"Wrongthink SF Giveaway"

Appropriately for the 242^nd anniversary of the start of the American Revolution, the Wrongthink Sci-Fi Giveaway is giving away works of Science Fiction by authors who have been marginalize by the Social Justice Warriors who think fiction should be ideological agenda driven.

Enter at this URL: http://badnovelist.com/giveaways/wrongthink-sci-fi-giveaway/?lucky=9667

An observation about bureaucracy

Stolen fair and square:

If New Coke had been a gov't program, it'd be the only cola available today, and it would cost $20/bottle.

— Drang (@DWDrang) October 6, 2016

QOTD, 01/13/16

It’s nice to elect the right people, but that’s not the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.

Milton Friedman

 Via Instapundit.

The "Separation of Powers Restoration and Second Amendment Protection" acts

Full Title

A bill to provide that any executive action that infringes on the powers and duties of Congress under section 8 of article I of the Constitution of the United States or on the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States has no force or effect, and to prohibit the use of funds for certain purposes.

Separation of Powers Restoration and Second Amendment Protection Act (H.R. 4321) - GovTrack.us
and
Separation of Powers Restoration and Second Amendment Protection Act (S. 2434) - GovTrack.us

GovTrack says the two bills are identical.

It also says that HR4321 has a 1% chance of being enacted, and that S2434 has a 20% chance. These percentages are based strictly on "how many bill that made it 'that far' in the process were passed." (I.e, S2434 has been "reported out of committee", and about 1 in 4 bills that reach that stage are passed.)

S2434 is sponsored by Rand Paul and only has one co-sponsor; HR4321 is sponsored by Marlin Stutzman (R, IN-3) and has two co-sponsors. Generally speaking, the more co-sponsors the better the chances.

Write your congressional representatives. I say that knowing that writing my own legiscritters* is an exercise composition, and most likely will only result in my getting a letter from an aide on another issue entirely (assuming the aide hs been trained not to explain to the silly proles why they should let the adults talk), but if you don't play, etc., etc.


*Somewhat unfair, actually, as my Representative, Adam Smith, has gotten decent grades from NRA in the past. Not A+s, to be sure, but not too bad for a D from an urban area.

"Overruled" - Book report and commentary

Just finished reading Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court, by Damon Root. This is, essentially, a libertarian history of the US Supreme Court.

That Is, perhaps, a poor description, in the sense that it makes it sound simultaneously dry as hell and also written by a wide-eyed, sky-castle dwelling, dreamer.

Not so.

Amazon's synopsis:

Should the Supreme Court defer to the will of the majority and uphold most democratically enacted laws? Or does the Constitution empower the Supreme Court to protect a broad range of individual rights from the reach of lawmakers? In this timely and provocative book, Damon Root traces the long war over judicial activism and judicial restraint from its beginnings in the bloody age of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction to its central role in today's blockbuster legal battles over gay rights, gun control, and health care reform.

It's a conflict that cuts across the political spectrum in surprising ways and makes for some unusual bedfellows. Judicial deference is not only a touchstone of the Progressive left, for example, it is also a philosophy adopted by many members of the modern right. Today's growing camp of libertarians, however, has no patience with judicial restraint and little use for majority rule. They want the courts and judges to police the other branches of government, and expect Justices to strike down any state or federal law that infringes on their bold constitutional agenda of personal and economic freedom.

Overruled is the story of two competing visions, each one with its own take on what role the government and the courts should play in our society, a fundamental debate that goes to the very heart of our constitutional system.

And it's actually quite interesting, or at least, I found it so.

I also found the  repeated use by the court of the reasoning expressed by Oliver Wendell Jones, Jr., in Blodgett v. Holden (1927), that

...as between two possible interpretations of a statute, by one of which it would be unconstitutional and by the other valid, our plain duty is to adopt that which will save the Act.

to be, well, shocking.

So, you're telling me that the Supreme Court is supposed to be predisposed to allow Congress run roughshod over the Constitution?

Explains a lot, doesn't it?

"Judicial Deference" they call it, "Judicial Restraint."

Appalling, I call it.

