Tag: Ranting

Make Way for His Majesty

I have a pro tip for those of you who find yourselves traveling periodically for work: never arrive at the airport when the president is supposed to be there. Yesterday I was in Las Vegas, Nevada for work and, lo and behold, Barack Obama was there campaigning. When the president arrives he not only gets exclusive rights to whatever road he’s traveling on but he also gets exclusive rights to the airport.

After returning the rental car I was standing on one of the shuttle buses heading for the airport when the driver informed us that we were going to have to wait. Obama was heading back to the airport at the same time as I was but, being the king, Obama and his staff had priority. The bus driver also informed us that people in the airport weren’t being allowed to leave. Effectively the entire airport was shutdown so His Majesty could drive his army of servants to his tax victim funded private jet where he would get on board and fly to his next campaign stop. Yes, not only do we have to grant him sole use of the airport but we also have to pay him to campaign.

At least we were fortunate enough to be granted use of His Majesty’s airport after he left. There is some humor in the fact that this country’s founding fathers fought a war with Britain because they were sick of the king only to have the position of king reestablished.

A Message to My Fellow Gun Rights Advocates

I know the election is looming and I know Obama has openly stated, again, that he supports a new “assault weapon” ban but we really need to talk.

With the election coming up the arguments, as expected, are getting very heated. What I can’t fathom is why advocates of gun rights are getting into such heated arguments over the presidential race. Many gun rights activists are actually arguing over which anti-gunner will be “less” of an anti-gunner. Is this what we’ve reduced ourselves to? Have we fallen so far that we’re actually willing to support an advocate of gun control so long as they’re not “worse” than another advocate of gun control? Will we throw our support behind a candidate who favors an “assault weapon” ban so long as his opponent supports an “assault weapon” ban and a ban on private sales?

This is getting ridiculous. I honestly can’t believe so many activists in the gun rights community are arguing in favor of an anti-gunner like Romney just because he’s not as anti-gun as Obama. I know people love politics and using the political means to achieve their goals. That’s fine, you can keep doing that without having to sell your soul. The president is only one piece of the political gun rights puzzle and a rather minor piece at that. In order to get a new “assault weapon” ban through legislation needs to be passed by the House and the Senate before the president even has the opportunity to sign it. Since the presidency is a lost cause when it comes to gun rights why not focus on controlling Congress? So long as one of the two houses are held by pro-gun candidates getting gun control legislation through will be difficult.

The bottom line is this: the more energy you expend on the already lost presidential election the less energy you’ll have to expend on congressional battles. I realize that the president is the most well-known political figure in this country and therefore he’s the guy you want to focus on but there’s no point if neither candidate will deliver what you want. Why not focus on the potentially winnable battle even if it will be less glorious? Sure, nobody will likely hear about whatever congress critter you’ve worked to get elected but if he is a supporter of gun rights you’ll have actually achieved something.

Of course you don’t need to rely on the political means to achieve victory. You could always practice civil disobedience, jury nullification, or agorism. We now have the technology to render gun control entirely irrelevant, let’s use it.

Inconsistent Libertarians

Brace yourself, I’m about to go on a rant. If you don’t feel like reading a rant just scroll up to the next story.

I’m easily irritated by inconsistency, which is why I loath the /r/Libertarian subreddit. While the subreddit is a great source for libertarian news the contributing members are extremely inconsistent. Yesterday I posted about the story of Leah Plante. She is facing cage time because she is refusing to testify against her fellows in a grand jury. Most libertarians would find such a situation reprehensible as one has the right to remain silent. This story made it to /r/Libertarian and, in general, most comments were on the side of Leah. As expected a large number of libertarians were opposed to the idea of coerced testimonies and witch hunts against political dissidents. That was until somebody pointed out that Leah has been involved in the Occupy movement. Suddenly the general consensus of /r/Libertarian went from “This case is bullshit, you shouldn’t be coerced into testifying against somebody!” to “Fuck that bitch! Occupiers deserve everything they get!”

What the fuck? People only have rights so long as they’re not involved in political movements you detest? A person has the right to free speech or to remain silent unless they’re not a libertarian? That, ladies and gentlemen, is a hypocritical stance if there ever was one.

