Just Because You Can

I haven’t written to this blog in a long while because I haven’t been angry enough about something in particular to do so. Well today, I have something at which I can direct some energy.

There’s a pernicious cliché I hear almost every time I talk to someone who doesn’t like Open Carry (which is the practice, in those states--free states--where it is legal to openly carry a firearm): Just because you can doesn’t mean you should, or another variation, Just because you can, does not mean you have to. I suppose one can also add, Just because you can doesn’t mean you must.

As with many such clichés, it seems to say something profound but actually doesn’t as I propose to show forthwith. The reason I dislike clichés is that they are a shortcut to critical thinking. In fact, it may be more true to say that clichés are short circuits, an endrun around having to think too deeply about things. By the way, if you want to see a thoroughgoing disassembly of cliché, I suggest you read Jonah Goldberg’s The Tyranny of Clichés.

So let’s make things a bit more concrete, shall we, and rejigger the mental circuitry, take apart this vapid saying, put some meat on them bones. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should … is an incomplete sentence, it’s a phrase. There are things missing, aren’t there? Let’s add stuff:

“Just because you can eat ice cream doesn’t mean you should.” (Noted, and thanks. I’ll go ahead and eat ice cream. I like ice cream.)

“Just because you can kiss your wife goodbye doesn’t mean you should kiss her goodbye.” (Noted, and thanks. I’ll go ahead and kiss my wife goodbye, because it shows I love her and she likes it.)

“Just because you can pet your dog doesn’t mean you should pet your dog.” (Noted, and thanks. I’ll go ahead and pet my dog, because I like doing it and my dogs likes it, too.)

You see what I mean? As you start adding specifics, it starts to approach inanity. It actually doesn’t tell you anything at all. There’s stuff missing, important stuff: the phrase is meaningless because it doesn’t give any reasoning & with that goes meaning, and meaning is vital to reason. In fact, it does mental damage beyond that. Let me illustrate:

“Just because you can exercise your First Amendment right to petition government does not mean you should.”

Woah now, come again? Why not?! It’s my right to petition government, are you saying I should not? Why not? Why don’t you want me to exercise my right to petition government, what's your motive? What do you have against my exercising the right to petition my government?

See the scorpion’s tail in that seemingly innocent cliche? It gets people comfortable with doing nothing. In fact, the counterargument can be more correct: Just because you can means you should! Also in fact, this is the way better phrasing: it is positive, it is a call to action. Of course, it keeps out a bunch of things as well, but I’d much rather defend a positive position than the negative. One’s making an argument, the other is merely making a critique. One is the sun, the other is the eclipse.

In the case of our civil rights, just because you can exercise your civil rights, means you should! A right not regularly exercised atrophies. A right which falls out of common use is a right effectively lost. A right which no one cares to exercise soon becomes easier to forget, and even to legislatively abrogate.

And here’s the reason I wrote this today: I hear this nigh meaningless phrase uttered in reference to Open Carry so here it is, the missing information: “Just because you can Open Carry doesn’t mean you should.” To which I counter, why ever not? It is a valid expression of our right to keep and bear arms! Those who contend that we shouldn’t or mustn’t are trying to sell you on letting go one of your most important civil rights, just as surely as they’re trying to sell you on any of the others you do have.

I have been told that the Supreme Court has decided on a slim margin that there is now a right to same-sex marriage. All well and good, and it is now the law of the land. One of the arguments on the side of the SSM crowd was that it was a civil right, and any attempt to water it down with civil unions or any other facsimile of full on marriage, is oppressive. Do not tell me when, how, and with whom I can exercise my civil rights! If it makes you uncomfortable that I want to exercise my right to same-sex marriage, I suggest you go pound sand (or go to jail in that Kentucky case). You cannot debate my civil rights away! You know what, I agree.

“Just because you can marry a man if you’re a man doesn’t mean you should.” Try telling that to the SSM supporter and be excoriated, and rightly so. We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.

I support Open Carry, it’s part & parcel of the “bear arms” section of the Second Amendment. If it makes you uncomfortable that I am OC, I suggest you go pound sand. I don’t care what you think or, to be precise, what you feel. Your insecurity about when I choose to exercise my civil rights doesn’t matter.

Some people don’t like the light it throws on all gun owners when certain gun owners act up. How they look while OC. It makes society at large think worse of us all gun owners. Some people say Open Carrying at people (whatever the hell that means, I’m guessing posturing aggressively) is wrong--we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it?--and yet others go on about how our rights will be curtailed by voters when people misuse it.

That’s the thing about rights, you see. They can’t be voted on; an opinion about a revoking a natural right is meaningless. I refuse to have the actions of a person who happens to be in the same category as me define who I am. A person who misuses their rights gets individually punished. If it is not against the law to OC then leave the man alone who OCs. He’s no more breaking the law than is the man who is eating breakfast at a cafe. Leave him alone.

That it happens to be a gun and not a breakfast sandwich is meaningless. Stop trying to convince me to stop exercising my civil rights because you don’t like the form in which I’m doing it or what I'm wearing while doing it. We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.

I could add that I usually don't Open Carry often as a choice because of strategic & tactical reasons (I don’t have backup, I don’t have a radio connecting me with a ton of other armed citizens who will arrive to help me if I get in trouble, etc.). But to make a point of it, to exercise a right which needs exercising, to condition the populace to being comfortable with the Second Amendment, to spit in the face of those who wish to make me feel like a dirty, broken person, belonging in the back of a closet: Just because I can, I will.

Open vs. Concealed Carry

A storm in a teacup, so the saying goes, and there's no bigger one than that currently raging between the advocates of so-called Open Carry and Concealed Carry. The carrying is of weapons, by the way.

Begging your pardon, it's not so much a storm as a bleeding hurricane. And it's all for naught. Why must people act as if those two modes of carrying a firearm are somehow mutually exclusive? Let me repeat this question:

Why must people act as if those two modes of carrying a firearm are mutually exclusive?

Because, pssst, they aren't. There's nothing that says that in jurisdictions where the two modes of carry are legal, you must choose one or the other! And once you have chosen to carry in one mode, you can never, ever, ever again carry in any other mode. Nonsense, stuff and double nonsense. Yet, to read the "debates" raging on various Facebook pages, twitter, and blogs, you'd think this was a problem beyond all cognition.

In Idaho, we are able to carry openly without a permit. With a tax permit, we are also able to carry concealed in town (you may carry concealed while outside city limits). We are currently trying to replicate what Vermont--of all states!--has had since 1791, so-called Constitutional Carry. This means that if you're a law-abiding citizen without adjudicated mental infirmities, not prohibited from owning firearms, you ought to be allowed to carry in whatever mode you desire. The Second Amendment describes it as carry but not in what mode.