This, of course, is how the Roberts Court can rule that a tax is a fine is a tax, depending on the application, and therefore is, and isn't, subject to what the Constitution says on the matter of taxes. Also, how when a law refers to "The State" it acutally means "The government at any level."

And how previous courts can hold that  marijuana grown in the backyard of a person with a legitimate prescription can somehow be held to impact "interstate commerce."

As for the book: Root writes well, presenting difficult legal concepts and arguments in a straight-forward style, making them easy to grasp.

I can't help that note that we also seem to have entered an era of Legislative Deference, in which the tools in charge of the congress will work harder to please th Imperial President than to obey the Constitution.

One thing I was surprised to learn was that, when Alan Gura took the case that would become Heller v. DC, he was not yet working with the Second Amendment Foundation, but rather for The Institute for Justice. SAF came along later, after NRA had tried to convince IJ that Heller was the wrong case at the wrong time...

QOTD, I-594 Edition

Followed this link (Monopolies, Mercantilism, Illegal Buttons, and Saltpeter Men | Libertarianism.org*) on facespace to one of these new-fangeled podcast thingies -- don't partake, as I just don't do the things folks do where listening to podcasts would be appropriate --  because this salient quote was the lead-in:

An absurd law, precisely because it is absurd, will generate widespread contempt and noncompliance among the people. This makes enforcement difficult for a government, which can impose its will only through draconian measures. Laws may be humorous, but their enforcement rarely is.
George H. Smith

Seems that the crafters of law should keep this in mind.

*"George H. Smith offers a glance at a few economic regulations throughout history."

Book Review, Popeye Edition

"Popeye edition" as in "I've had all I can stand, and I can stands no more!"

I've been plowing, no slogging, through Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism , by Peter Marshall.

The problems with my finishing this book are manifold, among them

1. It was written by a True Believer
2. Who assumes that the reader is one too
3. And has a knowledge of the philosophy of anarchism. 

Being at base a working class guy from Detroit I have little interest in or patience with philosophy, and I regard anyone who believes that all we need to do is get rid of government and private property and everyone will suddenly be nice to each other as an idiot.

Oh, and telling me that in your Cloud Cuckoo Land that I will be required to work--and by whom, pray tell?--but that I will not be allowed the fruits of my labor does less than nothing to endear your pipe dreams to me. In fact, I suspect that the source of these fantasies did, indeed, have it's origin in a opium pipe.

I also found it annoying that  the author uses "anarchism" and "libertarianism" and "socialism" as synonyms.

So, my actual review of the book can be summarized as "TL;DR."  Seriously, just over 700 pages of text, most of which was sound and fury signifying... well, it might have signified something to someone, but, as for me, it was words, words, words.  Maybe it gets better after page 320, which was about where I gave up.

If you finish it, let me know how it ends.

Wait! What?

I was reading a review of a history of Anarchism on Amazon just now, and it reeled off a list of (in)famous anarchist thinkers it discussed, i.e., the usual suspects: Goldman, Kropotkin, Marcuse, as well as "influential libertarians", including that well-known Wookie-suiter, Noam Chomsky...

Well, whaddaya know?

A search on Amazon for "libertarian science fiction" returns some interesting results.  L. Neil Smith and J. Neal Schulman (what is it with Neil/Neals?)m of course, a refrigerator magnet of Heinlein in midshipman uniform, the complete F. Paul Wilson (again with the initial initials!) LaNague Federation stories (staring with "Lipidleggin'")...  C.M. Kornbluth and A.E. Van Vogt.  (Met Van Vogt, way back when I was a Neo in fandom.  At the time, the thought of a Canadian writing books based on the premise that THE RIGHT TO BUY WEAPONS IS THE RIGHT TO BE FREE was not particularly ironic...)
Vin Suprynowicz is there.
Lots of what seems to be self-published stuff, speaking of which, DO NOT buy Carl Bussjaeger's books from Amazon, they're pirated editions.
Anthony Pacheco is there.  So is a lot of NOT science fiction...
...A lot of which seems intended to bash libertarianism.
Or Ayn Rand, specifically.

