This and That # 9

In This and That #8 I included two short quotes with the comment that sometimes a short statement can contain a lot of information.

That a picture can be worth a thousand words is well known. Sometimes, when we are really lucky, a picture can be worth a million words. Via Powerlineblog.com



The photo is from a weekly series posted each Saturday by Steven Hayward. It is always worth a look.

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Pope Francis is at it again. This particularly foolish Pope began his papacy by endorsing socialism (I wonder what his Venezuelan flock is eating today).

He followed up with a condemnation of President Trump for promising to build a wall along our southern border.

I had the opportunity to visit  Vatican City last October. Was I  ever shocked to find that the city/state he rules and calls home is completely surrounded by very tall, very thick...walls.



It is a never ending source of wonder to me that leftists appear to have no understanding of irony and not much more understanding of honesty, for that matter.

Here is His Holiness' latest epiphany,

"Pope Francis: 'There Is No Hell'"

Good to know.

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Speaking of the lack of honesty on the left, one of my favorite writers, Kurt Schlichter, offers this,

"Here’s the deal – everything the liberals say about guns is a lie. Every. Single. Thing."

You should read the whole thing.

Among the most important points he makes is that,

"Our right to speak and worship freely, and our right to keep and bear arms, were merely cited by the Constitution. That paper did not grant them. The government did not grant them, and the government cannot take them away. Every American was endowed with those rights by his Creator, and as long as we have the will to defend our rights, no collection of creeps is ever going to take them away from us."

Indeed.

Passover

The Jewish holiday of Passover starts at sundown this evening. I am proud to be Jewish but I am not a believer. As has been demonstrated literally millions of times, our enemies don't care whether I believe in the Jewish God. My blood is Jewish and so they have sworn to kill me today as they have so often in the past and no doubt will in the future. I have never been able to understand visceral racial or religious animosity. I suppose understanding these 100's of millions of crazy adherents of the Religion of Peace and their various Christian predecessors is not necessary.

The Passover liturgy insists that we remember our days as slaves in Egypt and internalize the lessons learned by once having been the "other". The scorned and mistreated outsider. To a large extent our status as the "other" has not changed. Non-Jews are just less impolite and vocal about it, except for the Islamists of course, who wear their Jew hatred as a badge of honor.

Like so many other religious stories the story of Passover is probably not true. There is no archaeological evidence of Jewish slavery in Egypt, which, as you likely are aware, is a treasure trove of archaeological finds. None. Not a shard of crockery nor an hieroglyphic tablet.

Does that mean that the lessons of the Passover "story" are not valuable. No it does not.

Whenever I bring up this lack of evidence and point out the almost endless stream of inconsistencies in the story, I am told that it is not necessary that the events described actually happened in order to learn valuable truths from the story. I agree. It is the methodology that insists on lying to children to which I object.

Also troubling is the apparent necessity our religious leaders find, as well as those of all the other religions that I have some small knowledge of, to spin heroic tales in their effort to convince the believers to believe.

Mohamed rode a flying horse to heaven to chat with Allah.

The Immaculate Conception.

Jesus rising from the dead.

Jesus walking on water.

The parting of the Red Sea.

Given that the people who believe these tales, or claim to, are solicited to donate money to the causes telling these tales perhaps the FTC should open an investigation. After all, you can't sell a car that way.

In my view religions are, in general, blue prints for a well regulated society.

For example, in earlier times spring cleaning was an important component of community health after a winter spent mostly indoors in an ever more poisonous environment.

Do you know what each Jewish household is commanded to do to prepare for Passover?

"For many Jews, one of the most vivid memories of their childhood is the seemingly endless cleaning and scrubbing of their homes during the weeks and days before Passover." The Family Haggadah, Menorah Publications, P.13.

So, in an astonishing coincidence the holiday that mandates a thorough cleaning of  homes and businesses happens at exactly the time of year it is most urgent.

It is almost as though the people who made up the story were actually bureaucrats intent on persuading their charges to clean out the detritus of winter hoping to minimize parasites emerging in the warmer months. One never knows.

How Smart are They?

I have been thinking a lot lately about differing impressions of smart.

We have been told for a very, very long time how smart, brilliant even, Hillary Clinton is. Smartest woman in the world, some say.

I have never seen even a hint of any smarts greater than those required to get into and out of Yale Law School. It is a very impressive achievement and one that requires some serious smarts. But that is all. It has been done 10's of thousands of times.

