As us techies say in the field of computers, the protocols underlying the internet were designed to detect censorship and to route around it.
Free thinking people have a similar constitution. We detect problematic public policy imposed by the greedy, power mad collectivists and we route around it.
Though Zero and his Odramabots (aka Democrats, aka ‘progressives’, aka communists, aka all-around jackasses — hey, don’t look at me, they picked their own mascot) have succeeded in forcing socialized medicine down our throats (policy-wise, at least for the time being), they will not corral us into their bureaucratic nightmare without a fight.
Yeah, the VA is such a success story for socialized medicine. Too bad dozens of dead veterans is harshing that mellow, now isn’t it.
I will admit that the passage of the (un)Affordable Care Act is having one (but only one) positive outcome. And that is the destruction of the status quo and the rise of something better. Even the notoriously left-wing Washington Post has noticed. Note the clueless critiques from many of the commenters. Sean Parnell of The Self-Pay Patient blog has some good debunking of the promoters of the bureaucracy here.
I told at least a few government supremacists on Facebook and elsewhere that we would destroy this intolerable act by any means necessary. Defund, Dismantle, Destroy, Defy, and hopefully, eventually Repeal. Right now, we are in the Destroy phase. More power to thesemedicalcostsharingprograms, and any others that I have missed. The unintended consequence of the rise of these options, it is hoped, is that it will financially bankrupt the morally bankrupt system of the ACA.
One day when I eventually leave my current job, I will likely sign up and tell my new employer that if he likes his benefit package, he can keep it.
I’ll keep my own money, at least for the most part, and pay for the coverage I want. I won’t being paying hiked up premiums (I am unmarried, with no kids, and have a higher than average income, so I ain’t gettin’ any subsidies), contributing to your subsidies, or paying any penalties.
So pay for your own abortions, sex-changes, and birth control, you little twit.
Ever hear the lie that “nobody wants to take your guns”? Well, for anyone who says that, calmly refer them to this Guns Saves Lives article from last year and this one from David L. Burkhead. The first one has some dead Youtube links, but the descriptions remain. The second one is updated whenever someone for ‘reasonableguncommonsafetysense’ lets the cat out of the bag.
Sometimes the only sane answer to a request to start dialogue or have a conversation about guns is, “No!” For the past 100+ years, every single time we have agreed to compromise on guns, it has meant that the enemies of liberty will agree to take just a wee bit less of our liberty than they originally intended. This time.
No. I do not want to have a conversation about guns. I only want to threaten legislators with the loss of their seats if they dare infringe any further on the right to keep and bear arms. I will also remind them that if they should not heed my warning, then I, along with vast numbers of others, will defy their new orders thereby destroying their legitimacy in the process (“just powers” come from the “consent of the government” — if I have to cite the source, we have other problems). As has been done in both Connecticut and New York.
If the “90% of gun owners are in favor of universal background checks” claim were not a lie, their side would not be requesting a “dialogue”. They would be drafting laws that would pass with barely any resistance. No. We do not need to engage them. We only need to smack them down in the legislatures. We need to send them home to weep that they are the tiniest of tiny minorities
Say it loudly, and say it often. No. They need to convince us. And they won’t ever convince us. There is no cost to us to cut off conversations early and just say, “No!” Tell them to go away and cry themselves to sleep that they are one of a tiny, tiny minority, with nothing to offer a free people other than to put them in chains.
Recently, I found this pamphlet posted on a bulletin board:
It was behind a glass cover, so I couldn’t covertly remove it to read it. So, when back at a computer, I fired up search engine to see if I could find out at least where it came from and, if I got lucky, the full contents of the pamphlet.
Well, I stopped my search early after finding this article from about a year ago on Parents magazine website with the presumptuous title of A Pediatrician’s Role in the Gun Debate as if any pediatrician has any legitimate role in the gun debate beyond that of any other citizen. (I’ll go further with a Rand quote: “A gun is not an argument.” In other words, there is no debate to have at all. The answer is quite simply, “No.”)
David Codrea has publicized how one enterprising former sheriff addressed the problem of doctors, any doctors, claiming to have training above and beyond the medical and into the “safety” and particularly “gun safety” realm with this Firearms Malpractice Form. It is something which I would recommend every gun owner carry with him to appointments with doctors they haven’t seen before or, in this day in age with the new, horrid requirements of health control, to appointments with any and all doctors.
It’s clear from the comments on the aforementioned Parents article, as well as the article itself, that many so-called safety advocates don’t quite get the objection to having a doctor ask a patient about guns. One went as far as saying, “A doctor’s job is to help keep your child alive by keeping them healthy and safe.”
