America is a violent place. But I don’t mean the much-discussed shootings – which are both sporadic and incidental. No, the real violence is invisible because it is all around us – routinized and legalized to such an extent that most of us hardly take notice of it anymore. But nonetheless, it has corroded our souls – and some of these souls lash out in ways that differ from the acceptable way – that is, via the ballot box – but which when you stop to think about it express the same ugly ethics: Other people’s lives are my playthings. And, expendable.
Are you any less a victim if you are murdered by an Adam Lanza – or the thug scrum sent by the government to do exactly the same thing? If anything, Lanza’s motives were purer, more honest. He cut to the chase without all the intermediate folderol. Such as “you owe” letters from the county (or federal) tax thugs. In both cases, aggressive violence against peaceful people is the common thread.
The only difference is the preliminaries.
My statement will chafe in some quarters precisely because of the near-totality of the conditioning of this country’s people to the idea of acceptable aggressive violence. It is considered – by most people – perfectly ok to restrict the liberty of another human being or deprive him of his property so that it may be given to others . . . via the ethical alchemy of the ballot box. Hey, presto! Theft and extortion become taxes, “paying your fair share.” Kidnapping at gunpoint becomes “arrest” – and your execution (if you attempt to defend yourself) resisting arrest.
All nice and lawful.
But aggressively violent, just the same.
Process does not obviate the violence – it merely masks it. Makes it palatable by evasion – in much the way that sauces were originally invented as a way to cover up the taste of spoiled food. But the rot remains – and it poisons all who partake of it.
Expecting people pickled in authorized, legalized violence since childhood to not occasionally become overtly violent themselves is probably expecting too much. The ethical line has already been thoroughly trampled. Surely, it is no coincidence that as American society and thus, American government, grows ever more predatory – internally as well as externally – violent lashings out by ordinary people become ever-more-commonplace.
Monkey see – monkey do.
Children are raised up in a society that is now openly contemptuous of the right of peaceful individuals to simply be left in peace, to not be told what to do in every last detail – or else – by others with guns and the apparatus of the state behind them. In which quite literally nothing is not – in principle and thus potential – on the table and up for a vote. They learn the forms and methods of democracy early on – drinking deeply of the soul-poison that a “majority” having voted may do as it wishes to anyone.
Limitless power.
Endless violence.
They are also taught the necessary corollary: That absolute submission to authority in every last detail is the duty of every individual. But here is where it gets interesting: They come to understand that they can be the ones exercising this authority. This power.
This lawful violence.
All they have to do is get elected – or appointed – and they will acquire the legal power to order other people around; to take and dispose of the property of others at whim – even to have them killed. It is a game played with great success by the more sophisticated sociopaths a society such as ours produces in ever greater abundance – the ones who appear neat and clean, suit-wearing and well-coiffed. Who never or rarely have to raise their voices – much less their own hands. Never doing the actual violence themselves, but merely ordering it be done by others on their behalf – and enjoying the rich sense of power it gives them.
But what of the less sophisticated sociopaths? The less adroitly violent who see (and envy) the lawful violence exercised by others – the others who get away with it; nay, who are rewarded for being good at it? What of the misfit cop-wannabee, the unsuccessful “leader” whose leadership qualities have not been recognized? Such defectives feel the same desire to lord it over others – are convinced internally of their natural right to lord it over others – but lack the ability to get elected or appointed or move up the corporate glad-handing ladder.
When this power-lust is frustrated, what happens? You get a range of results – from the passive-aggressive suburban harpy housefrau who uses the HOA to torment her neighbors… to James Holmes and Eric Lanza. But they are all part of the same continuum. The inept Lanzas and Holmeses (because they only manage to destroy a handful of lives during their brief “careers”) are on the left side of the scale – and the proficient, such as a senator or president or chairman of the Federal Reserve, all the way to the right side of the scale. They destroy lives on a mass scale – and are cheered for it rather than imprisoned.
The lesson is simply this: We ought not to expect a peaceful society when the generally accepted basis of society is reciprocal plunder via the ballot box. When people can elect thieves and in which aggressive violence for any reason is approved of – or even tolerated. Such a society turns human beings into two-legged rats. Cornered rats, prepared – out of Darwinian necessity – to lash out, lest he be the one lashed out against.
When no one is secure, everyone is fearful. Ready to do unto others as has been done unto him, pre-emptively. A society in which someone’s benefit entails some else’s victimization cannot be a peaceful society. Aggressive violence begets aggressive violence.
That some is performed “outside the box” is not only to be expected, it is the inevitable end product of a society as ethically demented as the society of early 21st century America.
Throw it in the Woods?
It was decided by mission control that the crew of the space shuttle Columbia would be better off not knowing they were about to die. Mission Control lacked the humanity to even give the crew a chance to try to save themselves.
In the same manner, Mission Control of the American economy and state has decided the American taxpayer would be better off not knowing their country is about to die. All your savings, all your property, everything you rely on, none of it is going to survive the crash. There is only a small window of opportunity to find a way to save yourself and your property, you need to act now, it’s your life and livelihood at stake.
Picture of Columbia Crew
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/01/31/article-2271525-1746D34A000005DC-544_634x370.jpg
Article about Columbia Disaster
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2271525/It-better-die-unexpectedly-Columbia-Shuttle-Crew-Not-Told-Possible-Problem-With-Reentry.html
Personal Blog of NASA Flight Team Member Wayne Hale
http://waynehale.wordpress.com/
Excellent analogy, Tor. The only difference between the shuttle disaster and the coming economic disaster is that the former was an accident while the latter is preplanned.
“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.” – Aldous Huxley
How can someplace be bad when it’s called The Home of the Brave, The New World, or a Super Power?
Aldous Huxley interview-1958
Warning This Vid May Cause:
Cutis anserina, which are the bumps on a person’s skin at the base of body hairs which may involuntarily develop when a person is cold or experiences strong emotions such as fear, nostalgia, pleasure, euphoria, awe, and admiration.
The reflex of producing goose bumps is known as horripilation, piloerection, or the pilomotor reflex. It occurs in many mammals besides humans; a prominent example is porcupines, which raise their quills when threatened, or sea otters when they encounter sharks or other predators.
Other creatures get goose bumps for the same reason, for example this is why a cat or dog’s hair stands on end.
Dear quotes,
Dead on.
Only “consensus reality” makes sociopathy appear “normal.”
Enough sociopaths vouch for each others’ “normalcy,” and presto, the tiny minority of sane individuals are labeled “tin foil hat nutjobs.”
I agree comrade. The glorious collective crap is a failure. Old marxist tripe has been a failure everywhere it has been tried and it will be here as well. It is going to be so fun to watch all the touchy feely fairy tales crash to the pavement and shatter. Looks like the Norks (North Korea) are not impressed by comrade dear leader the immaculate messiah, they are targeting U.S. cities in their missile fire practice drills. They better be careful or Imam Hussein the Immaculate will hunt them down like the Benghazi attackers.
Benghazi is some manner of US/NATO base for Al-Ciada. Not that far fetched to imagine them funneling heavy weapons to Syria, ginning up the Arab Springs and funding any Jihad-Joe that promises to help keep the Muslims from doing their own thing.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/benghazi-us-nato-sponsored-base-of-operations-for-al-qaeda/5309017
No Tor, AlCIAduh hides in your and my underpants until the TSA scares them away with their magic fingers.
If they didn’t, the boogeyman would jump out and crash the plane.
You’ve not been reading your Grimm fairy tales; go to the back of the re-education camp and recite fifteen “Hail Obamas”.
Will do, Methylamine! Here are full procedures we will soon endure when exercising our right to transportation:
Complete Search – A strip-search (removal of all person’s clothing), a search of the person’s effects, and a visual search of the person’s body cavities to look for contraband.
All sections of the body, including body cavities, are carefully inspected. The
body search is conducted as follows:
(A) Have the inmate remove any artificial limbs, removable dentures and other
prosthetic devices and staff inspect.
(B) Staff will examine casts and dressings with a metal detector, or have medical personnel inspect and/or remove and replace such items.
(C) Have the inmate to vigorously run their fingers through their hair while shaking the hair. Staff may ask the inmate to part their hair in several places to view scalp for contraband, body parasites, injuries, and to
determine the inmate is not wearing a wig or hairweave. If hair is shorter, or if needed staff may direct the inmate to use a wide tooth comb in the inspection of the hair scalp.
(D) Within a safe distance visually inspect the ears, nose, and mouth (with a flashlight, if possible). Do not place fingers into the openings.
(E) Instruct the inmate to lift arms above head. Visually examine the armpits
and, if needed, have inmate to comb through body hair.
(F) Instruct the inmate to hold hands out, spreading the fingers. Visually examine the hands in a palm up and down position, as well as between the fingers.
(G) Visually examine the inmate from the chest to the groin; include the breast, navel and any excessively fleshy or hairy areas.
(H) From a safe distance visually examine the groin area. Inspect the pubic hair. Have the inmate spread feet to shoulder width.
(i) For males, have the inmate lift his scrotum and penis simultaneously. Visually inspect the area by squatting and using a flashlight, if necessary. Have the inmate drop his scrotum while holding his penis. Inspect the area for any contraband that may be taped to the penis, and look for any open lesions. If the inmate is
uncircumcised, have him pull back the foreskin.
(ii) For females, visually inspect the genital area and have the inmate remove any sanitary napkins or tampons and dispose of them. Have
her spread her vagina and visually inspect inside visually using a flashlight, maintaining a safe distance. Have her do a deep knee
bend to expel any objects. Only trained medical personnel are to perform an internal vaginal search.
(I) Have the inmate turn around. Visually inspect the entire back area including hairy areas and ask the inmate to lift up any excessive folds of flesh. Have the inmate spread feet to shoulder width, bend over at the
waist and spread the buttocks. Using a flashlight, at a safe distance visually inspect the anal area for contraband, body parasites, open lesions, and signs of sexual abuse Only trained medical personnel are to perform an internal anal search.
NC Operational Search
http://www.doc.state.nc.us/dop/policy_procedure_manual/f100.pdf
NC Prison Procedures
http://www.doc.state.nc.us/dop/policy_procedure_manual/index.htm
http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/6300000/Crypt-Keeper-tales-from-the-crypt-6395192-354-360.jpg
@Bevin…
[hamster wheel solidarity song]
The Wheels on the bus go round and round…round and round…
(USSA approved version of joyful national pride)
The People on the bus all smell like pee…smell like pee…
(actual song to sing, if you ever ridden a USSA inner city bus)
[speaking of Lincoln]
My family hated Lincoln so much, we had to play with Lee Logs.
Lee Logs – Family Guy
Tor, “My family hated Lincoln so much, we had to play with Lee Logs.”
Lee logs! I forgot about that on Family Guy! I bow to you sir, I bow to you…
In re Lincoln:
I admire the actor Daniel Day Lewis. Love his movies. But I will not see “Lincoln” for the same reason I would not see (much less pay to see) a hagiography of Pol Pot or Stalin or Hitler.
Daniel Day Lewis’s portrayal of Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood and Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York are two of greatest acting jobs I can think of.
He towers above the pathetic statist drivel the studios are peddling and inspires you with a glimpse of what men once were, and once more can become, once this United Nations bubble bursts.
Hagiography – adding that one to my vocab.
-An uncritical biography, treating its subject with undue reverence.
From Greek hagio- (holy) + -graphy (writing).
Hagiocracy
a government by holy persons; also a place thus governed)
Great movie, great performances. I’ve watched both many times.
Great actor, great flicks. But the only thing either of those characters would inspire in me is distance. Otherwise, its likely the answer to the question, “is this our time?” would be “yes”, & there would be blood.
Yup –
He was also superb as Nathaniel (Deerslayer/Long Rifle) in Last of the Mohicans – one of my all-time favorite movies.
Yes eric, a great movie. I have to watch it now and then to remember how it was….you and anyone else you could depend on kept your ass from getting offed every second of the day. No place for the feint of heart, wish I could have lived back then…the old Scottish highlander talking in me now….family name given to us by Robert the Bruce when a many times back grandfather saved Robert from a bull by killing it.
Yup –
Leaving aside the bad teeth – and no motorcycles or muscle cars! – it would have been a great time to be alive. One could deal with Clovers directly back then.
I have always had great sympathy for American Indians (I use the term on purpose, as per Russell Means – who played Chingachgook in the movie). Like Southerners, they experienced firsthand the sociopathy of the blue coats. Sheridan & Sherman will one day hopefully be reviled as genocidal mass-murderers along with the German Einsatzgruppen.
Dear Tor,
Sorry I missed your response.
The time difference you know. Your day is my night.
Re: Lincoln.
Have you ever noticed how Americans today have the rankings of “greatest presidents” exactly wrong?
The worst clovers, such as Lincoln, TR, Wilson, FDR, are perceived as the “greatest presidents,” because they “did the most.”
In reality, the greatest presidents were the so-called “do nothing presidents.” In medicine the rule is “First, do no harm.” The “do nothing presidents” did the least harm.
The once medico ideal, now fossilized in cartel amber, “Hippocratic oath”.
The politico ideal, immortal, “hypocritic oath”.
Dear oz,
A SF Examiner article on “Do Nothing Presidents” says,
There are a few presidents that preside over an uneventful term. No major legislation passes into law and little is accomplished… As a result, these men can be considered “do-nothings” as their legacies are limited and presidential accomplishments few.
Talk about your back asswards.
My step-father used to say, “Do something – even if its right!” A variation on “even if its wrong”, I suppose.
I wish I could say I used to say, “I’ll think about it & get back to you.” The coefficient of adversity did not allow for that, back then.
Yes. Backwards. So is conscious pursuit of “legacy”.
Dear oz,
Re: “legacy”
A local Taiwan newspaper wrote:
That is something Obama has been concerned about lately. He invited a number of historians to the White House for dinner, before his swearing in. He wants to know how future historians will judge him.
I don’t need to tell you I laughed out loud at that!
Ozy, at least he had a sense of humor, knowing you’d probably screw up but might hit a good lick.
Bevin, To the victor go the spoils…and the revised history. If we don’t wake people up it could be a “glorious” history.
Dear Eight,
True enough.
There’s an old Chinese expression:
成者為王，敗者為寇
Pinyin chéng zhě wéi wáng, bài zhě wéi kòu
“He who wins becomes king, while he who loses becomes a bandit.”
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%88%90%E8%80%85%E7%82%BA%E7%8E%8B%EF%BC%8C%E6%95%97%E8%80%85%E7%82%BA%E5%AF%87
Bevin, the question then becomes who is the most moral, the king or the bandit?
“He wants to know how future historians will judge him.”
All things equal, I know how future hagiographers will “judge” him.
eightsouth…yeah, humorous, from an adequate distance. or elevation. like thru a bomb sight, maybe…lol.
Bevin, once a group of US senators came to visit the Texas legislature when Coke Stephens presided. It was a madhouse, nobody where they should be, a cacaphony of noise, everyone speaking at the same time. One senator remarked “Coke, why don’t you bring the house to order?” to which Coke replied “They might pass some laws if I did that”. Good thinking Coke
Dear skunkbear,
It’s a close call.
Probably the “bandit” is less culpable. He’s sort of like the armed robber who drops his gun and flees in a panic before carrying out his crime.
The “king” is the one who actually follows through on his crime.
Dear Eight,
Amen to that.
Another example of why the Mafia is actually less harmful that “The Government.”
At least they stop bothering us once they get “their money.”
Dear Bevin,
Gerald Ford, the 38th Squeegee King, seemed to break the least Bastiatian Windows, which is all you can hope for from a dictator.
Ford ended involvement in Vietnam nine months into his presidency.
He presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession during his tenure, and yet practiced laissez faire and never stepped in to “solve” anything.
He signed a presidential pardon for Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal, which probably cost him being re-elected.
Congress had to become active in foreign policy meddling, since Ford had such little interest in it.
Betty Ford, his wife, and her tyrannical ERA amendment failed to become ratified and make things any worse than they already were.
Ford seemed to do as little harm as anyone could hope for.
Dear Tor,
I almost mentioned that.
Funny how Ford himself didn’t fully appreciate our perspective.
Remember how he apologized for not being a Lincoln?
As Gary North put it:
His most memorable phrase: “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln.” Too bad he didn’t say it at his inaugural. That may be because he didn’t give an inaugural address — a tradition I favor.
Also, the local Taiwan newspaper editorial I mentioned also wrote:
“The U.S. Presidential Inauguration a coronation of the world’s most powerful individual.”
Coronation indeed.
1.4 Billion/year for the family of the 44th Window-Washer-In-Chief American King
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210323/Obama-family-costs-taxpayers-1-4BILLION-year.html
$25,000/year for each guy who squeegees the 163 floor Burj Khalifa building
http://www.youtu.be.com/vLZGA5jiIls
“He signed a presidential pardon for Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal, which probably cost him being re-elected.”
Ah.
A measure of the change, Then vs. Now.
Tricky Dick was hounded out of office because he …. lied to help cover up a low-rent burglary/bugging of the opposition during the ’72 campaign. Today’s Dear Leader has kill lists – and no one seems to give a shit.
So true. Maybe it’s because of the ridiculous amt of money spent on his image? I’d take Nixon over the Chimp or Dear Leader any day.
“Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.”
“I played by the rules of politics as I found them.”
Richard M. Nixon
hotrod…
After eightsouth’s Gods & Generals clips, saw this up the corner:
Not like the Van Helsing rig. But wow! See also the vid of this in action at 100 yards. I remember a scene from “Green Berets”, elevated sentries being dispatched with crossbows…..
ozymanidas & hotrod – i used to be a competitive archer and have some familiarity with crossbows. that PSE model looks pretty cool, especially since you can attach it to an AR-15 receiver. that 100-yard video is a bit of hyperbole though. any standard crossbow would shoot accurately at that distance no problem.
eric – thanks for all the articles. i’ve been reading many of them for some time, just never decided to jump in the conversation before. thought you might like to know your voice is reaching beyond your regulars – the unseen as Bastiat would put it.
Eightsouthman…..
It IS his birthday today. Stirring speeches.
Another fascinating one was Nathan Bedford Forrest.
@BrentP on January 21, 2013 at 4:28 am:
That thread was becoming un-navigable!
I believe something happened–but the inconsistencies are piling up so fast I think whatever happened bares very little resemblance to the soap opera portrayed by State Media.
On another note: the wife/kids and I went a-shoppin’ for a country place this weekend. We were up near Livingston in East Texas, found a couple of very nice places. While talking to the realtor and her partner–both women in their late 60’s–we got onto how people out there felt about the 2A.
You can only imagine–semi-rural Texas? Yeah…cold dead hands were mentioned.
So I ventured a little further afield and asked the roughly 70-year-old lady, a very sweet grandmotherly type…”Well ma’am, what did you think about that Sandy Hook thing?”
Her reply just floored me:
“I was talking with my husband and, well, I don’t want to sound crazy, but *I* think there’s something real fishy about that, and all these shootings happening so close together. It just seems real convenient, if you know what I mean.”
Let’s check the boxes:
* 65+ years old
* female
* churchgoer
* conservative
And SHE’S suspicious of Sandy Hook.
I think they fucked up royally.
You/she are right on the money. You just know there’s planes in the air at all time; let’s call them “Spin Team Six.” They can be on the ground and running in 60 seconds whenever something starts going down. Ratcheting up the See Something Say Something storylines.