As a libertarian I’ve found myself defending some very unsavory characters. I find myself defending the right of racists, bigots, etc. to speak freely. I find myself defending the right of those who have committed fraud to keep and bear arms. I find myself defending lots of people who I vehemently disagree with because libertarianism is, at least I thought, supposed to be able equal rights for all. It shouldn’t matter if you’re black or white, man or woman, libertarian or communist. If you’re a human being you should enjoy the same freedoms as every other human being. These freedoms, at least according to most libertarian philosophies, include not being coerced into actions you have no desire to take.

This “us” vs. “them” tribalistic bullshit needs to end. I’m not a big fan of collectivism and spend quite a bit of time arguing against it but that doesn’t mean I will suddenly do a 180 degree turn on my beliefs when a collectivist is facing a bad situation. Remaining consistent is important when you’re trying to make a philosophical argument. If you’re preaching one thing but doing another people will soon ignore everything you say. Arguing that everybody should live free of coercion one moment and then claiming coercion is perfectly acceptable the next moment makes you a hypocrite and nobody listens to hypocrites.

That’s my two cents, spend it however you want.

We’re all Terrorists

When it comes to politics there are large perceived divides. One of the most notable today is the apparent divide between the Tea Party and Occupy movements. Members of the Tea Party movement accuse members of the Occupy movement of being godless communists who want to redistribute the country’s wealth. Meanwhile members of the Occupy movement accuse members of the Tea Party movement of being fascists who advocate violent solutions and hate the poor. What could these two organizations have in common? They’re both fall under the state’s criteria for potential terrorist organization [PDF]:

Extreme Right-Wing: groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group), and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty, and believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.

Extreme Left-Wing: groups that want to bring about change through violent revolution rather than through established political processes. This category also includes secular left-wing groups that rely heavily on terrorism to overthrow the capitalist system and either establish “a dictatorship of the proletariat” (Marxist-Leninists) or, much more rarely, a decentralized, non-hierarchical political system (anarchists).

Religious: groups that seek to smite the purported enemies of God and other evildoers, impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists), forcibly insert religion into the political sphere (e.g., those who seek to politicize religion, such as Christian Reconstructionists and Islamists), and/or bring about Armageddon (apocalyptic millenarian cults; 2010: 17). For example, Jewish Direct Action, Mormon extremist, Jamaat-al-Fuqra, and Covenant, Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) are included in this category.

Ethno-Nationalist/Separatist: regionally concentrated groups with a history of organized political autonomy with their own state, traditional ruler, or regional government, who are committed to gaining or regaining political independence through any means and who have supported political movements for autonomy at some time since 1945.

Single Issue: groups or individuals that obsessively focus on very specific or narrowly-defined causes (e.g., anti-abortion, anti-Catholic, anti-nuclear, anti-Castro). This category includes groups from all sides of the political spectrum.

One thing is for certain, if you’re not an obedient dog of the state you are a potential terrorist. This is something we all have to realize, it’s not about left versus right or conservatives versus progressives, it’s about us versus the state. According to the state the Tea Party movement are right-wing extremists while the Occupy movement are left-wing extremists. Are you a single issue voter or a member of a single issue organization? Then you’re a potential single issue terrorist. Do you strongly believe in a religion? Then you’re a potential religious terrorist. Are you an advocate for secession? Then you fit the criteria of an ethno-separatist terrorist.

Many people in the gun rights community have raged at the statement about individuals “suspicious of centralized federal authority” and/or “reverent of individual liberty” being a sign of terroristic potential but didn’t seem to bat an eyelash at the other groups. When I read through this document I realized that, according to the state, we’re all terrorists. It doesn’t matter if you’re left-wing or right-wing, a Tea Party member or an Occupy member, an advocate of individual liberty or a believer in collectivism, we’re all enemies in the eyes of the state. Anybody who rocks the boat is a potential enemy. To quote George Carlin:

They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests.

Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!

