Meditations on internal combustion

...from Mike "Leatherballs" Hendrix.

And see, that’s where the biker angle comes in amidst all this cage-talk. Anybody out there heard any of these do-gooder busybodies talking about electric motorcycles yet? Anybody want to ride one if they do finally get around to throwing us that small bone and allowing us that piddling bit of freedom? 

Hell, no. An electric motorcycle is what your parents get you for Christmas on your eighth birthday, if they can afford such a thing. You’re happy enough about it at the time, and you piddle around on it and have a ball until you’re big enough to handle a real honest-to-God dirt bike, and then the old one gets handed down to your little sister or your goofy cousin, and you never think about it again until your significant other drags out those embarrassing little-kid photos for all your friends to have a good time pointing and laughing at your geeked-out ass. It’s great when it’s all you have, but the whole time you know in the secret recesses of your brain that you’re just marking time until the real thing comes along. 

And an electric car is the same sort of thing, in its weak-ass, pathetic way. It’s a means of reducing all of us to the child-like status the eggheads believe we merit; we can only go so far, so fast, under certain conditions, and then we have to stop before we go too far for our own good. The more intelligent and independent-minded among us who dare question their almighty wisdom will be fed a bunch of bushwa about peak oil, and global warming or cooling or whatever the fuck it is this week, and the dire necessity of conserving scarce natural resources so China can go right on befouling the planet as they struggle halfway to where we were fifty years ago. If you’re good, and you toe the proper line, maybe you’ll get in with the right people and they’ll let you wash their stretch limos (which they’ll be keeping, thanks) every once in a while. But until you prove yourself worthy, you can make do with a glorified Big Wheel. And you’ll like it, damn you.

There are layers to the current rush towards statism that merit closer examination.  Ruminate.

The "Or We'll Kill You" test

A new blog I just found puts "The Law" into its true perspective:

If you talk about a law, and put “or else I’ll kill you” after the law in question, and it doesn’t sound reasonable, then we all need to sit down and have a long discussion about whether we really need that law, or not.

Don’t rape women, or else I’ll kill you.  Check!

Don’t steal (thereby taking away whatever portion of life that person spent earning the item you stole from them) or else I’ll kill you.  Check!

Don’t drive your car without a seatbelt, or else I’ll kill you…  FAIL!

Welcome Nothing About Everything to the rolls.

State != Nation

Welcome Stares At The World to TIPB. 

Because this(and not because he looks a lot like me):

The one and only thing that matters

TRUTH.

We will challenge you to let go of ideas, judgments and beliefs you may have held on to for a very long time. We will do our best to open your mind by speaking to your heart.

You are not who you think you are. You are not defined by the beliefs of others or by groups of people you have for one reason or another aligned yourself with. We must not be afraid to look into our own hearts and souls to look to see what is inside so that we can begin to distinguish truth from lies, light from dark and good from evil.

It begins by lifting the walls of anger, hatred and hurt we have separated ourselves with. Once we have done that, the awakening process will begin and the walls we have created to keep ourselves apart from others will begin to crumble. When they do, we will find each and see each other again other – as Americans. Anger and hatred will give way to love, light, truth and power. With truth comes power…the power to defeat all things that are not of the light.

I don't care about your color, your gender, your faith or lack thereof, whatever consenting people you get busy with, or where you or your ancestors came from.  If you're down with freedom, America and, above all, truth--I've got your back.

If not, we're gonna have us a problem.

Why they lie right in your face

(Sorry, the Most Punk Rock Dude Ever post is pushed back one.  This is too important to let slide, and I'm going to steal it in full from Blue.)

Dear Blue,

Did you see Obama's speech yesterday, calling for more gun control?

Did it make your blood boil?

It made a lot of people's blood boil because Gun Control is a BIG LIE and Obama is a master at the BIG LIE.

Responsible, sane Americans are being mentally abused.

Have you ever heard the term gaslighting?