A few disgruntled mundanes were busy shooting a few kids at Sandy Hook. Suddenly the CIA psy-ops glee club joins them on the ground and really get the thing cooking and singing a real show-stopper!
I can hear them all cackling on their secure lines! This is Gold I Tell You! This is Gold!
Gosh, gee-whiz Tor…I wish I could find even a tiny smidgeon of a reason to disagree with you on this.
Thanks Boothe, I greatly appreciate your agreements (and disagreements – re: trespass principles of an earlier thread). Is a Condo Association a person? (I don’t know). Both are welcome and necessary for me to develop.
Beyond just throwing cold water on their pathetic little Cointel Campfires, I want also to be part of Freedom Conflagration Too Big Too Fail! I have no idea how to get on LRC, but anyone who does is welcome to anything I put on here. If you want a release, email me at [email protected] and I’ll send you one.
Internet File Lockers don’t exactly trespass(in my mind), but they do create copies of others property, and can be claimed to affect the rights holders’s property rights in an indirect way.
Is plagarism and duplication a violation of NAP? To me, even if held to be technically so, I would rather enjoy a Consequentialist Libertarian present, than wait around for a more pure Deontological Libertarian future where no NAP violation of any stripe occur.
New Faces of Cyber Mt. Rushmore?
http://static.stuff.co.nz/1328754130/985/6391985.jpg
Bram van der Kolk, Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Kim Dotcom
Disclosure: I sometimes fantasize about having Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars worth of offline media property “thanks” to men like this.
I don’t find it plausible that an individual can trespass in Yosemite park, for example. Property requires an identifiable owner. When you get to too high of aggregation level, it becomes absurd to call something trespass(I believe) I mean, don’t all 316 million Americans “own” a national park?
Ever watch semi-reality TV? For instance, “Operation Repo” or for old timers “Dragnet”. Names changed to protect the innocent type stuff? Well that’s what the mainstream media news is today, except without the name changes. It floats somewhere between reality TV and semi-reality TV. Before it was just reality TV. They used editing, omission, and spin to create the story they wanted. Now it’s just based on a true story with all the liberties that entails.
It’s one thing to see “American Chopper” and think that’s real, that’s just editing, omission, etc. It’s another to think “Operation Repo” is real. As the media pushes to a new level of fabrication some people are going to recognize it to be false even if they didn’t recognize the manipulation before.
We’ve never gotten the whole truth from the mainstream media, but now that level of truth has fallen to record lows. “The network evening news, based on the true stories of Janurary 23rd, 2013” That’s where things are now.
Then there is the old playbook problem. The same playbook has been in use since before I was born. The way people are manipulated. The manufacturing of consent. They aren’t even mixing it up or changing the ways of doing things and they are doing it more often. It’s wearing out. People who have been around for awhile now have a decent chance of seeing it if they just think a little.
Yes. Bering Sea Gold!
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/bering-sea-gold/videos/bering-sea-gold-under-the-ice.htm
Let them eat cake! Let them run their playbook. I just want a way to not play their game. I don’t expect reality to change overnight for everyone. Just for me and mine.
Squirrels must Protect the Nuts of the Internet. And the Nuts in real life. The “childrens” want file sharing. That is where we will fight them and win. Our guns protect our computers. The Tin Foil Hat wearing Squirrels of the world Unite. Protecting themselves and the dreams of the “Childrens.”
File Sharing does not violate the NAP. So saith the Squirrels. Individuals living in the advanced nations are adversely affected financially, true. Corporations are adversely affected, true. Some kind of value must be given back by the Internet, perhaps much more than is given back now. Using medieval goonery is not the answer. Prosti-Cutors are not the answer.
I already have my mega.co.nz account at the ready. And my powder is dry. You don’t need to exhume the past, wear a tri-corner hat, and re-enact the civil or revolutionary wars(unless you enjoy that sort of thing). Just see the principles at play and transmogrify them into the future. Can you grok it?
The FIP will work with all content providers and content associations. We will be victorious. Wikileaks. Cop Violence Videos. Alternative Medias Truths. I hold theese things to be self-evident. The founders of the WWW have beheld a new continent. The West is rich enough to allow the transfer to any of The East or the South to view our shit for free, or nearly for free. But we have a demand. We demand that you allow us our freedoms. We will allow you all the clusterfuck bondage schemes you seem to enjoy. Just leave us our freedoms.
Mega sized Kim Dotcom brings back stronger Mega File Locker
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2265779/Megaupload-new-site-Kim-Dotcom-sticks-fingers-FBI-launches-file-sharing-website.html
Mega is Back – Megaupload Song
Editor’s Note: Added this
lol, again…
You’re a weaver, synthesizer, alright. Some sort of NLP is it? ☻
Hadn’t heard, looked over your links yet, at what is hopefully good news re Kim Dotcom. If it is good, I’ll be surprised.
Woah, is that a black smiley face? Awesome.
Kim seems to be doing well for himself.. When confronted by a threat like US LEO, the key is not to remain at Red Severe level. Tone down to Orange High. Then drop to Yellow Elevated. Continue to mitigate down to Blue Guarded. Finally, make compensations and concessions to achieve Green Low. Terrrrrr is bad, mkay?
Try to stay Green, no matter what official actions are hitting you. Green also means an opportunity, there is a way through their madness if you keep your wits about you.
Kim Dotcom a few hours ago
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/in-attendance-the-mega-crew-parties-prepares-for-a-fight-ahead/
It’s Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 10:54 AM NZDT
Current time zone offset: UTC/GMT +13 hours in Auckland.
It seems like a coalition can be formed to support the nations and groups who remove wish to remove criminalization as an option for Big Media, National PR firms, and LawFirm Retinues. Are there nations free of Big Media influence I wonder? I refuse to organize using Twitter or Facebook, but continue looking at other ways.
Kim Dotcom Quotes
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Kim-Dotcom/quotes/
“Our company and assets were taken away from us without a hearing … The privacy of our users was intruded on, communications were taken offline and free speech was attacked. Let me be clear to those who use copyright law as a weapon to drown innovation and stifle competition: You will be left on the side of the road of history.”
If someone sends something illegal in an envelope through your postal service … you don’t shut down the post office.
If it wasn’t for a giant comet hitting Earth, we would still be surrounded by angry dinosaurs
– KDC
“I refuse to organize using Twitter or Facebook”
Good. Me either.
The massive individual reptiles are gone, but mosaics of littler ’tiles have more than compensated. I’d rather battle t-rex…..
thx for links………
oh, alt2 is al jolson…☻
Neunzig neun-leven Luftballons
Hast du etwas Zeit für mich. Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich.
Von neunzig neun-leven Luftballons. Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont.
Dieses Lied sang ich im Jahr 1984. Vielleicht du noch an mich erinnern? Von neunzig neun-leven Luftballons. Und dass sowas von sowas kommt.
Do you have some time for me? I will sing a song for you.
Of ninety nein-leaven hot-air balloons. On their way to the horizon.
This song I sang in 1984. Perhaps you still remember me?
Of ninety nein-leaven hot-air balloons. And that something comes from such things.
I remember that song well. I always preferred the German version over the English.
Capt. Kirk is the same in English and German.
So is ninety nine for some reason.
Kraftwerk @ MoMa explains — #s —
Anzahl, Zahl, Nummer, Reihe, Ziffer, Ausgabe, Heft, Numerus, Seitenzahl, Autonummer, Kreation, nummerieren, zählen, beziffern — alles klar?
My name is ???? Galt… ???? = John, Jean, Juan, João, جون ,ג’ון Джон, Γιάννης, 约翰, जॉन, ஜான், Giovanni = ????
99 written numerically is 99 everywhere?
(neunzig neun)
Dear Tor,
“99 written numerically is 99 everywhere?
(neunzig neun)”
Don’t know about that.
But 69 is the same everywhere.
“But 69 is the same everywhere.”
Adding a little buoyancy might change it…lol
Dear oz,
Mebbe. Mebbe.
Doesn’t it always do so ray?? Only joking!!
It’s true. Your constructive criticism of ray(with Only joking! caveat) ; ray’s constructive criticism(well really mostly praise) can be beneficial if done “correctly.”
It takes little to unsettle or unbalance a writer saying something new. He is an easy target. He has to traverse the Introvert/Extrovert nexus. He must synthesize, and retain his status as someone with whom you can sympathize.
A critic on the other hand can launch salvos from either an Introvert or an Extrovert stronghold, whatever he prefers, and is nearly always at the advantage.
But ray said many of his own new things.
In an earlier thread, he brought up important points about my scheme. (a scheme of increasing the environmental buoyancy to allow a newborn increased mobility. ray pointed out, this may also retard his musculoskeletal development)
[Perhaps, humans should be more amphibious. It would seem elderly people would also live much longer and more freely in the same high-buoyancy architecture that would assist newborns.]
“musculoskeletal development”
Perhaps the buoyancy just needs some vibration added to it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_body_vibration
Of cosmonauts & aquanauts….
Water would be a better environment IMO and buoyancy can be changed chemically. With buoyancy being decreased inversely to strength thus providing a more gentle transition from the womb to outside world. Hmm. I wonder. I did not have a chance to watch the mouse breathing oxygenated water. Was that the point in posting it?
However, if your low gravity environment could be made to be over a larger area: why do we need to develop the muscles at all? 🙂
I was thinking some about the reflexes and realize that they aren’t likely a ‘learned’ thing and my analogy wasn’t really apt. The question I guess that I have is that simply a part of ‘normal’ development? Put another way, would changing something like the child’s environment in order to prevent the reflexes disappearance necessarily have that effect?
Yes on the mouse.
Environments with little need for muscles could be very profitably sold to the elderly and the infirm.
I’m less sure what all would work, many things should be tried, to make “our kind” more robust. If some kind of breakthrough is made, then the whole NAP thing can come along for the ride. Look at Jews, Chinese, French as examples. They hold their culture and traditions no matter where they are in the world. We can live within the world of force, but must never be a part of the world of force.
A good rule of thumb is whatever attributes a child has innately are better than any artificial specifications we replace them with, because that’s what science/tradition claims is best.
Similar to the way a computer fresh from the manufacturer is “better” than one that has been on the internet for a year and is all bogged down with malware and bloatware.
I’d like “us” to have something of that nature. “Their” ways are not kosher for us. This can start even while we are in the womb. Power must be taken, it can never be reasoned or asked for.
I’m more sure that the “one size fits all” mode of world architecture is incredibly inefficient.
The same technology would benefit the aging as well as the infants. What about a high oxygen content high pressure room, so there’s no tank needed?
NASA & DOD have doubtless developed all kinds of miracle technologies by now, but they keep them proprietary except for their Space Bus & The Orbiting Section 8 Housing Space Station. I don’t want to be free of the box merely for reasons of self-determination, but also for practical economic and scientific reasons.
A) “Part of the NAP is not inciting or fomenting violent civil strife.” +10.
B) The small emerging group of people who fully adhere to NAP, I will refer to as Porcupines. The mascot of the Free State Project. These noble creatures made resilient by their spines, and live easily because they are well camouflaged.
C) The large socially constructed group of people like Michelle, who benefit from the “Free Shit Project,” I will refer to as Capybaras. These big social rodents reproduce quickly, they have a huge appetite, you run into them everywhere and they are very vocal in their claim to the throne, by virtue of their numerical dominance.
Michelle – Obama Phone Lady
D) The infowars will be won from the neck up. Minorities, as Michelle explains, are people on food stamps, welfare, disability. It is the self-selecting group including all demographics who stand in the lines to get Free Shit, from the Free Shit Project.
Some of the Capybaras have a high economic potential. Many of them are of little to no value.
E) Goatscape. Black people are not victims of white people. Libertarians are not victims of statists. Porcupines aren’t entitled to gloat in superiority over Capybaras. On the contrary, they are losing a war against them.
There is always an element of freewill and choice. Each individual deserves to be exactly where he is. If someone takes your guns, or your paycheck, you have only yourself to blame.
Think of a game of Texas Hold’Em. You sit at a particular table. You have a particular dealer and opponents. You are dealt bad hands and good hands. The variables do not negate the fact that in the long run, it depends on your skill and behavior, whether you win or lose the game.
Don’t goatscape your bad luck, or having tough opponents, or being in a police state. Consider only yourself, the variables and factors under your control, and what you can do to win this next hand, and more often every subsequent hand.
Conservatives & Republicans love to goatscape. All will be well, if we return to previous morality. Just kill or lock up all the bad guys. Once we are all homogeneous in religion and belier, the problems will all go away. A total surveillance net to find all the Lance Armstrongs will bring us to salvation.
F)Monolithy. “Think of the black bricks from 2001. The bricks in the wall of your local school or prison. The whole vast edifice of nihilistic sophistry. If the Free State Project is to be replace the Free Shit Project, we must abstain from building something new using the same false percepts and sleight of hand deceptions.
Democrats & Progressive love to engage in Monolithy. We need to pass the right laws. Elect the right people. Impose the right academic solutions and all will be well. The problem is those libertarians, evil rich, republicans, conservatives. They want to starve our Monoliths. They want everyone to suffer and die. They won’t pay their fair share and perform their alloted tasks, so that our glorious Monoliths will be a majestic creation, greater than nature itself even.
G) The most important factor of all might be the Beavers. Think of this group as the men of exceptional ability and wealth accumulation. Ron Paul, Alex Jones, Chuck Baldwin, Internet Architects, Preppers, Cop Block Videographers, Austrian Economists, Lockean Philosophers, Backyard Tinkerers, Koch funding of Libertarian Thinktanks.
The Free State Projects (Whether in NH, the Internet, South American Galt Gulch, or your own neighborhood) will need men of ability. Men of mind. Men with Producer & Capital Goods capable of building an advanced micro-economy. Men with deep pockets and no intolerable Hidden Agenda.
“The small emerging group of people who fully adhere to NAP, I will refer to as Porcupines. The mascot of the Free State Project.”
I didn’t realize that was their mascot. I like that. My brother talks about the FSP sometimes. Maybe that IS a good solution? Seems like it could also be a way to get wiped out. Der furher has let it be known that peaceful withdrawal from the union will not be tolerated.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/our-states-remain-united
“Our founding fathers established the Constitution of the United States “in order to form a more perfect union” through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. They enshrined in that document the right to change our national government through the power of the ballot — a right that generations of Americans have fought to secure for all. But they did not provide a right to walk away from it. As President Abraham Lincoln explained in his first inaugural address in 1861, “in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual.” In the years that followed, more than 600,000 Americans died in a long and bloody civil war that vindicated the principle that the Constitution establishes a permanent union between the States. And shortly after the Civil War ended, the Supreme Court confirmed that “[t]he Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.””
Oh, well, if you put it that way… (Italics mine.)
“The problem is those … evil rich … They want to starve our Monoliths. They want everyone to suffer and die. They won’t pay their fair share”
I read this and in my head it was the whining voice of Ed Asner. 😉
“My brother talks about the FSP sometimes. Maybe that IS a good solution?”
That existed under Articles of Confederation. Was a stepping stone to what the tptb had in mind, probably, all along. Since its a been there done that, the FIP is much more compelling to me.
“I” is for individual.
*thumbs up*
FIP, that’s the notch beyond top notch ozymandias! Very compelling indeed.
Since we are not Siths, and don’t deal in absolutes, both can be encouraged as a replacement for todays pyramid schemes, but I too like FIP even better.
The FSP will still have free shit, and is well under way, but not shit taken by violence.
Under the FIP, everyone accumulates and minds their own shit. The FIP mascot will be the squirrel. The slogan could be “Defend Your Nuts” or “Protect Your Nuts” There’s a flag a lot of freedom lovers would fly.
http://www.freewebs.com/freakyfools/protect_your_nuts_closeup.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd96/ArcLightning/muscle-squirrel.jpg
lol…I like squirrels. I feed them peanuts, in shell. Helps get then thru winter. Fun to watch.
Dear ray,
The White House flakcatcher wrote:
Our founding fathers… enshrined in that document the right to change our national government through the power of the ballot — a right that generations of Americans have fought to secure for all. But they did not provide a right to walk away from it.
My response to this Orwellian spin doctoring of Plain English?
As the old joke goes, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
The “right to change our national government through the power of the ballot” is the right to remain in our cages and run in place on the hamster wheel of democracy.
“… when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.”
The right “our founding fathers” were talking about was the right, nay duty, “to throw off such government.”
Agreed.
“the right to remain in our cages and run in place on the hamster wheel of democracy.”
I like that. See the government protects our rights. 😉
Messages from Dear Leader Jar-Jar Obama!
Yoosa must remain in your cages and runs in place on yoosa hamster wheels of der democracy.
Ooh mooey mooey I love you!
Yoosa should follow me now, okeeday?
My forgotten, da Bosses will do terrible tings to me TERRRRRIBLE is me going back der!
Weesa got a grand army. That’s why you no liking us meesa thinks!
Monsters out there, leaking in here. Weesa all sinking and no power. Whena yoosa thinking we are in trouble?
Jar Jar
Jar Jar with NATO.
I’ll agree about JJ best sequence. 🙂
Dear ray, Tor,
To be honest, I wasn’t even 100% sure what those damned things were called.
I googled “hamster cage” and discovered, sure enough, that’s indeed what they are called.
Re: Jar Jar = Stepinfetchit
Lincoln did not “free the slaves.”
How could he?
The State by its very nature enslaves people, because it uses, correction, is physical coercion. Lincoln, by resorting to The State, merely enslaved everyone uniformly, regardless of skin color.
Tinsley – I understand your frustration with 90 million gun owners apparently doing nothing. Coop – I also understand your impatience with the apparent lack of direct April 19, 1775 style action. And Tinsley there are probably considerably more than “only” 90 million gun owners. Estimates range as high as 200 million or nearly 2/3 of the populace; but due to weapons sold pre-1968 GCA, private sales and even homemade arms, no one, not even the PTB know how many arms are in private American hands. So let’s call it “just” 100 million gun owners for the sake of argument. So misattributed or bogus or not, Adm. Yamamoto’s alleged quote about “a rifle behind every blade of grass” has a certain amount of truth to it with respect to America.
Now let’s also say Methylamine’s estimate that 2% to 4% of our populace are psychopaths (i.e. evil) is correct (Lobaczeski and subsequent research indicates a more pessimistic estimate of 5.5% to 6%) . And let’s say the more conservative estimate of 2% is mirrored in the number of “good people” in the modern U.S. (i.e. those that will actually take positive action). That’s two million people who would actively take a stand against tyranny. That is a pretty significant army even if lacking Hellfire missiles, Predator drones, armor and a surveillance / intelligent network. The possibility that 2 million pissed off, armed victims might take up arms against them scares the hell out of the PTB; some of them might not make it to the helicopters waiting on the rooftops. The PTB saw what happened to Muammar Qaddafi when he didn’t get away in time. This sobering thought does indeed serve to keep them in check, at least somewhat, even though we’ve still seen oppressive policies being implemented with increasing fervor recently.
Things would arguably be much more oppressive here if there weren’t “90 million” gun owners posing a threat to the power elite in the U.S.A. Hence the repeated push for civilian disarmament. The mere fact that so many Americans are armed is in fact “doing something” even if none ever take up arms or fire a shot in anger. It requires one to spend his own money to procure a weapon, at least store and maintain that weapon, and many folks actually take it out and at least become nominally proficient with it. That is “doing something” to preserve the other Amendments Tinsley, because the 2A is the Palladium of Liberty. The other original nine would be gone completely and wouldn’t even receive lip service if we are disarmed. The Bill of Rights would not have been penned to begin with if the populace of the day had been disarmed after the war.