Oddly enough, a "sponsoring link" showed up at the bottom of the page for one of Washington's Representatives, Cathy McMorris Rogers.  Less dodly, another one was for The Libertarian Futurist Society.

QOTD, 07/30/2013

Seen on Facebook, from Libertarianism.org:

There are men, in all ages, who mean to exercise power usefully; but who mean to exercise it. They mean to govern well; but they mean to govern. They promise to be kind masters; but they mean to be masters.
Daniel Webster

From Wikiquote: Daniel Webster, attributed to "a speech delivered at Niblo’s Saloon, in New York, on the 15 of March, 1837", also found in The Works of Daniel Webster, Boston, Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851, vol. 1, p. 358.

"On Profiling and Stand Your Ground"

On Profiling and Stand Your Ground | Monster Hunter Nation

In Which Larry Correia lays down the facts, and fisks the FREAKING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!

Long overdue.

Awesome.

The Question Libertarians Just Can't Answer - Answered!

h/t Daily Pundit

Generations

No, not the silly Start Trek movie with Shat and Stew.

I'm talking about generations of the Gun Culture.

The topic arose on the WA-CCW Yahoo! email list, in connection with a young man who heads up an organization (or maybe "is", not clear how many members it has) called The Second Amendment Enforcers, and who is organizing what he calls a Day of Resistance to protest current gun control efforts.

Now, to backtrack a bit:
Gun Culture v1 was into shooting, yes, but the members were mostly hunters and target shooters, and maybe collectors.  Concealed carry was very much a thing based on a perceived "need", i.e., bankers, businessmen, people who handled cash, or other precious materials, or who had made political enemies, and might need to defend themselves.  Machine guns might be interesting devices, but really, who would need to own one? Silencers?  Short barreled rifles and sawed-off shotguns?  No way!  Cheap handguns, i.e. "Saturday Night Specials?  Obviously catering to the lower, urban--and usually ethnic--classes, and who cares?

Nowadays we call these guys--almost always "guys", and they're still around--"Fudds." They agree with Vice President Biden that a double barrel shotgun is the best for home defense, that a "military style rifle" is useless for hunting, and that the government must Do Something! to close the gun show, next-door-neighbor, and water-cooler loopholes on gun sales.

Gun Culture v1 watched the Federal government pass gun control legislation in 1934 (in response to gangsterism and racketeering) and 1968 (in response to political assassinations and wide-spread civil unrest) and said nothing --at least, nothing that could have been construed as critical of the acts.

Gun Culture v1 could be summed up in a remark attributed, possibly apocryphally, to Bill Ruger, that "No honest man needs a handgun smaller than a canned ham."

Gun Culture v2 arose in the aftermath of the 1960s and GCA '68, and started to take an active interest in the firearms in the context of the Second Amendment.  The actual term "Gun Culture v2" was coined by gun writer and media host Michael Bane.  In an interview he described the genesis of his show Gun Stories thus:

All guns have their stories. We used to pass those stories down from generation to generation, because that’s how the gun culture “spread.” But as the Elf Queen Galadriel in LORD OF THE RINGS noted, “The world is changing…” The gun culture is changing — profoundly and now very quickly. Think of the new gun culture as Version 2.0…it’s younger, more libertarian than what we might think of a social conservative, more female, with the primary drivers being concealed carry, the training community and the shooting sports. Gun culture Ver. 2.0 isn’t steeped in the lore of guns, and we thought it made sense to, essentially, pass along our cultural waypoints, our lore, our history to a new generation. We also wanted to tap this huge reservoir of knowledge among the Ver. 1.0 experts, essentially introducing them to the new generation of gun owner.

Gun Culture v2 is interested in owning guns for many reasons, self-defense, hunting, shooting, collecting, and, perhaps most of all, "Because I can!"

Gun Culture v2 is far more interedsted in firearms as a civil rights issue than GC 1 is/was.  Gun Culture v2 also tends to be more technically savvy, especially when it comes to use of social media.  (Although, as I often warn young punks who need to get off my lawn people, the tech they're using was invented by people my age, or older.) 