And this is crux of the issue: in jurisdictions which both modes are legal, carry as you wish! I choose not to carry openly most of the time because concealed carry affords me the element of surprise if, God forbid, I ever have to deploy a firearm to defend against a forcible felony. Open carry is less strategically sound and were I to openly carry, I would very likely be doing so in a group of friends so we can look after each other. Cops who carry openly have backups, partners, access to long arms within reach and a radio for tactical reasons, and so would I want as well.

However, there's no law that forces me to carry one way or the other. And I refuse to impugn my fellow citizens' right to carry as they wish. The two modes of carry are not mutually exclusive. Good people can and do both!

I have more to say about this, but I wanted to keep this post short. However, I am going to take this opportunity now to address the brain-dead who insist in various ways all asinine, that those who carry openly are making it hard to know the difference between good guys with a gun and a bad guy with a gun.

One woman on Facebook put it this way (and by "way," I mean batshit cuckoo):

This is how you argue, folks! pic.twitter.com/HTrkxZytmy
— Salty Codger (@fwoodbridge) March 10, 2015

Ignore for a second her incredible assertion that someone exercising their legal rights necessarily leads to you standing over "your dead child's grave". What I want you to notice is this line:

You people are making it impossible to tell the good guys with guys [she must mean guns] from the bad guys with guns. And just one more thing [as if she's ready to drop some mad knowledge, yo!] ... 100% of all bad guys with guns were good guys with guns before they committed their first crime.

Get that? She is unable to tell, just by looking at someone (who happens to be bearing a pistol in a holster or a rifle slung over the shoulder) whether that person will commit a crime or not. Gosh, wouldn't that be swell? If you could somehow tell, just by looking, whether or not someone will cause harm in the near future? Well, we could start by employing Pre-cogs. That'd be a good first start. Until then, how about you stick to reality?

Let me put it another way to this woman: two men are walking towards you. They are both men, as you can easily ascertain, which means they both have penises. Which means that either man could conceivably (heh) rape you. But, just by looking at these men, how can you tell who's a good man with a penis and who's a bad man with a penis?

And just one more thing, 100% of all bad men with penises were good guys with penises before they raped you.

The Low

I find my blood pressure spikes every time I read stories of people like Shawn Glans, the bully thug in a police uniform who assaulted & battered a citizen unaware he was being recorded.

Official United States Bully, Shawn Glans

You can imagine how I felt reading yet another similar story, this time from Alabama. A Police Department Training officer named Eric Parker and his trainee came across a supposedly suspicious person whose crime started and ended there. I have yet to see where it is a crime to be a suspicious person in any ordinance or edict in any city or state.

"Found guilty of being a suspicious person, Abraham Lincoln of Springfield Illinois was today sentenced to two months' jail time. He was rigorously reprimanded & the accused promised never to be suspicious in the future."

Eric Parker will end up costing the citizens of his city millions of dollars, but worse, he will solidify the visceral hatred of the police that ordinary citizens continue to harbor. The chief of police stated that Parker did not exhibit the "high standards" of that city's police department. Sure, chief, that's why he's a training officer.

How dare you be a suspicious person!

If you don't know, (now ex-) Officer Eric Parker accosted an Indian grandfather who had been reported as suspicious. The law requires that a crime be currently & actively investigated before an officer may detain a citizen and in this case, that crime was being suspicious, you see. Alas, the frail Indian gentleman did not understand he was committing this crime, and after he added on the veritably hateful inability to speak English, paid for it by having his neck broken in a takedown befitting the felony crime of being suspicious.

As bad as that is, there's something far, far worse at play here, and is the reason these two jerks acted the way they did. I've already touched on this topic in my other post, In Mala Fide. It is characterized by the following statement: someone somewhere once did X therefore everyone is guilty of X until they prove otherwise.

These officers are trained to ensure that every interaction with the citizenry holds within the potential for violence. Because of this, it conditions these simpletons--and I use this term advisedly, because for too many police officers it is unfortunately true--to act as if the citizen is already guilty of the crime of executing a police officer and it is their job today, right now, to stop their own murder from commencing.

They deal with citizens in bad faith, assigning the worst intentions to every person until that guilt person has proven otherwise. This is the same thing the TSA does: everyone is guilty of trying to blow up airliners until they've proved they won't. Someone once tried to blow up an airliner by smuggling a bomb in their shoe therefore everyone thenceforth is guilty of trying to blow up an airliner with a shoe bomb and must prove they won't by taking off their shoes for inspection.

Once you think of it like that, everything snaps into focus. The Newtown board set up to Do Something about the shooting there just came out with even more restrictions to be placed on the sale & transfer of not only firearms but cartridges as well. None of this would have prevented Newtown from happening, as even a laudatory ("courageous!") newspaper editorial points out. Nevertheless, proceed full speed ahead, guilty citizens one and all.

Seen through the filter of bad faith, it makes sense why these simpletons would call for further restrictions on erstwhile law-abiding citizens. Let's see how it fits into our bad faith template: Adam Lanza committed a crime with guns therefore every citizen in his state is now guilty of committing a crime with guns and must prove they (i) have not (ii) are not now (iii) will never commit a crime with guns. The burden of proof lies with them.

Aside from the fact that it is in a 180-degree direction from how our system was designed to operate--the presumption of innocence, in case you missed it--it is actually a completely worthless approach to law enforcement & safety. This is likely the reason why our Founders designed the system in that way! Who would've thought. While it is straightforward to prove I have not committed a particular crime, it is quite difficult to prove that I am not currently committing said crime and further, just about impossible to prove I will never commit that crime.

We treat each other with the basest of assumptions, assigning the worst possible to our intent, locking us away in virtual jail cells until we have each proven to one another that we are not guilty. If you want to exercise your Second Amendment rights, you are guilty of trying to murder someone. So you must prove you haven't and aren't currently by undergoing a background check. If not that bad, then you are certainly guilty of negligence. You will leave your weapon unattended and someone will get hurt. You will kill your wife and children with that weapon. You will shoot up the local elementary school.

Some other examples, in passing: men who sit with their legs open in subway cars are guilty of patriarchal oppression and must be shamed & punished. A mother brings in a child to the ER who hurt itself falling off a high chair; she's guilty of Munchausen-by-Proxy until she proves she isn't. That guy who made a joke about Asians is guilty of racism and must be prove to our collective sense of justice that he is not a racist; until then he is to be punished. Eric Eich once gave money to a cause therefore he is guilty of hating homosexuals and must prove his innocence; until then he is punished.

Someone suspicious once walked the streets casing houses for later burglary. Therefore the frail Indian gentleman is guilty of both being suspicious and casing houses therefore he must prove to Officer Parker's finely honed sense of justice that he is not guilty of that crime, but in the meantime, will be handled like a guilty criminal until such time as he has proven he's no threat.

Do you see how nefarious this is? Low-trust societies do not survive long yet this is exactly what we're positively encouraging each other to do. It is brutal if you're the person caught in the headlights of the oncoming Guilty Train for the simple reason that it is very difficult if not sometimes impossible to prove a negative, to prove something isn't there. Asking me to prove there are no black swans requires an extraordinary amount of work on my part because I must search every corner of the earth for a negative, as you sit there actively punishing me.

