It took “conservative” Republicans to trot out mandatory and market-based health insurance in the same mouthful. 
Don’t ever forget to thank them for this.
Well, it’s time for the next step: Mandatory gun insurance – also “market based” and “incentivized,” of course.
Here it comes, directly from one of the insurance Mafia’s chief consiglieries, Robert Hartwig. He is president of something called the Insurance Information Institute – which is an outfit funded by the insurance Mafia for the purpose of spewing propaganda favorable to the insurance Mafia and to wheedle for more laws that extort fresh “customers” for the insurance Mafia:
Mandatory gun insurance, he says, would “. . . (cover) individuals whose person or property was in some way injured or damaged as a result of the use of a firearm.”
What Hartwig avoids mentioning is the guns that will be pointed at gun owners who decline to be “covered.”
But why would anyone decline such a valuable “service”?
Perhaps so that they can afford to keep the gun. Or even buy one in the first place.
And here we come to the true object of this enterprise: To make the legal ownership of guns progressively more expensive, so that within a period of years, very few people except the affluent elites (and eventually, perhaps not even they) will be able to legally own guns. No registration – or confiscation (as such) will be needed. The public – most of it – will be disarmed via being priced out of the “market” using “incentives” provided by the insurance Mafia.
Or they will be criminalized – by the government – for not having bought the required insurance. Exactly as has been done already to car owners who fail to purchase the required insurance. And will soon be done to people who fail to purchase the required health insurance.
It’s quite brilliant, really.
The Mafia would “reward” gun owners who own fewer guns – and levy surcharges upon those who own “too many” guns – or guns deemed “too powerful” or “excessive,” such as those of a certain caliber, or which have magazines that hold “too many” bullets. Conceal carry? Higher risk – you pay more.
It will work in exactly in the same way that the insurance Mafia has made owning powerful cars and motorcycles – especially more than one – financially untenable for most average people. Gun owners who do not keep their guns stored unloaded and /or locked up – and therefore, largely useless for home defense – will be surcharged into penury. And just as the insurance Mafia is already pushing hard for in-car monitors for drivers, so also will the insurance Mafia push for random checks or in-home monitoring for gun owners – to “make sure” the guns are “kept safe.” Either accept these terms and conditions – or give up your guns.
Or, become an outlaw – subject to potentially years in prison if they ever find out you failed to comply.
Every gun owner will be strongly “incentivized” to become a good little Clover – to do as he is told.
And most will.
Bet your bippie that Obamacare – brought to you by these same “conservative” Republicans – never forget that – will tie into this. Already, doctors are asking probing questions of their patients: Do you own a gun? The patient is Catch-22’d either way. If he says yes, the doctor – now in cahoots with the government and the insurance Mafia – will jot that information down on the patient’s files – files that are no longer private. Files that are going to be read with great interest by the government – and the insurance Mafia (which amounts to the same thing) because your “health care” is now a matter of public concern – and must be “incentivized” with “market-based” nudges – you know, orders enforced at gunpoint (the guns owned by not-you, of course).
Or, the patient lies and says no.
Now he’s probably committed some sort of actionable offense – one must always tell the truth to the government – even though the government rarely retruns the favor and is never obliged to. The patient who fibs to Uncle – his eternal in loco parentis – must live in perpetual fear of Uncle discovering his fibbing.
Much worse – for the patient – he tells the doctor to piss off and mind his own goddamn business. Patient is belligerent and paranoid; potentially dangerous. Immediate e-mail to Homeland Security. Cue the thug scrum. (This is no exaggeration, by the way. It has already happened to several people. Their doctors narced them out to the insurance Mafia’s enforcers – you know, the police – and “for their safety,” these people’s guns were physically taken away despite their having done nothing to anyone – much less committed any crime. See here and here and here, for openers.)
Don’t just bet your bippie. Bet your ass this is coming.
Efforts are currently under way to get mandatory gun insurance laws passed in the following states: California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. But the real push will come from Washington – from deep within the reticulated colon of tyranny, soon to issue forth its predictable product.
This is their strategy – and I expect it’s going to work. Because for it not to work, there would have to be a successful challenge of the idea of forcing people to buy insurance, period. Put another way, if it is wrong – or even merely unconstitutional – to force people to buy insurance in order to legally own a gun (even in their own homes) then it must also be wrong to force people to buy health insurance to “cover” their own selves. Or their cars, for that matter. To be compelled to buy any insurance at all – except in cases of property not yet fully paid for, in which case one has the free choice to not buy the property – or to wait until one has the means to do so outright, without taking a loan.
The very idea of mandatory insurance itself must be thrown in the woods.
Do you expect that to happen? The system has already decreed it’s just fine – ethically peachy and legal – to literally threaten to cage people at gunpoint for failing to purchase a health insurance policy. And a car policy. What makes you think they will stop at that?
I don’t think they will stop.
The basic idea behind mandatory car and health insurance has been accepted by most people – to say nothing of the courts. And that is the real problem. If you have to buy car insurance because you might cause damage to someone else’s property (even if you never actually do) then surely you should also be required to cough up for a gun insurance policy. If you have an obligation – enforceable at gunpoint – to hand over money to the health insurance Mafia for “coverage” because you might get sick and might impose “costs on society” – then surely you have the same obligation when it comes to owning a gun.
Right?
Who will argue the principled opposite? That it is better to accept that when it comes to any given thing, some people may (indeed will) occasionally behave irresponsibly – and accept the consequences of this (and hold only them responsible for their actions) as the price of living in a free society – than it is to chase the unicorn of a risk-free society and along the way, treat everyone as presumptively irresponsible? To put a finer point on it: To punish the responsible – the innocent – based upon the actions of the irresponsible and the guilty – in an ever-speeding-up vortex of dumbing-down and its inevitable corollary, the clamping down on whatever freedom of action remains. A world in which nothing you do or might do isn’t someone else’s business. And theirs, yours. Everyone a prisoner of everyone else – and hating one another for it.
Hell on earth, realized. 
We are well on our way there.
Jefferson characterized the either-or this way: Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem. That is: Better freedom with danger than slavery with safety. And even the sage of Monticello made the error of accepting the premise that slavery can buy safety; it can’t – it never has. Ask the Soviet-era Ukrainian kulaks how “safe” they were under Stalin’s “protection.” Or on a smaller scale, the 77 victims of Anders Behring Breivik, all of them living in a legally disarmed, “safe” society that proved to be anything but “safe” for them.
So, here’s our choice.
Either people take a principled stand – and forget the utilitarian arguments – or they will accept what’s coming. They must reject not just the idea of being compelled to purchase gun insurance in order to be “allowed” to own a gun, they must question the whole filthy juggernaut that’s steaming along behind it. The very idea of mandatory any insurance.
It’s as simple – and as complicated – as that.
Government, if it has any ethical justification at all, exists solely to protect the rights of the individual. It is an assault on the rights of the individual to deprive him of his rights before he has done something to justify it. That he – that “someone” – might behave irresponsibly is thin gruel, inadequate to override the fact that he hasn’t yet. Any government that abuses any person’s rights – that punishes any person pre-emptively for things he hasn’t done but which someone “might” – is itself abusive and no longer legitimate.
Our rights are sacred – but we’ve forgotten. Most of all, we have forgotten that there has to be a damn good reason to forcibly deprive any human being of any of them.
Doing so because some other person did something – or might do something (and thus, “you might, too”) – is an absolute outrage.
And to accept it, a degradation.
Will you accept it?
Throw it in the Woods?
Springfield, IL – 8 months pregnant woman tased
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjft1bMYvF4
Italy’s finance and border pigs seize family’s 110 kg in gold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo4UdE0VOxw
All below are NSFW, & don’t click on the pr0n-spam!
Marine Chimps Out With Road Rage
http://mentalzero.com/extreme-videos/fights/road-raged-marine-goes-bat-shit-crazy_6611/
Police Kill South African Miners
http://www.heavy-r.com/index.php?handler=videos&action=download&vid_id=119694
Vietnamese Firing Squad
http://www.heavy-r.com/index.php?handler=videos&action=download&vid_id=124186
Belgian Man Killed In Police Custody
http://www.heavy-r.com/index.php?handler=videos&action=download&vid_id=128923
Homeless Man Beaten By NYPD Pigs
http://www.heavy-r.com/index.php?handler=videos&action=download&vid_id=122351
Sri Lanka Soldiers Kill Captive Civilians
http://mentalzero.com/extreme-videos/shocking/rape-and-murder-are-second-nature-to-this-soldiers_3522/
Pigs Kill Dog In Stafford
http://www.heavy-r.com/index.php?handler=videos&action=download&vid_id=118485
It is all very familiar, and very depressing. Find me a man so vast an imbecile that he seriously believes that this prohibition would work. What would become of the millions of revolvers already in the hands of the American people if not in New York, then at least everywhere else? (I own two and my brother owns at least a dozen, though neither of us has fired one since the close of the Liberty Loan drives.)
Would the cops at once confiscate this immense stock, or would it tend to concentrate in the hands of the criminal classes? If they attempted confiscation, how would they get my two revolvers—lawfully acquired and possessed—without breaking into my house? Would I wait for them docilely—or would I sell out, in anticipation, to the nearest pistol bootlegger?
The first effect of the enactment of such a law, obviously, would be to make the market price of all small arms rise sharply. A pistol which is now worth, second-hand, perhaps $2, would quickly reach a value of $10 or even $20. This is not theorizing; we have had plenty of experience with gin.
Imagining such prices to prevail, would the generality of men surrender their weapons to the Polizei, or would they sell them to the bootleggers? And if they sold them to the bootleggers, what would become of them in the end: would they fall into the hands of honest men or into the hands of rogues?
The real victim of moral legislation is always the honest, law-abiding, well-meaning citizen—what the late William Graham Summer called the Forgotten Man. Prohibition makes it impossible for him to take a harmless drink, cheaply and in a decent manner. In the same way the Harrison Act puts heavy burdens upon the physician who has need of prescribing narcotic drugs for a patient, honestly and for good ends.
The drunkard still gets all the alcohol that he can hold, and the drug addict is still full of morphine and cocaine. By precisely the same route the Nation’s new law would deprive the reputable citizen of the arms he needs for protection, and hand them over to the rogues that he needs protection against.
The Uplifters Try It Again – by H.L. Mencken – 1925
Great insight Eric (as usual). The monopolistic aspect of the insurance “industry” is key to its profitability. Just as the registration and tracking of insured “property” is key to gun-vernment control of the same. Hence the symbiotic relationship between big gov and big corp. And as we all know, it really sucks to be the host for these parasites.
A few years back, I had been seeing a very good and principled chiropractor to avoid back surgery. During a visit, he informed me that he was giving a presentation at a medical insurance seminar showing how he could reduce their costs through chiropractic care vs. conventional medicine. I laughted. He wanted to know why.
I explained that the insurance industry is regulated. That means they are government protected monopolies and their profit margin is set by the state. Therefore it is in their best interests to maintain as high a level of “costs” (to the extent the market can bear) to justify higher premiums. This was how they are best able to increase the dollar value of their “profit” margin. Or more simply: Which would you rather have? Ten percent of one million dollars or ten percent of a hundred million? He told me I was being cynical and that’s not how it works. I told him we’ll see.
When a saw him again, his countenance was fallen. I asked him how his talk went. He said he gave his presentation and after it was over a group of four insurance company execs approached him. They took him aside and said let us explain to you how it really works. He looked me in the eye and simply said, “You were right.” Gun insurance won’t be any different. The mafia analogy is spot on.
Banking. Insurance. Drugs. Medicine. Weapons. Energy. Agriculture. Cybertechnology.
Maybe I’ve left some others out, but these are the eight core components of the economy that have always had –and will continue to have– a stranglehold on the machinery of government. As eight industrial sectors that are essential to the sustainment of civilization as we all know it, those who are the “key players” within each will get what they want. Always. Or they’ll make sure that the “right” people are put into positions of public power who will see to it that they do.
I’d LOVE to be able to say that a greater awareness of this ugly and inconvenient reality among more and more of The Sheeple will eventually change (i.e., put an end to) this, but I’m not optimistic. The Sheeple need the products of these eight critical sectors of the economy too. I don’t see them biting the hand(s) that they believe feed them.
one can not argue the merit of any of these bills…if you do you lose..say NO to all bills /laws..and prepare to defend against them….there will not be a’ 2 nd’ chance….
Dan…I agree 100%. Insurance is a racket plain and simple. If there is a free market choice insurance is usually not too expensive, however once coverage becomes law they will charge as much as the market will bear.
Mandating insurance for guns is as retarded as doing it for automobiles or aircraft. Only due to the fact it is pretty much universal do people consider auto insurance as being “normal”.
When I first started driving in the early 1970’s auto insurance was not mandatory in Alberta, however insurance was very low. Once it was mandated by law costs tripled within a few years.
Insurance for an airplane was not required when I bought my first plane in the early 1980’s but, again it was fairly cheap if you wanted it. However 90% of the private airplanes were not insured in any way. Again, once it became law, the cost soared in a few years.
My insurance broker explained that, before people had to have insurance for their planes, few accidents were reported to the government and the insurance companies based their tables on government data that showed Canada had an amazingly low accident rate! Actually it was an amazingly low rate of reporting.
I hope they never mandate house insurance.
Hi Dave,
Yup.
When people can’t say “no thanks” to a product or service, the cost of that product or service is going to increase. And mandatory insurance further increases costs because people become less careful, less concerned about costs. After all, they’re “covered.”
I hope they never mandate house insurance.
They already have here in Amerika. If your house is mortgaged, then THOU SHALT have homeowner’s insurance. I don’t think TPTB are very concerned about mandating it for houses free and clear of a mortgage lien simply because such homes represent a tiny percentage of the overall home-owning population. If, however, by some economic fluke a huge percentage of the homeowning population were to pay off their mortgages and gain title to their homes, you can bet that the insurance mafia would be pounding the steps of every state capitol building AND the domed criminal asylum on Crapitol Hill demanding that homeowners insurance be made mandatory for EVERY dwelling in the land.
There are some random thoughts and curiosities about this insurance idea:
1) Automobiles are used almost exclusively in public in crowded areas, guns are almost exclusively used in gun ranges and secluded areas away from the public.
Who should pay for accidents involving guns? (note accidents are not intentional)
Hunting: To the extent that guns are used in public they are used for hunting, so a hunting licence might also include a requirement for proof of insurance.
Firing Range: Injuries at firing ranges would be best handled by the firing ranges’ insurance as the range is most responsible for safety.
Employer. You will notice police officers are not required to buy insurance. Why?
Home/other: Best handled by the liability coverage of your homeowners insurance / renters policy + Umbrella/Catastrophe policy. This is what covers liability for your Bicycle, lawnmower, knives, Chainsaw, spear gun, axe, ect.
Manufacturer: You could have insurance for a gun handled by the manufacturer.
The government: Since the right to be armed is a constitutional responsibility of the government shouldn’t the government be responsible? There are all sorts of government insurance programs like crop insurance, medicare, and these days shoreline replenishment. So why not guns?
2) Can personal liability insurance cover typical shooting incidents?
It is difficult but not impossible for criminals to conceal their automobile use. Illegal aliens are notorious for driving without insurance. Virtually all guns used by criminals are concealed, so it is impossible to enforce individual insurance on the people most likely to cause injuries, criminals. So personal insurance will not work. Note I did not consider accident vs intentional act.
Newtown massacre type incidents:
But but but what if the INSURED gun owner, like Adam Lanza, goes berserk and kills a bunch of people? Intentional acts like suicide and murder are generally excluded from all insurance.
Think about what would have happened if instead of a gun Adam Lanza decided to use a large pickup truck to mow down a line of kindergarten children. While I assume the lower limit auto insurance would cover an intentional act like that, I doubt but do not know if the higher limit homeowners and umbrella policies will.
In Connecticut the min auto insurance policy is.
$20,000 bodily injury coverage for injuries or a death occurring to one person in an accident.
$40,000 bodily injury coverage for injuries or deaths occurring to more than one person in an accident.
$10,000 property damage coverage for an accident.
My guess is Lanza’s mom had voluntarily and wisely paid for higher limits. Probably $300,000 after which her personal catastrophe policy aka umbrella policy would pay, which being prudent she probably purchased. But here is an interesting question that should be answered by Mr Insurance Policy Institute: How did the Lanza Homeowners and Umbrella policy respond to the shooting incident? In the past when people with such policies go berserk with an automobile and intentionally cause injury, how does the auto and umbrella policy respond? If the Umbrella does not respond to intentionally injuring someone with a car, it will not with a gun. So why wonder about it?
Excellent column, Eric. My only quibble: the poster that says, “If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave.” That’s not quite right. It is demonstrably dangerous to speak against tyranny, and IMHO only a fool is not afraid of the potential consequences.
On the other hand, only an abject coward weighs the dangers and decides to remain silent. The thugs in government and their hangers-on have in mind obliterating freedom in the U.S., and are already well along in achieving those goals. We MUST oppose them by words, and when necessary, deeds, or else our children will live as slaves and we’ll have only ourselves to blame.
It is indeed dangerous to speak to tyranny. Who would be so foolish to claim they were being threatened when there were no consequences? You’d be FREE to say it but then nobody would care and you’d be viewed as that nice chap with a screw loose. Still, you wouldn’t be in danger or cowed into silence. On the flip side you see the noose being slid over our heads and slowly tightened all the while the hangman intones how “free” you are while stroking the trap-door lever.
They will have to have a gun registry to go with the insurance and you can bet that Va. will start taxing them as personal property. They already tax anything they can trace with a title or depreciation schedule un Va. and guns would be next.
Hi Bill,
“…and you can bet that Va. will start taxing them as personal property. They already tax anything they can trace with a title or depreciation schedule un Va. and guns would be next.”
I don’t doubt that at all.
The Clovers of Virginia are particularly rapacious.
“The Clovers of Virginia are particularly rapacious.”
Yes indeed. Virginia is dominated by the northern districts near DC. The “Virginia Clovers” are mostly transplants from the socialist paradise of New England. Damn few of them can claim a single Confederate ancestor.
Just what is “Political Correctness?” Political Correctness is in fact cultural Marxism – Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. The effort to translate Marxism from economics into culture did not begin with the student rebellion of the 1960s. It goes back at least to the 1920s and the writings of the Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci. In 1923, in Germany, a group of Marxists founded an institute devoted to making the transition, the Institute of Social Research (later known as the Frankfurt School). One of its founders, George Lukacs, stated its purpose as answering the question, “Who shall save us from Western Civilization?” The Frankfurt School gained profound influence in American universities after many of its leading lights fled to the United States in the 1930s to escape National Socialism in Germany.
Kudos Eric – A very well written article.
Valuable insight.
Whenever the direct approach to abrogating our rights and liberty comes on too strong, and is therefore seen for what it is, TPTB resort to the indirect approach.
If we are stupid enough to make “reasonable compromises,” then over time, the indirect approach will achieve EXACTLY the same result as the direct approach.
Thank you, Rev – here’s to hoping it makes it past the Heimat Sicherheitsdeinst’s screening!
See here, if you haven’t already:
http://ericpetersautos.com/2013/04/01/site-weirdness/
Gun insurance is just another back door attempt to register guns, which leads to confiscation/price the ownership out of availability as Eric’s article makes clear.
But let’s speculate on how these gun insurance rates would be assigned using car insurance as an example.
Teenage boys pay a much higher rates than teenage girls for car insurance due to the stats showing a higher risk factor. Fine. But would gun insurance rates be likewise assigned for those showing higher risks with guns?
Crime stats show overwhelmingly that, as a percentage of the population, blacks, especially young black males, cause much more havoc with guns than do Whites. Will the insurance companies charge rates accordingly? (Not that the criminals, black or White, will ever buy insurance.) You can be sure that Blackness Inc will gnash their teeth until Whites are forced to subsidize with higher rates to make up for the forced lower rates given to blacks in the name of “equality”.
Like everything else requiring a-gun-to-the-head compliance, insurance is just another racket.
“Infringed” is not just a function of a law against possession.
Why does the Americanized English language seem to be so difficult for people to understand?
Willfull ignorance and intentional stupidity.
Joe Madison was arguing the point on his radio show several weeks ago that if you have car insurance and home insurance then you must also have gun insurance. I tried to make the point that while car and home ownership are nice things they are not a fundamental right as is self defense i.e. gun ownership rights. Of course as soon as I starting to make my point he potted my down, made straw-man arguments and hung up on me.
The moral of the story is that you cannot reason with statists, left or right. This will be shoved down our throats, maybe not tomorrow but once it is on the table it will be pursued until they can get it done.
There is only one hope for liberty lovers: secession.
skunkbear, you and Joe are missing something vital. The “right” is not to own guns or cars or homes. Our natural right is to life, liberty and property… that includes everything we do or have. The flip side of that is personal responsibility for all of our choices and actions.
That means that we are totally responsible for what we do with our cars, tools (all kinds), homes, etc. We have the “right” to use them, burn them down, do whatever we wish as long as we do not harm others. When and if we do harm others, we are responsible for bearing the consequences. We must make it right, pay restitution, replace what we have damaged, etc.
Insurance, in a free market, would simply be one way of arranging to take care of accidents and serious mistakes, both damage to others and damage to our own property through unforeseen and unavoidable problems such as lightning, wind ripping off the roof, etc.
This “gun insurance” thing is a very bad combination of an ordinary financial tool to mitigate loss… and the sick, invasive tyranny of government control. Same with “health insurance” or any other kind.
I have home owner’s insurance, though I’ve never made a claim. If my house burned or was wrecked by a tornado, I’d recover all the money I’ve ever spent in premiums. I don’t need anyone to mandate that I have that insurance. Government fun and games make it more expensive than it needs to be… but such is life now.
I have car insurance, PL&PD for liability. The car is too old to be worth carrying comprehensive. I’ve only ONCE, in 50 years, made a claim on my car insurance. I’ve lost my shirt a hundred times paying the outrageous premiums, but the government fun and games makes that mandatory, and again… far more expensive than necessary.
I also have an insurance policy from the NRA for gun related things. As an instructor, I believe the insurance is necessary, though it would probably not cover much if I were ever to have serious trouble. It’s just one of those things. Do we need government fun and games added to that? Most assuredly not. And yes, that would certainly serve as a back door registration scheme.
The problem isn’t the insurance. It’s the government fun and games, and any requirement to carry insurance. We all must be prepared to suffer the consequences of any action that harms others, and mandatory insurance of any kind doesn’t really do that job.
Here you go:
Despite a plan by Republican senators Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee to derail and defeat S. 649, the Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013, Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is preparing work with Democrats in their war on the Second Amendment next month.
Sen. Grassley proposes legislation while stating the Constitution is about small government and the rights of the individual.
According to pro-Second Amendment websites, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he may support “gun control lite” legislation. “You would think ALL Republicans are lining up behind Senators Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee to support the filibuster of Harry Reid’s gun control bill — S. 649,” writes AmmoLand today. “But that’s just not happening.”
Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid, are looking to find Republicans they can deal with after Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn refused to collude with them on anti-Second Amendment legislation.
“If Reid manages to pick up the support of enough Senate Republicans, Obama will get what he wants — fictitious ‘gun trafficking’ legislation, so-called ‘mental health screenings’ and ‘expanded background checks,’” AmmoLand reports. “Possibly even more gun control like Feinstein’s so-called ‘assault weapons ban’ and a federal magazine ban will also be on the table.”
Grassley is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. If he supports “gun control lite” many junior senators will find it more difficult to oppose legislation aimed at the heart of the Second Amendment.
In 2009, Grassley cut a deal with Democrats on Obama’s socialist healthcare takeover. He was the top Republican negotiator in the “Gang of Six,” a group of Senate Finance Committee members negotiating with Democrats on Obamacare.
“Senator Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell’s history of ‘deal-cutting’ should be so worrisome to gun owners,” AmmoLand explains. “I don’t have to go back far to remind you that Mitch McConnell has a history of caving in to the demands of Obama and Harry Reid.”
…..
“S. 649 already contains the Veterans Gun Ban, which could send you to prison for 15 years for selling, raffling or gifting a firearm in America, while not realizing that the recipient was disqualified in some way – say, for being a military veteran with PTSD or for being a habitual user of marijuana (for medical purposes),” Gun Owners of America warned in a recent Action Alert.
….
Senator Chuck Grassley: 202-224-3744
Senator Mitch McConnell: 202-224-2541
The Repubs selling out?! There’s a first time for everything…
Tongue in cheek?
MoT, tongue through the cheek!
Mitch McConnell, eh? Who’d’a thunk it?
Kentucky is apparently trying to compete with Texas to supply the most brainlessly amoral, unprincipled, and dangerous politicos to Washington. They’ve already made sure that both of their Senatards fit that description. No doubt all of their Reprehensibles do too. (On personal note, my wife is from Kentucky, so I take great pleasure in each new reason I’m given on a silver platter to bash the place in her presence.)