Check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception, and sanity.

Instances may range simply from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim (Dorpat, 1994).

You are being told repeatedly by anti-gun advocates, politicians, and the media that they support the Second Amendment and that no one really wants to take your guns, yet the President is pushing Congress for more restrictive gun control legislation that will substantially impact your gun rights.

You're being told that the gun control measures they want to take are "reasonable" and reflective of "common sense," yet your own common sense makes it clear not a single measure being suggested would have prevented any of the mass shootings we've seen.

You are being told that law enforcement supports gun control when in fact law enforcement officers surveyed reject gun control.

You're being told that civilians have no need for an AR-15 or 30-round magazines, yet the people who seek to ban them are routinely protected by the same weapons with the same high-capacity magazines, along with their families.

You are being told that gun registration can help reduce violent crime; yet we know criminals are not going to register their guns, and every modern despot who came to power used gun registration to ultimately disarm the public before invoking tyrannical policies.

You will soon be told that the actions being taken are necessary to stop the senseless violence and murder of innocent children. Yet, effective solutions like armed security in schools or the elimination of gun-free zones where mass murders tend to occur, are dismissed outright, all while armed security protects the halls and residences of those in power.

To the weak minded these reforms will seem acceptable. Rest assured, however, that when the next mass murders occur, directly as a result of more gun control shifting the balance of power further into the hands of criminals by disarming the law abiding, the government will insist the changes did not go far enough and they will come after the remaining guns.

You are told gun confiscation will never happen, that gun registration is simply to prevent criminals from having guns, yet gun confiscation occurred after Hurricane Katrina and is happening now in the state of New York and in the state of California.

The Nazis understood the effectiveness of using authority to manage average people who were reluctant to believe that the regime would ultimately harm them. The Warsaw Ghetto, where the Nazis segregated Polish Jews before sending most of them to die in Treblinka during WWII is a good example. Initially the Jews vastly outnumbered their Nazi overlords yet these people complied with the edicts imposed upon them, thinking it wise to do so - until it was too late. The same was true of the Russians who were murdered under Stalin, the Cambodians under Pol Pot, the Rwandan Tutsis under the Hutus, and every other example of the imposition of tyranny.

Don't think it could happen here?

You are being Gaslighted. You are being told lies about the true intentions of those who seek to take your gun rights by attrition and they have much history to show them how to do it. 170 million people have fallen for this tactic and were eventually killed by their own governments.

Those who suggest this is happening are branded as paranoid conspiracy nuts, a tactic of the gaslighting process. The approach is as clever and effective as it is diabolical and many in America are falling prey to it.

Those who recognize it for what it is will face difficult choices -- comply or resist both of which carry adverse consequences.

We study history to understand where the future is likely to carry us and now you are living it. Either you are going to be a part of deciding your own destiny or you will allow others to determine it for you. I choose the former.

Make no mistake. ANY politician who introduces, supports, or votes for ANY gun control is either uninformed and uneducated on the subject or is knowingly violating our Second Amendment rights.

Either way, whether an idiot or a traitor, THEY NEED TO BE VOTED OUT OF OFFICE. Make sure they know, each and every day through an e-mail, a call or a letter that YOU ARE WATCHING THEIR EVERY MOVE on the gun issue.

Here is a link to find your representatives. http://capwiz.com/gunowners/dbq/officials/

And remember, if all else fails, the only thing they can't take from you is your ability and willingness to use the guns you have to defend yourself against all enemies, foreign and domestic so make sure YOU ARE TRAINED.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ignatius Piazza
Founder and Director
Front Sight Firearms Training Institute
7975 Cameron Drive, #900
Windsor, CA 95492
http://www.frontsight.com
info@frontsight.com
1.800.987.7719

That's what they're doing to us.  And when evil people are intent on making you mistrust your sanity, you gotta have an anchor in reality.  So, yes...I AM 'bitterly clinging' to my Bible, my Constitution and my sacred honor.  Nothing else matters.  And, in respectful disagreement with Dr. Piazza, I'm not voting any more.  My God-given human rights are not up for a vote, and if the last few years haven't proven the utter and complete corruption of the entire political process, then you're beyond all hope of anything approaching an IQ.