Guilty of rara avis!

Bad faith.

In Mala Fide

There are a great many people out there, including police officers unfortunately, who feel (not think) that the mere presence of a gun implies evil. In the case of the police--like this unfortunate meathead Idaho sheriff, who actually shot himself--the presence of a gun screams criminal!

What tosh.

The Idaho Supreme Court, in a case from 1909, includes this diamond of a quote among a long and rather dry analysis of an appeal before it:

A man may need a gun for a great many things other than that of shooting his neighbor. In fact, it should be presumed in the first instance that a man is going to use his gun for a lawful purpose and that he is not out gunning for his neighbor. [Emphasis mine.]

 Well there you go. Our system works on a presumption of innocence; even in the case of a clear-cut case against a violator with many witnesses, the burden of proving guilt lies with the prosecutor only.

It is the same way outside the courtroom as well. More people are pummelled to death by hands and feet than get shot by so-called assault rifles (AKA a black rifle) yet this doesn't make anyone afraid for their safety simply walking by a man equipped with those tools of destruction. One commences in life by placing good faith in their fellow citizen that they will not suffer battery at the hands (and feet) of passersby. In other words, unless and until you have good reason to believe you will be battered, proceed as usual.

Another quick example: chances are, you get into your car everyday and drive wherever you need to go. You do this without living in crippling fear that an oncoming vehicle's driver will swerve into your lane and take you out in a head on collision. Since you have no good reason to believe that the 2000 pound weapon under the control of your fellow citizen will be used with malice against you, you proceed as usual. (Need I point out that more people die in vehicle accidents a year than get shot?)

We presume that everyone around us will act in a lawful and peaceable manner.

Except, of course, if that person were carrying a firearm. In which case, small-minded, scaredy cat, safety-first-last-always folks will assign the worst motives.

Common sense ain't.

Restraint

Watch then think what you'd have done. I'd have lit the fucker up.
Kudos to the kop.

Also, we all need cardiovascular exercise.

Post by Evansville Police Department.

Base Assumptions

Ran into this execrable pile of shit this morning and "felt led" to opine. I'll quote it here and tell you what I think following:

Rep. Curt Oda, R-Clearfield’s HB260 bill permitting concealed guns without a permit is irresponsibly dangerous. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the U.S. Supreme Court held, “Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues of arms.”

As a licensed clinical social worker, I counsel men in relational disputes. Jacqueline C. Campbell, Ph.D., an internationally recognized domestic violence expert, has research suggesting the risk of a man killing a woman is highest where he is unemployed and possesses a weapon. Such men would often not be deemed mentally ill at the time of purchase of a weapon prior to relational disputes occurring.

Rep. Oda’s bill is irresponsible and would increase the likelihood that more women will be seriously injured or murdered than save people from criminals. Now is the time when government has a responsibility to protect its people and not promote freedom to handle anger and frustration to the detriment of people’s lives. Our freedoms on[sic] not unlimited, says the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tab L. Uno, LCSW, MPA

The open assertion is interesting, but there it is in all its sordid glory, the theme of his letter. Pity he follows up with a quote from a Supreme Court case that does not contribute in any way to his conclusion that a permitless concealed carry is "irresponsibly dangerous." Perhaps there's more following.

The second paragraph continues with an appeal to authority that because he's a licensed social worker--leftist alert!--what follows should be accepted without argument. What does he follow up with, a quote from yet another expert that suggests that a "man killing a woman is highest when he is unemployed and possesses a weapon."

Let's look at his base assumptions here: as a licensed clinical (no less) social worker, he's telling you to accept the "research" which "suggests" (though not actually proves) that there is a increase in the risk of men killing women when they're (a) unemployed and (b) in possession of a weapon. Keep it at the front of your mind his thematic conclusion: that permitless concealed carry is "irresponsibly dangerous" then ask yourself what connection permitless concealed carry has with research from some unknown authority figure named Jackie--whom he asserts is an internationally recognized expert--produced which show unemployed men who own guns are at risk of killing women.

Think of his assumptions here, based even though they are on this purported "research": he's assuming that men will have to be both unemployed and simply own a firearm to raise the risk of them killing women. That alone is debatable but it betrays a vicious mindset, a generalization that slanders men. Though strangely this curtails his argument, such as it is, since all I would have to do to destroy it is to say that employed male gun owners exist in much larger numbers.

Continuing: since the risk is "raised" that unemployed men are at risk of killing women (women in general or just ones they run into on the street?), we should not pass a law permitting concealed carry without a license. Okay, that makes all the sense in the world!

Unemployed male gun owners are at risk of killing women therefore do not pass a bill that would allow permitless concealed weapons carriage. Do you see the meandering illogic of this? The pure emotionality of it all? Women will die! The only thing that would round out this perfect dunghill of an argument is if he can somehow work in minorities, preferably gay minorities--into the whole stewpot.

His final paragraph seals the tomb: this bill will increase the likelihood that women will be murdered. H'm. Doesn't that require his two ingredients of male unemployment and simple gun ownership? Alas, he doesn't say. He just wildly asserts. His premises don't support his conclusions, but I wager he doesn't care, women will die! The fantastic rat's nest of assumptions that draws a connection between unemployed males killing women with their guns is a work of a very disturbed mind. That this person is "counselling men" is only just this side of frightening.

Secure in the fact that he has indeed made the connection between unemployed, gun-owning males, the women they kill, and permitless concealed weapons carry, he proceeds:

Now is the time when government has a responsibility to protect its people and not promote freedom to handle anger and frustration to the detriment of people’s lives.

Does that statement make any sense to you? I've read it a few times and each time, I get more confused. "Now is the time [as opposed to when other time?] when government has a responsibility to protect its people and [here comes the super bizarre part] not promote freedom to handle anger and frustration to the detriment of people's lives [Huhhuhwhat? Is there a freedom fit to be promoted by the government to "handle anger"? Seriously, what the fuck does this mean?]

By passing a permitless concealed weapons carry law, this is government "promoting freedom to handle anger and frustration to the detriment of people's lives"? How about permitted concealed weapons carry, which is legal now? How is the permitting process supposed to weed out unemployed men who will kill women? What standard ought the government use here? Will there need to be a question in the form for concealed carry that asks whether you're employed if you're male and which will deny you the right to keep and bear arms since it raises the risk of you bad male person you killing women?

Our freedoms are not unlimited, says the Supreme Court. I have so many questions: what does this have to do with permitless concealed weapons carry? Does the Supreme Court get to decide what those limitations on our freedoms are, or just the right to keep and bear arms? What will a limitation on the right to keep and bear arms mean with respect to unemployed male gun owners killing women?