You also don’t know how many of us focusing primarily on preserving the right to bear arms also educate people around us about the futility of drug prohibition and the dangers of Internet censorship. I personally am a strong proponent of the entire Bill of Rights and will try to interject the message of Liberty in any conversation I can. So don’t assume that because I tend to be more vocal about keeping our teeth and claws, that I am any less adamant about preserving our other essential rights. It’s just that I fully understand the consequences of losing the most important right and choose to focus the bulk of my time, effort and money on 2A issues. And since they tend to be implicitly anti-gun, I can’t spare a dime for the ACLU despite their supposed support for the 1A.
Sadly, we can be relatively well assured that there are far fewer “good people” than 2%, based on the testimony of one former WW II German POW held by Russia. When he and several other POWs decided to try to gather a small force (100 men) to take the camp over and escape, they were only able to find 10 men willing to help…out of 30,000! That’s only one in three thousand prisoners suffering under essentially inhumane conditions! But even at that, it would still amount to over 103,000 people at our current population base and that’s a substantial force in its own right. If the situation “goes hot” and a few people see their family members and friends become “collateral damage” they won’t need to many recruiters to swell their ranks. We certainly know this to be true based on actual experience in the various places the U.S. gun-vernment imposes its will around the globe. So overt oppression will lead to an escalation of hostilities and just as Lincoln thought it would be a cakewalk, our fat, Tee-Vee dazed fellow countrymen may very well surprise us if and when the S really HTF.
As for you Coop, sometimes a man just has to do what he’s gotta do. But at this stage of the game we need folks like you with a fine mind, sharp tongue and a ready keyboard informing anyone willing to listen, rather than becoming martyrs or being labeled “violent criminals” that the PTB will use as poster boys for disarmament (think James Holmes and Adam Lanza here). Part of the NAP is not inciting or fomenting violent civil strife. I realize that based on popular media, it would appear that we are at the point of no return; all I ask is for you to continue to be patient. When men go out looking for blood generally they will find it; and only really sick men like what they find. The day may come when we have other choice than the use of force, but don’t long for that day, I implore you.
“they were only able to find 10 men willing to help…out of 30,000!”
That’s it. The socio top scum are not the problem. Its all the authoritarian revering water molecules below that are…what they are: the medium that provides the float.
“103,000 people”
How many warm bodies in “al queda”? How much “collateral damage” do the blackhats say is “worth it” to get to those warm bodies? Infinite.
Gandhi keyboards, Milgram pilgrims, & mass produced weapons of mass destruction – place your trifecta bets.
Watched “The Pianist” again recently. But for the eventual, late (but better than never), Warsaw ghetto tiny fraction, there was no shortage of “patience”. Or paper shuffling (getting the right documentation – who you know b.s.).
“All good things come to he who waits”…but, “he who hesitates is lost”…..
The hoi polloi need their cheese. Whatever we manage to do for ourselves, we should not disturb too many of them. We are stronger than them, they are not a threat to us if we remain vigilant and prepared.
We are escaping the maze, with any luck, we may one day have something for them. We can Learn from them, but we need neither join them, nor beat them. We are not one of them, we’re not constrained in the ways they are constrained.
The High Achieving Beaver, The Noble Principled Porcupine, The Aspiring Capybara – still a mere rodent, but aspiring to be better. Whoever we are now, today, we are working towards something better for ourselves.
Some of them are just mice. Others are dangerous rats. We can abide them all, however numerous they may become.
We know there has been a constant state of growth and ascension. That it is not merely a matter of slicing the pies we now know about.
We are escaping the Maze to find new pies, and to make more pies. The additional pies we make available will not just be for ourselves, but for everyone. Some of our pies we will offer voluntarily. Others will be taken from us by fraud or force by the Rats & Mice. It matters not, for we want only to have freedom to have as many pies as we are able to produce.
Gulliver’s liberty hinges entirely on his not reclining amongst the Lilliputians….
“Of course I still have my life to lose, but regardless what I do I’ll lose that anyway. The only choice I have in the matter is how, and that’s a pretty damn good choice to have”
Yes, good point. I’m reminded of the lyrics to a Paul Kennerly song that state “You give your life to live your life”.
It’s like the TJ Jackson view that we must never accord a higher value to our mortal lives than to our souls. Jackson said that his belief was that God had set the hour of his death, so he could proceed on the knowledge that until that hour came, he was immortal.
“It’s like the TJ Jackson view that we must never accord a higher value to our mortal lives than to our souls.”
An alternative for those of us who have two soles, & not that Hutch character’s last name: that which is inevitable is irrelevant.
@tgsam – “How can one account for the fact that ninety million gun owners have done absolutely nothing to defend any rights other than the right to keep and bear arms?”
Correct. Eric and I have gone round about this. Why do you have a gun if you’re not going to use it? Regardless if the criminal works for the govt or someone else.
Even the most ardent liberty defenders still feel they have too much to lose. They’re still willing to endure the violations and usurpations.
That’s why guys like me will be the ones to fire the first shot. I have nothing. I’ve amassed no wealth or land. No stuff. Just knowledge, experience, and skills.
Of course I still have my life to lose, but regardless what I do I’ll lose that anyway. The only choice I have in the matter is how, and that’s a pretty damn good choice to have. 😉
It’s one thing for us to point out that our overlords seem to revel in controlling us. Here it is directly from the horses ass named Marthe Kent, OSHA employee:
“I like having a very direct and very powerful impact on worker safety and health,’ she recently told The Synergist, a newsletter of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. ‘If you put out a reg, it matters. I think that’s really where the thrill comes from. And it is a thrill; it’s a high.’ Later in the article, she adds, ‘I love it; I absolutely love it. I was born to regulate. I don’t know why, but that’s very true. So as long as I’m regulating, I’m happy.’”
http://overlawyered.com/early-years/june-2000-archives-part-3/
Scroll down to June 28
One of many little Hitlers we are paying to tell us what to do.
Dear Rod,
That’s hilarious.
Such a clear and unmistakable confirmation that libertarian assertions about clover psychology were not hyperbole, but cold, hard statements of fact.
Behold the unfathomable cuntery that is Marthe Kent, OSHA New England regional administrator.
http://www.osha.gov/dcsp/alliances/regional/reg1/asse_granite_pic.html
http://www.osha.gov/as/opa/quicktakes/images/Jennifer_Nohl.jpg
http://www.osha.gov/as/opa/quicktakes/qt07022012.html
Tor, I have to laugh. I’ve spent 2.5 decades with trying to deal with the customs dept, the ag dept, the US BBB, and similar entities. Seems like the BBB is the only one amenable to all things, they just want to create commerce and the ag. dept. is full of people who know their stuff, just can’t get anything done after presenting to the top people. Nothing to say about customs, just a bunch of bureaucrats who won’t allow anything….and maybe that’s not so if you have enough connected people to spread it around in front of you. I have worked with a large amount of farmers and everything goes fine until you get to the upper echelons and then it just goes to hell. No doubt, if you had deep enough pockets to grease the skids things would pick up but it would be a never ending graft. I’ve seen some of the most stupid things you can imagine come from OSHA. We once had a pic of an OSHA approved cowboy, hilarious, tennis shoes, kneepads, shinguards, outriggers, safety glasses, etc. Wish I still had the pic to show you. Customs bureau, no you can’t bring that seed into the country. Ok, but the ag, dept has no problem. They just don’t know. We keep the country safe from foreign invaders. Ok, then. I’m sure Asian beans would simply take over.
Here you have a legal cowboy.
Also a legal bull rider complete with safety spurs and a 10 gallon crash helmet. Enjoy.
http://www.sam-hane.com/sass/oshacowb.htm
Some Safety Dialectic Douchebaggery
• Protect your hands, you need them to pick up your pay check-• Your wife will spend your 401K; If you get killed at work today-• Those precious fingers don’t ignore. . . Or they could end up on the floor-• Safe crane operation is uplifting-• Falling objects can be brutal if you don’t protect your noodle-• Safety glasses: All in favor say “Eye!”
Tor, thanks so much for the cowboy. It was back in ’85 or so I first saw this, can’t believe it’s on the net. A bunch of us old cowboys got a great laugh out of it since we had to do the OSHA two step constantly. I was a low man but could get more out of an OSHA inspector than anybody. Hey, is that your car out there, the Z? Nice, very nice. I guess you bs, bs, bs, Oh yeah, me too. Yeah, I had one. Have you looked into doing this, that? Get them talking and feeling like they had a like-minded person to deal with and you could get lots of things they wrote up taken off their list. Human nature. They’re doing that job until something better comes along.
“I like having a very direct and very powerful impact on worker safety and health,’ she recently told The Synergist, a newsletter of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. ‘If you put out a reg, it matters. I think that’s really where the thrill comes from. And it is a thrill; it’s a high.’ Later in the article, she adds, ‘I love it; I absolutely love it. I was born to regulate. I don’t know why, but that’s very true. So as long as I’m regulating, I’m happy.’”
Key riced all my tea, how absolutely devoid of any self-respect and intelligence does a human being have to be, either to “work” for an organization like OSHA or to make such an utterly time-and-space-rendingly idiotic statement like that quoted above?
Just plain fucking FRIGHTENING. And for so-called “adults” who are “working” as “journalists” to lap this verbal diarrhea up like it was liquid ambrosia is simply beyond comprehension.
Hi guys, it is nice to read another well thought article by Eric, and later, reading the on-line discussions that ensue afterwards. I like posting to this site because I see a wide variety of opinions from Hard Libertarians to Cyber-Anarchists.
I am going to write on three long topics related to the issues that have been discussed on the comments board – with the perspective of a historian. First, I will write on the nature of media manipulations-mythologies and social control, next, political hegemony, and finally, legitimacy, extreme contradictions in rule, and armed revolution against tyranny.
The last shooting in Newtown was simply transformed into a cultural mythological event by the corporate media. There have been many other massacres in American history, some committed by state terrorists, i.e. the FBI-ATF, such as Branch Davidian, Waco fire bombing and massacre in the 1990s, and others committed by local state terrorists and paramilitary forces, i.e. the local police forces, such as the massacre and bombing of the MOVE compound in Philadelphia during the 1980s. None of these events sparked outrage nor event mythology, and in fact, the corporate media encouraged the general American public to laugh at and cheer on the legal murders of those people. Why did the Newtown shooting change into a super mythologized event that regular citizens are still talking about?
The political-economic elites in NYC, DC, Chicago and LA, such as Bloomberg, Schumer, Soros, Rockefeller, Cuomo, Kelly, Emmanuel, Daley, Obama, Biden, Brown, and various Hollywood hacks, etc., have been clamoring for the elimination of legal American gun ownership for many years now. Meanwhile, these same political economic elites have slowly been destroying the other amendments to the Constitution using the successful ‘gradualist’ methods that have worked in the past.
With the various cultural wars, such as the Drug War, the War on Sexual Predators, the War on Carbon Change, the War against Drunk Driving, etc., our fourth, fifth and eight amendments have been eroded substantially. Using gradual and greater state surveillance with grander police state powers, the first amendment is slowly dying. Other past tyrannies have used similar strategies of gradualism to get what they wanted, and they have usually worked with mass urban populations.
Similar methods were also used through US military interventions in the 1980s. It first started with a small invasion on the Caribbean island of Grenada, then advisers in El Salvador and in Guatemala in order to help other extermination campaigns, later into Central America putting combat troops in Honduras to help the Contras murder people in Nicaragua, afterwards, the full-on invasion of Panama and the kidnapping of a previous CIA trained dictator, Noriega Eventually, in 1990, Bush I launched his popular attack and executive war on Iraq with the economic sanctions that led to about half a million civilian deaths. The American populace had got used to ‘popular wars’ again in the media world, and the stigmas from Korea and Vietnam would be put in the past. Hollywood and the corporate media also encouraged this gradual mythology with multiple stories of GIs being spit on when landing on the tarmacs, and with POW-MIA rescue movies from Chuck Norris to Rambo. Now we have war movies about Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Forgotten in this mythology campaign was that the GI resistance in Vietnam made it impossible for the US Empire to continue its genocidal war in Indochina. But the corporate media myth stayed intact: America lost wars like Vietnam and stale-mated in Korea due to political intransigence, and Americans not willing to support the troops abroad.
After every lone wolf mass shooting, the same political economic elites have constantly clamored against guns. But this time with Newtown it was different, the corporate media could use it unlike the previous mass shootings in post offices, malls and movie theaters , etc. – and as Eric previous noted – the children were involved. The corporate media uses emotionally signified images and events to trigger mass media mythologies, all in order to influence social control. In the US, one of the emotional triggers is ‘the children.’
A similar mythology event was constructed with the attack on the World Trade Towers in 2001. A new name was created ‘9-11,’ and it showed buildings blowing up with victims buried beneath the rubble. Massive explosions also work. Like 9-11, the event has a new name, ‘Newtown,’ and with the constant harping by the corporate media, the media slaves who watch those TV programs will talk about Newtown in the future similar to the 9-11 mythology event as if it changed ‘national consciousness.’
Britain used similar corporate media frames with the ‘tragic death’ of Lady Diana in the 1990s. After that mythological event, the Royal Family, even with its parasitical uses of public taxes, continued to have its supporters in British society. ‘Tragic Death of the Princess’ works in Britain, while ‘the children,’ ‘massive demolition,’ and ‘betrayal to your country’ work in American society. Once an event becomes mythologized, it becomes ideological, meaning people take sides on the issue, and this leads to citizens changing their thoughts and actions related to one event. This media trap leads to social control. Now the populace is mentally and verbally preoccupied on a certain issue.
Unfortunately, and as was stated in previous posts on this site, most gun owners have also fallen into these traps. How many gun owners were willing to question the official narrative of the attack on the World Trade Towers in 2001? I guarantee that most of those middle aged men with white skin privilege – and their proud firearms collections became even more flag waving, calling for the US to invade about 50 countries.
This leads into my next topic on political hegemony. Most people think that political hegemony means imperial domination. This is actually not true. Hegemony is when certain political alliances, temporary frameworks, ideas or philosophies become a national political movement between the regular people in a society and the government or the state.
For example, many male gun owners with white skin privilege still think the Republican Party, Reagan Democrats, the police, and the US Military are on their side in the gun debate. It might seem that way in the corporate media, but this fleeting alliance is done for one purpose only – grabbing votes for the next election cycle in order to continue the rotten system of the status quo, where nothing really changes and things actually get worse.
The Republicans have to do this. Their economic policies usually favor the top earners in society, such as owners and major stockholders for monopoly holding companies, corporations and multinationals. If the Republicans only stuck with supporting such people, it would stay a fringe party. In order to win votes from the American people, it has to concede to other issues that are important for many Americans, even though they might not like such issues.
The three issues that they have recently used are Christian Evangelical religious sentiments, Law and Order ( really racial issues), and the gun owner rights. These three cultural hegemonies enable a political party with a very small group of wealthy investors and owners to create a political alliance with other social groups in the States for successful electioneering. The point of this lesson on political hegemony is that with a corporate media mythology event, many of these same gun supporting Republicans will change their hats within a few minutes in order to not to buck ‘public opinion.’
The same is true with the police and the military. I know this to be true because I was in the US military. All soldiers take an oath to fight against enemies both foreign and domestic. All soldiers go through Basic Training for brainwashing in the use of strictly following orders. All militaries function this way. I know of very few militaries in world history where regular soldiers could just disregard orders easily. Usually soldiers that disregard orders are in rebellion or in mutiny, such as the US military in Vietnam during the 1970s. Soldiers will not kill their own families. But if you send an attachment of soldiers from another part of the country to kill another social group in another part, most will comply with the orders – and the US government knows this too.
This leads to the final part of my post on legitimacy, extreme contradictions in rule and armed rebellion. Citizens and subjects accept the legal murder and violence of the State because the State holds the legitimacy in fighting the ‘bad guys.’ Criminal gangs, mafias and lone individuals do not. All well-funcitoning state apparatus need enemies in order to exist. This explains the US government’s constant use of different bad guys: Seditionists, Indians, escaped African slaves, Abolitionists, Secessionists, Drunks, Moonshiners, Mormon polygamists, Labor agitators, Anarchists, Aliens, Communists, Radicals, Narcos, Terrorists, Muslim extremists, etc. The corporate media or state propagandists constantly harp on and repeat the state mantras against these enemies. The mind slaves that take their ideas from the media, then believe that the state has the right to do what it can to destroy such evil. Many proud American gun owners also believe these corporate media lies.
The US government is now run by sociopaths that believe in their own lies, but they have a birds eye view of American society. They know that most gun owners believe the corporate media lies and that most gun owners will not fight any registration and confiscation of arms. Why is this? Because in most regions and towns in the US, there are already very strict laws against guns, for example, just think about the multiple gun free zones in our communities: school zones, govt. office buildings, utility buildings, libraries, shopping centers, etc. Most gun owners and most Americans now live in urban communities with very few connections to self sufficiency with the land, and finally, most urban Americans are atomized individuals having very little community ties at all. Citizens such as this become weak subjects when faced with the enormous firepower of the global imperial state.
With all of the tough Internet talk of certain gun owners stating that ‘try prying the gun out of my cold dead hands,’ the authorities know full well that talk is cheap. When a SWAT team surrounds a housing unit, most scared citizens rightly comply out of necessity. If a real 1776 would come in the future, then the Internet tough guy gun activists would keep their mouths shut. Yet even with this overwhelming firepower of the state and its ingenious use of mythology event tactics, the current American Empire is stretching into the cultural contradictions of the absurd.
With this current executive campaign to disarm Americans, it also divides us even more, and it throws a dagger into one of the last stalwart defenders of American exceptionalism, white male, middle aged gun owners. Even these guys will now see the US govt. for what it is. Like Eric has stated in previous articles, more Americans are waking up to such a monstrosity that rules over them, from Leftists such as Michael Moore, to outraged Libertarians, to rural Anarchists, to betrayed patriotic gun owners. Many returning veterans are seeing their eyes opened to the actual evil that now rules the world.
The US governments and other state entities, like all tyrannical regimes, want the Bill of Rights inoperable, so they can fully implement their nefarious plans – but like all sociopaths on the prowl, they forget that all criminal regimes or cabals need accessories to their crimes. They are pissing off, angering, and most importantly, betraying their old faithful constituencies. Their contradictions are becoming too wide and glaring, and they are acting too fast – even with their calculated gradualism.
This leads to my final paragraph. A substantial minority of previously pliant, submissive citizens revolt when they feel personally betrayed by a state entity that they had supported and admired in the past. Nothing makes a person more outraged and ready for revenge than some form a betrayal from a former love and admiration. Such is the scenario with a greater number of Americans as they see the evil for what it is. Once this betrayed element grows into a good size minority, then armed revolution is soon to explode.
Good morning, Refco!
Thank you, first of all, for your excellent – thoughtful – post. I will “amen” in particular your observations about middle-aged white male “conservative” types; that’s the world I swim in – and I’ve lost several friends since nahhhnlevven over my apostasy in re that event, The Chimp and the overt police state bequeathed unto us by…. “conservatives” and now exploited and increased by Democrats.