I'm going to live my life as I will, and aggress against no one, but I will defend my rights, life and property to the end.  Win or lose.  What 'laws' this gang of thugs and criminals pass, mean just as much as Fat Tony's decree that I owe him 'protection' money.

Suck on that, you arrogant, self-important Proglodytes.

Marriage: The judo solution

OK, folks, let's talk about the whole marriage debacle.  Not simply gay marriage, but marriage in general, what it means, what its purpose is and how it relates to secular law.

Enough already, Sandra.

This chick really needs to just STFU and go away.

Let me explain something to you, dear:  not buying you stuff is not the same as 'denying you access to it.'  I'm not being 'denied access' to a new Dyna Glide just because no one wants to buy it for me; I just can't afford it.  So if I want one, I either save my pennies or go into more debt.  Otherwise, I ride the bike I already have.

Lest you blow me off as another uptight prude, let me explain that I used to be such a slut that they wouldn't let me visit the Virgin Islands.  I've been around the block...a lot.  My list of partners is in the triple-digit range(whether yours is longer or shorter, I don't know, nor do I want to).

Yet, I'm childless and disease-free.  Why?  Because I used birth control.  Which I paid for, with my own money, because--unlike yourself--I was enough of an adult to realize that having sex was my choice, and it was my responsibility to pay for the consequences of making that choice.  I could either pay for medical treatment and/or child support, or I could take reasonable measures to keep that from becoming a necessity.  Otherwise, I could have kept it in my pants(which, in retrospect, was probably a better idea all around, but what's done is done).

There are things we have to do to survive.  We have to eat and drink water.  We have to sleep, we have to breathe, we have to go to the bathroom.  These things are requirements.  If we don't do them, we die.

Sex is not a requirement.

Contrary to the insistence of countless teenage boys, you're not going to die if you don't have sex.  You choose whether or not to have sex(and if someone's trying to force the issue, tell me who it is and I'll make 'em stop). 

Now, even as a recently-converted Christian, I figure whatever you get up to is between you and the Lord, and anyone who wasn't there shouldn't have a say in it.  However often and with however many consenting adults you choose to share your bed /couch/ bearskin rug/ backseat of a Volkswagen/ hot tub, and in whatever combinations and permutations you desire, are absolutely none of my business, or anyone else's. 

So stop making it my business, and get your hands out of my wallet.

Exactly!

By way of Kevin, a new blogroll addition.

Because this.

Basically, I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.

Yep.

Collectivism is NOT America...

TL gives us another heapin' helpin' of brilliance. 

Liberty is the value of self. It is not a collective value. A collective value is the value of society, of the total. This is why it is so difficult to sell the children of the collective on the idea of liberty. They have been taught to fear it and as so many of our young adults are incapable of self-sufficiency, they lean toward the collective, without understanding the emasculation that comes with it.

Liberty is the ability to act within the constructs of one's physical presence without reaching another's. In older times it came with the ability to do with one's property what one wished, but that has been neutered by the same old concept of the collective. If one destroys their property, it affects the collective property value of a given neighborhood.

The collective sees objects as they are connected to others, not as they stand alone, individual. My house, my lawn, my garbage is no longer mine alone, but connected to those who might view it. This is largely where America has changed into something I do not understand, nor want to understand. It should be beyond the understanding of an American to entertain such concepts of society.

RTWT.  If TLiE isn't on your blogroll, you might want to correct that oversight.