You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it…

That’s what the state wants. Anybody who doesn’t fit their mold is automatically considered a potential threat. What really hurts is that the state is either brilliant, the majority of the human race is incredibly stupid, or both. Instead of fighting those who are currently taking our shit, putting us in cages for disobeying their decrees, and actively killing people they dislike we’re fighting each other. The state has us fighting each other instead of fighting them. They say the enemy of my enemy is my friend, in which case we’re all friends of the state because we’re all enemies of the state. The right accuses the left of wanting to take everybody’s shit while the left accuses the right of wanting to throw the poor out onto the street. While this debate about hypotheticals is waged the state is actively taking everybody’s shit and throwing the poor out onto the street while also convincing both the left and the right that it’s the only thing stopping their opponents from achieving their goals. It should come as no surprise that an entity built entirely upon violence and deception is so exceedingly good at violence and deception.

Perhaps we should stop fighting amongst each other and start fighting our common enemy, the state. One thing we can all agree on whether we’re anarchists, socialists, progressives, or constitutionalists is this: the current state of affairs is unsuitable. So long as the status quo is maintained our debates are hypothetical since we’re not free to enact the plans we believe are best.

Who Comes Up with this Stuff

I’m not a fan of advertisements that try to scare buyers into purchasing a product. I find such a tactic to be underhanded and rather distasteful. Fear mongering is the tool of the state, it’s what the state uses to make people into obedient scared serfs, and seeing others sink as low as an organization built upon violence is just say, especially when that entity relates to firearms. Here’s an excerpt from a recent e-mail advertisement I received:

Christopher,

Do you believe me when I say Minnesota is just as dangerous as any other place on the planet?

Well it is… and I will show you what I mean…

No, stop right there. Minnesota is not just as dangerous as any other place on the planet. Let’s take a look at the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Unified Crime Report (UCR) for 2010. According to the UCR Minnesota has 1.8 murders per 100,000 people. Meanwhile the murder rate in Brazil for 2010 was 25 per 100,000 people (the numbers used on Wikipedia were sourced here but I can’t read Spanish so it doesn’t do me much good, Google Translate dues verify the numbers though). That means Brazil has a murder rate ~13.9 times that of Minnesota. I would say Brazil is likely a far more dangerous place than Minnesota.

Obviously one can become a victim of violent crime anywhere but the changes are higher in some areas than others. For example, my chances of being the victim of a violent crime are much higher in North Minneapolis than in the Bondry Waters. That doesn’t mean I can’t be a victim while kayaking the Bondry Waters but the chances are much lower than cruising through North Minneapolis on my bike, therefore North Minneapolis is more dangerous using any common sense definition of the words ‘more’ and ‘dangerous.’

I’m a huge proponent of self-defense, and I recognize the fact that you could be attacked by some no-good thug at any point in your life, but I’m not going to say Minnesota is just as dangerous as any other place in the world. That’s stupid. By that logic driving without wearing a seatbelt is just as dangerous as driving with a seatbelt because in either case you may die in a car crash.

The Classic Voting Debate

Election season is that special time that comes to us living in American every two years (although the really “important” elections are only every four years). During this time we’re given the choice between evil of one variety and evil of another variety and asked to choose which type of evil we want to rule over us for four years. With election season comes debates regarding the process of voting, a debate that’s going down at Tam’s blog and Linoge’s.

The debate has three sides; those who believe you should vote for the “lesser” or two evils, those who believe you should vote you conscious, and those who don’t believe in the voting process. I’ve written about my opinion regarding the voting process and I fall squarely in the third camp. I don’t believe voting can change a damn thing, the system is rigged too well to ensure the current political power maintains its, well, power. Every challenge to the establishment has been crushed and with each victory won by those in power they’ve learned how to keep people’s input from ruining their chances of ruling the American people. They’re specialists, they spend a large majority of their time scheming, plotting, and planning new ways to fuck over the grassroots movements, the political dissidents, and the radicals. Voting is their system, they know and understand it, they control it, and we can’t win by playing by their rules.

But this post isn’t about the futility of voting, it’s about the debate raging between the first two sides; those who believe you should vote for the “lesser” or two evils and those who believe you should vote your conscious. While I hold no regard for the voting process I also have no desire to prevent those who wish to participate in the voting process from doing so. If you believe the system can be changed at the ballot box then certainly vote; I do believe in a diversity of tactics after all. What I will ask of those who wish to use the ballot box is this: don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution.