MamaLiberty,
“skunkbear, you and Joe are missing something vital. The ‘right’ is not to own guns or cars or homes. Our natural right is to life, liberty and property… that includes everything we do or have.”
I agree with the rest of your post but I think you missed my point entirely by including me with Joe about misunderstanding what is a natural right and what is not. I clearly stated that self defense was a fundamental right (to life) ergo owning a gun (property)is a just means to provide for that right. Self defense is a basic human right. Owning a house or a car is not a natural right. That was the point I was trying to make to Joe but he obviously does not agree and that is why he had to cut me off. And that was my story’s point – there are people who do not believe that self defense is a natural basic human right. They are beyond reason and therefore insane. How can we even pretend to find “common ground” with such people?
The right property obtained through trade or as a gift is a natural right. I don’t care if it is a gun, a house, a computer, a cow, a tractor, a car, a vase, a plant, a rock, a set of tools, or anything else.
Once a statement is made that is not a natural right to own one particular item class then all the others become fair game. A home is just as vital to defending yourself as a gun is. More so IMO. The gun is used for when someone breaks through the door. If you don’t own the door, then the usefulness of the gun drops dramatically.
To only have the gun as a natural right opens up the avenue to incredible abuses. You’re at work with your gun, meanwhile the government employees enter where you live and take everything. Legal because well, you have no property rights beyond that gun. Or maybe they just show up at 2am with far more and better guns than you have to take the stuff. You’re going to lose your stuff either way, the question is do you lose your life too. All legal when you have no property rights.
The bill of rights has the second amendment to specially call out right to arms but it does not disparage other property rights by being there. It specifically prohibits the state from interfering with a property right states often like to take away to make it loud and clear.
Brent,
That is s superb insight – well-said, too.
You are spot on. It’s property rights (including each of our right to own – and protect – our own selves, the ultimate, irreducible form of property) that’s ultimately at issue.
Dear Brent,
Agree.
That’s why many state constitutions kept the original wording of the US constitution:
“right to life, liberty, and property.”
Never ever underestimate the danger posed by the thin edge of the wedge.
Let that get in, and after that it’s only a matter of time before it is driven in all the way.
Eric, thanks for adding that. I neglected to take it the further and crucial step that we own ourselves.
Bevin: “Never ever underestimate the danger posed by the thin edge of the wedge.
Let that get in, and after that it’s only a matter of time before it is driven in all the way.”
What a concise way to state why minarchism cannot work. As long as the state exists, no matter how humble its beginnings and no matter how vigilant the populace is at the outset, it is bound to eventually become Leviathan.
Dear Mike,
Right!
I never wanted to believe it. I wanted Lockean minimal government to be enough. But I was forced by both logic and evidence to conclude that it never will be.
I’ve been watching trends over here on Taiwan, with its highly touted “democracy.” Same starting point, same eventual outcome. Creeping cloverist dictatorship.
They recently passed a seatbelt law, complete with stickers on taxi seats that read “Buckle up, or pay up!”
The mainstream intelligentsia over here are so proud of it. Western fellow travelers of course egg them on. The three superlatives they use to describe “Taiwan’s democracy,” are “lively,” “thriving,” and “vibrant.”
As in “Taiwan’s (lively/thriving/vibrant) democracy.”
Always of course, set in opposition to the Mainland’s “Communist dictatorship.”
BrentP, your argument in defense of property rights is excellent.
For what is property but the result of one’s labor? And that means one’s time. Time is the most valuable thing of all because it is absolutely limited. When someone steals or damages your property they are stealing or devaluing the time spent earning that property. Acquiring and defending property is indeed a human right too. I did not argue otherwise.
But I was specific about car and home ownership. Although they fall under the rights of property, they are not in themselves “rights”. If one chooses to honestly buy them they are certainly free to do so. But my point is that they are specific choices whereas self-defense is not a choice but an inherent part of being a human.
Thanks, but I disagree on classes of property.
There are no classes of property as far as I am concerned. A firearm is just a class of property. A statist could argue you could just exercise your right to self defense with a pointy stick or a rock or your fists. A car would make a better weapon than a pointy stick in many situations. That’s the crux of a statist progressive gun control argument. That nobody needs a gun that does X to defend themselves. This other gun will be just fine, until the next round of legislation that then bans it too.
A gun is just property. A tool of self defense or sport or fancy looking hammer or whatever. Many things can be tools of self defense. A firearm is just one class of property, one class of many, that can be used to exercise that natural right.
In England the state having taken away the firearms is being urged to take away the pointy kitchen knives. At some point they will be down to pointy sticks to defend themselves.
Then there is the real threat to self defense regardless of the tools used. The tendency of government to side with the criminal, the attacker, when that attacker is successfully fended off by his intended victim. Those who successfully defend themselves may end up in prison for it or losing their savings and property or both.
Using a gun or a chainsaw for self defense is a choice and we have to defend the right to property to have our choice in tools to exercise the right to self defense. Otherwise government will just decide what tools we can defend ourselves with and odds are the stone knife I found many years ago that is who knows how many ages old may end up as an illegal possession.
“That nobody needs a gun…”
And who shall determine what constitutes “need”?
Why, our betters. The government.
I’ve tried to explain to statists that once you concede the authority to other people (those who control the government) to determine what you or I “need,” you have signed up for the slavery express. Who really “needs” more than three cups of gruel every day? A bunk in a communal home is all anyone really “needs.” Who “needs” more than one car? A V-8 engine?
You can see where this is headed…
Unfortunately, the statists cannot.
BrentP, “There are no classes of property as far as I am concerned.”
I would agree with that with the one exception being the gun (previously the sword, the club etc.). Maybe I can clarify my position a little.
There is the argument that the DOI’s phrase, Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness should have been kept to the original Life, Liberty, and Property.
But I say it should be Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Property.
By which I mean that just because one is born does not mean they have a human “right” to fill-in-the-blank property. They only have the right to acquire it through their own honest labor. And for which then said property shall remain their own, unmolested.
However, when one is born one does have the absolute right to self defense merely for their being a human being. (Indeed, every living being has the right to self defense.)
We humans do not have sharp claws or powerful fangs with which to defend ourselves – or our property and Liberty. We must rely on tools. Therefore to deny a person the tool (gun) necessary for the defense of their person and property is in fact denying them of their basic human rights.
Your previous post about owning the house and the door etc fits in quite well with what I am trying to argue about self defense and protecting property rights. I merely say that without Life, Property rights are moot.
One’s body is one’s property. Pro 2nd amendment statists will argue the military draft and other aspects where the state claims to own us. Thus IMO invalidating the 2nd amendment. Our bodies are our property like anything else.
I am not sure what you were attempting with the birthright statement. I have to earn the gun just like anything else. It wasn’t issued to me. I even have to earn the pointy stick by making it pointy.
BrentP, “One’s body is one’s property. Pro 2nd amendment statists will argue the military draft and other aspects where the state claims to own us. Thus IMO invalidating the 2nd amendment. Our bodies are our property like anything else.”
I could not agree more. The draft, forced “community service” and compulsory skool attendance are assaults on individual
sovereignty.
I will try one more time about the birthright.(And I apologize for not being able to make myself understood.)
One is not entitled to a car or a house or any other property (including guns) just because they are a human being. One is only entitled, by the sake of being a human being, to try to obtain whatever property they wish so long as it is done through honest labor.
Whereas one IS entitled to self defense just because they are a human being. Self defense is not something one has to try to obtain.
The means to self defense, guns or pointy sticks, do indeed need to also be earned as property but there is a difference IMO.
A private lender for the mortgage of a house insisting on insurance to protect his risk is understandable and does not infringe upon one’s right to obtain property.(Gubment forcing people to buy home insurance even if they own the home with no note is not reasonable.)
The gubment forcing gun owners to have insurance is not understandable and is obviously being used to infringe on one’s right to self defense by denying them the means to defend themselves by placing an undue and unreasonable burden to exercise that right. It is an infringement.
I am intrigued with your comment, “Thus IMO invalidating the 2nd amendment.” Could you please elaborate? Thanks.
The statist argues the state owns every person in its territory. Right statists argue we have a right to own firearms. If the state owns us we have no rights, including the right to firearms. That’s what I was getting at. A person who argues we may be conscripted by the state, forced to serve the state through our wages, or any of the other means of conscription and involuntary service IMO at least is being inconsistent to then say we have rights, including firearms.