I pointed out to them the (to me) obvious ominous implications of The Patriot Act and all the rest of it. I went even further, and tried to get them to see the connection between the War on Drugs – and the War on Civil Liberties. But there was just no getting through their petty control-freak moralizing (in re arbitrarily illegal drugs) nor their “Christian” worship of the warfare state.
This is why I am especially hard on “conservatives” in my writing. They are, as I see it, worse than Democrats – who at least are consistent and open in their advocacy of collectivism. But it drives me nuts to hear a “conservative” – with his flags a flutterin’ and his oversized, much-thumbed Bible – prattle on about “our freedoms” even as he continues to defend The Chimp.
Or support something such as Mittens Romney.
So-called “conservatives” have of late been beating their chests and loudly proclaiming that mittens would have been an “honorable” president! Can you believe such utter rot?! That they completely ignore he and the Republicans back-stabbing of anyone who didn’t support this rat bastard is beyond me. They are indeed worse than Democrats but still kissing cousins
MoT, it is ridiculous isn’t it? I saw a sign that read “A taxpayer voting for Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.” I thought either way: we’re “plucked.” I read another sign: Mitt Romney – Save America (in fact, I only saw it on my way home today – still flapping, rather abjectly, in the wind). Seriously? Save America? Who do these people think he is? What about the bill that ‘ObamaCare’ was based on? What about:
Q: As governor you signed into law one of the toughest restrictions on assault weapons in the country.
A: Let’s get the record straight. First of all, there’s no question that I support 2nd Amendment rights, but I also support an assault weapon ban. Look, I’ve been governor in a pretty tough state. You’ve heard of blue states. In the toughest of blue states, I made the toughest decisions and did what was right for America. I have conservative values.
And the NRA supported this guy? Which ‘conservative values’ would those be, Mittens? (Thanks for that Eric) You’re rich? That’s not a conservative value. We just make up blue states or red states to these people and are not individuals with our own lives. I guess if we’re ‘red’ (Republican that is of course, not Communist!) we should be happy that a blue state had a red governor?
Hi Ray,
Exactly.
Just the other night, we were over at a friend’s home for dinner. The woman is a conservative Republican. She was eager to have me read a long paean to Mittens – who lost because (according to the paean) “Americans don’t value freedom.” They (Republicans) still buy it. They still equate the sell-out/corporatist/warfare-state authoritarianism of Mittens, et al, with “freedom” – and that those who turned away in disgust rejected “freedom” – as opposed to being disgusted by the Tweedledee-Tweedledum non-choice they were presented with.
Hi Eric,
Thanks for your well written and insightful articles. I appreciate them and also the comments that I read on here. They give me some hope that not all have succumbed to parasitism (or are desirous of it).
I do read comments by many democrats who have a sever logical disconnect, but understand where you are coming from. I often get the idea that they would support the 1st amendment – though not the reason why humans have rights in the first place – but the second is conditional. By all means put hypocritical ‘conservatives’ in their place as well. But the impetus behind my comment was to object to your comment about well-thumbed Bibles, unless of course you mean #6 or if it only a ‘prop’ and not really worn by usage.
Thumb
5. to soil or wear with the thumbs in handling, as the pages of a book.
6. to glance through (the pages of a book, leaflet, etc.) quickly.
As a Christian, I take Jesus’ admonition to love others as I would love myself very seriously (I fail miserably of course, but He doesn’t) and view it as an essential part of my belief in anarchism and the NAP. I would hope that a man who really spends time studying the Bible would at least see that covetousness, theft, idolatry (worship of the state and especially it’s killing apparatus) and murder do not become less sinful when done by agents of the state or in the case of idolatry because it isn’t a ‘god’ in the traditional sense. That government is borne of theft and violence and that good is not realized through evil means. That I do not care what kind of plant my neighbor may have in his possession or the chemicals that happen to be in his bloodstream. That the type of weapon that he feels is necessary to defensively protect himself and his property is none of my business. That if I REALLY care about his well-being I am free to try to convince him (as long as he is willing to listen) of what I may perceive as his folly, but that I would never think to kidnap and hold him at ransom for ‘his own good.’ Most ‘Christians’ unfortunately are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – the same temperature as their surroundings.
Ray
[Oh, and TGS regarding your reply to a comment I made some time ago – You were right (although I’ve sat before) the total is probably near $1000. Well actually a good deal more if you figure opportunity costs. Incalculable if you figure stress and its effect on the disease that is the reason for the use of that particular plant in the first place.]
Hi Ray,
To clarify my comments. I mentioned warfare state “Christians” (in quotes) to highlight their hypocrisy. Their blood-lust curdles my blood!
The people I am talking about are the evangelical Republican Christian types. The ones who slobbered all over The Chimp and his “patriotism.” The flag-humping, war-loving, gay-bashing, private life-invading and government-snuggling (when it’s a Chimp or Mittens at the head of it) ethical imbeciles who still cannot see that what is done unto others will absolutely be done unto them, too.
And who seem incapable of comprehending the idea of live – and let live.
One Republican, Bible grasped in left hand to show that hand of the devil is occupied with saintliness, grabs the flag with right hand, whips flag around body(you can’t doubt Patriotism at this point….you’ll be vilified if you do), punches red button every time it resets. Onward Christian soldier.
Wow, refco–good stuff, a long read but well worth the time!
And your observation is spot-on; just as Tinsley said, now they’re coming for YOU, formerly smug self-satisfied Boomer old white guy.
Oh–you didn’t stand up for others’ freedoms in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s? Yeah. Those are gone now…time to pay the piper.
You’re correct, too; the Elites are desperate and they’re boiling the frogs entirely too fast.
The frogs are hopping mad.
Hell hath no fury like a faithful conservative scorned.
“I guarantee that most of those middle aged men with white skin privilege – and their proud firearms collections became even more flag waving, calling for the US to invade about 50 countries. ”
Your guaranty is pretty much worthless, since there’s simply no way you can know what most middle aged white men call for. At best you would be able to offer as proof some mainstream media issued poll or other.
Venal GOP politicians can use the RKBA as a rallying cry for their brainless rank and file, but it’s every bit as likely that the majority of RKBA supporters harbor a visceral distrust of the GOP and its neocon mouthpieces in politics and in the media.
The betrayed element you mention is likely to outnumber the GOP koolaid drinkers by a wide margin. Look at how poorly Romney, and his predecessor McCain failed at the polls. The betrayed element is more likely the majority, and has been for decades.
Ed, I must agree with you for the most part. Being one of those old white men and being in touch with several of my old college classmates, a plethora of conservative, formerly Republican, I can attest most of them surprised me this past election. I am not a Republican nor a Dem although I did go out on a limb and vote for a Rep. this time around, one state rep. who has already betrayed me. Well, my wife voted straight libertarian and I would have except for that one person. I guess I must have written “just screw me” on that ballot cause that’s what he did. But all those old white guys for the most part voted libertarian, a surprise to me since every single one is a staunch gun owner and most like myself are second amendment guys, with the guns to back it up. I suspect when it comes down to it there’s probably only three of us out of eight I’d be willing to bet will back me and I’ll damned sure back them. To characterize any one of us as jumping on the bandwagon to go to war is inaccurate although one of them has a bad case of Foxitis and worked in the armament industry building top secret skunk works projects. I expect his view to be skewed as mine is since being a shouting rebelrousing anti-war activist during Vietnam. I’m certainly not and never have been anti-second amendment but anti-war?, yep. So I’ll be there reluctantly, and reluctantly only because I’m not young enough to run fast, jump high and be the dead-eye shot I once was when they come for me. I have been down that road once….and that was once too many, won’t happen again.
If so many people are voting libertarian why do the vote counts show it to be just a couple weirdos per precinct?
If people aren’t lying… well that leaves only one obvious reason.
BrentP, it took me 12 years of running down the shrub and time and again proclaiming I was no democrat to get any of these guys to convert. I live in a really low population county and woudn’t be surprised if my wife and I were the only two libertarians to vote. And then you get back to my libertarian roots and the fact I didn’t vote in the previous three elections. That republican thing hangs on to the “bitter end” so to speak. There are enclaves of libertarians but to say there is a significant amount would be the height of hubris. Read ’em and weep, it ain’t a good thing but it’s getting better faster than I would ever have thought and we can thank a republican, Ron Paul, for the inroads we’ve made. It’s only a tiny step from a Ron Paul republican to a Gary Johnson libertarian. I have never been a republican but I am a conservative. I come from a line of democratic conservatives, the very place the radical right stole the moniker and the press all of a sudden deemed democrats liberals in kind for them. I campaigned for JFK, not a liberal by any means and then where did I find a constituency? Nixon? LBJ? I have fairly much stayed on the sidelines in federal elections most of my life. There is a HUGE majority that doesn’t vote in my view.
My point is that looking at the voting numbers Refco’s view would seem to be true. I really don’t find the garden variety gun enthusiast or owner to be all that enlightened politically. They aren’t voting for libertarians or even the Libertarian party in any sort of meaningful numbers. Their interest in liberty generally follows along well conditioned D vs. R lines as it does with most americans.
BrentP, you have hit the nail on the head. A county of 4,000 people and I estimate 2 voted libertarian. Oh, surely, I thought, someone else in the county voted libertarian, and they may have, this is a country of hard heade inviduals who stick to their guns, but I might just be right looking at the total votes. Then again, Texas is the very place to find those who will vote libertarian. There are many chapters of Mises teachings in this state. Tell a Texan he can’t do something and just get ready to see it done. My parents used to say they’d tell me to do the opposite of what they wanted. Now where could I have gotten that from? I’d ask. They’d just laugh.
Two words, Brent: Election fraud. Or, if one word is more efficient: DieBold.
I voted libertarian in the last election.
I voted my conscience.
Not for my “team”.
Not for the “lesser of two evils”.
Not to keep the “wrong” guy from winning.
Not to “waste” my vote.
Not to “protest”.
The problem with many, many “conservatives” is that they can’t separate conservative ideology from the Republican Party. This has always baffled me, since when one takes an even cursory look at the Republican Party’s history, “conservative principles” have been the very least of its concerns. What this proves is that the majority of “conservatives” are intellectually dishonest and lazy. This assumes, of course, that the majority of them even really believe in such principles, a dubious proposition, at best, if recent history is any illustration.
Brilliant logic, Eric! I have often considered that government perpetrates violence and social disharmony but I have never been able to articulate how. You really nailed it!
How about another essay on how government has created an alarmingly fast growing class of slothful, slovenly, obese, dependent half-wits?
Thanks, Dan –
Time’s running short, I think. We only have so much time to awaken those who can be awakened. In order to improve our chances of dealing successfully with those who cannot be.
TGS asked:
How can one account for the fact that ninety million gun owners have done absolutely nothing to defend any rights other than the right to keep and bear arms?
That’s a VERY good question. Far too many people who babble on about the BoR are zealous only about one specific right. It’s really maddening that they’re too dense to realize that none of these rights exists in isolation of one another, that they are ALL essential to the preservation of liberty. (Example: you can’t have the 1A without the 2A to give it “teeth.”)
My hope is they are beginning to see the light – that all their liberties are at risk when anyone else’s are. That’s the point we’ve got to keep on hammering away at. I’m doing everything I can, jamming out the rants. Together, we might just get somewhere!
Note the descending order of the Amendments. I wonder how many juris doctors have noticed. It’s no surprise that the First Amendment is first. When all else is lost thanks to public ignorance and rule by lawyers and career office holders, hopefully the whole truth can be propagated, and like a Phoenix the American Ideal can reemerge.
tgsam
I have a friend who went to law school. He told me that, in “Constitutional Law” class, they never even looked at the Constitution, only case law.
Using 2+ centuries (beginning with Marbury v. Madison) of BAD court decisions to determine what the next decision should be, rather than using the document itself and considering it it the context of the Declaration of Independence and the Magna Carta.
Your revelation doesn’t surprise me at all. Just talk to any lawyer, who practices in any area of “specialization,” for even five minutes and you can’t avoid seeing just how pig-ignorant and contemptuous of the founding document most of them are. It then becomes obvious that “law” today is nothing but game, an exercise in “gaming the system,” one that has nothing even remotely to do with justice or rule of law. Any outcomes that accord with such are purely incidental and unintended.
Yup. Most all laws are meaningless. They serve only one pupose: to give law enforcers an excuse for doing what they do.
And whether you can “beat” a bad rap only depends on how well your attorney can exploit the perverted justice system.
It’s all one big game being played with our lives.
That’s why I drink.
Maybe 1 reason is that the ACLU is “usually” willing to try to protect the other rights, but NOT 2A. And who wants to hold hands with them?
What’s really sad is that some of the nascent organizations of this type that were started on the other side of the ideological divide by (so-called) conservatives and libertarians –JudicialWatch and the Institute For Justice, to name just two– have never really gotten off the ground. And why not? Because they’re largely politicized, agenda-driven, single-issue organizations that are blind to the “big picture” of what’s going on in terms of the Leviathan State’s persistent and obvious attempts to undermine the Natural Law.
Sickening and inexcusable.
Good article, Eric.
Here’s my take on Sandy Hook etc. on C4SS: http://c4ss.org/content/16067 I’d be interested in your opinion.
Morning, Ned!
I agree with your idea that some (perhaps most) of these spree killers are attempting to convey their anger about “prospects” (the lack thereof) and – additionally – their contempt for the nihilist ideal that is consumerist America. The McLife ™ of spending 30 years in a cube, groveling before some boss who wields life or death control over your ability to keep on paying the mortgage on your McHome in the ‘burbs… and so on.
The Columbine thing was a textbook case of this, I think. Those boys saw no future for themselves – and decided to graphically express what they thought about it by ending the futures of many others. Perhaps an element of it has to do with their seeing (however imperfectly) the nature of the system – and resenting those who do not…
Ned, that was an exceptional piece. I don’t mean to make everything to boil down to my life but I’m the only one I live with and can only compare anything to my experiences. As a young man I was forced to go to a college not of my choosing because I was not of majority, only 18 years of age. I had just had a big row with my parents and could not get them to see my side of my situation. I finally left in a rage, an absolute rage as a frustrated young man might do. I drove 80-90 miles at probably 130mph, maybe more since my speedo wasn’t up to the task of my car’s capability. I went through a notorious speed trap and didn’t care. Got stopped by a highway patrol for what he thought he saw me doing, not what he clocked me at which was a legal speed. I got out, after nearly collecting him since I hit the brakes so hard and walked up to him. I’m sure he was antsy at this point since I was a highly muscled boy and probably purple in the face. He said some mealy mouthed crap and I just stared at him while he wrote me a ticket. I got back in my car and left most of my back tires there and proceeded to finish my trip passing people in and out at twice their speed. I finally picked up my girlfriend, the absolute best thing I could have done, scared hell out of her and went back to my apartment, driving like something not to be tampered with. She finally shut me down. She wasn’t afraid of me but everyone else including my roommate was. I guess I never was that mad again and hope never to be again since I’m easy going. That one incidence, and I just realized now how hard denying me my freedom meant to me then, made a hard boiled, get out of my way, I’ll run over your ass in a heartbeat kind of person out of a really nice guy. That article just made it come home to me.
Now I get what might have made those guys tick. I suppose I’ve always known this but not quite as he put it. Once again, a great article.
The real question here is how to get to a point where people like us are no longer on the radar of people like them. How do we get to a point or place where there is no longer an incentive to violate our rights or use violence against us.
The ONLY way this will ever happen is if there is nothing in our possession that they want, or if we band together and are stronger than they are. As long as we have things they want, and the overhead is lower than the what can be gained, they will band together and write “laws” that serve to use force, fraud, or coercion to take them from us.
I get into debates with statists from time to time… nobody wins. As far as they’re concerned, because they are willing to live in a violent society that benefits them, they are okay with forcing me to do so.
I have no respect whatsoever for statists. In fact, I consider them vermin.
tgsam
You can’t hide. It doesn’t matter that you have nothing material left to give them, because ultimately it’s not about money–it’s about power, the libido dominandi, the sheer lust for domination.
But that’s only among the Authority (of Tor’s Authority-Teacher-Learner triad)…the so-called “Elite”, aka the 2-4% who are naturally psychopaths.
Two-thirds of the population will go whatever direction the prevailing winds blow; they have no conceptual framework guiding their actions. They are merely adapting as circumstances are thrust on them. They are not amoral; they are just unconscious (sometimes willfully) to the evil committed in their name. They are mostly quite moral in their immediate, day-to-day lives–but the State provides a “cut-out”, “plausible deniability” to acts of theft and violence that would shock their conscience.
The last thirty percent are the movers; that’s US, and the wannabe psychopaths–the minions, the “familiars” to the real vampires. The familiars believe they’re empowered by joining the “winning team”; but of course they’re historically ignorant because THEY are destroyed first and most viciously. The Elites fear them; some of them are dangerous enforcers, most of them know too much.
So it’s up to us, the pivotal 10%, to swing the proles back to sanity. You’re Winston watching from his apartment as the broad-shouldered prole washer-woman hangs her laundry, realizing she has the power to destroy Big Brother in an instant.
Eric, you’ve written a brilliant article.
This summarizes it so well, it’s like reading something from FA Hayek:
Outstanding.
Tell you guys what: one thing we have on our side is INTELLECT! The statists can’t offer cogent, coherent, eloquent, or logical argument. Nobody on the faux left is writing anything like this, or any of the other strong libertarians.
We offer reason, and truth; the statists offer force, emotion, and propaganda.
Offer the libtards the business end of the weapon of your choice, locked and loaded. Be merciful…give ’em five seconds to STFU and go away! Four….
Thanks, Meth!
I wish I didn’t have to write about such things; but I am motivated to write like never before in my life. Because I am acutely aware that if we fail to awake and act, I will very shortly not be able to write about anything at all. Along with millions of my fellow human beings, similarly deprived of their right to live, to act – to be free.
Seriously Eric, you are on a roll. Excellent analysis of these troubles we face.
“Process does not obviate the violence – it merely masks it.” Outstanding sentence – quotable throughout the ages.
“Limitless power. Endless violence.” Has there ever been one without the other?
There are 400 million people of slavic descent in the world. Most Americans today would be called by Roman Europe a mass of “Sclavus.” just like the Slavic people of their time were called.
America’s niche is that the productive masses can live like Kings through mass-production of Royal Property for the many. Rather than a few top craftsmen making high quality dwellings for the elite, we “mandate” that the top craftsmen devise methods to mass produce high quality “McMansions” for the many. These are our roots, to which we should best return. Secret Service technology, for example, is something which could be duplicated using mass production methods so that all commoners can afford 24/7 protection for their loved ones at an affordable price.
America was never predominately white free Europeans. It is always mongol, slavic, hispanic, germanic, african and lower class castoff white-trash(quasi-slavs).
slave (n.)
late 13c., “person who is the property of another,” from Old French esclave (13c.), from Medieval Latin Sclavus “slave” (cf. Italian schiavo, French esclave, Spanish esclavo), originally “Slav” (see Slav), so called because of the many Slavs sold into slavery by conquering peoples.
This sense development arose in the consequence of the wars waged by Otto the Great and his successors against the Slavs, a great number of whom they took captive and sold into slavery. [Klein]
Old English Wealh “Briton” also began to be used in the sense of “serf, slave” c.850; and Sanskrit dasa-, which can mean “slave,” is apparently connected to dasyu- “pre-Aryan inhabitant of India.”