What I mean by this is don’t be in the camp that votes for the “lesser” of two evils. Do you know what I refer to the camp that votes for the “lesser” of two evils as? A bunch of socialists. Let’s assume that Romney gets the nomination and this year’s presidential election winds up being a battle between Obama and Obama, err, Romney. Looking at the situation we have two candidates whose only differentiating feature their skin color. Politically Romney and Obama hold nearly the same beliefs, they both love big government and spit on individual liberty whenever the chance presents itself.

The “lesser” of two evils camp will claim numerous reasons why you should vote for Romney instead of Obama. These reasons range from the danger of Obama being allowed to pick new Supreme Court justices to the economic devastation wrought by Obama’s policies. What these individuals have failed to state is how Romney will be any different. Who would Romney appoint to the Supreme Court? What economic policies would Romney implement? Nobody in the “lesser” of two evils camp ever provides solid answers to such questions. They often say that Romney is a socialist but not as much of a socialist as Obama. What does that get us? A socialist judge nominated to the Supreme Court, perhaps not as socialist of a judge, but a socialist judge nonetheless. Romney’s knowledge on economics is almost zero, a fact made apparent by his statements that the president is in any position to fix the economy. The only fix to the economy is through an entirely free market and that necessarily requires a complete abolition of government involvement, something Romney doesn’t support.

At least those voting their conscious have a leg to stand on because they’re trying to be part of the solution. If people would abandon the idea of supporting the “lesser” or two evils and began voting on their principles we’d likely have a far better situation than that currently faced. Gary Johnson isn’t likely to fix everything, he’s not even likely to fix some things, but he’s likely to cause little damage.

What this entire argument boils down to is the following: those voting for the “lesser” or two evils will accomplish nothing while those who vote their conscious will likely solve nothing but at least stand a chance. Putting Cthulhu into office will only result in evil being brought against the people of this country. No matter how you shake it voting for the “lesser” of two evils accomplishes nothing. At most, at the very most, it staves off total economic collapse by a few minutes, but the faster we get the collapse over with the fast we can recover. The longer we allow the government to work the longer the pain of recovery will last as demonstrated by the Great Depression. Therefore voting for the “greater” of two evils will serve us better in the long wrong as it’ll get the pain over with more quickly.

Those voting for the “lesser” of two evils are part of the problem, they’re prolonging the pain. A vote for a third party may very well be a vote thrown away but it’s not helping perpetuate the problem and, therefore, is far better than a vote cast for the “lesser” evil.

Another way to look at things is that we’re probably better off, in the long run, with a completely authoritarian president who can get this police state ramped up to 11 because the faster the average individual is inconvenienced the faster they’ll get pissed off and work on changing things instead of just bitching about them. Really, in the grand scheme of things, those voting for the “lesser” or two evils are the biggest problem causes of them all. Those who vote for the “greater” or two evils are getting us to collapse and recovery faster, those who vote their conscious are attempting to get people into office that have a chance of rolling this country back before the collapse happens, and those of us who have given up on the idea of voting are a null sum in the equation.

If you’re going to scream at me and claim I’m part of the problem because I won’t vote for the “lesser” evil all I can say is kindly bugger off. As much as you’re convinced that I’m part of the problem I’m convinced that you’re part of the problem. You think I’m a terrible person because I won’t play your game and I think you’re an equally terrible person because you’re playing the game. Bitch and moan about Obama all you want but Romney isn’t one iota better. Your belief that Romney is the “lesser” evil is delusional. The only way one could possible come to such a conclusion in my opinion is if they lied to themselves so much that they started believing their lies, in other words they are practicing cognitive dissonance. I don’t believe there is any way to stave off the collapse and the longer we prolong our agony the more severe the recover will be.