IMO The right to firearms is a spelled out property right. Others aren’t spelled out because the need to spell any others out wasn’t apparently felt necessary by the committees in the late 18th century. The right to self defense can be exercised in many ways. To defend owning firearms as a right to self defense leaves a big hole. So you have a right to self defense…. fine, exercise it with a plastic spork. Not having a gun does not take away the right to self defense. One can be for the right to self defense and a gun grabber and be consistent.
The only way I see to attack such a condition would be to relate the right of self defense to self ownership and then back through property rights. I think it is more effective to just stick with the right to property from the get go. If government can say we can’t own a firearm what will it say we can’t own next?
BrentP, thanks for the reply. I get your point and appreciate it. I tend to agree with it but to be honest I must noodle it around a bit. I think we are seeing the same thing but from different directions.
I would like to address the defend yourself with a spork comment though.
The statists ask, “Why does anyone need an ‘assault rifle’?”
I am dismayed that no one from the libertarian camp has responded to this question with the obvious answer: Citizens need to possess semi automatic rifles because that is the bare minimum weapon that can give them the ability to fight back against a tyrannical government.
The discussion of self defense requires the raising of the question, Self defense against what? A spork is way insufficient against a knife wielding burglar as well as against a member of the Standing Army (in all its forms) kicking in your door.
My point is that by arguing the right of self defense to defend firearm ownership it has accepted the statists’ premise of need. All the statist has to do is agree with the right of self defense and then it becomes an argument of ‘need’. What do you need to defend yourself?
Now it has played into the statists’ hands. We are arguing that we need this gun versus that gun. The statists win all such arguments of need in the long term. That’s why politics and the media force debate to it. Even if the result is that we ‘need’ something a hair short of a tactical nuke they win. Why? Because now the precedent has been set that the state sets the line of what we need. With a line set they will seek to move the line one increment at a time.
Look at gun control. What happened? People argued need. Who needs a Tommy Gun? Inch by inch they have moved the line of what we ‘need’ to defend ourselves. In England people are calling for banning pointy knives. Step by step until we are down to a plastic spork.
Argue ‘need’ wrt a 1000hp car and after some years we’ll all be driving cars with power on the level of a Trabant.
It’s a manipulation. A social manipulation IMO.
I propose that guns are property. An AK-47 or a 17th century musket, it’s all the same. Not only within firearms but an AR15 is no different than a propane tank for the grill. Property. What you or I or anyone else needs is no business of the state. That is for us to determine.
If we argue what we intend to use it for, the we are arguing need. If we defend our right to own something by what we use it for, we are defending it by need and thus we end up in their ballpark.
Someone might use a full auto AK-47 as a way to distress steel plate for artistic purposes. So be it. That’s his business. It’s his gun, his bullets, his steel plate. Someone else might use it to exercise self defense. His gun, His business. Same thing. Arguing need just lets the state into our affairs and its time people stopped doing it as far as I am concerned.
We should not have to justify our choices of property, our reasons to own something to anyone.
Dear Brent,
Look at gun control. What happened? People argued need. Who needs a Tommy Gun? Inch by inch they have moved the line of what we ‘need’ to defend ourselves.
Right.
A former coworker of mine in CA was into muzzle-loading blackpowder weapons and utterly indifferent to any breech loaders, not just semi-automatic black rifles.
He chuckled when the Assault Weapons Ban was imposed way back when, reveling in the fact that his weapons would never be banned.
I reminded him of Martin Niemoller.
“Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.”
The ugly truth is that there is no such thing as a “reasonable compromise” with statists.
In CA, even “nunchucks” are banned. What is a nunchuck? It’s two wooden sticks connected by a short piece of rope or chain.
The bottom line is TOTAL DISARMAMENT of the individual, such that he is helpless to defend himself against the state.
In their minds the individual OUGHT NOT TO defy the state. In their minds, it is WRONG for the individual to defy the state.
Therefore anything that enables the individual to defy the state, must be made illegal by the state.
Access to healthcare was the “sine qua non” for the Marxists. Now that they have healthcare, all else will fall into place. Every human behavior, from diet to guns, will be framed as a health concern and a cost control issue. Those who do not comply will be fined or labeled a mentally ill. Orwell’s 1984 will be Obama’s 2014.
That’s my take, too.
If this stands – we fall.
This has always been my take. I argued it to deaf ears before Obamacare was passed.
I have pitched the same position to people about how passing global warming/climate change laws would “justify” micromanagement of every aspect of people’s lives. Most looked puzzled after my statements on the topic.
Unfortunately, the populace-at-large could not think themselves out of paper bags, the cognitive contents of which most deservedly should be thrown in the woods.
The powers that be have people convinced that there are no conspiracies amongst the powers that be. Never mind they are still in the mainstream news daily. Thus these people think there isn’t any scheming for money and power behind obamacare. It’s just a gift from their benefactor, the state.
This has always been my take. I argued it to deaf ears before Obamacare was passed.
The one gleaming silver lining to Obamunistcare is that its inherent flaws and unsustainability –and the results of these in terms of availability and quality of “patient care”– are now become so glaringly obvious that even the densest and most brainless of the FSA monkeys who welcomed its inception are starting to have serious second thoughts. The biggest concern is, will it be too late by the time they fully wake up?
“will it be too late by the time they fully wake up?”
I’d bet that it will be too late, at least for them.
Self-sufficient types will have found paths around ‘Bama’s hurdles and will be simply avoiding “healthcare” anyway. I take care of my own health, through nutrition and home remedies, and seldom need anything from an MD. When I do need minor surgery or stitching, there’s a great GP about 50 miles from me who will do excisions and sutures right there in his treatment rooms.
Naturally, he’s an immigrant with a healthy distrust of government control and the insurance industry’s traps.
It’s also going to create a flood of cash-only doctors.
I’m right with you Ed–my wife and I are taking care of our own health. It helps we’re both trained 🙂 But anybody can avoid at least 80% of the illnesses that take down Americans. Good nutrition, avoiding the poisonous foods, fluoridated water, artificial sweeteners, pharmaceuticals, and vaccines.
I’m working on her to convert her own practice to cash-only.
We’re going to beat these psychopaths, guys.
Check out of their systems; avoid their control grids. Yell at them, deny them, confront them.
They’re so much weaker than they appear.
I’m working to drop the last ten pounds of fat I’ve allowed to accumulate around my belly. I have studiously avoided – shunned – any food with HFC since HFC came on the market in the ’80s. I rarely drink sodas – maybe 6-8 a year. We try to buy as much of our food as possible from local people we know. Grass-fed local beef. We raise our own chickens and so have fresh eggs (and meat) right outside.
So far, so good. No known health issues.
And stop eating carbohydrates!
Carbohydrates are #1 cause of all degenerative disease and inflammations!
There is already a HUGE number of Doctors and Dentists just over the border in Mexico. USE THEM!
Add to that: Avoid HFC. Avoid soda.
Stop eating carbs. – check (almost).
Not going to hospital, ever. – check. (well, not unless someone takes me there against my wishes while I’m unconscious).
Know of a cash only Dr. – whoa, no check.
Stop going to the dentist. – Another no check. Man, that’s difficult one too. As a consolation prize we’ve been testing the toothpaste without fluoride. Pricey stuff.
Well said Shocker. Anyone who thinks obummacare was about providing healthcare is a dolt. A zombie apocalypse would be a blessing compared to the dolt apocalypse currently underway.
http://www.starvingthemonkeys.com
“They” will never relent in this march toward total statism. Read Tom Baugh – the only solution is to hasten the collapse – thus starving the very “monkeys’ out of existence! Then rebuild based on principles that feed the productive, not the collective hive.
I am concerned that such an action is impossible.
Think in terms of disaster movies (easy analogy). Who are the “most important” to continue?
POTUS and Congress. The high-ranking officers. Then maybe scientists.
Then…? Who cares, we’re out of room on the ark. Have fun in the (supervolcano / meteor strike / tidal wave / whatever.)
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe (original one) had it right… Earth Humans came from the worthless cast-offs of another advanced civilization.
These people actually CHOOSE to be NOTHING, to be part of the herd.
Herd animals are prey animals, just the way it is. So let them be preyed upon. Cull the gene pool. Get rid of the controllers first, of course, but as for the flotsam and jetsam at the shallow end of the gene pool – those who willingly, intentionally deceive themselves, or intentionally follow the herd (Dante’s denizens of the first level of hell, following whatever “the mob” wants now) – control them when you can use them, and dispose of them frequently, and without pity or mercy. They’re not really human, just evolved apes.
