]
Which is probably why the Bush administration is pushing through plans to set up a successor to WHISC in Costa Rica. With billions in US military aid funneled to dirty wars throughout Latin America, local fighters are needed to carry out Washington's agenda, and their training cannot hinge on such niceties as law or public opposition. Case in point: Colombia has received military equipment and a $1.3 billion aid package- not to mention over 250 US military personnel on the ground - to help the government fight against what it calls counter-insurgents (frequently peasants or community leaders such as educators, union organizers and religious workers). Add to that a full 10,000 Colombian WHISC/ SOA graduates and plans to set up WHISC-oriented training locally, and it's clear the US is not only inviting mission creep, but more importantly entering a bloody and unethical quagmire.
Sheriff Michael E. Cook at Sierra Times - The Snipers: Another Excuse For Gun Registration - in light of the recent "sniper" attacks, it's more important than ever for every American to exercise his God-given right to keep and bear arms. As I told my wife yesterday, I want a culture where if someone is seen on the street without a holster on his hip, people will look at him strangely and think he's crazy. [sierra]
The people who are using this crime and act of terrorism to attempt to take more of our Second Amendment Rights should be arrested and taken to court for treason. They are the lowest of all to take advantage of anything like this for their own personal political agenda. I think it is a crime for them to do this.
Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman at Multinational Monitor - Bowling for Baghdad - another prompt to watch Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. It's not about the guns, it's about the culture of violence bred by our country's "leadership". From what I've read about Mr. Moore elsewhere, he's no friend of gun owners. And I don't much like seeing the eight-kids-a-day statistic trotted out (it may be true, but most of them are teenage gang members. Good riddance). [kaba]
Last week, your nation's capital was a bit more surreal than usual.
First and foremost, there is the sniper.
And just when the sniper arrives in the neighborhood, here comes Michael Moore with his much awaited critique of violence in America -- Bowling for Columbine.
We have three words of advice: go see it.
In one scene, Moore, a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, goes to door to door in Toronto, Canada, doesn't knock, and just walks in.
Apparently, in Canada, many people don't lock their doors.
This in a country, Canada, where there are 7 million guns for a population of 33 million.
But in Canada there are fewer than 400 gun deaths a year.
In the United States, we hit 400 in two weeks -- that's 11,000 gun deaths a year.
In the U.S., eight children under the age of 18 are killed by guns in America every day.
Moore raises a disturbing question: if it's just the guns, stupid, then how come Canadians are not slaughtering themselves the way we are slaughtering ourselves?
This question takes Moore to Littleton, Colorado, the site of the Columbine massacre, home to the war machine Lockheed Martin, the war machine that sponsors the news on National Public Radio.
There he interviews a spokesperson for Lockheed Martin, who tells Moore that the weapons the company builds there are used by the United States for defensive purposes.
Moore then cues up the war footage and runs through the history of U.S. aggression throughout the world -- from Central American, to the Middle East, to Southeast Asia.
This juxtaposition of government and corporate violence with grainy film from the Columbine school's security camera capturing young children massacring young children drives home Moore's larger point -- that the violence and duplicity in our society starts at the top.
Rachel Lucas - That's it, I'm pissed - a good rant on the dems turning Paul Wellstone's memorial service into a political rally.
First of all, most of the people in that auditorium, especially Wellstone's family, should be ashamed of themselves. People booed when Trent Lott walked in, and they booed when Jesse Ventura came in. THEY BOOED!!! At a goddamn memorial service!
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My dad has some very strong beliefs. He probably has some colleagues he doesn't like very much because of those beliefs. But if my dad died (God forbid), and those colleagues showed up at his memorial service to show their respect, and anybody in the room treated them with anything other than civility and friendliness, I would personally kick them in the teeth. And I am NOT kidding. I am appalled that Wellstone's family not only tolerated the booing, but that they haven't issued an apology to those who were booed. Shameful.
Rebel Gray at ar15.com - Civil Disobediance in opposion to stupid gun laws - a response to LA city's ban on .50BMG rifles. Sit tight. If they come to your house to take your weapon, shoot the bastards. [ar15.com]
Bill Walker at Laissez Faire Electronic Times - Snipers, Guns, and Lightsabers - Wow! [grabbe]
The safest areas of the US are Midwestern rural areas. Rural areas are full of guns. I grew up in rural Ohio in the 1960s. There was a gun in every farmhouse. In my parent's house, there was a loaded pump- action .22 rifle leaning by the back door. Every now and then one of the adults would pick it up and shoot a starling or crow out of a tree in the yard between the house and the barn, then replace a round and put it back. I remember that rifle being there from the time that I was four years old. Trigger locks? Not only had we never heard of them, no one would understand what they were for. That rifle was the least dangerous item on the farm for me (a lot safer than those Ayrshire bulls)... because I never touched it until I was eight, and then I was taught how to use it. The same was true for the majority of farm children. In a county where nearly every farm child over ten carried a .22 or a shotgun, murder was practically unheard of.
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Crime is not even the main issue. No one who studies the history of the German Jews, the Ukrainian kulaks, the Chinese peasants, or the Khmer can be unaware of the larger dangers of disarmament. Once people become fully domesticated, they can be wiped out on a massive scale beyond any private crime. Politics is a negative-sum game, and there is always a way to gain power by extermination: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and a hundred lesser 20th-century “great men” were all political necromancers. In the final analysis, the course of evolution is always against the disarmed. No higher organism stays alive very long without some sort of weaponry.
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So do I think that we can solve all our problems by just handing out Winchester rifles to inner-city public school inmates? No. Guns are morally neutral; they can't think. Giving massive amounts of firepower to gang leaders in the inner cities would be like giving modern weapons to gang leaders in the Middle East, or Afghanistan, or... any of the other political gangs that the US government arms with weapon technology centuries ahead of their local culture. Now if Drug Prohibition were ended, street gangs would have no money for weaponry, and hip-hop music lyrics would turn to celebrating the glories of Unix programming. Without government price supports for drugs, the inner-city economy would be business-driven. And then, yes, I'd feel safer in a city where all inner-city children had weapons, not just the employees of the drug cartels.
George F. Smith at Laissez Faire Electronic Times - Massachusetts No-Brainer: End Taxes - why Massachusetts voters should approve Question 1 next Tuesday.
Over in Iraq, we hear that Saddam skunked his opponent, 11 million to nothing. That the opponent failed to exist didn't hamper the election's usefulness for maintaining the people's illusions about their government.
We do things a bit differently here. Our ballots are emblazoned with candidate names, providing a semblance of choice. But look closer. Get behind the candidates' smiles, coiffures, and rhetoric. Do you see a significant difference? Not when it comes to taking your money. We have two major parties, but only one greedy hand. That hand's reaching deep into your pocket whether you vote Republican or Democrat.
Question 1 on your November 5th ballot will ask if you want to end the state income tax. Clear your eyes, take a deep breath, and read it again: END the income tax. Not raise it. Not lower it. But killing the contemptible thing once and for all. You, dear people of Massachusetts, have a real choice in this election.
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If we don't end the income tax now, the day will soon arrive when there won't be an income tax to end. The government will simply take the next logical step and confiscate every cent you and I earn and pay us an allowance based on how cooperative we are, or how needy, or who we know. "Allowance" is an appropriate term -- we're all children to the state. If you think this projection is unrealistic, think again. Much of what it does today was envisioned only in the worst nightmares of our Founders.