All that needs be said about the CFA fiasco

Via Borepatch, we find this smackdown at Le Gygne Gris, slamming both sides(and deservedly so):

Furthermore, gay marriage isn’t even ruining marriage. Feminism, coupled with no-fault divorce and a misandrist family court system have done more damage to the social institution of marriage than Adam and Steve ever could.

Finally, note that the legal institution of marriage is not the same as the religious institution of marriage. The government can use as much ink on as many sheets of paper as it so desires, yet God will never be bound to recognize that Adam and Steve are husband and husband. God is not bound by the laws of man; quit acting like he is.

On a side note, the religious institution of marriage has been radically undermined by its main nominal proponents (religious conservatives) by decades of false teaching, most notably the teaching that conflates moral laws with legal laws. There has also been quite an absence of proper teaching on theology of marriage, on the theology of divorce (hint: God hates it, Mal. 2:14-17), and the role of husband and wife (leader and helpmeet). This has done more to undermine marriage than to two lesbians kissing in front of a fast food joint.

...

The majority of the people that hate you do not hate you because you are gay. They hate you because you are assholes. Most straight couples have the common courtesy to not kiss in public, or make awkward public displays of affection. This is because most straight people are well-adjusted, and not delusionally narcissistic.

Get over your martyr complex. Your inability to not get a couple of extra tax deductions (and the attendant risk for alimony, should things go south) is not comparable to blacks being deprived of their natural rights. And seeing as how you don’t have a couple hundred years’ worth of slavery in your history, the comparison is even more ludicrous.

Also, the constant need to publicly remind everyone of your homosexuality is annoying, just as it would be if straights went around reminding everyone of their heterosexuality. Constantly reminding everyone that you’re here and you’re queer is getting old. Right now, it just sounds a little try-hard, like you have an inferiority complex, and so you constantly have to have validation from other people.

Yeah, that about sums it up.  Please welcome Le Cygne Gris to TIPB.

NOW do you get it?

SF in Babylon(in one of the least-offensive posts I believe he's ever written)explains why this Obamacare fiasco actually germinated almost a hundred years ago, in Cut It Out, Goddamnit.  The slippery slope was obvious to anyone with the slightest understanding of principles.

But most people were too stupid to comprehend the eventual destination of the path they were headed down, so we wound up with the consequences of Prohibition, the War On Liberty Drugs, and now we've reached the obvious culmination of the insane idea that your life and body are other peoples' property:  Obamacare.

Did you (or do you) agitiate for mandatory seat belt laws, life-preserver laws or helmet laws?  Did you (or do you) cheer whenever another SWAT team smashes down a door and confiscates everything someone owns, for the simple act of using or possessing a substance you disapprove of?  Did you (or do you) support bans on smoking, guns, fatty foods, sugar, salt or anything else that--in your opinion--people "shouldn't" do?

This is the result.  When you establish the precedent that some people get to tell others what peaceable activities they can or cannot engage in; when you concede that Person A's body and/or life is now the de facto property of Person B...this is what it leads to.  Now, your life and health are the government's business, because you told them so.  If not by the words you said, then by the principles you clearly espoused through your support of laws that should never have even been contemplated in any "free" country.

Remember, many of you supposedly liberty-loving 'Conservatives'...YOU ASKED FOR IT.

"Coexist." Nice in theory, but...

...in practice, it ain't gonna happen.  You'll realize this once you understand what we're dealing with.

Just as true muslims, true followers of Islam, will never coexist with infidels, so will no true member of the collectivist Left ever be willing to coexist with someone who believes - as the people who founded this country did - that the rights of the individual are not subject to infringement by society simply because it would benefit said society. That is why the Left is so insistent upon calling our country a "democracy" - an ideology that our Founders were convinced would be the ruin of our country. They established a Constitutional Republic, a form of government which respected and protected the rights of the individual against the desires of the collective, the larger group. So, for many, many years now, the Left has been pounding into young minds in school, and through mass media, that our country is a democracy, where the majority rules - even if it runs rough-shod over someone's rights.