(and I will state bluntly, not even concede, that THAT is the attitude of the “Elites” who are first on the list, towards all of us: that we are cattle. Approach is no different, though the ends are. Always more people coming along… Stupid people have little to do besides breed and drool on themselves. Expend them for the good of mankind. 🙁 )
No.
It is exactly that nihilism and de-humanization that in extremis leads inexorably to the Elites’ psychopathology.
They’re to be pitied, unless they aggress against you.
You state it’s the Elites’ attitude; but justify your own with “Approach is no different, though the ends are.”
It’s a cop-out.
And it makes your morality no different than theirs; and the RESULT will be no different than theirs.
You’re promulgating a predatory, vicious system Jean–careful what you wish for.
You are correct in your statement that it’s the same nihilism and de-humanization.
However, when you state that they are to be pitied unless they agress against us: Please do define aggressing.
Taxed to death? Tazered? Shot?
At a certain point, the rest is dross: It’s either actions to defend (and kill the aggressor, no half-measures, no mercy – it will get you killed); or it’s actions to submit.
so far all the honest and moral people DO is submit, back up, and show their throat. NOT useful when dealing with a rabid wolf… Er, Statist. It only emboldens them. Like Islamists, only they have a Theocratic State. To the Statist, the State IS GOD. So it is in a sense also theocratic.
But claiming that violence solves nothing then abrogates the entire arguemnt of self-defense, and ultimately self-ownership. You give up the right to defend yourself, because it would hurt others (ideologue), and you don’t want to live with that [clover]. So the man who refuses to give up his guns, or swords in earlier times, murders, robs, rapes you and yours.
You’ve gained nothing. You’ve in fact conceded the contest before it even began.
That’s why I’m pointing towards ACTION and open defiance. Make them grow more and more terroristic in their methods. Make them fewer in number, more afraid.
Eventually, SANE people will once again outnumber takers and genetic waste, and the world will right itself. But it won’t come around by linking arms and singing KumBaYah. That didn’t even happen WRT Gandhi or MLK’s non-violence: they did things that got them injured and imprisoned. But they were facing decent, moral adversaries.
WE ARE NOT.
So, YES: Predatory. Murderous. Genocidal, even. Whatever is required. Unlike most who would advocate, such, though – my objective is to be LEFT ALONE. “Stay off my lawn,” as it were – and I’ll stay off yours. So I can happily walk away at some point saying, “Mission Accomplished.” Or, “good enough.” And leave it to some anarchist or despot to agitate again, until someone like me is needed again. By that time, it will be up to that person – I’ll be long dead. C’est la vie.
But these people have been aggressing as a “class” for a very long time. LEtting them run feral, without culling those herds, is detrimental to the rest of us. And leaving herds of clovers doesn’t do the world any favors, either: they are enablers of the very things we need to fight against: Centralization, Statism, Globalism, Taking from the Productive to fund the Unproductive.
I’m sorry to say, since I was brought up Catholic, but… ‘Taint no loss.
(Grew up in Parochial schools in Jersey. Nastiest SOBs you’ll ever meet were in Catholic schools. As an adult, those same b@st@rds are ahead of the game – managers, for instance, or VPs or C-levels. Couldn’t find the @$$ with both hands and a set of directions, but they “make decisions.” Then when the SHTF, they get golden parachutes. And the workers at the bottom get the shaft, AGAIN. I’m skilled labor, nothing more, and it’s rubbed in my face fairly often. But NO ONE WILL ACCEPT ANY CHANGES. They WANT to be raped and murdered. So LET THEM BE. Live and let die. )
I’d leave them alone if they’d stop pounding my @$$. Since they won’t – well, again, when do you decide you’re being aggressed against, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?
To me, it’s LONG PAST TIME, but the voices in the wilderness – John Taylor Gatto, Ron Paul, etc. are few and far between, and the children are being corupted inf ront of us – and NOT ONE PERSON seems to want to deal with the problems, if it costs them ONE RED CENT – let alone time or attention. So you get a situation that goes from completely avoidable, to totally inevitable. And it’s not lunatics or anarchists, but conservatives and Classical Liberals who are fed up – but now have to go to war with their own children… So much easier to turn a blind eye and pretend the problems doesn’t exist…
I wonder if the Nazis and Marxists really were brought back to the US? Not just the ideals – but say, for example, that Hitler survived via an undisclosed treaty of surrender? He surrendered, the Allies – being primarily the same beast – secreted him away to spread his ideas and methods? At the same time, Marxists (inentional and otherwise, via female takeover of teaching profession) were taking over the schools… Slow decline, now into a full-fledged stampede, over the cliffs of stupidity?
Can’t turn the herd, but you CAN make sure you’re not in front of it. Only thing is – we’re OUT of places to run, if this Ideal (America) falls. And since the enemy will use ANY AND ALL MEANS to limit, harm, constrain us, we CANNOT limit ourselves only to the highest, most moral methods: That will just get us dead, won’t change the clovers much (no personal impact), and all we do is fight with weaker weapons, or longer supply lines, or fewer people – while the Herd grows stronger.
It’s vile no matter how you slice it, but could STILL be avoided if they would STFU and leave people alone.
They won’t. “They” control media; control entertainment; control the schools; control the guns (already, it’s just some matter of degree); control the law; set the terms of all the debates.
Open resistance is suicide….
And yet –
What’s the alternative? Do we “object” when we’re down to roadside body-cavity searches and armed with house keys? Allow them to beat us to death and imprison us? Will we wait until the chains are physically clamped on?
As Jhohn Adams suppoedly said: “Fat George has delcared us IN REBELLION! Why the HELL can’t WE?!”
“That’s why I’m pointing towards ACTION and open defiance.”
Ok, so go ACT. Sitting at a keyboard isn’t doing anything more than sitting at a keyboard. Go act out and defy somebody. Please.
“That didn’t even happen WRT Gandhi or MLK’s non-violence: they did things that got them injured and imprisoned. But they were facing decent, moral adversaries”
No, they were facing the same adversaries we face today. The Brits were even more violent and repressive when they had colonies to rule. Our US elites were very quick to just gun people down in MLK’s day. They killed a president, then a presidential candidate, then a protest leader, THEN 4 students on a campus in Ohio.
You want to wake people up, post this same stuff on a forum where most people are sound asleep. Most of us here are wide awake and on alert already.
Calling for violence will accomplish one thing for sure. It will get Eric’s site in trouble.
Set up your own blog and use it to call for a revolution. The owner of this one is just trying to make a living with his automotive writing.
Don’t make him regret hosting discussions here. You don’t have that right. I’ve mentioned this to you before.
Chill the fuck out.
Ed,
Brits may have been vicious, but they still had morals. They had issues with brutalizing someone who didn’t fight back. I do not think our police have such a “moral shortcoming,” if you will. They’d just keep beating, as has been documented all over.
Same with gunning people down – less common or less public, maybe – but if you have “rogue elites” dealt with (e.g. Malcolm X, MLK, JFK, etc.) the purpose shifts to intimidating the sheep, I think.
You’re right about not abusing the forum, though, and I’ll try to keep it in check.
The state of the world makes me wish I’d pursued certain wants of my youth far more aggressively, though. Might be able to accomplish something useful with what time and space is left.
@Jean:
First let’s be clear–I pity the sheeple.
It’s the Elites who’ve aggressed against us.
And it’s your summary execution of the sheeple I object to–because it makes you exactly the same as the psychopathic Elites, albeit with a different end-game.
And I think you’re either a blowhard or you’re provocateuring…because if you acted on what you so fervently advocate, you’d not be posting here.
“And I think you’re either a blowhard or you’re provocateuring…because if you acted on what you so fervently advocate, you’d not be posting here.”
There it is, meth. Right there.
“And I think you’re either a blowhard or you’re provocateuring…”
A bit of both, I admit: Irish temper, Russian attitude.
“because if you acted on what you so fervently advocate, you’d not be posting here.”
Crazy not stupid? 😉
But while I’m not unwilling to break eggs to make an omelette, I also admit that so far, I don’t know what to do. I talk people down in the real world as often as possible, trying to open their eyes – they usually shrug and ignore me. Don’t want to hear it, don’t want to see “the man behind the curtain.”
