Both Wings on the Same Bird of Prey

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 06 Sep 2005 12:00:00 GMT

From clairefiles:

"Many years ago, 3 of us went elk hunting right after Thanksgiving. The weather deteriorated from cold and snowy to windy and rainy and 45 degrees, prime hypothermia weather. Being idiots, we attempted to hunt and got soaked through our rain gear. At camp, we changed into dry clothes and tried to start a fire. All 3 of us were experienced at starting fires in bad conditions, but ALL the wood available acted like it had been sitting on the bottom of a swamp for years. Even newspaper to use as tinder was too damp to burn. After an hour with no success, one of the guys pulled a quart of motor oil out of his rig, poured it all over the kindling and tossed on a match. That worked. The moral: sometimes nothing but napalm will start a fire. Be prepared." -- Swein Asleifson

and:

"Right wing, left wing... both wings on the same bird of prey." -- GigaBuist

"Using the world's shortest political quiz, and superimposing a bird in flight... you would, of course, have the left wing opposing the right wing, libertarians would reside somewhere near the brain, and hardcore statists would occupy the poop chute." -- velojym

# The Onion - Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over' - satire from just before Bushnev's first inauguration. Hehe. [smith2004]

# Loretta Nall - The Great Prison Panty Rebellion of Alabama - Ms. Nall attempts to visit her brother in an Alabama prison and falls afoul of an unwritten rule. Power-mad bastards! Don't miss this one. [claire]

# Robert Tracinski at The Intellectual Activist - An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State - a plausible explanation of the behavior of the sheep and wolves remaining in New Orleans. [RonW]

...Jack Wakeland then told me that early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. [Update: I have been searching for news reports on this last story, but I have not been able to confirm it. Instead, I have found numerous reports about the collapse of the corrupt and incompetent New Orleans Police Department; see here and here.]

There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

...

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. And they don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.

People living in piles of their own trash, while petulantly complaining that other people aren't doing enough to take care of them and then shooting at those who come to rescue them?this is not just a description of the chaos at the Superdome. It is a perfect summary of the 40-year history of the welfare state and its public housing projects.

# Vin Supryniwicz at The Las Vegas Review-Journal - Let's not confuse 'rights' with mandates - Vin believes that a woman should have the right to end an unwanted pregnancy, or have access to devices and medications to prevent that pregnancy. But it's a far cry from that to Annie Laurie Gaylor's contention that these should be paid for with tax money, though I doubt anyone could convince Ms. Gaylor of the error of her ways.

# quiet at The Claire Files Forum - Re: Price Gouging - why "price gouging" is good, and everybody should wholeheartedly support it. [clairefiles]

This is the way the MARKET works - Prices can be "gouged" because the items are SCARCE. When profit can be made by offering the scarce items, more and more people will try to get those scarce items into the area.

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair