Chronicling the depravities of the State.
The Senate has voted, by a margin of 74 to eight, to shit all over our rights for four more years. This isn’t at all surprise at all. So who were the eight that actually give a shit about us? Well here is the vote breakdown:
Baucus (D-MT)
Begich (D-AK)
Heller (R-NV)
Merkley (D-OR)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Paul (R-KY)
Sanders (I-VT)
Tester (D-MT)
These people are at least decent human beings. Fuck the rest of those yahoos.
As it’s not getting much play in the news I thought I’d let everybody know that the PATRIOT Act is up for renewal. I can already tell you that the renewal will go through and we’ll be subjected for several more years of government tyranny in the name of fighting a tactic which is impossible.
There isn’t much left to say on the PATRIOT Act other than it remains a great litmus test to show us which of our “representatives” are against our rights and which are completely against our rights (OK there is also Ron Paul who has proven he’s for our rights but he’s a very rare individuals indeed).
The Minnesota senate has sent a clear message to the citizens of the state; we don’t want you being able to legally defend yourself in your own home. They sent this message in the form of blocking the Defense of Dwelling and Person Act from being voted on. I’m not at all surprised by this as our “representatives” have never really been too keen on actually representing us.
So what is to be done now? Well you should certainly call senate members and let them know you’re not too happy with their decision to avoid giving you better tools to defend yourself. You can also remember this next election cycle and ensure these “representatives” no longer have jobs. Personally I don’t take getting fucked by politicians well and thus will work hard to ensure the clowns currently sitting in the Capitol won’t be coming back next election cycle.
The job of the government from a politician’s point of view is to fuck over the people as thoroughly as possible.
It seems as through the branches of the California government at working together to ensure citizens of that state stay defenseless peasants. First it is ruled that an unloaded firearm is effective for self-defense because it can be loaded and on the legislature front the California Assembly just gave the go-ahead to a bill that would ban the open carry of unloaded firearms:
Unfortunately, the California Assembly sided with the anti-gun extremists and passed Assembly Bill 144, the open carry ban bill, by a 45 to 29 vote. This bill now goes to the state Senate and will be assigned to the state Senate Public Safety Committee. Please call and e-mail members of the Senate Public Safety Committee and urge them not to fall for the rhetoric anti-gun extremists are touting about the open carrying of a firearm causing more violence.
The article has the contact information for members of the Senate Public Safety Committee. This is also where I usually make a smart ass remark about how Californians should flee the People’s Republic and come to free America but I don’t think the term free America is any longer valid. At least I can still say that some states of the Union are OK with the citizenry having a means of self-defense.
What the California government should do is ensure anybody who wants to carry a gun for self-defense is able to. Why? I’d normally write a spiel about the value of human life and why each person has a right to preserve their life but I don’t think the “representatives” in California care much for that argument. Here’s something they may care about though; dead people can’t pay taxes. The state of California is insolvent and needs money but if they don’t have citizens to pay taxes they’ll have less income. Criminals usually aren’t too keen on paying taxes so California really needs to rely on the lawful citizens. Giving these lawful citizens a legal means of self-defense will ensure they have the best possible tool available to preserve their lives and thus continue to be good revenue sources for the state.
Most people who follow this website probably heard this news already but I’m still going to post it. It seems as though the Republicans will have the chance to nominate a great candidate this year in the form of Ron Paul who is now officially making his bid for the presidency.
Don’t get me wrong I’m under no delusions that the Republican Party will allow Dr. Paul to get the nomination as that would be a good decision and the Republicans seem to be fairly adverse to good decisions (as are the Democrats in all fairness). Even if Dr. Paul doesn’t get the nomination it will be great hearing him in the debates just for the common sense factor.
It appears as through not every legislature is worthless as the Minnesota House ended up passing the Defense of Dwelling and Person Act. The vote ended up being 79 to 50 which isn’t as good as I would have hoped but it’s far better than the bill not passing. Now the Senate has to vote on it and Governor Dayton has to give it his signature. Although I hope this passes I’m willing to bet money that Dayton is going to veto it.
Make sure to send a message to the politicians who voted in favor of this bill and thank them. While you’re doing that also find a few minutes to contact the politicians who voted against the bill and let them kindly know that they’re unlikely to return to their position come next election cycle.
There comes a point in most communist countries where conditions become so poor that those living there try to flee. Right around this time it’s common for the rulers of these countries to implement prohibitions against traveling abroad and Cuba has had such a restriction for a very long time. It seems that Raul Castro, unlike his brother Fidel, has at least some common sense is planning to reverse this and a handful of other problems that have been harming Cuba since communism came into power:
Cubans will be allowed to travel abroad as tourists for the first time in more than 50 years, Raul Castro’s government has announced.
Cuba is also move more towards a free market as they have found out that a planned economy is impossible:
Since taking over from brother Fidel Castro in 2008, Raul Castro has championed a limited but significant shift to the free market. Last year, he announced that Cubans would be allowed to go into business for themselves in 178 approved enterprises, hire employees and rent out cars and homes.
Castro has also pledged to cut up to 500,000 state jobs and has warned his countrymen that the government can no longer afford the deep subsidies it gives workers.
No it won’t be a free-market but at least it’s a move in the right direction. Cuba will also be reducing the number of employees hired by the state which should free up labor for endeavors that can actually make money. Sure, these policies aren’t going to turn Cuba into a bastion of freedom but I think the people there will see as government interference in their lives lessens the quality of their lives will increase.
It’s not perfect, Hell it’s not even much of a change at all, but it’s a start and every journey needs to begin somewhere.
I’m sure it’s apparent to anybody who has been reading this site for any extent of time that I’m not a fan of the state. The reason for this is because they managed to find new ways of fucking over the citizenry ever day. Take for example the Bill of Rights which guarantees certain protections against the government; that bill means nothing as the government has basically chosen to ignore those pesky little attempts at protecting the citizenry from tyranny. This time I’m not talking about the second amendment but the first. Behold the next wave of censoring free speech, the PROTECT IP Act:
Surprise! After months in the oven, the soon-to-be-released new version of a major US Internet censorship bill didn’t shrink in scope—it got much broader. Under the new proposal, search engines, Internet providers, credit card companies, and ad networks would all have cut off access to foreign “rogue sites”—and such court orders would not be limited to the government. Private rightsholders could go to court and target foreign domains, too.
As for sites which simply change their domain name slightly after being targeted, the new bill will let the government and private parties bring quick action against each new variation.
As the bill hasn’t be placed onto government websites yet a leaked copy of the text can be found here. The bottom line is this bill isn’t good. So long as somebody can claim a website violates their copyright they can have the site shutdown. This wouldn’t be so bad if the copyright laws in the United States weren’t so fucked up but I’m sure we all remember the Righthaven fiasco.
And the bill doesn’t stop at simply censoring “rouge” domains:
But what the PROTECT IP Act gives with one hand, it takes away with the other. While the definition of targeted sites is tighter, the remedies against such sites get broader. COICA would have forced credit card companies like MasterCard and Visa to stop doing business with targeted sites, and it would have prevented ad networks from working with such sites. It also suggested a system of DNS blocking to make site nominally more difficult to access.
This is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to censorship. It’s trivial to claim a site violates somebody’s copyright under current United States law so it would be trivial to shut down somebody whom you disagree with. Likewise it would take little effort for the government to shutdown a website critical of itself by simply finding a copyright holder who’s material was quoted at some point on that website.
The debate over this bill will be entertaining to watch.
Here’s another story about the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) being awesome again. In the United States it’s currently not legal for a resident of one state to buy a handgun in another state. This is a rather stupid and arbitrary rule because as a resident of Minnesota I can purchase a long gun in Wisconsin (I’ve done this a couple of times) yet handguns are somehow so super scary that they are subject to entirely different rules. It seems SAF has had enough of this shit:
The Second Amendment Foundation today filed suit in U.S. District Court in Virginia challenging the constitutionality of federal and Virginia provisions barring handgun sales to non-residents.
SAF is joined in the lawsuit by Michelle Lane, a District of Columbia resident who cannot legally purchase handguns because there are no retail firearms dealers inside the District. The Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller ruling struck down the District’s handgun ban, confirming that individuals have a constitutional right to possess handguns.
I like this strategy. SAF has some smart people working on their legal team as evident by their victories in Heller vs. District of Columbia and McDonald vs. Chicago so I feel their chances of destroying this ban are pretty decent. Every gun owner should toss a few bucks their way so they can keep being awesome.
As I’ve said before on this blog there is one thing I hate more than almost anything else; hypocrisy. Nothing pisses me off quite as much as saying one thing and doing another. This ultimately is the biggest problem I have with anti-gunners; their entire argument is hypocritical. They want to ban firearms from civilian ownership and restrict them to government officials in the hopes of reducing violent crime rates. What they’re really advocating is violence by proxy. No better demonstration of this hypocrisy can be found than by former Chicago Mayor Daley:
After the Supreme Court smacked down Chicago’s gun ban last year, the gun grabbers scrambled to evade their responsibilities under the Constitution. Outgoing Mayor Richard M. Daley revised the Windy City’s gun laws to place so many obstacles on the path to gun ownership that few law-abiding citizens would succeed. Now we learn that Mr. Daley wants taxpayers to foot the bill for a team of armed bodyguards to protect him once he leaves office on May 17.
Even though he wants to ban the ownership of firearms within the city of Chicago (and everywhere else) he also wants guns to protect him. The difference is that he’s willing to risk other peoples’ lives to protect his own while most of us who advocate the unrestricted rights of gun owners want to take responsibility for our own lives. Mayor Daley has some brass balls for stopping the citizens of Chicago from obtaining a means of self-defense and then turn around and demand that tax-payers foot the bill for his personal body guards who will have guns.
Let me be the millionth person to say, “Fuck you Daley.”