The term "Fudd" was coined by members of Gun Culture v2, and may backfire.  Tolerance, it's not just for school and work!¹

The "Zumbo-ing" of Jim Zumbo -- who came to personify the Fudd side of GC v1 by dissing the use of "terrorist" (AR-type) rifles in hunting -- was largely the work of GC v2. 

Is there a need for a Gun Culture v3²? I don't honestly think so. I think it would be far to easy to think of this issue in terms of actual generations, as if young shooters shouldn't trust any shooter over 30.  Note that my home-boy Ted Nugent³ was instrumental in opening Jim Zumbo's eyes to the varied sorting uses of Ar15s.

The Gun Culture will continue to evolve, as society evolves, but, frankly, while many of the younger members of GC v2 have far more ink and shrapnel in their bodies piercings than some of us old farts are comfortable with, and you can't hardly call that noise "music", at this point in time, at least, the interests -- and concerns -- are the same.

***

Notes:
1. Gun Culture 1.0 v. Gun Culture 2.0 and More on Gun Culture 2.0, both
2. It’s Time for Gun Culture 3.0 | Gun Nuts Media
3.  I graduated from the same high school Ted did, about a decade later.

***

Some links:
Google search: gun culture 2.0.
The new gun culture | Conservative News, Views & Books
Gun Culture 2.0, Internet Zero - Misfires And Light Strikes
A podcast: Down Range Radio #245: Year 2011 and Gun Culture 2.0 | Down Range TV

A couple of interesting articles

I don't remember where I saw these links, though. :-(

Roy A. Childs, Jr.: A History of the Libertarian Movement | Roy A. Childs, Jr. | Libertarianism.org

The American Revolution against British Gun Control

Ron Paul's Farewell to Congress

Short version: "Fuck alla you fascist assholes."

Transcript: Ron Paul’s farewell address to Congress | WashingtonExaminer.com

UPDATE:  I don't know what happened to the embedded video when I first posted this, added it back in...

QOTD, 11/23/2012

Seen on Shooters Northwest:

Probably would have been more to the point if he had phrased it "tell me how much of what you earn belongs to me", though.

Annals of Authoritarianism

Seen at

OBAMA’S AMERICA: Man Ticketed for Having Romney Bumpersticker on His Vehicle….

And now, from the Annals of Anti-Authoritarianism:

JUSTICE: Raw Milk Co-Op Farmer Acquitted Through Jury Nullification….

More on those pesky libertarians

As a follow-up to my previous post, "Inside the Cold, Calculating Libertarian Mind", Professor Reynolds asks for A HIGHER DOSE OF LIBERTARIANISM, PLEASE, in which he tells us that "Damon Root over at Reason takes on the New York Times’ David Brooks’ assertion that the increasing influence of libertarians in the GOP has been bad because Brooks doesn’t think libertarians 'speak in the language of social order.'  Root correctly points out that Brooks seems to have no clue about libertarianism...”

I think David Brooks is a tool and a schmuck. 

A thought...

I find mowing the lawn a good opportunity for cogitation. Or maybe I just hate it so much I rationalize it that way. Anyway, herewith the latest Deep Thought, Yard Work edition:

Mitt Romney is not the RINO in this election. Nor were Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum.

Ron Paul is.

John McCain was not the RINO in the last presidential election.

Sarah Palin was.

Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater were not the "real" GOP candidates they are painted as, but the Bushes were.

Anyone trying to claim that the GOP is the, or even "a", conservative party is fooling themselves, if by "conservative" they mean small, fiscally responsible government. Anyone claiming that the GOP or the RNC has "sold out" the GOP's roots, that it has "betrayed" Republican values, is wrong. At best.

Look, the Republican party was founded on the twin propositions that slavery should be abolished, ditto polygamy. Not exactly hot-button issues today. So the hot button topics the GOP has latched onto are simply different forms of government control from what the Democrats are pushing. Instead of government giving you everything it thinks you need, whether you want it or not, like the Democrats want, the Republicans want to prevent you from doing what you want, whether or not it might harm you, let alone someone else.

As the aphorism goes, the Democrats want government to be your Mommy, the Republicans want it to be your Daddy, and Libertarians want to leave you alone.