To those of you voting for the “lesser” of two evils, your doing nothing more than prolonging agony so don’t claim any moral high ground over me. Shove off. Go tell yourself bedtime stories about how great you are and use me as the villan, frankly I don’t give a damn. Your plan sucks, it’s the worst of the worst, and you will get no support from me. Unlike you, those voting their conscious are at least trying to fix things, they’re doing something different because they have the ability to use reason and through that ability have realized the current plan, your plan of voting for the “lesser” evil, hasn’t accomplished anything. What did voting for Bush accomplish? Further economic failure, bailouts, a more prominent police state, and war. What will Romney give us over Obama? Nothing but more of the same; more economic failures, more bailouts, a more prominent police state, and more wars. If that’s your idea of better then I will have no part in your scheme. Like children you ignore what you don’t like and simply scream “NOT UH!” whenever somebody points out the failure of your plan. Go play in your sandbox and let us adults get to work.

Rights Versus the State

So Dayton vetoed HR 1467, and yes I’m still irked by that. Being I rarely like to let a situation go entirely to waste I believe it’s time again for Christopher Burg Explains Why the State is Bad.

Let’s consider a few things. First the state has declare itself the sole proprietor on deciding what rights we individuals hold. The state has decided that we don’t have a constitutional right to police protection as decided by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in Warren v. District of Columbia and the Supreme Court cases Castle Rock v. Gonzales. Being we have no right to police protection we must resort to taking the responsibility of self-defense into our own hands. There is a slight difficulty with this though, the state has also issued numerous prohibitions against self-defense. No right to carry a firearm exists outside of Vermont, Alaska, Arizona, and Wyoming (every other state requires a permit or offers no legal means of carrying a firearm). Many states, including Minnesota, still hold the common law requirement that one attempt to flee a situation before enacting defensive measures. While such a requirement may seem sensible it’s not since deciding whether or not you made best effort to flee is entirely subjective. Needless to say the state places numerous barriers between individuals and their legal ability to defend themselves.

Where does that leave we the people? Nowhere good. The state has restricted our right to self-defense while offering no guarantee that defense will be provided. We’ve allowed the state to infringe on our rights as self-owners by allowing them to decree that we hold no right to defend ourselves. Because of this we’re required to beg like dogs for laws that protect lawful self-defense and turn a potential bankrupting court case into a legally recognized right of preservation of self. This is why the state should never be given authority over individuals, once that authority is recognized it’s almost impossible to seize it back.

The state is also a masturbatory entity that indulges itself. As I posted last night Dayton’s decision to veto was, supposedly, based on recommendations he received from other state agents:

Dayton made his veto by letter without commenting publicly.

In his veto letter, Dayton said, he had to honor the opposition of law enforcement.

“The MN Police and Peace Officers Association, the MN Chiefs of Police and the MN Sheriffs Association represent the men and woman who risk their lives every day and night to protect the rest of us. When they strongly oppose a measure, because they believe it will increase the dangers to them in the performance of their duties, I cannot support it,” Dayton wrote.

Instead of listening to the people he relied on other agents of the state. Our voice as individuals who are supposedly represented by the governorship was entirely ignored because, according to state agents like the governor, we don’t matter. I can point to numerous cased of this, and have many times on this very site, but for demonstration purposes I’ll bring out the White House’s response to the We The People petitions:

According to scientists at the National Institutes of Health– the world’s largest source of drug abuse research – marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory disease, and cognitive impairment. We know from an array of treatment admission information and Federal data that marijuana use is a significant source for voluntary drug treatment admissions and visits to emergency rooms. Studies also reveal that marijuana potency has almost tripled over the past 20 years, raising serious concerns about what this means for public health – especially among young people who use the drug because research shows their brains continue to develop well into their 20’s. Simply put, it is not a benign drug.

For those unaware the National Institute of Health (NIH) is a government agency. In the case of marijuana prohibition the White House based its decision on the statements of another state agency. The vast amount of research that exists countering the findings of the NIH aren’t even mentioned nor were they likely considered.

Letting the state make decisions for us is not only bad because they will strip us of our rights but also because the only authoritative source of knowledge according to the state is the state. When you control the policy and the justification you can make anything appear justifiable.

The bottom line is that your government doesn’t love you. If you’re put at a severe disadvantage to further cement the state’s power so be it, according to the state. You and me don’t matter to the politicians, the only people who matter to them are each other and whatever cronies offer them the best deals. Politicians are only interested in power and share many traits of serial killers, which is why they likely ran for political office in the first place.