This letter gives you an insight into the disjointed mind of a leftist who speaks only in buzzwords. Men kill women. Buzz! Guns are bad. Buzz! I am a clinical social worker. Buzz! Freedoms are not unlimited. Buzz! Supposition based on emotion riding on the rails of base assumptions with a touch of just pure crazy.

The Intelligence of Race

H'm:

It's a biological fact that there are innate differences in IQ among different races. If you can't deal with that, enjoy being a truther.
— Charles C. Johnson (@ChuckCJohnson) January 30, 2015

Set aside the fact that Charles Johnson is a soulless ginger (heh), let's talk about race and intelligence and this assertion he makes about a fact of biology. But more, let's talk about the consequences of his assertion about that fact of biology.

To start, I will declare outright some biases: (a) I fucking love science (ahem) (b) I am bi-racial; specifically, I'm half white boy, half black girl. That sounds weird, but there you have it. I have some skin (heh) in the game, so to speak. And (c) I am a Christian.

I was born in Cameroon, lived the first half of my life in Nigeria in the west of Africa and then moved around until I settled in Florida, which is as close to a melting pot as you will have anywhere else in the US, both in literal and metaphorical terms. What this means is that, as an average observer of humanity--certainly enough to know I don't like most humans--I can tell you that there are truths to be found in generalities about groups. Where things start to fray is in applying those averages, those generalities to individual members of those groups. It takes a steady mind to avoid bigotry, and we are all of us guilty of it regardless of skin color.

For example, the myriad problems in Nigeria have at their root the deep divides between Nigerian ethnic and attendant religious groups: the eastern Igbos, reputed to be more intelligent than the northern Hausas, don't like the western Yorubas, etc. And they each say things about each other in generalities: "Don't trust an Igbo trader, son. He's out to steal as much as he can. Learn to bargain!" And so on.

We are generalization engines. We categorize. We sort and classify. It's what has made us the dominant species on the planet. But it is also the bane of our existence. The source of much strife, of war, of violence, of evil. With this in mind, let's talk about genetics, of which I know just enough from High School & College biology (I was a Zoology major at a University in Nigeria, intending on going on to Medical School). It is a fact that certain attributes pass genetically from generation to generation. It is, truly, settled science if there ever was such a thing. Among black Americans, a doctor will say, high blood pressure is more common. Sickle Cell Anemia is prevalent among black Africans, etc.

Chances are, you inherited your father's thighs or your mother's breasts--which would really suck for you if you're a man. Chances are, you'll likely die from the same disease that killed one of your grandfathers, if medical science doesn't find a cure. Chances are, people will say you have your mother's green eyes, Chances are, you and your sisters share your grandmother's Roman nose. And the list goes on.

There's no valid reason why genetic inheritance of attributes should stop, by human fiat, at the neck and go no higher. Those calf muscles you got from your father, but no one knows why you both suck at mathematics. No idea. Nonsense. Intelligence and the attendant capability is heritable. I've seen it, you've seen it. I believe, based on the evidence, that this is a fact of life.

Well now, what about groups? Ah now there's where the road is not so easy to walk. The Nazis (you knew it was coming) used the "biological fact" of racial differences to send millions to the gas chambers. Does this, one wonders, therefore invalidate the study of racial differences? Of course not, because to do so is to commit a logical fallacy. Are there racial differences between peoples and are those differences genetic? I say yes. Race, like sex, is most certainly not a social "construct" and it is foolish to think otherwise.

And if by extension, there are biological--including morphology--differences between the races, transferrable through the genes, and if, intelligence is likewise transferrable through the genes, it ought to follow that there are differences in intelligence between the races. As a half-black, half-white man, this makes sense to me; it does not make me uncomfortable in the least.

And this is why: I do not apply what I know to be true about groups to the individual members of that group. For two reasons: first because it's committing a logical fallacy to do otherwise and also because earlier I declared the bias that I am a Christian. What that means is that in the way I live my life and in my interactions with people, there are certain rules and regulations that govern and provide guidance to those interactions. I believe I am made in God's image (Imago Dei) and I also believe every human being on the planet is also made in God's image. This does not nullify the fact of our differences, of which there are many: racial, ideological, political, and so on. What is does do is require that I act accordingly for we are, all of us, God's children, brothers and sisters.

The problem is, we're humans. Fallible and fallen creatures that really suck generally. With evil in the heart, we seize on our differences to rationalize our evil actions against others. It is "harder" to shoot your son in the head than a stranger's. It is "easier" to kick a dog (Canis familiaris) than it is to kick a child (Homo sapiens). People and things that are different from us are easier to act against with malice. It is the stuff of which human history is made and all you have to do to convince yourself of this reality is to read a few history books.

So then, for argument's sake accept the fact of the matter that there are differences between the races. The question now is, so what? From which follows, no what? What are we to do with this information? As with most questions posed to humanity, it comes fraught with advantage and danger.

My doctor asks me for a family history so he can help me avoid "family-related" problems so I can live longer and healthier than my mother who died young. The racist down the street from me assumes because of my mother's skin color that I am unintelligent, if not outright stupid, and because of this, am two steps away from being violent. Well, in a way, he's right: I am steps away from being violent, but that requires he takes the first few steps first. :)

For good and for bad, there are differences between the races. For good, we can tailor health practices to ensure we all live longer. For bad, we can have Auschwitz. Personally, for you, as an individual, what should this bit of information do for you? Information, data, sitting there means nothing. You may as well have never known it--and I believe this is the path many take, to turn a blind eye. Does this mean that you will act in a certain way when you meet a black person? An Arab? A Jew? A Chinese man? Will it change the way you would have acted?

If it is shown that the intelligence of black Africans is lower than that of white Europeans, does this mean you now understand why black African countries are such hell holes? Does this remove the blinders, everything now clear? Does the relatively high intelligence of the Ashkenazi Jews now mean we should only have those Jews be scientists? Drawing only from that class of persons the doctors, engineers? Are you, as a white man, better than me, as a half-white man who is in turn better than a fully-black man? What does "better" mean in this situation?

As a government, do we start passing legislation barring certain groups from occupying certain posts in society based on genetics? Are we to segregate blacks in certain sections of our cities (which they already do on their own, by choice, it seems)? Japanese? Do we pass laws requiring that blacks cannot intermarry with Asians because the ensuing offspring will be "less capable" for society?

What do we do with this information, considering it's truth? Now, what? Considering how bad we are at statistics, replete through and through with cognitive bias after cognitive bias, now what.

Tears on My Pillow

Ran into this gem published by our newspaper of record (I use that term loosely) here in Idaho, The Statesman. I'm going to quote it and intersperse my thoughts.

When a powerful organization called al-Qaida nurtures the violent fantasies of angry and disaffected men and enables them to obtain weapons and kill innocent civilians, we call that terrorism.
When a profit-driven industry lobby called the NRA makes it easy as pie for any angry or even crazy person to get handguns and assault weapons and act out their own violent fantasies against family and community members, does that count as terrorism, too?