More common Old English words for slave were þeow (related to þeowian “to serve”) and þræl (see thrall). The Slavic words for “slave” (Russian rab, Serbo-Croatian rob, Old Church Slavonic rabu) are from O.Slav. *orbu, from the PIE root *orbh- (also source of orphan) the ground sense of which seems to be “thing that changes allegiance” (in the case of the slave, from himself to his master). The Slavic word is also the source of robot.
Applied to devices from 1904, especially those which are controlled by others (cf. slave jib in sailing, similarly of locomotives, flash bulbs, amplifiers). slave-driver is attested from 1807.
The obama phone lady… did she see the light recently? I saw the headline but didn’t watch the video. If so, I wonder how that was done, how easy it was, and when will it be available in pill form?
Editor’s note: Added this video
I tried to watch the interview, but Alex was getting nowhere after 10-plus minutes… so I quit. That woman’s IQ is probably around 70. I doubt she’s got the capacity to consciously understand anything.
That woman’s IQ is without doubt around 70. I doubt she’s got the capacity to consciously understand anything.
That thar creature is the majority. That being the case, we’re just plain screwed. Seriously. There’s no helping us in the near term.
I’ve been around the “dregs” for 35 years now. It’s hard to overstate their “dependent status.” You might get some idea by watching a sitcom geared to the “inner city” audience.
A punch line you might hear? “She is slower than FEMA.”
The plot of typical episode? A student brings a black-historian to his high school class to talk about black history. At first this offends the establishment in charge. Other students join in and agitate the civic leaders and show they are determined to have more blacks and people of color be included in the curriculum and in the public-school textbooks.
Those are their “heroes.” The ones who customize their enslaving matrix to be more representative of the non-productive people the matrix feeds and controls.
Believe me, having been married into the “inner city” culture for 20 years (although that’s about to come to an end, thanks be to God), I’m painfully familiar with this. The shallow, dishonest, intellectually and morally bankrupt, culturally narcissistic worshipfulness of the lowest common denominator is truly agonizing to behold and endure.
You know why white people laugh at black comedians who talk bad about blacks?
Because it’s what white people are thinking but are afraid to say so now they got blacky up there saying it and they can criticize ( via proxy ) and laugh all they want at black people. Gold Jerry, I tell you gold!
Black comedians can relate to white audiences that way. Black comedians making white people laugh by talking bad about blacks speaks volumns about the culture in this country.
I wish with all my intellect and heart that not single slave had ever been brought to North America.
tgsam
With regards to futile attempts to educate the ghetto trash: a few rules about pigs:
1) Don’t try to teach a pig to sing. It’ll frustrate you and only annoy the pig.
2) Don’t roll in the waller (full of mud and shit) with the pigs. You get filthy and the pig likes it.
3) A dog will look up to you and kiss your ass for attention. A cat MIGHT deign to look down on you if it will acknowledge you at all. Give me a pig! At least it attempts to look at you in the eye as an equal!
Any monies extracted forcibly from the hard-working taxpayer and spent on the ghetto types in an attempt to better them are at minimum utterly wasted and at worst facilitate their ability to further breed irresponsibly and prey on each other and whatever innocents they can snag. Those who can be “saved” will do so regardless of Government interference, indeed, get the Government out of the charity and income redistribution business and perhaps even more of the better and brighter of them will escape those hellholes that blight all too many of our once-great cities.
Just smart enough to know that she’s almost retarded. That’s gotta be a tough pill to swallow.
If I was retarded I’d want to be full-on retarded. Not even close to 69 so there’d be no chance of me knowing I was retarded.
Just smart enough to know that she’s almost retarded. That’s gotta be a tough pill to swallow.
Hell, that’s gotta be physically painful.
Yeah, I tried to listen to Alex’s interview with obuma fone beastlady too but could not bear it for more than five minutes. It was clear she was as ignorant as they come and would just agree to whatever she thought she should to just keep her 15 minutes of fame rolling.
I couldn’t listen to it either. I turned on the show and she was on. I kept it on long enough to learn who it was and then I clicked it off.
Alex Jones was having fun with it but it wasn’t something I wanted to listen to.
I think he genuinely wanted to help her see; I didn’t detect any meanness. But it was a tough row to hoe!
That said; this is one of the reasons religion is so valuable, think what you like of it.
GOOD churches that preach Christianity in the manner Gary North understands it–which is to say, basically libertarian, “do unto others”, “love one another” etc.–are a fantastic civilizing influence.
Which is one reason the statists try so hard to destroy, infiltrate, and subvert churches.
There’s a huge arm of the UN–the World Council of Churches–that’s specifically designed to undermine this strong force.
If Obama-phone lady were hearing a sounder gospel, she’d understand better the wrongness of taking.
As it is, I listened to the whole thing. She was getting at least a little of it; the main take-away for her was how badly Obama ripped her off.
And that’s sufficient.
Meth,
I have to agree with you in re “good” religion as an inculcator of what we might call reflexive morality. It is a tragedy that a large cohort of humanity is probably too close to H. Erectus – and lacking the intelligence necessary to think critically – so that the only practical way to keep them (mostly) on the straight and narrow (or at least, reasonably well-behaved) is via rote, via dogma… via religion.
Don’t steal! … Not because you get them to understand the concept that theft not only entails the violation of another person’s rights, it sanctions the violation of your rights, too. But because it is against God’s Law.
Thou shallt not….
I didn’t intend to imply he was being mean or anything, only that he was enjoying the interaction. I however did not enjoy listening to it.
Oh I know you weren’t implying he was mean, Brent.
And it was brutal to listen to…Decent woman but dumb as a box of rocks.
I watched the whole 3 hours. She came around. On the Obama Phone, guns and a few other things. I discovered her when I was listening to Rush Windbag and a caller mentioned her on the Alex Jones show. I can’t listen to Alex every day. I would go batshit crazy if I did, but even someone like Michelle Dowrey and her husband can see the truth. There is a glimmer of hope out there. Not much, but it was heartening to see her understand what was going on.
I’d like to believe she “got it.” But I’d bet my last dollar that, if the presidential election were held tomorrow and the contestants were Barry Obama and Ron Paul, ObamaPhoneLady would vote – enthusiastically – for Obama.
Did the Obama phones just start getting handed out without public discussion? I looked into them. Anyone who has food stamps, public housing subsidy, SSI(supplementary security income), or evidence of any kind of needs based welfare, gets a free phone with free minutes as long as they stay on the dole.
It seems unlikely anyone is going to defeat the Obama Machine unless they offer an even bigger set of free shit.
The “free shit” will flow, unimpeded and “no questions asked,” to all of the “right” demographic groups until the nation is too bankrupt to afford it anymore. That’s when all the ugliness will start.
Coming soon to YOUR neighborhood.
Which is another reason they want the guns, right now!
It’s classic; it’s the same manipulation they’ve pulled throughout history, most recently in the UK.
Create–through welfare, immigration, and indoctrination–a large underclass.
Agitate the underclass against the middle class.
Watch as the (preferably disarmed) middle class begs for more State protection.
Raise taxes and give it to the Oligarchy in a pincer movement, squeezing the middle class between the two–hammer and anvil.
Problem. Reaction. Solution.
But it doesn’t work if the middle class is armed–because when they trigger the conflagration, the middle class can defend itself and finally shakes itself awake and says “What the Hell do we need the state for? It’s useless!”
How can one account for the fact that ninety million gun owners have done absolutely nothing to defend any rights other than the right to keep and bear arms?
I am convinced that many who squawk about the Second Amendment support the persecution of persons who exercise their right to self-medicate. I’m betting that some of the “cold dead hands” blowhards would think nothing of ratting out someone for “possession”.
Government began to seriously nullify rights in America in 1912. From there is has continued to worsen. And the class of Individuals most able to stop it continue to do less than nothing about it. Well, the wolf is at YOUR door now.
tgsam
Dear Tinsley,
I’m betting that some of the “cold dead hands” blowhards would think nothing of ratting out someone for “possession”.
Well, the wolf is at YOUR door now.
Yup. You are dead right.
As the greatest of the Framers noted,
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
— Thomas Paine, patriot & political philosopher (1737 – 1809)
Like I said, the Golden Rule is not just moral, it’s also practical.
@TGS–
Well, the wolf is at YOUR door now.
YES! Well thought, Tinsley…”First they came for the socialists, and I said nothing…”
Indeed.
We must all protect ALL rights, even when they’re exercised by our scummy neighbors we don’t particularly like.
Gun confiscation – via tax breaks. I wonder how many outlaws who don’t file taxes will be turning their guns in?
http://www.dailypaul.com/270815/gun-confiscation-bill-introduced-in-congress
Then ever the more reason to resist any attempts to restrict firearm ownership. To whatever extent our abilities to be defend ourselves become outlawed, we must then become outlaws. Hmm… Daniel Shays…Robin Hood…Guy Fawkes…not bad examples!
Yes, it will get ugly. I wouldn’t relish a race or ethnic civil war in this country but we’d be idiots not to preclude it to the best of our abilities, or, prepare to fight.
I think back to 1992 and the South Central (LA) riots over the first “Rodney King” verdict…so many of the good citizens of the African persuasion were quite displeased at the verdicts of not guilty or deadlocked of the four LAPD officers accused of roughing up that dirtbag (who has thankfully assumed room temperature) that they went beserk, destroying property, assaulting innocents, and using it as an excuse to loot and burn. I think of a hapless truck driver, stuck in traffic at an intersection, dragged out by several young louts, and beaten with an inch of his life. In particular, as a news helicopter circled overhead to film this sad episode, one of the young thugs heaved a brick and brained the poor trucker, and did a victory dance like a Watusi celebrating spearing a leopard on the savannah. Oh, that I’d been in that chopper, and have had an AR-15! Or even better, suppose the Governor of Cali(porn)ia and the Adjutant General had set up a quick-reaction task force to respond to events like these. Upon declaring martial law, a force could “chopper in” and read ’em the riot act, and unleash hell if they didn’t surrender. I’d have rather seen the look on that ghetto punk’s face as he saw a mini-Gun trained on him…just before it unleashed a few hundred rounds to shred his thug ass to bits. A few hours of well-directed brutality would have put an end to that shit PDQ. Unfortunately, Pete Wilson and his succeeding California governors, “Ahh-Nuld” included, are too much “girly-men” to do what needed to be done. It’s up to we citizens to retain our abilities to at least defend our homes and families from banditry. In even of SHTF, we need to be able to respond as the unorganized militia, since likely the local collection of donut-snarfers will have run and hid.
Tinsley wrote:
“How can one account for the fact that ninety million gun owners have done absolutely nothing to defend any rights other than the right to keep and bear arms?”
Why are we to assume that this is a fact? Oh, because you said it was.
“I’m betting that some of the “cold dead hands” blowhards would think nothing of ratting out someone for “possession”.”
First you wring your hands over your imaginary “fact”; that nobody who is among your 90 million has spoken out for any other right besides the RKBA, then you call them “blowhards”. From there, you arrive at the assumption that they are snitches. I don’t understand your reasoning.
Do you happen to watch a lot of TV? That might explain some of the confused rants you post.
I do understand the sentiment behind your post and agree with it for the most part. But isn’t your call for a rapid response force another instance of wanting the “state” to do something.
It sounds to me like you’re advocating the usual collective/statist solution.
You just want to switch targets.
Here is an example of supporting those that will oppress
To those that support this type of action on the State I would say, “I’m glad you like it…’cause guess what, you next”
This is quite right, and most of the lumpentariat will be completely unable to understand its rightness because they cannot envision a world based upon non-agression. The very social construction of reality has been imbued with the “rightness” of the many ruling over the few – hence we are a “democracy,” when that word didn’t exist in the imagination or writings of our founding fathers…
What ensures that our condition as a nation and civilization is terminal is the fact that Clover (i.e., the vast majority) has no qualms whatsoever with the status quo, the machinery of democracy/theft-and-violence-via-the-ballot-box, as long as it’s being used to benefit HIM/HER/IT. Clover being Clover, he/she/it, is genetically incapable of seeing the big picture, the fact that if state-sanctioned violence can be used against people Clover doesn’t like, it can be used against Clover too. Clover is of course counts on the fact that he/she/it will always and in perpetuity be the preferred pet of The Powers That Be, part of the ueber-majority who will forever be in the good graces of TPTB and the beneficiary of their plundered largesse. But Clover would do well to look back at the recent history of some other “democratic” nations such as Stalin’s USSR or Mao’s China, in which people who were upheld as solid citizens (“hero workers of the proletariat,” or some such) one day became “enemies of The People” the very next day and suffered hideously – often fatally- because of it.
Of course since Clover doesn’t read and doesn’t learn from history, such an exhortation would be wasted. Still, cause and effect is a law as immutable as the laws of physics, which is why history reliably and inevitably repeats itself, whether or not Clover chooses to learn from it. His/her/its ignorance won’t prevent him/her/it from suffering the unavoidable consequences of living in a society predicated on state-sanctioned violence.
I don’t buy this “genetically incapable” stuff. Hostility to the truth is a moral failing. People seem to be incapable because they are morally depraved. The people of America are the reprobates spoken of in Romans chapter 1.
I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that without a moral reawakening we are doomed.
You’re correct about “genetically incapable.” I was using that as a figure of speech.
I’m not sure all of what is around here, but any time there is one of those government only holidays traffic times are noticeably improved. My source is WBBM radio. I couldn’t find an online version of the story that contained that fact still around, but I did find this from Crain’s Chicago Business:
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/section/lists?djoPage=view_html&djoPid=1643&djoPY=@pGKJyF3ZKmUM
1 U.S. Government 55,183 (actually down from 78,000 a few years ago)
2 Chicago Public Schools 39,667
3 City of Chicago 31,307
4 Cook County 21,785
They want money to see the rest of the list. For other years more of it was published by other sources. The state was probably 6th for 2011.
I found another link that the older higher numbers for the federal government included postal workers and the like. The real number hovers in and around the 50-55K mark as Crain reported for 2011.
That’s still a lot of people and I bet that their voting rate is very high. Of course state employees shouldn’t be allowed to vote at all, but nevermind.
Nobody on the government dole should be allowed to vote.
It’s a conflict of interest.
Or is employed by the government or employed by a government contractor.
Might even want to expand it to being employed in an area regulated by the government…. well no nobody is voting 😉
Oh I covered government employment–that’s “on the dole” too!
🙂
And then there are those people who need nothing, just regular people who aren’t on the dole. Little Johnny’s dad summed it up.
Little Johnny..
A teacher asks each of the kids in class what they need at home.
Joey says “A computer.” The teacher replies, “That would be very useful.”
Kimmy says “A new lawn mower.” and gets a similar response.
Little Johnny pops up and says “At my house we don’t need anything!”
The teacher asks him to think again carefully, as everybody needs something.
Little Johnny replies, “No I’m sure. When Obama was re-elected,
I remember my dad saying,
‘Well, that’s the last fucking thing we needed.”
One thing to add… There is no need to be elected or appointed, only hired. Just ordinary government employees can ruin people’s days or lives and they enjoy the power. People have to submit to them or else. Just look at the TSA as a big example.
Much of the population has learned to live off others too, they seek government employment. The federal government is now the Chicago area’s largest employer. This once great manufacturing area now has the government as its largest employer, and only the federal government at that. It does not include city, township, state, and county government bodies.
The way to do well for one’s self now is government. Being productive is way too much work and pays way too little.
Brent, what agencies/bureaucracies do the feds have in Chicago? Hearing this is a surprise to me.
Just another cabal of our “keepers”.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blacklistednews/hKxa/~3/Kt9UM09IKaw/M.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email
Dear Eric,
The lesson is simply this: We ought not to expect a peaceful society when the generally accepted basis of society is reciprocal plunder via the ballot box.
The Framers understood this.
“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.”
-~ James Madison, 4th President of the United States, Father of the Constitution
They realized that over time democracies degenerate into fascist states.
Sad to say, their solution, a constitutional republic, simply did not go far enough.
What they didn’t realize was that over time constitutional republics degenerate into democracies, and then from democracies into fascist states.
In the case of the US, the three stages, republic, democracy, fascist state, each account for about a century. We are now in America’s third century, which is the third stage, a fascist state.
Right you are, Bevin –
Humanity is a slow learner. I am more and more inclined to the idea that the evolution of consciousness is both sporadic and disparate. It took centuries for a relative handful of people (less than 1 percent of the human population) to articulate the ideas of self-ownership and non-aggression – ideas accepted by perhaps 10-15 percent today. These 10-15 percent are the leading vanguard of a new type of human being, one who rejects all use of force except in self defense. It may and likely will take many more generations for the remainder of humanity to evolve sufficiently before such a revolutionary way of looking at the world – and one’s fellow human beings – is common currency.
Can’t we beat them at their own game? Start a “Fathers Against Aggression”(FAA) movement? How can politicians and bureaucrats be pro-aggression, it would be suicidal to say such things, if we can only get them cornered.
John & Stacy Q Public don’t want to see themselves as “pro-aggression.” It counter-intuitive that swearing off aggression means the umbilical cords of the Matrix shrivel up. But those chimps will never see that coming until its too late.
Jesus, Gandhi, Thomas Paine, John Locke, Pioneers, Inventors, Philosophers, most of the great men promoted and adhered to the non-aggression principle.
The American Revolution was about being free to create new wealth in a cooperative way, not aggression.
Any chimpanzees who got out on the warpath against the British or other group instead of merely defending their own property and lives must be cast out and disowned as non-Americans. General acts of violence and aggression must not be tolerated, they are incompatible with the true American Revolution.
Great article Eric!! Peaceful excercise and civil disobedience is the best way.
One thing I might add to what you said and its a nonstarter. Did you also notice what all these criminals have in common?
All of them believe that the world should be “fair”. They believe in “utopia” if only they or their group could be allowed to have what someone else has and distribute accordingly. A private criminal will always use the same thing that its unfair that someone else has something he doesn’t. Their consciousness is clean thereafter to use violence to make the world perfect for themselves albeit the other guy doesn’t matter since he was evil to have that many more seeds then he had.
All psychopaths think the world is cruel and unfair. They are going to make it utopia and fair. We have to all prune our own minds of injustices commited upon us everyday, or we would be the same way.
If they only understood the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The world is entropic. Religious people call it the fallen world, engineers just say entropy. Accept it get used to it. You build something it will want to go back to the ground and you’re going to have to work to keep it upright. There is no such thing as something for nothing. In fact the entropic law says there isn’t even the same something for that same something. The same people who advocate a perfect world are the same people who believe in perpetual motion machines. It doesn’t matter how many times they see the electric train stop once the juice goes off, there is always got to be a way for it to keep running forever if only its tweaked here or there. Remind you of gun control freaks and crime rates? Remind you of politicians? Not to pick on democrats as the republicans also are propeller heads, but when I read a liberal website I will often hear them talking about how President Obama is going to socialize the oil industry and thus deilver us zero point energy or something dumb like that. Heck I can buy nuclear power, you get good clean energy for dirty radioactive soupy mess. That is the real world of entropy, but no nothing in their mind could ever be clouded with the real world problems. Conservative prop heads think spending on defense will improve the economy same kind of disconnect from reality.