She has been followed by scandal her entire public life. From impossibly successful novice cattle futures trading to her email scandal with a dozen or so assorted scandals in between. It occurs to me that some of you are so young that you might be unfamiliar with this astonishing list so here are links some major old ones and a couple that will get much louder soon. They make for very interesting reading, in my opinion.

Travel Office.  Rose Law Firm Billing Records.  White Water.  The Uranium One and Clinton Foundation scandals have yet to be thoroughly investigated. You probably remember Benghazi. Quite an impressive list.

She lost the 2016 election by being the opposite of brilliant or even smart. She was down right stupid. The "deplorables" comment was the defining moment of her campaign and sunk her for good. She is so "smart" that she still does not recognize her folly and reiterated her opinion of us during her recent trip to India.

Really smart people do not repeat their errors.

Another luminary of the left to whom great intellectual gifts are attributed is Barak Hussein Obama, otherwise known as Barry O. I have never seen any hint of great smarts in him either. As Clarence Thomas has complained about the effects on perception of affirmative action, I can't even credit him with the brains to actually get into and out of Harvard Law.

Actually, I do know he could not possibly have gotten into and out of Harvard Law without affirmative action because he proved it.

""I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," Obama said."

Mr. President, Mr Harvard Law graduate and Harvard Law Review editor (who never wrote more than a page in that journal) the Supreme Court of the United States is in the business of upholding or overturning laws passed by the "democratically elected Congress" regardless of the strength of the vote that passed them into law. It is the primary reason the Court exists.

Does this nitwit really think that a law abridging the 1st or 2nd amendments passed by 100% of the Congress would be immune from Judicial scrutiny. Yes, apparently. He must have missed a course or two at Harvard Law.

He was speaking of ObamaCare of course. That "strong majority" was 100% Democrat in the House and all Democrat and 2 Independents in the Senate. Not a single Republican in either chamber voted for it. If one or two had, I suppose Barry could have asserted with even more certainty that SCOTUS could not have overturned it because not only was it a "strong majority" but a bipartisan one too! That would invoke his theory of proper judicial scrutiny even more strongly. Brilliance and academic achievement on proud display.

Guns Again, Again

We are all very well aware of the children's crusade in support of "ending gun violence". Is there any sane person who would prefer the perpetuation of gun violence? I know, but they can be forgiven for failing to see the obvious. They are, after all, children who by definition know very little about anything. Which explains why we call them "children" not "adults".

The gun control advocates, adults who are enabling and using them, are not so blameless.

Typical among the signs these poor kids are being told to carry is the evergreen "Ban Assault Rifles". There is no weapon that is so described by weapons manufacturers.

It is almost impossible for a US resident to buy a firearm of any description that fires more than one bullet per trigger pull.

"When silly people like Seth MacFarlane and Susan Sarandon say they want to ban “automatic weapons,” what they mean is that they want to ban guns that look scary. They don’t understand that you can’t walk into a gun store and walk out with a military-style assault weapon (one that can fire multiple rounds with a single trigger pull). That’s because 1) most gun dealers don’t carry the military version of the scary looking gun, 2) you have to jump through an obscene number of hoops with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to even obtain a tax stamp that says you may purchase such a weapon (a process that takes months, if not years), and 3) the actual versions of rifles used by the military are really expensive and unaffordable for the vast majority of prospective gun owners.

What you can buy from your local gun dealer, after that licensed gun dealer has confirmed that you passed a federal background check (yep, that’s required by existing law), is a semi-automatic rifle. And now, a bunch of gun controllers who don’t understand the slightest thing about guns have decided that rifle needs to be banned. Not because it’s more deadly than a typical hunting rifle (it’s absolutely not), but because it looks scarier."

In 1994 Bill, Clinton signed into law a federal "assault weapons ban".

"...The 1994 assault weapons law banned semi-automatic rifles only if they had any two of the following five features in addition to a detachable magazine: a collapsible stock, a pistol grip, a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor, or a grenade launcher."

All of the items listed are cosmetic. They do not alter the operation of the device. They don't make it shoot any more than one bullet per trigger pull which is the only metric by which a semi-automatic gun becomes more destructive than it already is. Try getting your hands on a grenade to mount on the launcher. No, gun dealers do not sell those either.

There is a device called a "bump stock" which allows for much more rapid fire of a semi-automatic (one bullet per trigger pull) rifle. The Las Vegas shooter is said to have used these devices to increase his rate of fire and destruction. President Trump has called for their banning and I see no reason to disapprove of that position. Unlike the list of items referred to above, this one actually does make a rifle more destructive and does not appear to serve any useful purpose.