Right off, you get the sense this is going to be a well-reasoned, thoughtful and sober reflection on the issues. "al-Qaida" is compared with the National Rifle Association because they both nurture the violent "fantasies of men" (not women?) by enabling them to "obtain weapons and kill innocent civilians."

Yes, those two organizations are different in name, perhaps, but that's where all difference ends. Must I point out the insanity of conflating these two organizations, really? Must I? Oh alright, I suppose I must. The NRA (I mean 'al-Qaida') enables crazy people to get handguns and assault weapons. I'd like to know how it does that exactly. Does it buy them the handguns? Does it encourage the crazy people to commit these atrocities? Does it put the evil in their minds, maybe using some "Inception"-type brainwashing? Does it make them crazy in the first place? I'm not quite clear what this person means by "enabling" because "easy as pie" isn't exactly a methodology.

To purchase a firearm, the NRA (I mean, 'al-Qaida') plays no part in the transaction whatsoever. To purchase a firearm, the person has two choices: buy from a dealer or buy from a private citizen. To purchase from a dealer, they must first have money, which isn't exactly easy to come by. So called "assault weapons" (so called because there's no one legal definition for what an assault weapon is) are expensive and the NRA, if anything, takes money not gives it.

At the dealership, the prospective buyer must pass a background check to ensure he or she is not a "prohibited person." Felons cannot purchase firearms, neither can those adjudicated mentally insane. So far, no 'Easy Pie' but it is simple as a concept: if you're not a felon or otherwise prohibited, nothing should come in the way of your obtaining a firearm, which is a right as recognized by the Second Amendment.

So what about private purchases? The first point to make here is an important and philosophical one: a firearm is not a sentient being, capable of making choices on its own. It is a tool, designed for the specific purpose of throwing a projectile in a certain direction, that direction chosen by the wielder of the firearm. It is a piece of property, no more no less. In many ways, it's like a car or a boat. As a private citizen, I ought to be able to sell my own private property, period. If you don't agree with this simply because it is a firearm, you are a tyrant-in-the-making.

That said, there are laws governing such transactions specifically because it is a firearm: the seller must be reasonably certain that the buyer is not a prohibited person. This means that most purchasers who do not know the buyer beforehand will insist on getting a bill of sale filled out, an ID check, and many insist that the buyer have a Concealed Weapons Permit which shows they've already passed an FBI background check. So far, no pie and the NRA (I mean 'al-Qaida') still hasn't made an appearance.

But, you protest, criminals and other prohibited persons get their guns somewhere! That's right: they buy them from other criminals. They do not go into gun stores. They do not buy them from law-abiding private citizens. Read the FBI reports on this and you'll find that criminals get the majority of their guns from strawman purchases (bad boy thug felon sends his baby momma who has no criminal record to buy him a gun) and of course from the streets.

As for crazy people obtaining firearms, until the day we can merely look at a person who has shown no signs of mental illness beforehand and foresee they are about to become insanely violent, we are forced to give them the benefit of the doubt. Mental illness is a terrible thing, but we all should not be guilty of it before clinical diagnosis. As easily as the mentally ill can use a firearm to cause violence, they can use a knife (as happened in China with those poor children) and they can use a car (too many examples of this abound) or something else, usually benign. It is the responsibility of society at large that before we strip someone of their unalienable rights--which include bearing arms--a sober judicial process must occur. We shouldn't be required to prove our sanity before exercising a basic and natural right. On second thought, maybe we ought to require proof of sanity before voting!

Now for "angry" persons obtaining firearms--what a ludicrous idea! Who hasn't been an "angry" person a few times in life? Prohibiting people from obtaining firearms because they're "angry" is insanity itself and pretty much rules out every man, woman, and child on the planet. Which is perhaps his goal, and if so, why doesn't he just say so?

As with most of the stupidity and irrationality in American public life, our friends, neighbors and family members are being killed on a weekly basis nationwide because this is what we have asked for, either by voting for politicians who are stooges of the NRA, or by not voting at all and thus leaving the decision to zealots.

In one breath you call Americans stupid and irrational but your "friends, neighbors and family members" who are killed on a weekly basis aren't stupid and irrational, they're just dead. Are those people not part of the stupid and irrational American public life? The connection he attempts to show between voting for politicians who are NRA (I mean, 'al-Qaida') stooges and his "friends and neighbors" being killed is tenuous, at best.

Let's see here: the politicians in Chicago, Democrats almost all, are hardly NRA stooges. In fact, Chicago and the state of Illinois has some of the most stringent gun regulations on the books. Yet it also has some of the highest murder rate committed with handguns (not "assault weapons," mind you which are statistically insignificant) in the nation. In fact, the areas with politicians who write the most stringent gun control measures into law have the highest rates of "gun violence." Interesting, that, no? So it seems where there's no NRA ('al-Qaida'), there's higher rates of "gun violence" which, alas, doesn't help his points.

So tell me again that a nation flooded with guns and plagued with mass murders is somehow freer and safer than nations such as Australia, Canada or England with vastly lower murder rates.
Somehow, I'm not feeling it.

And that's the key, isn't it? This whole letter is composed of "feels." You're not "feeling" it because basically, that's about all you're doing, is feeling. This is an unsteady appeal to emotion. None of the clear-eyed statistics actually supports your contentions so you blast out in a spittle stream of over-emotionality.

Well, I'm sure sorry to tell you this, but your feelings have no weight in overturning Second Amendment rights. As most Americans now agree, based on polling data, the Second Amendment is sacrosanct and gun control is nothing more than people control in hiding. The fact that someone, somewhere, will misuse their right to own firearms is not a reason to strip those rights away from everyone else. The fact that someone, somewhere, is sure to drink and drive is no reason to prohibit the sale of alcohol. Unless and until you commit a crime or are adjudicated mentally unstable, your rights are yours, given by the Constitution's 'Creator' and are not subject to your feelings.

As for the spurious claim about our nation flooded with guns is less "freer and safer" than Australia, Canada, or England, well that just does not hold any water! England and Australia have different populations in both numbers and culture than we do. Not only that, but their violence rates are higher per capita than ours. In fact, the United States is number 111 (One hundred and Eleven) in homicide rates worldwide and, if we take out the Democrat-controlled cities, we would fall even lower. We are freer, yes, and come to find out, we're safer, too.

Watch this, if you dare:


As an aside, it's rather interesting that you're calling out Australia and Canada where in the last few months violence with highly-regulated firearms have exploded into the news. France, with its Draconian firearms laws, just saw Islamic terrorists (NRA members?) murder police and journalists with semi-automatic rifles. How do you explain that away, I wonder?

And yes, I've been a gun owner all my adult life, am pro-hunting and attended the police funeral following the previous Moscow mass murders in 2007. Still not feeling it.
Chris Norden, Moscow

Well, Chris, the fact you're a gun owner "all your life" means nothing. It does not grant your opinion any more weight. That you want to limit firearm ownership, while being a firearm owner yourself, means nothing. It's a cheap rhetorical ploy to cover yourself in a mantle of reasonableness. It's sort of like saying that because you're married to a Jew, you are thereby free to be an anti-Semite.