The Right, on the other hand, is willing to coexist with the Left - if they would simply leave us alone. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."   We would not obstruct the Left's actions insofar as they would not damage our rights, but the Left is not so generous. They expect that we should be subject to their wishes even where it harms us.

We on the right have to understand that, like a true, orthodox muslim, those on the Left who truly believe in "the greater good" are incapable of coming to an understanding with us. They are incapable of allowing us the freedom to live as we wish. They believe we must be forced, by law or by the might of the government, to do what they believe is the best for the collectivist group, for "our country". "Our country" as defined by the Left, of course. The Left wants a Universal Caliphate just as the muslims do, however, their Caliphate would be run not by imams but by the elite. People like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Charles Schumer. People like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Lisa Murkowski, Olympia Snow. People like Barack Hussein Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano.

 There can be no reasoning with those impervious to reason.  I shall expand on this line of thought later.

The Sultan on the Nanny State

Can't really add anything to this:

Give a maniac a gun and he'll shoot up a whole lot of people. Give activists the power to regulate and ban... and they will regulate and ban every single thing that they can think of. If one ban doesn't do it, then they'll try ten more. They won't stop until someone takes away the gun that shoots bills, unloads it and then hides it on a high shelf that they can't reach.

Tyranny doesn't stop where you think it should. It doesn't stop with, "Okay, this might be a good idea". It doesn't stop with "Wait, what?!" And it doesn't stop with "They can't do that." It doesn't stop at all. That's why they call it tyranny.

In a democracy, it has to start slow, sidling up to you like a con artist with a hard luck story at a fair. There's always a good cause, a compelling reason and then eventually a gun to your head when you realize that you've been had and you want out. Because there's no way out. Either you keep falling for the con or the gun comes out.

RTWT; it's a fantastic, entertaining and troubling essay.

To paraphrase Yoda...

"Begun, this shitstorm has."

Kerodin 1, Erotophobes 0.

Although I've renounced my former wanton ways, I did so because I felt it was right for me to do so.  I still don't begrudge consenting individuals their own private pursuits, and I fail to see the bizarre connection some people make between sexual freedom and the fall of civilizations.

Neither does Kerodin:

Sorry, most Civilizations come and go from this Earth through combat with other Tribes.

Stop worrying about the other guy or gal and who/what they choose to do sexually, and pay more attention to who wants your land, your water, your wife or daughter as breeders, and the sweat equity off your brow. Those are the people who will take us to the brink of existence.

It has always been so. It will always be so.

Yeah...those kinksters next door with the clothing-prohibited hot tub and elaborate basement dungeon?  They may or may not be called to account for their lifestyle by our Lord, but that's solely their responsibility.  I'm pretty sure they're less of a threat to humanity than the guy who thinks he can steal the fruits of your labor and control your childrens' minds simply because he's passed a law that says he can.

Ruminate.

Language, NSFW. Concept, absolutely imperative.

SF in Babylon has just explained that whole 'freedom' thing in no uncertain terms.  Banish the kids and easily-offended from the room and go read now.

So, what's this "libertarian" thing, anyway?

Isn't that another name for a Ronulan?  Do we have to wear wookie suits?  I don't wanna wear a wookie suit, they make me itch.  Are we going to be compelled by law to carry guns, smoke pot and have abortions?  I don't like pot.  Do we have to hate cops?  I have friends that are cops.  I'm so confused...what the heck IS a "libertarian?"

OK, let's see if Mr. Karl "Market-Ticker" Denninger can explain it.  Better you hear it from him than a dumb truck driver.

Either you, and only you, have the right of dominion (ownership) over your person and nobody else does, or you do not.

This does not mean you cannot cede that authority for a period of time and on a voluntary basis to some other entity (e.g. your idea of what God is, to military service, etc) but it does mean that nobody else can compel you to do so.