17 people really did die as a result of a gunman's attack in Florida last month. A tragedy of impressive proportion even though no bump stock was used. Examination and evaluation are required by any responsible society in the face of such carnage.

In order that useful conclusions are reached the examination and evaluation of policies which made this disaster possible must be conducted in good faith and those participating must have some understanding of what they are talking about.

Such good faith and knowledge are in extremely short supply among the advocates of more anti-gun laws.

For example.

As I wrote in my previous post, that tragedy was completely preventable. Every single adult with responsibility for the shooter and those murdered failed completely, for years in many cases. There are no gun laws that will fix this.

The only fix is to refuse to be side tracked into a discussion  of just how much we should deprive law abiding Americans of their 2nd Amendment rights and demand that the people responsible for promoting the culture in which this shooter and so many like him evolved are held accountable. That might prompt others pursuing similarly stupid policies with respect to school discipline and gun free zones to re-think their positions.

As we are only too aware the Florida shooter was spared from responsibility for many of his previous transgressions by the Obama administration's "guidance" on discipline.

Note how this absurdity begins,

"The Office for Civil Rights together with the Dept of Justice released a Dear Colleague letter on January 8, 2014 on (sic) to help schools administer school discipline without discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin."

So now we are to believe that teachers and school administrators, among the most liberal people in the country, are racists. Right. Here is a link to the causes their union, NEA, supports. Obviously a bunch of racist rednecks.

The "guidance" produced by Obama's department of Justice  had a single goal. Force schools to stop disciplining minority students, consequences be damned.

Well now you have your consequences and somehow I am to blame for that lunatic..

I am not his parent, his teacher, his social worker, the local cops who failed to arrest him, the FBI agents who failed to act on information they received or the idiot who suggested that it is racist to discipline students or the even bigger idiots who bought into such nonsense.

I will  not be shamed into accepting the narrative that guns are the real problem here. You shouldn't either.They are not.

You have heard no doubt of a term made popular recently; Intersectionality.

Here is a great example of it. We find ourselves at the intersection of mind-numbingly stupid politically correct policy choices and the carnage their pursuit predictably produces.

It really is not that complicated after all. Too bad 17 people had to die to prove it.

Guns Again

As we have all observed the election of  Donald Trump has exposed the media and the left in general for who and what they really are.

The mask has been removed. They think we are evil and, for the most part, no longer attempt to hide their contempt for us. That is a very, very good thing.

The Parkland massacre has also been a liberating event for them. Anyone who is a 2nd amendment supporter is now a killer with blood dripping from their souls.

It is no great surprise that, once again, they insist against all of the evidence, very, very loudly, that our gun control laws are lax or non-existent and that the only solution to the problem of lunatics getting their hands on guns is to deprive law abiding citizens of their 2nd amendment rights.

An excellent summation of the situation is provided by Branco, via Steven Hayward,
   



Being big government enthusiasts the left is not able to blame those responsible for the complete failure of the elaborate gun control regime and maintain any credibility. Every single government agency, schools, police, social services and the FBI, involved in the shooter's life failed completely and spectacularly. As I have written before, this sad state of affairs is the norm, not an aberration.

The situation is much worse than it appears. Via Instapundit, we have this, incomprehensible to ordinary people, outcome in a "straw purchaser" and illegal resale of  multiple guns prosecution.

"A Chicago-area woman arrested last year for her role in illegally selling guns to prohibited buyers, some with gang affiliations, was sentenced to probation and community service last week."

So, not only are the police, school administrations and FBI apparently disastrously indifferent to our safety, in  the occasional event that the authorities actually arrest someone for breaking our supposedly non-existent gun control laws, there is no meaningful punishment for the offender.

The cognitive dissonance is deafening.

Obviously more laws that we will enforce occasionally at no real detriment to the criminals involved will ameliorate the problem. Good luck with that.

Several corporations which have offered discount programs to NRA members for years have discontinued the programs in the face of SJW social media attacks encouraging boycotts of anyone and anything connected to the NRA. Some retailers have announced changes to the guns they will sell and to whom they will sell them in service to the same SJW's. A very bad business model in both cases. The SJW's are never satisfied.

I will no longer rent cars from National. I have been renting from them exclusively for a very long time. I unsubscribed from Dick's Sporting Goods email list.

Yesterday I joined the NRA. I don't own any guns. Yet.