We are dealing with people that will not accept natural laws in the form of physics which like the right to self defense have no meaning to these people. I’d like to call these people evil and you know what they are. They simply refuse to toil the fields or understand natural principles as commanded by the universe (God). They are above that all, including the laws of gravity, capital investment of planting the seed or eating it, and physics. They refuse to see history repeats itself because of the same spineless and brainless people in their image in the pasts. In fact they will not even study academics or when they do they read only what they want to hear quoted from some lying politician in their image. They always make excuses why utopia didnt work before. They fight entropy in their own minds because they argue simply it doesn’t or shouldn’t exist. They are fools. They are idiots. It mentions these people in the bible as reprobates, and you know religious poeple are some of the worst too.
We have a real problem on our hands in the country and indeed in the world. We have raised a narcistic majority of children who emotionally and spiritually do not understand or appreciate reality. Further they do not want to accept that work is necessary to maintain the current much less get ahead. Some of these children never develop even up to senior citizen. It was bound to happen once people became insulated from having to directly work the fields and learn natural law directly from the dirt. Flip on a light, and like God the light appears, but they fail to think of a power plant 500 miles away is the true source of their magical power. P.S. cities are especially rife with this kind of stink and there is nothing an aware or intelligent person can do but run from them and take arms up in defense. Too bad defensive positions are always losing positions, history proves this as well.
The only answer is to continue to take the offensive on educating people. Nothing more liberating then the truth. Jesus said something very similar actually and I couldn’t say it better myself. And also to the religious freaks I have to tell your preachers that Jesus didn’t mean it as an insult when he said he “knew of the ways of the world”, its obvious that this goes hand in hand with spiritual progress of ones own mind.
But when it comes to war and sometimes this is unavoidable because of the heathen I talk above then pray hard that God makes your mind clear and fast and also Godly. In war of chaos it becomes necessary for you to choose right and wrong even when your own physical demise is at hand. This is a very somber assesment for a person such as myself that feels that all our judgements will also be judged. I fear heavily my own decisions and understand that unwarranted and pre-action is a sin in itself, war is sometimes thrust upon us but we should not participate if even one innocent person can be injured by our actions.
Best Regards,
HR
Actually, history proves with ample examples like the Lines of Torres Vedras that defensive positions can be winning ones, if they are part of a larger strategy.
Lawrence I had to go read up on the Lines of Torres Vedras. Obviously you know your history. Do you think the exceptionally cold winter might have been the greatest warrior that year? Anyway, I don’t have any disagreement with the way you put your statement.
I was thinking more of a defensive position like Herodium when it was conquered and destroyed by the Romans in 71 CE. Like you said defensive is needed but there must still be some other startegy to win. In the case of Lines of Torres Vedras or even the Nazi loss of Stalingrad the waiting winter may have been the greatest strategic offensive.
I’m taking it you are experienced in military history and tactical positions. Seems military scholarly like West Point?
HR
“Can’t we beat them at their own game? Start a ‘Fathers Against Aggression'(FAA) movement?”
Great idea Tor Munkov. The state propagandists are masters of manipulating emotions with snippets of thoughts.
I suggest “Gun Owners Pledged to the Non Aggressive Principle”. Rallies could be held where gun owners take pledges to use their weapons only in defense to protect themselves, their families, and others from aggressive violence.
The public would be invited to join them at the ranges to learn gun safety and the principles of NAP.
In other words, we need to organize like the statists have done.
The problem as I see it is that for those of us who want only to be left alone in peace is that that same nature prevents us from organizing effectively. We do not need others to validate ourselves. But the statists by their very nature simply cannot function on their own. They need to feed off of others and group approval just to exist from day to day.
Sorry, I meant Gun Owners Sworn to the Non Aggressive Principle – GO SNAP. I know it is corny but the idea is to grab the dull-witted’s interest in the shortest way possible.
Anyone with a better phrase, I am all ears…
I like GO SNAP just fine.
1 Write a gun owners pledge
2 Write a non-aggression pledge
3 In each locale; the day before local hunting season, raise awareness by holding an event to showcase the role of private guns in preserving a free, well regulated society
4 educate fringe elements/outcasts that we will accept them for whatever their deviations and protect them fully, if only they will adhere to NAP
5 compile lists of phyles, discovery procedures to inaugurate new ones, and principles of peaceful coexistence and cooperation between them
6 tell compelling stories of how we became so fervent in our belief that guns & NAP must never be abandoned, even unto “death.”
7 debunk the tough on crime posturing, explain how “posses” are emergent phenomena, forming as they are needed spontaneously
8 simplify & clarify criminal principles. Create a hierarchy of high aggression to low aggression crimes. target non-crimes without aggression for elimination from categorizations as crimes and redirect resources towards the hierarchy
9 Regarding Emotions & Thoughts. Create an expanded Carl Jung / Myers Briggs test. Introduce NAP psychology. The test results show which of the 16 types you are and also offer 16 plans of action to reason more clearly and avoid areas of wrongthinking and time wasting distractions. These test templates can be altered by various phyles as deemed necessary.
“The problem as I see it is that for those of us who want only to be left alone in peace is that that same nature prevents us from organizing effectively. We do not need others to validate ourselves. But the statists by their very nature simply cannot function on their own. They need to feed off of others and group approval just to exist from day to day.”
A few things….
Energy sourcing. “What’s in your wallet” or “is that my wallet in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
Extraversion
Extraversion is “the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self”.[3] They tend to be energized when around other people, and they are more prone to boredom when they are by themselves.
Introversion
Introversion is “the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one’s own mental life”.[3] Some popular writers have characterized introverts as people whose energy tends to expand through reflection and dwindle during interaction.[4] Introversion is not seen as being identical to shy or to being a social outcast. Introverts prefer solitary activities over social ones, whereas shy people (who may be extroverts at heart) avoid social encounters out of fear,[8] and the social outcast has little choice in the matter of his or her solitude.
Extraversion and introversion are typically viewed as a single continuum. Thus, to be high on one it is necessary to be low on the other.
Parasite
Parasitism is a type of non mutual relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. Unlike predators, parasites are generally much smaller than their host; both are special cases of consumer-resource interactions.[2] Parasitism is differentiated from the parasitoid relationship, though not sharply, by the fact that parasitoids generally kill or sterilise their hosts. Parasitoidism occurs in much the same variety of organisms that parasitism does. The harm and benefit in parasitic interactions concern the biological fitness of the organisms involved. Parasites reduce host fitness in many ways, ranging from general or specialized pathology, such as parasitic castration and impairment of secondary sex characteristics, to the modification of host behaviour. Parasites increase their fitness by exploiting hosts for resources necessary for the parasite’s survival, e.g. food, water, heat, habitat, and genetic dispersion.
Although the concept of parasitism applies unambiguously to many cases in nature, it is best considered part of a continuum of types of interactions between species, rather than an exclusive category. Particular interactions between species may satisfy some but not all parts of the definition. In many cases, it is difficult to demonstrate that the host is harmed. In others, there may be no apparent specialization on the part of the parasite, or the interaction between the organisms may be short-lived.
Organization.
Emergence in political philosophy
Economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek wrote about emergence in the context of law, politics, and markets. His theories (Hayek 1973, p. 37) set out the difference between cosmos or “grown order” (that is, emergence), and taxis or “made order”. Hayek dismisses philosophies that do not adequately recognize the emergent nature of society, and which describe it as the conscious creation of a rational agent (be it God, the Sovereign, or any kind of personified body politic, such as Hobbes’s Leviathan). The most important social structures, including the laws (“nomos”) governing the relations between individual persons, are emergent, according to Hayek. While the idea of laws and markets as emergent phenomena comes fairly naturally to an economist, and was indeed present in the works of early economists such as Bernard Mandeville, David Hume, and Adam Smith, Hayek traces the development of ideas based on spontaneous-order throughout the history of Western thought, occasionally going as far back as the presocratics. In this, he follows Karl Popper, who blamed the idea of the state as a made order on Plato in The Open Society and its Enemies. Emergentism is a rejection of the state on the grounds that it is a perversion of the emergent rules that societies form spontaneously. Some 19th-century classical liberals, notably Gustave de Molinari and Frédéric Bastiat, were known advocates of an emergent society and wrote about the concepts in detail. See The Production of Security and The Law, respectively.
The blackhats have not gotten where they are by dint of superior organizational skills, better bumper stickers. They have gotten where they are by dint of the material itself – people. Might blackhats themselves be “emergent”? As in defense mechanisms. Defense against what? Those perceived even blacker hats, the existential cardinals: death, freedom, isolation, meaninglessness.
Let’s say INTJ types are wired for closest accordance to reality, making the utmost of reality – including dealing with those existential cardinals. Let’s say 4% is analogous to the tail (rather than as more likely, just the last inch or two of tail). When does the tail ever wag the hyena?
The little tail that could is not in the cosmos. The little engines that could are the taxis to right here & now. How to stop the motor of the world? John Galt & Timothy Leary have a suggestion.
@ozymandias
Wow that was intense and interesting. May I add we live in a bipolar world. Positive and negative charges verify this. But spiritually the same behavior as opposites exist to anatagonize eternally. I’ve always like the saying that opposites attract, but what they forgot to tell you (in terms of electric field theory) is that they attact to annihilate each other. For me the idea of order and chaos exhibit the same bipolar phenomenon. Or what about intelligence and stupidity. Freedom lovers or statist?
Heaven would surely be a place where only like minded people would exist, where the destructive actions of the opposite didn’t destroy our own peace and fruits of labor.
It cannot exist on this plane of existence. For example take us libertarians. If we shunned our birthplace and founded a new free colony somewhere else (a new world), our beacon of prosperity would soon attract our opposites to cash in our destruction. We have found this true in our own short experience as a nation state. Its not suprising that our opposites eternally compromise everything that is achieved.
Just my two cents worth.
HR
@ozymandias
On the note of bipolar or our isomer evil twins may I say that in fact they believe just as full hearted in their beliefs as we do in ours. You can take a communist or fascist and take him to the ghetto where authoritarinism thrives and they will see nothing but beauty and hope. Up is down to them, our right is their wrong, our truth is their lies. You’ll never win a debate with a polar opposite if the audience is of their image type. Like you said our problem is that individualist like to be left alone so we’ll never coagulate on a daily basis. Their is an overactive clot whereas ours is a lean mean thinning blood. We’re bound for some very large wins and the reason is because nature always creates counterbalancing forces, and the progressives have had their unbalanced way for too long. The opposite force is due to align to take back ground, Le Chatliers very soon as equilibrium must be re-established. I’d be very worried if I were progressive authoritarians, the worldview they have constructed is collapsing right in front of their sensitive eyes.
hotrod….
Nihilism is worth exploring, but annihilation seems like a good one to avoid. Neutral corner / pole. Is like mindedness necessary, won’t like action cover it? If that weren’t a mirage, I mean. I think birth is relevant, matters, but place? If conscription by other people is bad, how much worse must place conscription be? Physical body is “home”; everything else is just insulation, decoration, background. Some plot of dirt will claim us all, permanently, soon enough.
“Believe”…rj pare thought this was a valid point, too. Belief is a substitute – often merely an easier preference – for knowledge, wisdom, understanding – but it’s not an argument. Law isn’t belief, but legislation is.
“we’re bound for some very large wins….” Dice have no memory. Not even loaded dice. The dice here are definitely loaded, & have been since long before any of us were born. Keep playing? Or even watching the tosses at tableside? If it’s going to go to guns, what’s the upside of standing in the crossfire?
@ ozymandias
“Neutral corner / pole. Is like mindedness necessary, won’t like action cover it?”
You are absolutely correct there is a relativity consequece that proves exactly this. Stasis on the other hand always causes annihilation of opposites and repelling of likes. The point I was trying to make though in line to your reasoning is that was that the bipolar world will annihilate if static (lacking motion) of opposites. And the old saying that opposites attract (as a good thing) is in fact not so by the laws of physics.
“Believe”…rj pare thought this was a valid point, too. Belief is a substitute – often merely an easier preference – for knowledge, wisdom, understanding – but it’s not an argument. Law isn’t belief, but legislation is.”
I don’t disagree whatsoever. I also advocate that reprobate or lies is not a way to glory and growth but a path to decadence. Again the uinverse may not have preference whether people(s) choose to to degenerate or grow. I personally would liken the side of bipolar spectrum that I’d like to participate in toward higher intelligence, higher awareness, better returns and those only come with facts and truth of the universe. The only thing I would say is that these people see degeneration as a positive. They might say something is growth but when you ask them to describe growth and order you’ll find that in fact their definition is actually backwards. I would say that given two extremes of a bipolar one being order and intelligence and the other being falsity and chaos I’d prefer to embrace the primary.
“Dice have no memory”
But they have things called chaotic attractors, which from a mathematical standpoint actually is a binding force that drives averages over large sets to approach the same statistical probability. In fact I’d argue even outside of statistics the game is loaded, as soon as you take the third law of newton’s physic of motion you understand that nature abhors and unchallenged force.
I think we agree on almost everything and I enjoy the conversation even with our slight variations of definition.
hotrod….
Sleep was chaotically un-attracted, repelled, last night, again. Even small sets of insomnia drives memory toward that of dice. Have heard anecdotes that leaving the land of Lilliputians can wind you up in the Land of Nod. That prospect alone persuades me to roll my bones outta’ here.
Hmmm…I thought the binding force that drives averages over large sets was called “vigorish” (house edge). Lol. Over the long haul, & even the not so long haul, the house wins. That’s the truth, & a good metaphor, too.
I find enjoyment in disagreement as much, maybe more, as agreement… positive resistance – press the weight up – & negative resistance – lower the weight back down. So, yes, it’s been a bipolar yinyang pleasure. ☻
Tor, that is brilliant!
Use the same bullshit emotional leveraging that MADD uses against the politicians…
“You’re not FOR aggression, are you?”
Basically rehash that long argument we had with rj pare on another thread; but play it out in the public arena, with a MADD-like facade.
Honestly I think that’s the best pro-liberty idea I’ve heard in years…
Fathers Against Aggression ™
Just co-opt the anti-bully PSAs.
Amanda Todd’s tragic story is also Aaron Swartz’s Story! We are all compelled to be Bullies at Gunpoint!
http://www.youtu.be/KRxfTyNa24A
– – – – – –
Harvard Geneticist George Church Seeks Funding to Pay Octomoms to Bring Back Neanderthals from Extinction.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/george-church-explains-how-dna-will-be-construction-material-of-the-future-a-877634.html
Meth, Tor You should run with that. Send it to LRC, get the message out. FAA, nothing to do with flying.
Dear Eric,
” These 10-15 percent are the leading vanguard of a new type of human being, one who rejects all use of force except in self defense.”
Some people might conclude from your remark that we champions of the NAP are patting ourselves on the back for being part of an intellectual vanguard.
But I’m betting you feel the way I do.
You just wish a critical mass of humanity already adhered to the NAP so we could just get on with living our lives unmolested by the extravert sociopaths.
Am I right or am I right?
“You just wish a critical mass of humanity already adhered to the NAP so we could just get on with living our lives unmolested by the extravert sociopaths.”
That’s it exactly!
One of the things that tires me – and depresses me – is the way statists posture as friends o’ man… while people such as ourselves are vilified as “mean-spirited” and “selfish”… for adhering to the ideal of a society not based on violence but on peaceful interaction and voluntary cooperation.
Dear Eric,
One of the things that tires me – and depresses me – is the way statists posture as friends o’ man… while people such as ourselves are vilified as “mean-spirited” and “selfish”…
It’s the moral inversion. That’s the most galling aspect of it.
It’s clearly the diametric opposite of the truth, yet they get away with it!
It’s sort of like being accused of witchcraft in Salem during the witch hunts.
You know the defense you offered was airtight. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t count. The witch hunters know a witch when they seen one.
Until this Alice in Wonderland upside down “logic” is turned right side up, I don’t see any real change in the offing.
“It’s sort of like being accused of witchcraft in Salem during the witch hunts.”
Oh how right you are Bevin.
Am I the only one who sees the crazed look on the faces of the modern day witch (anti-gun) hunters’ faces?
From obuma to feinstein to chuckie to piers to scheiffer to bloomberg etc. They all have a demonic look in their eyes as they scream for the blood of gun owners.
Dear skunkbear,
You are most definitely not alone!
But… you, we, sadly, are in the minority.
“After several hours, Joe finally gave up on logic and reason, and simply told the cabinet that he could talk to plants and that they wanted water.”
The witch trials is about right, it’s the same ancient social manipulations with newer packaging. When I finally watched Idiocracy last weekend I recognized the behavior of the people of 2505. It’s what I’ve seen countless times.
An image for bits of the critical mass of humanity to consider:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/ClaireWolfe/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Uncle-SamAsOutlawV-SMALL_fromToddH_011713.jpg
It’s also on the Freedom Outlaw Facebook page, or so I’ve read.
George Lucas got it spot on when in Star Wars, Episode III, as Palpatine addresses the Senate, after he’s slaughtered the Jedi and duked it out with their Grand Master and held him off: “We will now reorganize into the First Galactic Empire…for a SAFE and SECURE society!” Ruefully the beautiful, wise, but sad (as her then unborn daughter would remember her) Padme Amidala remarks to her colleague (Bail Organa): “So this is how democracy dies…to thunderous applause.”
Of course, the naive young lady senator didn’t seem to understand the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic. When you have a democracy in it’s “purest” form, you have two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner. In a constitutional republic, no one is allowed to be on the menu, and for it to be meaningful, the sheep has a right to be armed sufficiently to not wind up on the roasting-spit. The rule of law, IF it is respected and upheld, is the only thing keeping ANY form of government from degenerating into a scramble to see who gets to plunder whom. That’s something that sticks particularly in the liberals’ craw, but many a self-styled conservative, like Obummer’s predecessor, “Shrub”, likewise consider the Constitution a mere scrap of paper if it frustrates their agenda.
This has become a moment of truth in our nation…we must draw that “line in the sand” and say “Fuck Off!” to the likes of Feinstein, Schumer, Waxman, and Bloomberg”. I counsel these self-appointed arbiters of our collective self-defense to consult with JPFO (Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership), fellow Jews Wayne Allen Root and Steven Greenhut (both, interestingly enough, Jewish converts to Christianity), and finally the words of one of the most famous Jewish actors, in what I believe is his last role as Mr. Spock:
“If I were human…I believe the correct response would be…go to hell! IF…I were human…”
Sorry quick correction–George Lucas understands what’s happening, Padme’s words were:
So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause
She (Lucas) knew democracy sucks.
You’re most assuredly correct. Lucas sold the Star Wars dynasty to Disney, maybe to have the wherewithal to bug out if needed.
Lucas has always been at war with the big studios, with Bay Area local zoning czars, with everyone everywhere who always wants a say about every scintilla of everything he tries to build.
Govt: you have to do it, it’s the law
Citizen: who wrote the law?
Govt: we did.
Citizen: and now you’re enforcing the law you wrote?
Govt: yes
Citizen: is that legal?
Govt: it is now.
Citizen: don’t I have any say in it?
Govt: nope
Citizen: why not?
Govt: it’s the law.
Citizen: the law you wrote.
Govt: yup
Citizen: if it’s the law how come you don’t have to do it?
Govt: because then we wouldn’t be able to enforce it.
I love how govt agents justify breaking the law in order to enforce the law like speeding through school zones in order to catch someone who was speeding through the school zone. :))
The whole thing is an exercise in idiocy.