The Second Amendment has nothing whatsoever to do with "hunting." Nice try. Go sell your crazy somewhere else, pal. Like Chicago.

I'm not a member of the NRA but this guy has given me all the reason I need to pull the trigger (no pun). Today, I'm joining the NRA (I mean, 'al-Qaida').

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/01/27/3612814_letter-guns.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Ew, Christians

Douthat is right;

Palmer’s secular and scientistic worldview, of course, is not the worldview of the classical world, which was far more inegalitarian and cruel than the still-Christian-influenced secular humanism of our own era.

Read the rest, then with that in mind, read Palmer's loathsome article for Slate.

Calcugirl

Hark! There are not enough women in the sciences! Did you know? Well take it that there aren’t and that’s a problem. Listening to the usual suspects, it’s not just a problem, it’s a big problem.

I’m in science. I was in actual science more when I was in college studying electrical engineering. Now I’m just a systems administrator whose life is a storm-tossed sailboat on the large and angry Microsoft sea, but bear with me. I’m in science.

Once upon a time, your humble correspondent was good enough to be indoctrinated in the engineering honor society, Tau Beta Pi (hi guys!) At the risk of boring you—and it is mighty boring; except that one time when I threatened to kill a fellow “Tau Bate”. That was exciting—let me tell you how I got conferred this high honor: I busted my ass. I became an automaton. For every hour in class (with such scintillating titles as Control Systems 1), I was in the library studying, editing, highlighting, cramming, for 3 sometimes 4 hours. Finals saw me neglecting personal hygiene entirely.

In most of my classes with an average of 25 students, about 10 per cent were female. I’ll just say it’s a sight to behold a half-woman and leave it at that. I am no psychologist, just a patient, but I’ll tell you this: there are very few women who revel in neglecting personal hygiene for hours on end. It’s damned hard work and leaves the worker fried and friendless.

So what do you do to attract the female into such an exciting field as EE?

I read an article some time back that hinted that one perhaps subconscious reason some girls don’t want to enroll in these areas of study is the dearth of … how can I say this without hurting some of my former classmates’ feelings … real men. I cast my aching mind back and look around the classroom. Most of these guys were frumpy, desiccated specimens of manhood. Emaciated and pasty (even the black guys) from staying out of direct sunlight for weeks on end. If that wasn’t enough to deter the average female, the odious lack of hygiene often did the trick. Essentially, they (not me though) were brains dragged around in weak bodies. Not much prospect for a boyfriend much less a husband in that lot. That is, if the girl would like to be defended from actual physical harm anyway.

No sir, the girls were in the Social Sciences, where the Football demigods strutted their stuff. So there you have it, a course of study that didn’t involve killing off whatever social life she deems important (she is a girl) and the prospect of meeting and interacting with hawt boiz. What woman wants a halfling Asperger candidate capable of solving advanced difference calculus when healthy young, good-looking Adonises with all the right words roam the halls of PoliSci?

Game, set and match

Like Women

I suppose it's inevitable, as the feminine becomes ascendant in American society we all start behaving like teenage girls. The political system has been reduced to playing Mean Girls, each side—the liberal contingent being the worst offenders—vying to paint their opponents in the worst light possible: that of “meanie.”

It's also seeping into everyday life. I recently read that not taking things personally is an essentially masculine trait. If that's true, we're done for. On a discussion board last week, I took a medical doctor to task for holding what is, in my opinion, a rather ridiculous stance—it doesn't matter whether or not I was right or wrong. What matters is his reaction: this man, in his seventh decade of life, a clinical assistant professor, board certified in Internal Medicine, Pain Medicine and Anesthesiology responds with all the drama of a teenage girl on her period:

This hilarious version of a swoon prompts an outpouring from his prom court of men on the board soothing his apparently fragile ego:

“Hang tough. Focus on all the good things in your life.”
“Doc, you are caring respected person. You have your friends and fans. Ignore the rest.”
“The 99% that appreciate and respect you wish you a peaceful mind.
Regroup, Recover, Repost -- We support you !”

If this doesn't sound like a cackling sewing circle validating the shit out of each other, it can't be too far off.

Yes, we're done for.

The Illegality of Christianity

I read without real surprise about the Oregon bakery that's gone out of business because the Christian owners refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding.

In addition, they're being investigated by the State of Oregon for discriminatory practices.

Here's why I'm not surprised: in many states, it is already illegal to practice Christianity and I'll formulate an argument for why.

Christianity is a discriminatory religion.

It makes certain claims about humanity, and these claims are intensely discriminatory. It calls people names. It categorizes people.

Of course, it also freely ‘offers’ a way out of that categorization, but that's neither here nor there in the context of this post.

In the modern state, it has become illegal to discriminate.

Therefore to practice Christianity is illegal.

There are quite a number of people who can't wait to see this come to actual, practical fruition, when practicing Christians will be imprisoned for holding fast to a faith that discriminates.

These will be interesting times.

The Black Hole

[Composed on the spur of the moment. I am responsible, as usual, for any ranty goodness even if it doesn't make logical sense.]