Now that I’ve bitched for a while I should present a solution. Many people firmly believe that we merely need to get the right people into office or return to a constitutional government for all to be well again. Both objectives are steps in the right direction but ultimately I believe the only solution is the elimination of the coercive entity we call the state. If my study in Austrian Economics has taught me one thing it is this: the only person qualified to make decisions that affect an individual is the individual the decision will affect. Everybody should have the same attitude as Ron Paul which is, “I don’t want to run your life, I don’t know how to run your life, I don’t have the authority to run your life, and the Constitution doesn’t permit me to run your life!” None of us have the knowledge to run each other’s lives and we shouldn’t be going around acting like we do. Likewise we shouldn’t delegate our rights as self-owners to outside entities as they don’t have the knowledge required to run our lives. The fact that we allow the state to decide whether or not it’s legal for ur to act in self-defense is absurd, we have a right to protect ourselves by the very fact that we are self-owners.

Glock 30 10-Round Magazines

As my company is shutdown all week I have a nice little vacation going right now. For the first time in what seems like forever I was able to hit the range and decide to do a little practice with my Glock 30SF. While I love my 30SF there is one thing about it I don’t like, the 10-round magazines. I’m not sure what Glock was thinking when they manufactured these magazines but getting that last round into the magazine is tough. I don’t mean tough like a math test but tough like 300 Spartans being expected to hold back Xerxes’s entire fucking army. Worse yet if you do get the 10th round into the magazine without destroying your thumb or magazine loader you’re going to have a fun time slamming the magazine home if the slid isn’t locked back. Did I mention having the slide locked back and lead to another issue, when you release it there is no guarantee it will fly forward as that 10th round is often in no mood to move forward.

With all that said the magazine spring wears down over time and becomes usable. I honestly recommend pulling the magazine springs out of new 30SF 10-round magazines and working them for a while (just compress a few coils again and again until you’re bored. Why this is required on new factory magazines is beyond me but I know Glock isn’t one to admit mistakes and thus this problem will likely never be corrected.

Fuck Rich Santorum

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I could bold the following text, I could italicize it, I could even put it in 24 point font but nothing could emphasis the words well enough to express my feelings. Fuck Rick Santorum. Seriously, fuck him.

It’s no secret that I hold zero love for any of the Republican presidential candidates except Ron Paul. With the exception of Dr. Paul every moron in the race is a complete idiot devoid of any capacity for critical thought. Saying this I can also say they’re all better that Rick Santorum. Even crazy religious zealot Michelle Bachmann has moments where she makes some kind of sense.

Santorum’s entire police can be summed up as, kill all the brown people and gays. What a sanctimonious jackass. During last night’s debate he was practically jacking himself off because he got so excited about the prospect of bombing everybody in the Middle East, Central America, and South America. I’d be surprised if he didn’t orgasm on the spot when he started talking about bombing the fuck out of Iran, because what we really need right now with our eminent economic collapse, vast government corruption, and the ongoing destruction of civil liberties is another fucking war. Yeah, let’s do that.

Then you have his absolute hatred of homosexuals. He was ranting about how he would make it illegal for gays to marry and even ripped Romney apart for his unwillingness to do everything in his power to prevent gay marriage in Massachusetts. While I still have no fucking clue how the state every got involved in the concept of marriage in the first place I’m even more baffled by the fact that they get any say in defining marriage. Who cares if two people of the same sex want to get married? Who cares if one man wants to marry multiple women? Who cares if one woman wants to marry multiple men?

After listening to Santorum’s dumb ass ramble on about killing foreigners and hating on gays I’ve come up with an idea for a new reality television show. We sent Rick Santorum on a tour to gay bars throughout the Middle East. Before anybody brings it up, yes there are gay bars in the Middle Easy. There is a market and that market is being fulfilled whether openly or through the black market. Either way we sent him to these bars to converse with the locals and express his ideas an opinions and let hilarity ensure. I realize the length of this show will be short but that’s kind of the point.

Please Santorum, from the bottom of my heart, I urge you to drop out. Not just drop out of the president race but drop out of this country entirely. Just get the fuck out. We don’t need your war mongering homophobic ass here.