So, proselytizing isn’t working (I’ve got maybe 100 sites like this, many more politics-oriented… That’s the choir, if you will… But the rest? Pissing in the wind, I swear. Talking to people who are old enough to know better; have been through worse; have more to lose – and thus more to PROTECT. But, “It will never happen HERE…” Even as it is happening, even as we’ve seen where it goes, they’ll walk into an oven saying, “it will never happen here.”
As for pitying the sheeple – In that sense, yes, and I misread you above – I thoguht you meant to pity the elites for their vile ways. I don’t. I DO pity those who have to scrape together a living, let alone can earn one. But I also feel no “brotherly love” any more for the person on the street, begging for change (normally). Should I? YES. Cauterized, though, had to be. Think of it as Radar O’Reilly from MASH – With no chance of going home, & no home to go to.
How do people DO IT? I pity them for that – that there IS very little hope of better, that the elites are constantly finding new ways to say, “Bend Over.”
But the families had the chance to say no. Do you feel sympathy for the arsonist who sets himself on fire? Kinda doubt it, unless he’s unlucky enough to live…
But how does one actually deal with a system like we have here? Money is corrupted, law is corrupted law enforcement is beyond corrupted, the media is shilling for the Elites, who grow wealthy from the corrupt laws, and the educators are teaching the lies as truth – that anyone can be an Elite. That honesty pays. That cooperation brings success. The “All I needed to learn, I learned in Kindergarten” meme. Go along to get along, and never be the Smart one.
Even someone with good targets would have issues, and I’m still uncertain. Not being averse to breaking eggs for an omelette is still different from smashing all the eggs at once because you want a three-egg omelette. 😉 Wanton destruction falls into the “stupid” category. OTOH, presuading sheeple or clovers to disobey the law as a diversion? Not so bad, to me, though hope they don’t get hurt. Something about fisherman and bait, though.
As to posting – lucky enough to be able to do that from work. It’s the most “free time” I have in my life these days. I get home, I need to “help” cook dinner, “help” walk the dogs, “help” clean up, and then I need to entertain “she who hasn’t a clue.” I have Clover in my home… And can’t get her out. It’s like living with “The Nanny”, except she’s 50, 250#, and with enough baggage to sink the whole of England. But I didn’t know that until AFTER the mortgage had her name on it… I almost WISH I lived in a common-law state – then I could divorce and at least get out from under the mortgage.
Hell is a place of our own making, though. (Heh) Same as the rest of society. We cause our biggest problems.
The last picture about being afraid to speak against tyranny only supports my contention that if you haven’t the freedom to say “no” without fear of repercussion or consequence from Leviathan, or it’s individual tentacles masquerading as “law and order” or goose-stepping “patriots”, then you’re not free at all.
Indeed, and all the people jerking OUR chains wear long ropes of chains themselves, but are somehow willing to do so for the power and pleasure of jerking ours.
Which of them is free to say “no” to those to whom they must bow? Very few, I think.
But we can certainly say “NO.” We must simply count the cost and arrange our lives to minimize the damage. The more we give in, the stronger and longer those chains become.
Insurance policies for privately owned guns? Privately owned guns are an insurance policy! Duh!
Maybe someone will bring this up this obvious point to Herr Hartwig and the congresscreatures trying to push this thing through.
By what legitimate authority?
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/?page_id=1294
The question not being asked by most of us is: By what legitimate authority? How does anyone legitimately gain authority to control the lives and choices of other people against their will?
Did you ever ask a politician, a gun grabber, a public school teacher, a bureaucrat… “By what legitimate authority do you demand, order, enforce, do these things?”
I have. Most, of course, cite the “constitution” and/or “the rule of law.” I then ask them how those things can confer LEGITIMATE authority. Where does legitimate authority over people’s lives and property originate?
So far, NONE of them can answer that, and most become extremely angry when questioned at all. Yet I would think that is the most important question we can ask.
And it’s the most important question we can ask ourselves. Do we own our lives, or have we given our sovereign and natural authority over ourselves to the rulers and politicians?
Mamaliberty, well written post. That article sent my blood pressure through the roof. I have pissed off many a statist who when asked the same thing about what legitimate authority do you give yourself to dictate other people’s lives? The other day at the bar this woman who works for the Nevada “Legislature” stormed out when I asked her that and “what wonderful new laws did we pass today?” Boy did I strike a nerve there. She had no cognitive intelligent response, just blabbered about how people need to be controlled and ruled over because if not, we would be robbing, raping, assaulting and killing each other.
Eric, excellent writing. It amazes me that so many people don’t understand how much of a stranglehold the insurance mafia has on EVERYTHING. I read somewhere that it is the 2nd largest industry in the world right up there with oil and defense. If those fuckwits here in CA try that crap I will refuse.
Thanks, jjb – and on another note… whenever I talk to people who insist that “we’ve got to do something about gun violence,” I tell them I do “something” every single day about all kinds of violence… I carry a gun. And I know how to use it. And, as a certified firearms and self defense instructor, I work hard to help other people learn how to control violence as well.
And I love what you said, Jay… yes indeed. My gun IS an insurance policy. 🙂
Love your posts, MamaLiberty!
You reminded me just now of that old joke. An old woman is pulled over for speeding. The cop comes to her window, and notices a shotgun in the rack on the back window. He politely inquires–it being Texas and all–“Ma’am, do you have any other weapons?”
She replies “Why yes young man, I have a .45 in the glovebox.”
“Anything else ma’am?”
“Oh I always carry my .38 here in my purse…and a .380 in my hip holster.”
“Ma’am, what are you so afraid of?”
“Not a god-damned thing, young man.”
When they say people need to be controlled or there will be thieving and murdering and so forth I turn it on them and ask if there were no punishment for murder would they kill their neighbor for his stuff. This usually creates confusion on the part of the statist. He is placed in a bind. He either has to admit that he needs punishment to keep himself in line or admit that the vast majority of people aren’t criminal.
Brent, if you’ve been able to get an actual cogent response to that oh-so-necessary question out of a typical statist Clover, you’re a lucky man. I’ve posed this same question on many occasions to Clovers with whom I’ve engaged in conversation (many of them relatives). Without exception, they either 1) ignore the question and quickly change the subject or 2) launch into an ad hominem attack against me, mindlessly flinging every trite epithet their pea brains can muster (“Amerika-hater,” “commie,” “anarchist,” etc.).
That’s what I get as well.
“legitimate authority”? Mama, surely you jest! You, I, and any other sensible people know full well they can’t answer the question honestly. Thus the anger they display once you’ve nailed their noodle-logic down. What they’re in effect saying is that since we’ve got these here chains already placed upon us then we shouldn’t squawk when a few more links are added. Not that they’d admit that only a slave wears chains to begin with.
I don’t see them getting away with something like this. I give it at least a 50% chance the gun controllers are about to enter hospice for end of movement care very soon. See Gary North’s articles on lewrockwell.com and the 3D printing advances.
That’s admirably optimistic, z.
But I’m shoring my bets heavily by calling those motherfuckers who pretend to represent me every week at least, and imploring my friends and family to do the same.
I’ve spent good money sending donations to Gun Owners of America and the NRA-ILA. The NRA has sold us down the river in the past, but I believe their current crew is much more hard-core; thanks mostly to the GOA’s efforts under the awesome Larry Pratt.
I recruit people. I took a woman who’d never shot a gun before to the range, now she’s hooked; her exact words leaving the range were “I feel so empowered!” I’m working on a floppy-wristed uber-liberal at work who’s curious…and for him, going to the range would be like a Southern Baptist showing up at a SanFran bath-house.
They’re going after the kids–it’s a two-pronged battle. The major prong is the immediate thrust to get them all now; but they’re hedging their bets by trying to destroy the gun culture, demonizing guns and making them frightening to children. Arresting kids–could you have imagined a child being arrested thirty years ago?–arresting kids for making their hands in the shape of a gun and yelling “pow pow”.
It’s all conditioning. And we have to work our own conditioning against it.
Fortunately, the truth works much better than deceit; and the gun culture has been very healthy the last twenty years. Guns are cool; let’s keep them that way.
Well said. I completely agree.
Dear meth,
“Fortunately… the gun culture has been very healthy the last twenty years. Guns are cool; let’s keep them that way.”
The cultural perceptions, the social acceptance, the hearts half of “hearts and minds” is absolutely crucial.
I wish more people would think the issue through for themselves by means of reason. But the reality is too many don’t. Too many follow the flock. Therefore it helps when cultural icons lead the flock one way rather than the other.