Let me be clear: The doctor’s job is what I hire him to do. And that is to advise me on strictly medical issues. Notwithstanding wannabee pseudo-scientific, tyrant enablers and modern day Typhoid Marys of today like Dr. Garen Wintemute , guns are not a public health issue. Nor are guns a private health issue. I don’t go to my auto mechanic for advice on gardening. What the vile citizen disarmament advocates have done for a few decades, now, is try reframe the debate over and and over again by changing names of their organizations, and how they try to sell their tyrannical collectivism. This is exactly what Wintemute acknowledges in a paper he co-authored in the Annals of Internal Medicine just last year by referencing former editor of Annals, Dr. Frank Davidoff who called on readers to ‘reframe gun violence as a medical issue.’ One is inclined to ask, why do you need to reframe anything at all, if you’re not trying to manipulate the conversation? Why is reframing necessary, unless you are trying to pedal something that is simply not true.
It all comes down to where the training, skills, and experience of those in medical profession are bounded. Professionally speaking, of course. I’m perfectly willing to listen to a doctor explain to me the details of the damage to flesh and bone I could expect to see from a small, rounded metal object a bit short of one half inch in diameter, propelled at 800ft/s and entering and remaining inside me or exiting out another hole it makes in my body. I am not, however, willing to grant him any deference in discussing what guns I might own, that I keep in my house, or in what state I keep them in nor the ammunition that goes with them. That is something I will only discuss with a true firearms safety instructor, such as the many produced, through training, by the NRA. Or maybe I’ll discuss it with other trusted individuals whom I deem knowledgeable in the area of self defense, safe carriage, safe handling, child education issues (including child curiosity, and ways to mitigate it). If, that is, I discuss it with anyone at all.
I know several individuals who grew up in homes where guns were not only kept in the house, but kept either loaded or with the ammunition very close at hand. They were also not locked in a safe. A recommended approach is twofold. First, start education young. If at all possible, do not ever refuse to engage in a little education and training regarding firearms any time the child asks. One of the key goals here is to kill the mystery and curiosity of guns. You want to make guns literally boring to the child. For more excellent information on kids and guns, Kathy Jackson of The Cornered Cat has written some excellent pieces and it’s worth your time to peruse her site and read her book.
Second, or really just a subset of the first, is to ensure there is seriousness embedded in training the child. If necessary, embed a literal fear of punishment for even touching the firearms without permission. (I’m not even touching the issue of what that punishment should be. But whatever severity you decide as a parent is necessary for any infractions, the severity of this should be at or near the highest on your list.) Be sure to include the rare, but possible necessary exception of using the gun for what it is intended: defense, when age appropriate (as you determine, not any kind of doctor). Take this case of Kendra St. Clair:
Now, Ms. St. Clair, by her own admission, had never fired a gun before. That is something I hope her mom will remedy, now, and take her to the range and teach her all she needs to know about safe firearm handling and self defense. It is fortunate that the correct individual wound up with a hole through his body. Proper training will increase the odds of a similar result if, God forbid, anything like that happens to her again. It’s also not clear whether or not the gun was locked up, as neither Kendra nor her mom say. She did call her mom first and it was then that her mom actually told her to get the gun. But that may not always be possible.
I do my best to stay out of doctors’ offices. And with the current regime in the District of Criminals (who bring absolute truth to that slur), I’m going to make every effort to continue along those lines. But should I ever set foot in a doctor’s office again, I will be armed with the Firearms Malpractice Form stuffed in my pocket and prepared to politely ignore any inquiry regarding firearms and simply say, “So. Are we going to talk about my health? Or was I mistaken in thinking I would find a doctor here?”
In other words, to any doctor who would attempt to venture outside the boundaries I dictate while I request his professional advice, whether for myself or any dependents I may have, I have drawn my line in the sand. And you can go pound same.
To answer the title of article titled A Pediatrician’s Role in the Gun Debate is easy: None.
I don’t really do twitter, other than now having this blog connected to post a link to new posts on my twitter account. But I do read my feed of a whopping 32 other twits (sorry…couldn’t resist) that I follow on occasion.
Well today, due to the obvious solemn anniversary, the anti-freedom nutcases are flooding twitter, and I’m sure other social media, with demands that I give up my rights so they can have a false sense of security.
One point of interest came up that I brought up last year to people complaining that I and others were politicizing a tragedy. There’s incredible hypocrisy from the anti-freedom extremists that insists that we don’t politicize it. All while they merrily go on their way politicizing it themselves by demanding that legislators steal more of our liberties.
So I stand on the rooftop and declare my human, God-given right, codified in the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
There is one particular whiner, @lscotthoover that felt the conversation was getting tiresome. Tough. You or your allies demand action on a tragic anniversary and expect us to keep our mouths shut and just take it up the back end.
I have one answer.
NO.
Your move, you whiny little piss-ant.
He thought it was ‘unnecessary’, ‘insenstive,’ and ‘uncool’ that someone quoted Article 1, Section 21 of the PA constitution (their RKBA section, I presume).
Due to tyrants and their enablers using this tragedy yet again to ramp up action to put more weight on the boot already on our collective necks, it is not only necessary that we speak out on this day about our rights, but urgently required.