Fuck Rick Santorum.

Rant mode disengaged.

Lots of Complaining But What’s the Solution LaPierre

Via Uncle I came across a column by NRA president Wayne LaPierre. In the piece he warns about the dangers of Obama receiving a second term and explains many of the potential dangers:

And as I travel the country talking to fellow National Rifle Association members, gun owners, and Americans from all walks of life, it is clear to me that the next decisive date in American history will be November 6, 2012 – the day America must decide whether President Barack Obama deserves a second term in the White House.

I say this because so many Americans genuinely, and rightly, fear that something is deeply wrong in our great nation. We fear that the America we know and love is in danger of jumping the tracks and spiraling out of control. We see a President whose values and goals are, in many ways, the exact opposite of our beliefs and what generations of Americans have fought and died for.

This is why all gun owners and freedom-loving Americans must ask this question: “If Barack Obama wins a second term in office, will my freedom, and particularly my Second Amendment freedom, become more or less secure?”

And then, we must consider the facts.

[…]

This is why I’m asking every NRA member, every gun owner, and every patriotic American to view next year’s election through the lens of freedom. If we fail to draw a line in the sand and defend the future of our Second Amendment rights, then we will lose the one freedom that gives common men and women uncommon power to protect all freedoms. And then, it’s only a matter of time before every freedom in our Bill of Rights is scaled back, diluted or even destroyed.

That’s good and all but it’s nothing everybody isn’t already vehemently aware of. Here’s my question, what’s the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) solution? Let’s take a look at the last election and consider what ended up happening. Last election was set between John McCain and Barack Obama, neither of which were good news. Even though McCain proved himself to be no friend of gun owners the NRA gave him the endorsement. I’m sorry but there was no acceptable reason to get behind McCain considering his history and the NRA should have either endorsed a third-party candidate (fat chance) or simply said, “Both major players are horrible, we’re ducking out of this and focusing our efforts on a contingency plan.”

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) moved in with several high-profile court cases that went so far as to incorporate the second amendment. In other words even under dire circumstances SAF found a different route outside of the decision between rock and hard place. Considering the NRA has far more resources available to them they should have been the ones initiating the lawsuits and moving them through, instead they simply continued with the status quo of endorsing the “lesser” of two evils.

So far the Republicans haven’t selected a nominee and there is a chance for the NRA to make a stand. Of the Republican candidates there is only one who will stand up for the rights of gun owners (and everybody else) and candidate is Ron Paul. Instead of complaining about Obama for the entire column LaPierre could have taken a stance and said, “Due to the threat of Obama to the rights of gun owners the NRA is hereby endorsing Ron Paul for Republican Party presidential candidate.” Unfortunately it appears as though the NRA is going to keep playing it’s old game of simply endorsing the Republican candidate.

As it currently stands the Republican Party appears to be setting up Romney to win by simply ignoring Ron Paul and hyping up each other candidate only to have them torn down (so far they’ve done this to Bachmann, Perry, and Cain with Gingrich being the fourth one receiving this treatment). If the election domes down to Obama versus Obama II Romney will the NRA give Romney their endorsement? Will that be their way of fighting for the rights of gun owners?

SAF has the right idea, given the futility of getting true pro-gun candidates into office a new strategy had to be devised and utilizing the court system seems to be a fairly effective strategy. I believe the NRA should drop their tried and false approach of giving the “lesser” of two evils an endorsement and focus on a new and potentially more effective strategy. Perhaps they can start working with SAF from the start of each lawsuit instead of hoping in after all the real leg work as been done and claiming the credit. Maybe the NRA can say, “Well Obama and Romney are both bad for gun owner rights so we’re sitting this election out and concentrating on getting pro-gun Senate and House members in office.”

Yeah this is a rather long rant just to say, “Put up or shut up LaPierre” but I’m getting sick of constant compromises when it comes to my rights. Supporting the “lesser” of two evils doesn’t accomplish jack shit, it merely gives your endorsement to evil. When one strategy doesn’t work you need to be adaptive and move to a new strategy. If endorsing a real pro-gun candidate like Paul isn’t in the works then it’s time for something entirely different.