I hope you're sitting down, but I've been reading. I've been reading about so-called race relations in America in light of the Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman affair. For the record, I deplore these two men's actions. I deplore Zimmerman because he should have known better, being the older and therefore supposedly wiser man. I deplore Zimmerman because he should have been more cognizant of the responsibility that comes with having a concealed weapon. I do not think--not that it matters--that he's a racist just quite stupid. I deplore Martin because he was a jerk. He was center deep in the rut to become a gangster, a thug, and a blight on good society.
That said, the jury made a sound decision in pronouncing Zimmerman not guilty. There was enough reasonable doubt that it would not have been justifiable in any sense, starting with the legal and ending with the moral, to send Zimmerman to prison.
I deplore Barack Obama even more than those two reprobates. His decision to enter the fray was perhaps the politically astute thing to do considering his failing presidency, but that aside it was a repugnant show of racist ideology and belies a cynicism bred of deep-seated hatred. I can only surmise that it is of white people, but I can't be certain but it doesn't matter. He's an asshole, and that's all there is to it. I'm now awaiting any of several Federal Agencies (including the Department of Education with its law enforcement arm. Yes, it has one. Who'd a thunk that!) to carry out a campaign against me at his behest. Not that I'm that significant or anything. How's that for being cynical?
All that was a preamble for something that's been eating at me for a while: black Americans as a group. It has been said in some areas of the Internet that I've trod that blacks are altogether inferior (this is true racism by the way, according to its dictionary definition) and therefore are incapable of American citizenship, one that requires intelligent and educated participation. When one looks around at the actions or inactions as the case may be of black Americans, can you fault the racist for thinking this? Substandard scores in just about every recorded education goal. A hellaciously fractured family life. Mob mentality in voting practices and actual mob behavior. Crimes committed at a rate completely out of proportion to population numbers.
Attributing such behavior to poverty is nonsensical and smacks of political opportunism. How? As a thoroughly reliable guide, anything Barack Obama thinks can be chalked up to political opportunism and he thinks poverty and a currently non-existent widespread racism is the cause of black malaise.
There are studies that have shown that black people are predisposed to violence and criminal behavior based on genetics. Is that true, one wonders. Is there a genetic link that dooms the average black American to becoming a criminal? If you believe, as I do, that even if it were true there was a genetic predisposition to crime locked somewhere in the genes of black people, it does not then follow that black people are completely helpless in determining whether or not to commit a crime. Criminal behavior is learned and correlation is not causation and all that claptrap. But I play my hand too soon.
What I find ironic is that the racist thinking that dooms black Americans to being inferior citizens, incapable of breaking from their genetic prisons to live peaceably in the freest society in human history is the same  shared by those who are supposedly virulently avowed non-racists. Liberal thought actually treats blacks with kid gloves that belie an ideology of low to no expectations. Black voting is a sure thing, like children can be counted on to always like ice cream. Black-run cities are always guaranteed to be violent and out-of-control, therefore more money should be heaped on them much the same way you provide your crying toddler with a lollipop to assuage a tantrum. Black education scores are deplorably below standards therefore amass a heap of money so that black children who don't care to learn are presented with world-class facilities that go mostly unused.
It is my considered opinion that black Americans are not genetically inferior humans anymore than than Asians are genetically superior human beings. In spite of all the studies that show a correlation between one gene or the other and a certain behavior, humans are and have always been capable of rejecting any such predispositions. “The history of the world is but the biography of great men” is an aphorism I read long ago, and it is true. Now take a look at the actual biographies of such great men and you will find all those foibles that make humanity its own worst enemy: we steal, we lie, we cheat, we kill. We are not doomed to behavior. The supposed best of us can show the worst of all behaviors. The supposed worst of us can show the best of all behaviors. We learn to become what we are.
This is not to say that genetics play absolutely no part in fashioning our natures. To say so would be to overstep my expertise. I do believe our genes determine our brain chemistry, which may in turn determine behavior, yes. But I do not believe therefore that it does determine our behavior. There are many reasons which this is so, and we as a society certainly do not act--nor should we--as if we believe we have no choice in modifying any predisposed behavior. We punish a criminal not his parents, for a somewhat trite example.
No, what I believe is black America's problem isn't one of genetics. It isn't one of economics--I will put my childhood up against the poorest of any American and mine will be worse, guaranteed. It is, pure and simply a cultured laziness.
I have read stories of newly-freed black slaves searching the land, far and wide, looking to be reunited with their families after the Civil War. I have heard stories of immense courage that black American men and women showed to keep their family and individual dignities together in the face of true hate. I have seen black Americans respond with aplomb and God-given grace in the face of what must have been an unending racist storm. I have heard of black Americans fervently seeking education despite the certain knowledge of instant and painful death upon discovery.
So what happened?
The liberals did. I believe that it started with the best of intentions: in a drive to assuage their consciences--sometimes wrought by their very Christianity--these fine folk decided to bend over backwards to give the so-called black community a hand up, to help gain standing in America (something which did not happen anywhere else on earth, by the way). Along the way, it became corrupted; co-opted by people like Barack Obama and the Kennedys and the LBJs of the world, it led to a widespread dependency by what was once a proud people on the purse and largesse of the government. In yet another unnoticed irony, this is exactly what slavery at its heart is about.
Here's the thing: you do this for any group of people and you will get the same results. Black, yellow, white, blue it doesn't matter. You give unending handouts and people will become lazy and stop "struggling." Since I've become quite the gym meathead, I can tell you that an apt analogy is muscle atrophy. You don't use your muscles--and by use I mean punish them, subject them to load, stress, shear--and they will atrophy.
Here's my measly contribution to the national conversation on race: start shaming people. All people. Certain civilizational standards exist. When people don't meet those standards, shame them. It is shameful to bring a bastard into the world. It is shameful to go to prison. It is shameful not to be able to pay your bills. It is shameful to be lazy. It is shameful to be dull in school (I like this term, by the way. Just as a dull knife can be made sharp by pressure and persistence, a dull child can attain mental sharpness and acuity.) It is shameful to be a one-parent household by choice. It is shameful for a black--or any other color--girl to sleep with as many thugs as she gets the vagina tingles for. It is shameful to impregnate as many woman as you want and then run away. It is shameful to shirk one's responsibilities. It is shameful to expect then come to demand handouts of any sort. It is shameful to display mental laziness in picking a candidate simply because of his color. It is all shameful. But people, being social animals, will only feel shame if we as a society start vociferously shaming.
It is not a racist act to shame. It is, in fact, an empowering act. You are calling another human being who has slipped back on to the sanity platform. It is allowing that they are adults capable for realizing shame and also, more importantly, mentally, psychologically and physically capable of changing behavior. Raise the standards, demand they be followed, and people will respond.
That or continue thinking black Americans are pets to be assuaged with goodies.

Become Worthy

I just read this:

“When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women.” ― Venerable Abp. Fulton J. Sheen, Life is Worth Living

 Which made me think of this:

Apparently it still needs to be said and I'll say it yet again:

WE ARE ALL—Men AND Women—FALLEN CREATURES AND NO ONE BUT GOD BELONGS ON A PEDESTAL.

No one—male or female—has to become “worthy” of anyone else. We're all pretty shitty sinners with foibles, depredations, wanton characters, & iniquitous. All of us are black-hearted, loathsome creatures:

²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

That's from St. Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 3, verse 23. That "all" is you, me, your dad, your mom, your sisters, EVERYONE. ALL of us. She may look better than you, gentlemen and certainly prettier, but her shit smells just as badly as yours and, depending on the day and Mexican diner, worse.

To put a woman, no matter how much you love her or how virginal or "pure" she is, on a pedestal is to substitute her for God, a burden that she—and certainly no one—can shoulder. The only thing we should ALL strive to be worthy of is of Christ's freely-given gift of salvation.

What tears me a new one is that apparently, the Sheen quoted is a church leader of some sort who should know better.

Word Cliff

Look at this list of words:

I, you, me, us, ugly, dumb, power, life, don’t, can’t, will, shall, powerless, are, is, won’t, aren’t, die, live, life.

If all you had were these words, and you were forbidden from using any others or even from knowing there are others available for use, imagine the kinds of conversations you could have. It isn’t hard to see that your cognitive ability, much less your very imagination will be stagnant and perhaps even regress.

It will be impossible to “see” anything not immediately describable by the contents of your word store. You will be literally literally lost, unable to break out of that mental prison and all because your vocabulary is stunted.