Don, that’s what defines a mob organization except I don’t think the Mafia holds a candle to the Feds or other statist criminals because I’ve never seen them hold such a poker face for centuries.
“James Yeager chief executive of a Tennessee-based company specializing in weapons training has had his gun permit revoked after posting a rant threatening violence should the federal government impose new gun control laws.”
I think Yeagerism is something we must be very concerned about. As I said before an all out door to door gun collection drive isn’t in their works yet. They plan to just go after the loudest and most outspoken and disarm them one at a time. This will send a chilling message to all the neighbors who see it, when they ratchet up the punishment from simply removing your right to own a firearm to actually putting you in prison, nuthouse, or to death for being a terrorist. At that point most all the other sheep will comply on their next gun drive. Soon all the lemmings to deal with their loss of self respect will then embrace gun control to deal with their lack of courage, they will say that they agreed with government all along.
The U.S. government knows that its absolutely impossible to remove these firearms with a door to door collection at this place and time. Gradualism works. Only after enough people volunteer their arms with enough programming will they get really tough on the remaining gun society. I have my doubts but I heard ABC say now 54% accept gun control, most agreeing that high capacity mags should be removed from the free market. Obviously, if its not an outright lie I’d say the back to back TV programming is working. Then the democracy will decide that your rights are just another priviledge of the state.
Therefore if you are an outspoken person about guns better not have any of them in your immediate possession in obvious place on your property. Anyone posting on here should be very concerned in my opinion if they love their guns. Although I believe Ted Nugent will drop dead anyone trying to take his and I believe those who say they will defend them with their own life. All others who would comply under overwhelming show of force should consider the obvious now while its still possible. Even if you are Ted Nugent type it might be a good idea to do a backup reserve cache somewhere just in case.
To me this is going one of two directions. Either people accept their own death and hold their ground until the whites of their eyes shown or they willfully civil disobedience and deny the removal of their arms by obfuscation. I don’t see a realistic miltia of 20 or more members able to fight in the fields with the U.S. military, this is because the U.S. is a surveillance state and its all be taped from birds in space and such large groups would be mopped up with predators and thunderbolts.
However I do believe we will win this thrust simply because we will be smarter than they hope. I’m thinking that a light gun battle is what the government is hoping for. Mr. Obama will be sure to call his martial law and demand even more “change”.
Gradualism does work, but they’ve been proceeding at light-speed the last four years; so much so the frogs are distinctly dissatisfied with the sauna-tub.
You’re right though, they won’t go door-to-door yet. They’ll pick off the marginalized populations; those “crazy people”, while generating more marginalized people through diagnostic bracket creep on what constitutes crazy. First, veterans with PTSD–check, they’ve started that (Brandon Raub et al.)
Next, anyone with a long or serious psych history.
And so forth.
But there’s a difference this time–it won’t work because they’ve shown their hand already! We know they want them ALL, and every victim will create more viral YouTubes and blog-rants.
But let’s say they keep at it. Let’s say there are a few strategically-played Waco reduxes, and the weak hands turn in their guns.
I’m betting it’s half or less–much less. Let’s say it’s 75% who turn them in after sufficient bludgeoning.
NOW can they go door-to-door? Because you now have 40 million people who’ve been stewing in sheer rage and frustration watching you take down their people.
Good fucking luck. They may have satellites and 4th generation weaponry–but occupy your own country? I think not.
One more point–occupy your country with whom? Because already a lot of the military won’t play along; after a bit more heat, they’ll be even more polarized.
Bring in UN troops? Once again, predator-prey dynamics; they’re a bunch of lazy conscripts fighting for a meal ticket. You’re fighting for your home and life.
They’ll wish they were in Kabul again.
At this point I genuinely think we’re winning; we have shout from the rooftops (like Howard Beale) because it’s up to us how long the hellish transition lasts.
I like everything you said Methyl…excellent arguments and I hope you are right.
Dear Hot Rod, meth,
Great exchange!
Re: polls.
They even have a name for them — “push polls.”
The DPP, a party on Taiwan uses them all the time. Their numbers are always way off from the independent pollsters.
They’re trying to pull “self fulfiling prophecies.”
Morning, Bevin –
Just so.
These poll results are invariably based on questions that predict the desired answers.
Q: Do you favor banning assault weapons that are used to kill schoolchildren?
Thanks Bevin great point as well. Off topic as I’m one of those guys. I’ve been thinking a lot about CJD and mad cow. First let me tell you that I’m an extreme skeptic of the government-industrial complex tall tale of HIV causing AIDS. Wouldn’t want to inject myself with HIV+ blood to test my hypothesis, but nevertheless I think the whole thing is a scam!
But Mad Cow and prion infection scares the f’in daylights out of me. You know what scares me most about it? The government says its not a problem, everything when it comes to BSE and TSE are non problems. I’m not a infectious expert and I’m also not a rancher, but when the government tells me not to worry…I WORRY. And when they tell me to worry I DON’T. So Methyl and Bevin whats your take on all the Prion hyperbole? If its as bad as the underdogs (non government) researchers proclaim then it may very well be the next plague?
HR
I worry, too HR –
That’s why I buy only local (grass fed) beef. And we raise our own chickens. Those who do as we do will tell you the meat tastes noticeably better, too. In fact, once you’ve had beef the way it’s supposed to be, you may find the store-bought feed lot stuff literally unpalatable.
Dear Eric,
They are variants on the classic Sophist question:
“Have you stopped beating your wife?”
Dear Hot Rod,
“You know what scares me most about it? The government says its not a problem… ”
Check!
Whenever the gubmint tells you not to be afraid, then you should “Be afraid, be very afraid.”
Eric,
Do you buy your grass fed beef by the side and thus use a box freezer or do you buy in smaller quantities? I’ve been on the fence about doing the local beef thing but it’s hard to make it affordable without having to buy a lot of it at once, even if you split the cow with a friend or two. And then there’s the risk of losing a freezer full of it if the power goes out and I’m not here to run the gennie. Any thoughts?
We have a big chest freezer – and back-up generator – so bulk is not an issue for us. One thing you might try is finding three friends and each buys a quarter of the cow. That’s more manageable, money-wise as well as room-in-the icebox-wise.
@Hot Rod re: prions, CJD, Mad-cow disease:
I’m still skeptical about prions; it’s still a hypothesis, and it’s not proven. Funny enough one of the supposed proofs came from my alma mater, UTMB here in Texas: Strongest proof yet found for prion hypothesis
The whole theory says a protein, necessary for normal function, becomes “mis-folded”. Proteins fold into extremely complex shapes–somewhat magically, nobody knows just how they’re properly folded. So this aberrantly folded protein recruits its normal counterpart and catalyzes mis-folding in them, too.
And that’s why I’m doubtful. Yeah, I can see something like hemoglobin–which normally exists as a tetramer (four subunits bound into single functional unit) maybe doing that, since the association is intimate and their catalytic activity depends on the linking.
But I’m still doubtful; their catalytic activity is SO specific, how could they catalyze re-folding of their own kind?
SUMMARY: I have my doubts.
For all we know, the whole thing is a cover story for an accidentally released bioweapon.
Eric…great points on buying your beef from open range local cattle rancher. I’d do that but I don’t have the space or capacity being on the move. We do eat mostly chicken, which according to literature has not been shown to cross mammal prions. But sometimes I get a good bite and can taste that chicken antibiotic taste, my Dad is the one that made me aware of it as he was a farmer. It seems all the food from Food INC is probably a poison of some sort, still I could handle liver failure over brain rot so prion research is very alarming to me. I was reading where they were saying that some 4 out 10 alzheimers cases are misreported CJD.
Bevin I totally agree with you that anything the government endorses should be eyed with suspicion.
Methy…I too am one that is a sensationalist doubter. All your thoughts are also skepticism I share. Although I would like to say that if I remember right that all molecules have a mirror image if I remember right that are called isomers? These molecules have the same number of Carbons and Hydrogens and other elements but do not occur in natural life forms. Interestingly, most people always speculate that something is natural life forms its good and if not it is bad. I always get a good laugh when I hear this and tell them nightshade is very natural. Likewise something that is an isomer might be VERY good for us. Who is to say that a isomered sugar isn’t the missing sugar that would sustain eternal life and not cause glycation aging, the sugar taken out of the parable of garden of Eden? There is much interest because some people believe there is no genetic counter inside of us (other than telomeres) and that all aging is cause by sugar glycation bonding of proteins in our own body. Hence forth then maybe there is some molecule of fuel that was void in our diet that would not have caused degradation? But with all these thoughts comes practicality, that without years in the body’s food chain the likely consequence of adding a foreign substance with no years for the body to adapt is likely to be deadly consequences. This is why I believe it possible that prions are real. See with HIV I could deduce that it wasn’t a real culprit because it didn’t behave as communicable virus known to man. Prions though being a warped protein and not a virus that may be some twisted isomer might very well cause the proteins in our own body to basically unravel. Again I’m not diagreeing with any of our excellent points on doubting, I’m just concerned that with Cattle Kuru, feeding cattle rendered body parts to other cattle that we have a very unnatural method for feedback to occur and multiple of something of a protein that is probably very unlikely otherwise. From what I have read almost all the U.S. lies and says they don’t feed dead animals to dead animals. This is not the case, they simply do not feed nerve material or bone meal to animals. Something seems possible when you make an herbivore a carnivore and a cannibal on top of that. Thats why I fear cattle Kuru very much.
Best Regards,
Hot Rod
HR, meth, eric, I have worked at a couple feed lots, small ones, and there was no process for using dead animals. Dead animals were simply taken off to remote places for coyotes or if a local slaughterhouse for pet food and other were available taken to those places(I don’t agree with this. If the animals were safe to eat for any reason they probably wouldn’t be dead). I don’t know if some places have means for doing this sort of thing. The huge feedlot near Plainview, Texas that Cargill owns could be doing anything since they employee mainly African immigrants. They’re going to close that one Feb. 1 due to the drought in Texas that’s been going on long enough there isn’t enough cattle to keep it open.
I can address grass fed beef vs. my own home grown beef I take to a feedlot to have finished on grain, the grainfed is much better, more tender. I grew up eating grassfed beef and it was tough and stringy and didn’t have near the taste of grainfed beef. I won’t compare commercial beef with beef I’ve grown and take to the feedlot since there is no comparison.
Many years ago my wife was about to cook a brisket or something on the Q and left it on the cooktop thawing. I got to checking some venison in the barn that had been hanging a few weeks, heavy aging. I noticed the temp that day was high as it had been for a few and didn’t want to mess up the venison so I said we needed to process it. We had a deer hanging on the breezeway I was butchering with my wife taking the cuts and final dressing them. I walked into the house to deposit more venison cuts and smelled something not very nice. I had been working on the deer and fairly much knew it smelled fine. I got to walking around the kitchen and found the rank smell, the beef cut. It wasn’t bad, just had that old smell to it, commercial beef. We cooked it and it was fine but the smell was rank compared to deer. I had shot a couple wild hogs(not like any pork you ever had, really nice meat and tender with a really nice taste, no salt or sugar seasoning) also(not hanging)and had a home grown beef in the freezer we’d just gotten. We made chili out of a blend of all three that year and it was the best we ever had. Now I’m not a neophyte when it comes to butchering since we have our own equipment for grinding meat and only use a knife to separate the cuts, never use a saw. We ALWAYS heavy age every meat except pork and it’s always great. I can only attest to a lifetime of eating homegrown beef, grassfed and fed out in the feedlot and can tell you the fed out beef is much tastier and more tender by a long shot. One thing, we have never used any sort of steroid to enhance growth even though it costs us money to not do so. It’s just something we don’t believe in doing, especially when we’ll be eating it too. We used to get heavy aged pork from a guy in Tennessee who grew his own hogs and processed them. You’d get a 40 lb. ham that had about 3/4″ of rotten meat on the outside and have to remove that to get the good meat inside. It was to die for, good old rotten pork(it had a distinct taste)although it wasn’t actually rotten on the inside. Fry it up, make red eye gravy and just try to quit eating it. We haven’t had any heavy aged pork since Jerry died…dammit. I”m sure he couldn’t sell that on the open market and didn’t have to try, people were lined up for it. Now that was some great pork. I never knew his method of aging or what he used to pack it in. I’m feeding pigs out right now and that will be some outstanding tasting pork but most people would have to be told what sort of meat it is.
@Eightsouthman
Sorry to make it about feedlot versus range cattle. The point of my concern is exactly what you said (Cargill) BigAg versus small ranchers or operators that actually care about their product. Myself working in big electronic corporations it seems that the humanity is often forgotten and government bribes go a long way in a big company. I won’t even go into the equipment that I designed to prey on cancer victims.
So you see I feel for you and any rancher or farmers that gets the blame for big mega-prize industry.
Now from what I hear that my prized chicken I eat are fed basically the rendered animal products that are no longer allowed as bovine feed because the FDA has determined that the prions can’t spread to chickens (I’m thinking great lets just further exasperate the odds of being wrong). Then the chicken shit which had possible prion tainted feed is fed to pigs, is this real government protection or what?
My point is that it seems government often times hides the big operators sham and points the blame at the smaller operators when SHTF. So that brings up the question do you think mad cow is a real concern? I know even Elk are showing up with their brains riddled with CJD prion in post biopsy so I agree that the issue isn’t soley a feed lot problem. I suppose when I get rich enough I’ll buy my own cattle and get my hands on concentrated prion and then do my own tests, unless I get arrested for being a terrorist trying to get down to the truth. If not then I’ll report back to you all (smile). Until then I’ll stick with what I really know (electronics) and talk about the rest with some doubt and concern but no authority.
Best Regards,
HR
We free range our birds – though they do get pellets/corn as a supplement.
I find grass-fed beef to be noticeably superior in taste.
There is a whole repertoire of tried and true techniques that have been built up by experience down the ages. They don’t have to occupy anywhere, apart from a few bases to operate from – which don’t even have to be close to sizeable populations, with modern technology like drones etc. All they have to do is lock down areas that are non-compliant (think of the way the Union set up artillery batteries overlooking Baltimore in the early 1860s), then proceed to retail or wholesale deportations if they stay that way – the only part that would need “boots on the ground” at all, and then only briefly. A modern lock down would simply involve cutting all power and outside supplies, and banning all public mechanised activity, particularly transport, which is easy enough to enforce with air superiority. It would work much like the continuing allied blockade of Germany after 1918, only it would be more thorough and could be more localised. Wholesale deportations could be taken to the point of “electing a new people” through “spill and fill”, Acadia fashion – or Trail of Tears/Indian Reservation fashion. It’s not as though they actually need the current people to run anything, at any rate not with the current trend towards getting rid of all actual value adding (which is very different from the background Cyril Kornbluth used in his 1950s novel of a Soviet occupation of the U.S.A., Not This August, which had the Russians wanting to tap into a valuable industrialised base).
That’s a grim scenario; yes, lay siege, cut off supplies, and maintain the lockdown remotely.
But the drones require maintenance, fuel, and replacement.
And the bases require supplies…and they’re here.
By the time it got to that, I’d hope patriots were working on those bases.
And you know what I mean by “working on”.
There is a rumor (Oath Keepers inside Homeland Security) have made it public that Obama has told Homeland Security to prepare for a massive civil war inside the U.S. this last week. I can only question if its true if Mr. Obama pushing for tighter gun control is actually hoping for a full scale civil strife. A president with an evil ego and the dictatorial powers of martial law. And the TV gets the plebes ready by comparing him to “Lincoln”. Diane Sawyer prophesizing the messiah Obama to the rescue of the civil war of our era.
Tommorow I hope to buy at least 5 boxes of 12 gauge shells at Wal-Mart for home/RV defense. Its the only gun I haven’t cached in a remote location. I keep hoping that I’m being paranoid but my gut feeling is telling me this might be it. It would sure explain what Homeland Security has in plans for all that ammo it purchased. I haven’t been ammo or gun purchasing recently, I know all the military grade guns are gone but do you think I’ll have a hard time finding 12 gauge ammo? Probably not but what the heck.
I’m also going to increase my dry food storage from 2 weeks to 6 weeks. I can’t go all out like you guys because I have to stay light weight for mobility. On the other hand I’d sure like to have a couple meals if shit hits the fan, long enough to get me by until I get out of the city.
Also I’ve been thinking about buying a cross bow and lots of arrows. Any thoughts?
HR
I went to Gander Mountain last week and there was still a good supply of 12 gauge (and other shotgun) ammunition.
On food: I’d want more than a few weeks’ worth. Or at least, the means/ability to secure more food if things got really bad. Crossbows strike me as a note bad idea, if a firearm is not available. I have a .22 “survival” rifle that can be broken down and stored in the stock (water tight). These used to be readily available at sporting stores. I would take this one with me if the time comes to flee into the proverbial woods.
What I’d really like is a multiple level crossbow like a six shooter. All stacked on top of each other with the trigger mechanism serially shooting each one at a time with a finger squeeze. Curious if ATF has any restrictions on crossbows?
HR
hotrod…like this, maybe?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BEZX6AprZI
Ever read Vin Suprinowicz’s “The Black Arrow”? ‘Sonic net’ was mooted (muted?) by utilizing compound bows…and swords…there’s an Irish lass with a falcatta, oh my…..
@ozymandias–
I have “Black Arrow” but haven’t read it yet…is it a good read?
I enjoyed his “The Ballad of Carl Drega”–kind of a prolonged “Der Tag Kommt“, Eric’s ominous phrase.
@Hot Rod re: imminent war.
I wonder. They’re certainly prepared for it. But I think they’d be in for a very nasty surprise if they tried it (confiscation) now; certainly in the South and West.
They have nowhere near enough personnel; and good luck recruiting enough willing troops.
Certainly the Elite would love a civil war to destroy America; it would save them the trouble and time of continuing to do it slowly. They’ve stolen most of the wealth already; it’s just mop-up time now.
But it won’t work right now.
Here’s what I fear: a massive false-flag, big enough to really frighten the masses and get them turning in us “conspiracy theorists” and “extremists”.
I’m not even sure that will work. OTOH I sometimes use my hypnotized parents-in-law to gauge reactions, and they’d certainly fall for it.
I am HUGELY encouraged by how rapidly Sandy Hook is falling apart. One of the main YouTube videos questioning it has over 11 million views! That’s just a month out.
Remember how long it took coherent, convincing evidence questioning 911 to come out?
Either they’re getting more sloppy, or we’re getting more awake.
BTW look up the owl drawing given to Obama by one of the children’s parents; it’s an Anderson Cooper broadcast…and a cute little Illuminati hat-tip.
Fuckers.
Suprinowicz is not top shelf fiction, but I enjoyed it, nonetheless. Der Tag Kommt – yes. Setting is well after civil war / secession is underway (so a lot of blood has already been spilled). The characters have lived through that, are already hardened, survivors. And they find a leader. A perfect, wet dream-type character. And that Irish cutie has a posse, too. lol.
I think I asked if you read Ross’ “Unintended Consequences”..didn’t see response. Also a good read, well-padded with accurate history re the slomo prohibitioning of firearms.
This is a bit wierd I even talk about one of possibilities. I usually don’t entertain civl war or any of this doom stuff. But just imagine that they plan a false flag against the president himself on inauguration day. Then blame it on non other than anarchist and gun lovers.
These perps would love to get all the blacks thinking we are all KKK and want Obama dead because he’s black. It could then stage the beginnings of an all out Waco assault against public militia.