Anyone who thinks it is insensitive should tell the people around him begging for more control of the population, accelerating us faster toward tyranny, to shut their mouths and stop politicizing it themselves. In fact, I would gladly make a deal that I’m sure all my gunny friends will go along with. You demand that every gun control bill in every state, in every county, in every city or town, that is currently being considered the day before this anniversary next year is withdrawn, every newspaper holds off on all editorials relating the lack of more restrictions on our human right to keep and bear arms, twitter and facebook users go silent on their ‘demands’ that I give up more of my rights. You convince all parties to do that next year and they follow through, then I will keep quiet next year, too.
Otherwise, go play in traffic.
As to whether or not it is cool, contrary to what many on your side often accuse us of, we aren’t interested in being ‘cool.’ YOU may be interested in looking cool to your peers, but most of us understand that that’s primarily a gang mentality.
I will speak my mind. At all times. You do not own this day.
While reading a few entries from Kevin over the past few days, I happened across an entry from 2004 where he lays out some history of arms in general and how the appearance of firearms changed everything. It was the first time in history where any individual right could be enforced by the individual himself.
More recently, Kevin also points to an episode of Bill Whittle’s “Stratosphere Lounge” where he talks about gun control and brings up the same point about history, that before guns, it was a brutal world for those who didn’t train, in pretty much all cases, all of their lives for combat. The gun, in essence, leveled the playing field.
Bill makes an excellent point that I had heard from a former coworker several years ago, but on the topic of the freedom to fly (as in actually piloting, as he had his pilot’s license). Both Bill and my former coworker made the point that we can argue until we are blue in the face about the benefits of private gun ownership, and hem and haw when our anti-liberty / pro-next-Holocaust enemies say things like “the sole purpose of a [evil gun of choice today] is to kill large numbers of people.” Why do we wimp out of the conversation and try to say, “no, no, guns have many other uses…”? Yeah, you can say, a) intent is not transferable, b) guns have many other uses, c) the intent is to stop the attack, but that unfortunately is most often not possible without killing the attacker, or d) any other myriad arguments about how, oh, no, guns really aren’t for killing.
Sigh
I want something designed to kill large numbers of people, to use as I see fit. Oh, does that sound monsterous to you? What, pray tell, makes you think that what “I see fit” isn’t going to be morally correct? The authors of our founding documents believed I could be trusted with the power of life and death in my hands. And I’m not just talking about the 2nd Amendment. Read the Federalist Papers. And this from Tenche Cox: “The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared to any possible army must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are these militia? [A]re they not ourselves. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. . . . [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”
When the EBT cards don’t poop cash anymore; when the flat screen TVs don’t get fixed in Section 8 housing; and when the marauding mobs of moochers gather and start invading formerly quiet neighborhoods and throwing Molotov cocktails because they are not getting what’s due them in their 75 IQ brains, I want to be able to stop them before they burn my house down and my neighbors’ houses because I’m one of the 1% (and, no, I’m not, but you think that will matter when they see my reasonably medium sized house and nice, (if not 12 year old), car?) at the entrance to my street before they make it to my house. That would be legitimate self-defense, my friends. And the most efficient machine possible is my moral right in that, or any other situation where I would be in mortal danger.
Why do we wimp out so? Face it: what the invention of firearms did was forceably remove the monopoly of violence from the state. It didn’t not ask the state’s consent. It did not assuage the state official or the thug trained in a lifetime of violence (but I repeat myself) by saying, “oh, don’t worry, we won’t use our guns to kill you, even if you decide our proper fate is to be inserted into gas chambers or brick ovens.” It WRENCHED control of armed combat from a select few and placed into the hands of every individual with only a small amount of training. In relative terms, the firearm is easy to make, easy to learn to shoot accurately, and easy to deploy. There was no putting that genie back in the bottle. No matter what legislation was passed nor decrees issued. And before the firearm’s appearance, life was Hell on earth for anyone who did not train constantly for combat. The gun forced anyone who wanted someone else to do his bidding to reason with him.
We can engage in all the arguments we want. And, yes, many are useful to prevent the jack booted thugs who would like to disarm us from making life difficult for us by passing their new law of the day that somehow morally legitimatizes their murderous actions when we dare commit acts of freedom in defiance of those laws.
But the bottom line is that theories of rights, though interesting, do not matter here. The benefits of gun ownership do not matter either. Nor do constitutional matters and the history surrounding the construction of the Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other documents of our founding generation.
All that matters is that our answer is, “No.”
No.
Now it is for the anti-liberty / pro-next-Holocaust army to decide what that means. Take it to heart. Don’t do anything stupid. Because we mean it.
It is not a criminal threat to tell someone to stop the violence they are doing or planning or there will be violent resistance. How much blood do you want on your own hands? Because you will have to kill us, or try, because we can shoot back, in order to disarm us or even make it even the slightest bit more difficult to acquire the means of resistance to force.
No.
Think on that for a while.
In the words of Ayn Rand, “A gun is not argument.”
As us techies say in the field of computers, the protocols underlying the internet were designed to detect censorship and to route around it.