Now this is not a post to advocate you increase your vocabulary. No. It is a post to decry—uselessly, I’m sure—the practice in this country of outlawing words by convention. We have been convinced to accept a basket of words with the finger-wagging admonition that the use of any words not in that “safe” basket will result in proscription.

What results is the virtual certainty that no original thought is possible, at least not without paying the price and in a society in which payment—monetary or otherwise—is too high a price at whatever the price, almost no one will pay it. Those who do have their heads stuck on poles around the city’s walls as a warning.

We become suited thus to meander around the veld of our lives, “safe” in the herd. Our outlook of any danger blocked by the close view of the other sheep in the herd. We certainly can’t see the culling of the outlying sheep by wolves, and we’re too far inside the comforting milieu of society to hear the terrifying, dying bleats of those outliers.

Even those who, by dint of natural intelligence—the equivalent of a sheep born with a longer neck, perhaps—are able to see that in the distance, sheep blood is mixing with dust and terror, but their strained gushing comes out packaged and tightly bound in those limited words. Even if they were to find other words, no one around them would understand ‘those’ words and so our Cassandras’ warnings fall into  brains incapable of processing them. It then becomes only a matter of time before the sheep in the middle meet the same fate as their brutalized outlier cousins.

The ingenuity of limiting verbiage—and softly enforcing such limitations by ensuring teachers are worse every year—is that sometimes even those “special” sheep cannot, cognitively, understand what it is they’re seeing. They simply have no suitable words to think with. The very thing that differentiates humans from the lower animals, our ability to think our way out of trouble is impaired. Death results.

Many times, and here truly, is where that evil ingenuity reaches its apex: a few sheep assiduously strive to better their vocabularies, despite the pain of punishment and ostracism. They have gathered enough words and they have honed their cognitive ability. Alas, what they lack is the ability to make words connect to each other in critical ways and so they come to the wrong conclusions, warning about the wrong things if they do at all. This is like hobbling Usain Bolt at the ankles. All those powerful upper-leg muscles become ineffective because the road-meeting feet are incapable of translating potential energy to kinetic, Olympic gold winning energy.

As always, death results.

Sallow Lincoln Was Shallow

Abraham Lincoln liked pretty women—for which he deserves to burn in hell, I'm certain of it. I learned today that one of our greatest Presidents may have been, in addition to the Great Emancipator, the Great Objectifier.
Mary Owens, a lady mayhap lacking a level of pulchritude befitting what the Great Man expected was objectified thusly:

“… when I beheld her, I could not for my life avoid thinking of my mother; and this, not from withered features, for her skin was too full of fat to permit of its contracting into wrinkles, but from her want of teeth, weather-beaten appearance in general, and from a kind of notion that ran in my head that nothing could have commenced at the size of infancy and reached her present bulk in less than thirty-five or forty years ; and, in short, I was not at all pleased with her.”

When the Klieg lights of such a man's opinions are trained on such a slow target, it burns! It burns!
As if in punishment, Lincoln moved on to Mary Todd, reputed to be a beauty and learned the eternal lesson: hot chicks are crazy.
Read the rest and gaze upon the visage of the weather-beaten she here.

Marley

No, not this one:

This one:

The only one.

Last weekend, I was watching this—to say fascinating is an oceanic understatement—documentary on the life and music of Bob Marley whose songs were the constant background of my early life from ages 6 until I left for the United States at 21.

Bob was the “illegitimate” son of an Irish man, Captain Marley who as near as they can tell never actually was a captain of anything other than bedding underage Jamaican girls. I put illegitimate in quotes because, as someone said, there are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.

His early life was as one would expect growing up in a shithole, shitty. He picked up music, a propensity for ganja, pretty women and a biting urge to succeed. So far, we have here the age-old story of a man possessed of talent and drive clawing his way out of the slums to reach fame. All well and good. What he couldn’t get away from, however, was his genetics and his circumstance.

Bob Marley espoused Rastafarianism, a rather weird combination of homegrown Christianity, hero worship pointed in the general direction of Emperor Haile Salassie, “good vibrations” socialism, and toking large burning rolls of marijuana while managing to keep soap and water as far away as possible from their hair.

This laissez-faire attitude—naturally (Jamaica, man!) and pharmaceutically acquired—combined with an unmanaged melanoma that metastasized into a full-body infestation (the Jamaicans called it his “white” disease) ultimately did him in so that he died in Miami in 1981.

His life stands as a lesson, or should: if you’re a Rasta, you’re a fucking idiot. If you have a melanoma on your toe and treatment required cutting off the tip of the toe, continue to visit the doctor for regular checkups afterwards, the protestations of Jah Rastafarai notwithstanding. Stay the hell away from the machinations of two warring Third World political parties, the only difference between them being just how leftist they can be so you don’t get shot at by idiots.

Five stars.

Saint Shyster

A cautionary tale of boom and bust:

Let’s imagine a society slightly different from the one we currently live in: a society like that of days gone by, in which the workforce is paid in cash at the end of each week, in personalized little brown envelopes.

Now imagine that we can divide this workforce into two different types of people. The first type is honest and hardworking and puts in a full week’s work. Let’s call them the saints. The other is dishonest and lazy and preys upon its diligent counterparts as they make their way home on a Friday, lying in wait outside the factory gates and appropriating their hard-earned wages for themselves. Let’s call them the shysters.

At first it would seem as if the shysters have got it made: that crime pays. And, indeed, in the short term at least, it does. The saints clock in to keep the community going, while the shysters reap a twofold benefit. Not only do they enjoy the advantages of living in a flourishing society, they also, by stealing the saints’ wages, “get paid” for doing nothing. Nice work if you can get it.

But notice what happens if the pattern of behavior continues. The saints begin to tire and fall sick. Having less disposable income with which to look after themselves, they begin to die out. Gradually, the ratio of the “working” population starts to shift in favor of the shysters. But this, of course, is precisely what the shysters don’t want! With the number of saints diminishing by the week, the likelihood increases that the shysters will encounter each other. Moreover, even if they do run into a saint, there’s a greater chance that they’ll come away empty-handed. Another shyster may well have beaten them to it.

Eventually, if the fun and games are allowed to play out naturally, the power balance comes full circle. The pendulum swings back in favor of the saints, and society reverts to working for a living. But note how history is programmed to repeat itself. The saints call the shots for only such time as the economy is in recession, and the shysters preside for only as long as the saints can keep them afloat. It’s a bleak carousel of recurring boom and bust.

Baccalaureate

A quote, from LP:

Imagine a large corporate machine mobilized to get you to buy something you don't need at a tremendously inflated cost, complete with advertising, marketing, and branding that says you're not hip if you don't have one, but when you get one you discover it's of poor quality and obsolete in ten months. That's a BA.

Nod.

Reason And Force

A letter from a retired Marine:

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or forcing me to do your bidding. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it. In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunken guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society because a firearm makes it easier for an armed mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are unarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat -- it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a monopoly on force.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... And that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
By Maj. L. Caudill, USMC (Ret.)

Hear, hear!