The difficulty with first principles is that they're inviolate.  One either believes in them or one does not.  Once you adopt one you are then forced to square all your other political principles against this first one, and if you cannot fit what you wish to adopt into that first principle then you must modify or abandon whatever it was that you intended to do.

...

Think about that for a minute.

On the one hand most people in this country claim to believe in a God that endowed us all with certain unalienable rights -- life, liberty, and the pursuit (ed. but not the guarantee!) of happiness.

But then, under the label of "Democrat" or "Republican" we vote for, support, and enable the enactment of laws that blaspheme what we claim to believe, in that we then intentionally violate those very same liberty interests we claim come from that God.

Seriously, RTWT.  Now, when I call myself a libertarian, you'll know exactly what I mean.  And no, I don't wear a wookie suit.

(At least, not as far as you know.  ;) )

On the issues of life and death

Karl Denninger dissects the "Personhood Pledge" and finds more than a few problems with it.

This is list is not exhaustive, but it ought to make people sit down and think.  The founders put forward the declaration of where rights vest ("all persons born or naturalized") under The Constitution not because they were ignorant Neanderthals (they certainly understood that a "quickened" fetus was alive!) but because there were serious and, for them, irresolvable conflicts between the various interests involved.

Nothing in this regard has changed over the intervening 225 years.  If anything technology has made the questions more complex, in that we can now do things that were unthinkable in the times of Washington, Madison and Hamilton.  We can intervene to save life that would otherwise perish, and we can intervene to make the creation of life possible where it formerly was not.  In addition, we have learned to block the transmission of life where it would otherwise occur, and with that knowledge has come the ability to destroy life.

The United States Supreme Court, in Roe .v. Wade, did not, as many people claim, decide that "all abortion is ok."  In point of fact The Court decided quite-narrowly -- that in the first three months, where separate and distinct existence apart from the mother is biologically impossible, the mother's privacy rights and the right to determination of her own body trump those of a fetus.  But the Court's same ruling sets forth that in the second and third trimesters the question does not resolve as cleanly, and that in point of fact in the third trimester, where separate and distinct survival becomes possible, the presumption is exactly in the opposite direction as it is in the first.

RTWT.  Sometimes, things aren't as simple as they're described.

Why do we chafe at regulations?

Because common sense is the American way, and regulating every single aspect of human behavior annihilates the whole concept.  My homegirl NOOAI elaborates here:

These questions sound reasonable at first blush, but (aside from the whole running out of money to pay for it problem) we can glimpse the truth of the matter in situations like this one.

When we try to control the behavior of our fellow citizens (yes, even when they are corporation-y or bankish), right down to the smallest detail, we don’t get rid of abuses of power.  We don’t get everyone the healthcare they need.  We don’t get insert a well-meaning goal here.

We get lunacy.  We get a guy who can’t benefit from the good luck of accidentally catching a giant tuna.  We get an amazing charitable cooperative enterprise between individuals, governments, and businesses–stopped in its tracks.

RTWT.  If this doesn't blow up your WTF-meter, you're definitely part of the problem.

I stand in awe.

Even in my hardcore, punk rock, screw-you days, I don't believe I have ever been quite as In Your Face as the guy I'm about to link.  I warn you now, this is one definitely NSFW blog.  Even its title contains profanity, and I'll have to edit it for TIB.

Regardless, watch the brother kick ass.

Q: "Why do you NEED high capacity magazines?"
A: "Because sometimes you have to kill a whole bunch of mother****ers."

Q: "Why do you NEED armor piercing rounds?"
A: "Because sometimes you have to kill some mother****er hiding on the other side of a wall."

Q: "Why do you NEED a fifty caliber sniper rifle?"
A: "Because sometimes you have to kill some mother****er from a kilometer away."

Q: "Why do you need a night vision scope?"
A: "Because sometimes you have to kill some mother****ers in the dark."

Oh, yeah.  Common sense delivered with a howitzer.  Sometimes, the offensive can truly be refreshing.