Like I said I’ve got a wild imagination and usually don’t apply it on what if of politics.
My sixth sense say’s we are about to have something sweeping happen, hope its nothing.
Oh I get that inaugration thing because the press was saying something about Michelles’ Bang(s). My wife said they said something like the inauguration will start with a Bang. Like I said you got Diane sawyer talking up Mr. O like he’s the next Lincoln. Got to possibly get the plebes ready for something right shifting so the government can save us.
@ozymandias
I loved that Van Helsing crossbow. Where do I buy one? Excellent link. Definitely, have to look over the design a bit to see if its really usuable real world.
HR
hotrod…you may need to buy a 3-D printer, instead, & “print” one. lol.
Have seen some impressive penetration demonstrations with bows. Seem to recall broadheads defeat kevlar, etc. Any confirmation?
Wouldn’t that be a bitch? Like the scene in “Apocalypse Now”, soldiers on the gunboat, being speared & arrowed by primitives from the river bank…..
Yeah I hear that it goes through Kevlar as well. Since most professional criminals expect bullet barrage I think death by arrow for the criminally possessed…grin. I always like to think abnormal when it comes to self defense myself. Its kinda a Heisenberg uncertainty principle actually. A split in the universe into a parallel time lapsed version.
I also like the natural silencer effect of it all. You know if the 2nd gets repealed you won’t want to have a boom sound when the bad guy comes in your house. Just make sure to have a foldable rug near the door, so you can roll up the evidence and go dump in the desert. I’ve said it before that when the cops find him they’ll say…”Hmmm sombody shot this son of bitch…with an arrow! But I didn’t know him” Be really funny if you could dump the criminal’s body near an indian reservation. Not to put the blame on an indian or anything, but I think the indians were pretty awesome with their inventions and wouldn’t mind paying a token or two of respect.
Ok Feds everything I said above was bullshit about you know wanting to dump a criminal’s listless body on an indian reservation. I really don’t have a dead criminal wrapped up in a rug on my doorstep. Nor would I really do that to the awesome Indian folks. All B.S. folks like I said I’m a bit tired and my humor gets a bit morbid when I think of my rights getting jerked on along with lack of sleep effect. No I’ve never had any psychotherapist evaluate me, nor used any pyschotropic drugs…laughing
Hot Rod, you’re on a roll. I hear something else will penetrate a “bullet proof”(sic) vest, that old green tip 5.56 just zips on through….plus you only get 40 tries before reversing that mag.
eric, I think a friend summed up “prepping”(any serious SHTF) for people our age when he said “Yep, I have everything I need for the long haul, a bottle of Scotch and a round of .357 M”. We are front and center for BO’s death panel.
“On food: I’d want more than a few weeks’ worth. Or at least, the means/ability to secure more food if things got really bad. Crossbows strike me as a note bad idea, if a firearm is not available. I have a .22 “survival” rifle that can be broken down and stored in the stock (water tight)”
I wouldn’t even know where to begin on living off the land. Sounds awful!! But a skill worth having for those that know how to do it. I admit that my technical skills are fairly vertically integrated and in a total breakdown of an economic system they would be fairly useless. Yes I could McGyver up any cludge of crap electronics to do some pretty amazing things, but how I’d ever go about selling or trading such a service based on one of junk items in a faltering civilization or economy would be nearly impossible. My thinking at this point would simply try to move to more civilized territory that still had law and order without having a police state and try to offer basic repair services to home electronics. I’d enter a service economy and give up manufacturing high level electronics. It would be a drastic step down in everything I’d ever worked for or plan in terms of growth industry of making value added electronics. If it were say a civil war my skills could have some use there, but that most likely would be signing my name on the extermination list. I might actually do it if I felt the cause was noble enough, but I’m rarely a joiner and usually see counter insurgencies as more of the same crap as the previous with a different face. All and all it would be every man for themselves. I’d not have family to support or worry about other than my wife, which is both good and bad.
I really can’t see me being able to store more than 6 weeks of food. The drag would be too great and it would hamper my greatest ability which is mobility at lightning speeds.
I’m curious why you find crossbows not appealing?
HR
Hot Rod, there are many good survival books, many with field guides to show you everything around you to eat. Now would be a good time for you and your wife to get one, read it, get another and compare. I’ll contact some friends who have many of these and find out what they recommend.
Owl drawing? Now that’s f’d up. Owls have only one possible meaning here that I know of… that damn thing they have out in the woods in California.
As to the shooting I believe it happened. I don’t believe it happened the way we are told. Why? Nothing happens the way we are told by the government. I would say media, but the media just reads and reinforces government press releases and repeats what government people said at press conferences.
As to the reaction of people thinking it never happened etc and so on. It’s because the media coverage has probably crossed the threshold to where it looks fake to more than a small percentage of people who took the effort to break the spell of TV.
Need another thread. Ozy, you reminded me of something an old compatriot sent this morn.
Happy Birthday General !
Two great speeches by the Great Southern General Thomas Jackson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1NOCtZGMdQ&NR=1&feature=fvwp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnNWtDRrHrQ
you nailed one of the two main differences between the Colonial Militia and the Redcoats of the Kid-King. First, the Lobsterbacks were mere hirelings who did NOT know the countryside, and fought against folks born and bred in thet thar briar patch… AND were defenidng their families, homes, businesses, lands, and way of life against mindless drones following orders. Second, the Regulars WERE well trained… as far as it went. They were decent shots at ranges up to about a hundred yards. Mostly they fired “by the numbers”, typically high shots. Rarely were they carefully aimed. In contrast, the Colonials trained seriously… face it, their ability to shoot well at range often meant meat on the supper table, and had since they were old enough to hold up a Bess and push back against the recoil. Many accounts have the Colonials proving dead accurate aim.. at ranges up to three hundred yards. Morgan’s Riflemen had to “qualify” by breaking a wood shingle at 250 yards. Men like Hezekiah Wyman rode out parallel to Battle Road, keeping a couple hundred yards off, dismounted, waited for an opportune shot at the Recoat officers….. taking one shot and dropping said officer, reloading, and getting the next, before anyone could figure out where he was. When he’d merely remount, and ride ahead to the next officer presenting. I believe he dealt with some fifteen or so officers in one afternoon.. and no one ever got a shot off in his direction.
The Colonials were also the masters at the “skirmish”, what would likely be called “guerilla warfare” today. The precisely arrayed British Regulars were as ducks on a millpond to the dedicated, independent, skilled militiamen. Sure, our military today are well trained, often in tactican combat situations. But they will generally NOT know the local territory, and certainly will not be as motivated. Besides, as things fall apart, what will happen to the revenue needed to even PAY them for their “service”? Will they continue “serving” for “free’ lousey food? Maybe….. maybe not.
“The Colonials were also the masters at the “skirmish”, what would likely be called “guerilla warfare” today. ”
True, and the ass-hat generals like Washington insisted on fighting the British using the tactics the British were using. Most Americans regard Washington as a general who won the war, and have never heard of Francis Marion or of skilled warriors like Hezekiah Wyman.
Your post reminded me of something I read. I can’t quote it chapter and verse but I remember from somewhere that it’s LEO policy to assign officers to patrol districts where they don’t live or have any ties to in the interest of “impartial enforcement”. Is there any truth to this?
Ed:
“True, and the ass-hat generals like Washington insisted on fighting the British using the tactics the British were using.”
Likewise, the biggest mistake the Confederacy made was putting Gen. Lee in charge of its army. Lee was a product of West Point (AKA The Prick Factory) and as such fought the war under the terms of the enemy.
The South would have won the war in less than ten years and with only one tenth of the casualties, if that, if it fought a guerilla war as did the Colonists.
Except one thing, Lincoln and those working for him were not like the British. These were people who would have treated guerilla war as yet another excuse to carry out horrors upon the civilian population.
Dragging out the war would have increased the technology disparity between the north and south weapons wise as well.
I am not sure it would have turned out better.
BrentP:
“These were people who would have treated guerilla war as yet another excuse to carry out horrors upon the civilian population.”
Except Lincoln’s army did burn through the south with the horror of total war without any excuse.
Although it was fictional, Rhett Butler’s speech in the parlor room about the reason why the South could not produce as well as the North was actually historically accurate. Logistics made it foolish for the South to go head to head against the North.
It is all speculation of course. No one can say what shoulda, woulda, coulda; had people of the past only had the sense to do what we in the present now tell them they should have done!
Their excuse was that the south rebelled and thus deserved it. What they did do is the proof of heir mentality. IMO it would have only got worse without armies in the field to stand in the way.
BrentP….not so fast, I think.
“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist…” ~ last, incomplete, sentence of union general John Sedgwick….
Think about all the good old boy sharpshooters. Carlos Hathcock types. Hard to direct an army w/o officers.
Nowadays the union has who knows how many Chris Kyle types. Not good. But konig wasn’t expecting Zaitsev at Stalingrad, either. Thing about fights, any kind, is they are contingent. You just never know, except in retrospect, which is a bit late.
Rooney, back in the 70’s as a teenager considering my career options, I asked a Virginia State Trooper why they periodically moved patrol officers around the state. He said it was done so that they were less likely to establish close relationships with the “locals” and give their friends “preferential treatment.” Deduct from that what you will…
I think I stand on pretty good ground with my theory of how a “guerilla warfare” strategy by the confederate states would have worked out. Look at the countries where the US federal government’s military has been beaten by guerilla warfare. What was left of them? They were totally wrecked. Iraq, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc and so on… just bombed and burned and worse.
BrentP, bombed and burned and worse.
Yes, both sides I’d say but the indigenous peoples were still there, no place to go so they had to dig in and do better. It’s always interesting when you come across a determined population with it’s back to the wall. Some small countries like Hungary come to mind during WW11.
Tionico, there was a difference in weapons also. While the Brits used muskets for fast reloads and face to face battles, the colonials were using the new “rifles”, a much more accurate weapon with it’s rifled barrel. They couldn’t stand toe to toe in a battle with these guns but they didn’t use them in that way. For all intents and purposes, at least the colonials purposes, they were much better armed.
“Look at the countries where the US federal government’s military has been beaten by guerilla warfare. What was left of them? They were totally wrecked. Iraq, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc and so on… just bombed and burned and worse.”
True. But the confederate states were just as wrecked. It took until the early 1960’s for the south, or at least some of it, to get back to where it stood economically before the invasion. How long did it take Vietnam? The blackhats never left, were never run off, beaten, by the confederates – for lack of guerrilla tactics & strategy – as they were in those other places.
That was then, however. Different tech base that was more or less broadly distributed, & far different people. Guerrilla response now could not be nearly equivalent.
Much more likely that the country becomes a larger version of the Warsaw ghetto. Like soviet Russia was. When the beast dies, it will be from its own internal contradictions, not from internal revolutionary force of arms – tho that may be sprinkled on top, perhaps, at/near the end. ‘The end is nigh’ some think. Some always think that. Not a bet it all proposition.
Ozy, there were many reasons the South failed to rebound and they are all due to the NE’s PTB need and desire to keep them down. They used everything in the federal arsenal of dirty tricks to ensure this would happen. Even the civil rights legislation was written to keep the races and hence, the economy divided. Texas was the only state loyal to the Confederacy that managed to come back to a great economy even though the fed has never let up in trying to keep it down. At last count Texas was supporting via fed. blood money, fed. taxes, 15 or so non-viable states. The so-called Union, would fall flat if Texas seceded successfully. I know of no real economists who would dispute that. There is nothing of any consequence besides fiat money produced above the MD line.
eightsouthman….
Many reasons, but all under the umbrella of failure to rout the invaders, yes?
Ozy, without a doubt.
The federal government left Vietnam, they would never leave the southern states.
Vietnam is like those folks who made the 911 coin with ‘one dollar’ on it and got an FTC fine… The southern states were like the Liberty Dollar, which was millions in confiscated property and prison sentence.
Even conventional guerilla warfare isn’t radical enough. But it will get there thanks to the likes of Obama/Bush/Next US Presidents. Used to be that assasination of the top leaders was a no-no, but Obama/Bush has made sure to disregard that philosophy. So in return, the sword will come to return on D.C. and they will fret the day they ever practiced unlimited warfare amongst the political leadership of foreign countries (assasination). Really though this is how civilized wars should be fought, the two sides of trouble makers having an honor to duel it out and leaving the rest of us alone. The idea that political scum get to sit back in their chairs and watch the circus they create with impunity is just not likely in all out modern day guerilla warfare. Again in no way do I encourage someone to go killing U.S. politicians (probably very counterproductive for gun owners in the U.S) but the U.S. politicians have already broken down the barriers around the world with their very own actions. This is why I’m not personally interested in war, I’d like to see the most aggressor big talkers clean each other up and let us go about our business of making a living.
Feds please note that I’m against total lawless guerilla warfare (such as assasination) and do not advocate any such thing as assasination here. But I hope you understand that when you live by the sword the consequence is obviously going to be returned, I’m meaning foreign blowback here and not a domestic civil strife.
HR
If the country ever gets in civil strife or civil war rules of military conduct and international laws of engagement should be applied. No assasinations, no innocents in other words only strictly the biggest standing army in the world against the biggest standing militia in the world. Likelihood…..0.1%.
Reason..government will come to their senses when they see the citizen is determined to retain all their rights, even the ones they think have been squashed by prior legislation. And the citizens will do so at any cost and prevail if antagonized.
To all of our enemies foreign and domestic:
The wages of treason (declaring war on the American citizen) shall be death!
My biggest fear is a false flag attempted assasination on say a politican or just a plain dumb militia guy trying to start a civil strife here in the U.S. by firing the first shot on such a person. This would then give the government expansive rights such as martial law to basically bring in the big guns against gun owners. Believe me I’m shaking in my boots just thinking that maybe the very next thing the government does to try to garner support against the populous gun owners such as myself. Its a very real concern as I think the whole nation is itching for a fight right now with Obama’s recent aggresive moves.
Either way the whole thing could spin way out of control real quick.
I dread that also –
My wish is that sanity – reason – will prevail; that it won’t be necessary to go to the mattresses in order to preserve the right of a peaceful person to be left in peace. That we can change enough minds in time…
But, like you, I worry that something is going to happen that will trigger an ugly outcome.
Our “fellow Americans” are still to an unnerving extent imbued with statist principles and, I fear, would surrender whatever vestigial liberties they still enjoy to the government in the wake of another “event” such as nahhnlevven.
I have seen the American soul – and it is a yin-yang of fear and hate, easily manipulated and (worse) easily directed to revile whatever straw man is set before it by the government.
The first time, it was “ragheads” … the next time it may just be us. “Domestic extremists.”
HR, the US federal government fights worse than mafia style frequently, and by frequently I mean in practically every engagement since 1980s. The mafia will go after the head guy with a hit, the US federal government also goes after his family.
Furthermore, the civilian population is a target but the leadership that wants and brings about the war isn’t in this international convention. This strikes me as absurd.
BrentP…..
“they would never leave the southern states.”
Not voluntarily.
Point continues to be, from my perspective, that the last recognizable window of opportunity closed because Lee compulsively conformed to code, which was synonymous with fighting numerically & …what’s the right word for “provisions/supplies”? (dice memory)…superior adversaries on THEIR terms.
If Lee had been killed, instead of Jackson, maybe, the needed asymmetry would have been brought to bear. If those Scotts-Irish had been let lose, the yankees would not have prevailed, I don’t think.
Oh–forgot to mention:
I don’t believe those polls.
They’re propaganda designed to induce a bandwagon effect. Peer pressure highly motivates susceptible people–and most people are susceptible to it. It’s very powerful, which is why the Tavistock Institute has used polling as a propaganda technique since the 50’s.
Brought to us by our High School Prom Queen and King. Pep Assembly Time…Rah Rah Rah! They really thought they were royalty with their burger king hat, now they have a facebook page with 10,000 lame aquantance friends and have suddenly became queers because its the right thing to be now.
Remember Queen? Now that was cool queer before queer became uncool. It became uncool when everyone wanted to be queer simply because they thought it was cool. Check out your local ex prom queen or king and you’ll find she/he has now found their homo side. I figure if I simply just do what everyone isn’t doing which is being flat boring and unhomo which in my suit is uncool and always has been that someday I’ll be very cool and popular. I never got popular obviously or the game “follow the retard”.
LOL Hot Rod, I work on the same theory!
I like 80’s music. I grew up with it. And I still listen to it; it drives my (infant–she’s six years younger) wife crazy!
But it’ll come back in vogue soon enough.
Same with my boring clothes, boring haircut…
…and boring real male values, like honesty, hard work, diligence, kindness, generosity, and general don’t-fuck-with-me-ness.
Because all those things have survival value–which is why they evolved in the first place. Oh…and 80’s music. That has survival value too.
Love Queen (the band)!
Freddie Mercury had arguably one of the best voices in all of rock history. His early death was a tragedy.
Yeah, but Queen was going strong in the 70’s…THE decade for music. Plus we had levis superbells. And hair. Lots of hair, like William Wallace. lol.
HotRod, please don’t make me so sick. Ted Nugent is a pervert. He’s a mealy mouthed, dyed in the wool police state aggressor. Not only is he a “deputy sheriff” as is C. Norris(puke), but one of his most fun things to do, he loves it in fact, in his words, are kicking in the doors of pot smokers. Need I say more?
I had no idea about the mealy mouth pot hating peacock Ted Nugent. Though I don’t idolize anyone and scarcely know anything about celebrities. I did see his face off debate with Morgan and have to say his drop dead bluff worked with the weiner Piers. I could see peter Piers all worried that he wasn’t one of the cool guys, he was that gay stuffy Englishman we all hate over here. The message was resonanting and rattling back in forth of Morgans empty head, I could see him talking to himself in his head “I sure look like a little weasley Englishman that needs to drop dead”. Ted in my opinion is a celebrity no show actually (simply a bluff in the sand) but I also know a lot of guys just like him that are not going to go down without blazing glory. I’m in no way the type of guy who makes lines in the sand. When a man does such a thing and doesn’t follow through it kind of destroys his persona for both himself and others. Better to be honest in my opinion I’m scared as crap about large number of goons descending on me at once with much firepower. What I do in that moment really is between me and my God. In either case whether the drug war or soon to be gun war, the Feds have no ethical right to harass us on either. Ted Nugent can drop dead.
Ted appears to be a typical specimen of Homo Republicanus. He’s for “freedom” – to support the troops and the wars and the wars on peaceful people’s private recreations.
Doesn’t get that what goes around, comes around.
Brave Ted can go into the woods and shoot animals and he supports wars that he does not have to fight in.
And he has the courage of his convictions to shit in his pants for a week to avoid the draft rather than go to jail for his beliefs like cowards do.
Motor City Pussy.
Good catch on NooJent.
I see OSHA, Ag. Dept., Customs, as beings mostly of an “inhuman” nature. They restrict the power of people to eat and to live, in order to magnify the power of the state.
That is their jaub(fake, faux, job)
” I heard ABC say now 54% accept gun control, ”
That is an example of how the media teaches people what to think. It’s an obvious lie, even if their “poll” is correct.
I haven’t heard anything ABC “said” in many years, because I don’t watch TV or listen to news or talk shows on radio. I don’t want to be exposed to the risk if catching that virulent strain of AIDS that Elmore Leonard called “Hearing AIDS, the kind of AIDS you get from listening to assholes”.