That’s why when celebrities like Brad Pitt come out unequivocally for gun rights, it makes a real difference.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2199295/Brad-Pitt-talks-Angelina-Jolie-I-want-approval-Angie-force–I-want-proud-man.html
Excerpt:
Controversially for one of Hollywood’s leading liberals, he doesn’t believe U.S. gun laws should be changed.
‘America is a country founded on guns. It’s in our DNA. It’s very strange but I feel better having a gun. I really do. I don’t feel safe, I don’t feel the house is completely safe, if I don’t have one hidden somewhere. That’s my thinking, right or wrong.
‘I got my first BB gun (a type of air gun) when I was in nursery school. I got my first shotgun by first grade (aged six), I had shot a handgun by third grade (aged eight) and I grew up in a pretty sane environment.
‘I was in the UK when the shootings happened and I did hear the discussion about gun control start again, and as far as I know it petered out as it always does.
‘It’s just something with us. To turn around and ask us to give up our guns… I don’t know, we’re too afraid that we’re going to give up ours and the bad guys are still going to get theirs. It’s just in our thinking. I’m telling you, we don’t know America without guns.’
Brad Pitt is a badass and we need more high profile celebrities like him!
Dear dom,
Amen to that.
I appreciate Ted Nugent too. But he’s more of a firming up the resolve of the converted type.
I doubt his abrasive style is going to win as many converts as Pitt’s lower key style.
From a PR perspective, Brad Pitt, being the spouse of bleeding heart liberal do-gooder Angelina Jolie, is going to be more influential when it comes to emotionally swaying other liberals.
I am very ambivalent about Nugent. His stance on gun rights is admirable. His stance on human rights, atrocious. He is a fervent drug warrior – event to the extent of participating in thug scrums (IIRC). He believes in caging people for victimless “crimes” – which makes him as bad in principle as any other authoritarian.
I really don’t see how anyone who has read the article carefully can conclude that Brad Pitt is anything but equivocal regarding gun rights:
“To turn around and ask us to give up our guns… I don’t know, we’re too afraid that we’re going to give up ours and the bad guys are still going to get theirs.”
Stating that the populace is too afraid to accept gun control is hardly a pro Second Amendment stand.
“To turn around and ask us to give up our guns…”
Bold added.
But they won’t “ask” us. They will order us.
Dear Trevor,
My take?
Pitt wasn’t seek approval from fellow gun owners, and hoping we would yell “Hoo-rah!” He wasn’t preaching to the choir.
He was trying to reach liberals in Hollywood and the larger public.
I could be wrong of course.
Human beings can be unpredictable. Alan Greenspan was apparently “one of us.” Yet look what he WROTE before becoming Fed chairman, and what he DID after becoming Fed chairman.
That said, as a general rule, I try to follow Goethe’s recommendation to
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help then to become what they are capable of being.”
I hope you’re wrong about Pitt. Not for my sake, but for all our sakes.
*seeking
Dear Eric,
Agree.
I was confining my evaluation to the gun issue.
Of course political reality is such that violations of principle can never be compartmentalized.
I agree. I would not offer a blanket endorsement of Nugent either.
To clarify my drift.
A couple of others raised the issue of the “gun culture” and how to nurture it.
My response was not about overall libertarian philosophy, or the need for intellectual consistency. I take a very hard line on that, as most people know.
I was merely addressing the much narrower issue of how some celebrities were helping to make the gun culture socially acceptable through their own celebrity.
I was not endorsing any particular individual.
Greenspan did argue for gold as a restraint on the supply of money. However I am unaware if he argued against institutions like the fed.
I recently watched that greenbacker movie on the wizard of oz. They argued that gold was money because the wealthy controlled gold. It would appear that the wealthy lost control of gold which is why it is not money now. However they seem to be using the present conditions to regain control of it. Thus perhaps it will be money again. My point being is that what greenspan wrote isn’t really incompatable with what he did. He simply recognized the constraint of gold to prevent doing what he did.
BTW, that greenbacker movie wasn’t well thought out. They argued against gold because gold was once controlled by wealthy few, but silver was ok because it wasn’t, but then they argued against commodity money but for government printed money (greenbacks). Their theme that the few shouldn’t control the money was spot on, but if the few control the government then the few control the money. Today the few control the money thus control the government but it could easily be the other way around. And if gold is vunerable to being monopolized by the few so would anything including silver. Furthermore they attacked people who wanted ‘honest money’ backed by gold, when the reality is that those wanting ‘honest money’ would accept silver or anything else.
Dear meth,
Arresting kids–could you have imagined a child being arrested thirty years ago?–arresting kids for making their hands in the shape of a gun and yelling “pow pow”.
Exactly right!
This “absurdity” suddenly makes sense if one groks the psychological agenda behind it.
Just as the stand down order for air defenses during 9/11 suddenly makes sense.
Dear Meth,
I’m working on a floppy-wristed uber-liberal at work who’s curious…and for him, going to the range would be like a Southern Baptist showing up at a SanFran bath-house.
Next thing you know, he’s going to be adding the motto “Molon labe!” to his blog masthead!
LOL!
Good work.
This is real grass roots cultivation of political support. It will make a real difference.
“The NRA has sold us down the river in the past”
Yes, they have. In fact, that’s putting it as mildly as possible. The NRA has actually written, proposed, and/or lobbied for every single piece of federal gun control legislation we currently have on the books, starting with the 1934 NFA.
The NRA is a wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP. It started out as part of the GAR, an activist veterans group established to rally support for republican politicians and policies, under the ‘patriotic’ cover of providing benefits for Union army veterans.
Given the size of the NRA, and their influence and their massive financial resources, if they were what they claim to be, there would be no federal gun laws in existence. They’re incidentally a recruitment vehicle for the GOP, while being primarily the GOP’s spearhead for gun control.
The NRA ropes 2nd Amendment supporters into the GOP’s big tent, where we can be cornholed at the leisure of the GOP fatboys.
Agreed Ed.
The reason I give twice as much to Larry Pratt’s Gun Owners of America is just that–the NRA has been a stealth gun-control organization.
They make good noises of late. But what frightens me is the thought they might be negotiating behind closed doors for a “compromise”.
And that “compromise” could be mental health checks–“mental health” having been a tool of tyranny since time immemorial.
The Soviets used it in their psykushkas–psych hospitals. And our Dear Leaders are using mental health already against veterans to steal their guns! The Brandon Raub case was just the beginning. Millions of veterans are getting letters today regarding their gun rights and mental health.
Who defines “mental health”? Yeah…government-paid psych shills.
Too true, methylamine. Being subject to a controlled “healthcare” system, as many veterans are, is a sure path to being monitored and controlled in every aspect of one’s life.
The Indian Health Service and the VA were likely test programs for the obamacare program which has recently been foisted off on the general public.
The federal bureaucracy tends to control those to whom they provide services, money or goods. The BIA has established and administered a gulag system for those tribes (who are recognized by treaty as sovereign nations) they “provide for” as wards.
Look at the founders of the BIA. The bureau was created under republican administrations. The GOP has always been the original source of what ails us. Everything seems to be a three rail bankshot with them. They do nothing in an open, straightforward manner.
Their talking points are very telling. When one of their politicians is accused of being a RINO, they say that he has to lie about his position publicly in order to gain support for the advancement of the policies promised by his party. If a senator or rep has to lie, then he’s a fucking liar. How hard is that for the so-called conservative rank & file to understand? Apparently, it’s just too great a leap for them.
Back during the ’96 campaign, Bumper Hornberger described the GOP perfectly. He said that they promised big reforms if only they could gain control of the House. When they got control of the entire Congress in their ’94 “republican revolution”, they scattered like quail in the tall grass. Not a one could be found to sponsor any reform legislation. They couldn’t be gathered back into a single covey for any purpose.
Subterfuge is what they’re all about. It’s all you can really count on from them.
I would say, no. Others likely will say something like this:
“The closest thing to freedom is exercising choices and choosing which chains/consequences I’m willing to accept.” – Karen
http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/ClaireWolfe/2013/03/29/friday-freedom-question-2/#comments
WFD.
David Sarti TN Prepper 3.29.13
Dr. Andre C. Olivier TN Cardiologist (615)-449-6868
http://www.healthgrades.com/physician/dr-andre-olivier-xnd69/appointment
David Sarti TN Prepper 1.20.13