Tag: You Can’t Cure Stupid

You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

While I admit there are multiple definitions of the world libertarian I don’t think any of them involve Glenn Beck:

Glenn Beck announced plans Tuesday during his online television program to expand the news operation in his media company, The Blaze, and refocus it as a libertarian network, opening three foreign bureaus, debuting a nightly newsmagazine show, and relocating his New York staff to showy new offices.

Glenn Beck operating a libertarian network would be akin to me operating a progressive network. Needless to say there would be no reason to take either seriously.

Pot See Kettle, Calls it Black

Sometimes the abject hatred gun control advocates hold for anybody who disagrees with them is so blatant not even the densest of men can miss it. Consider Gawker, an online media company that is, rightfully, held in a fairly low regard with a great deal of the Internet. Reporting found on Gawker websites can range from poor to abysmal and sometimes even involves overt hypocrisy, as is the case with John Cook’s article titled Here Is a List of All the Assholes Handsome Law-Abiding Citizens Who Own Guns Some People in New York City. In all fairness the author admits that his title isn’t entirely accurate as he doesn’t believe all gun owners are assholes:

(And for the record, they are not all assholes. Some of them need guns for legitimate reasons for their jobs, like providing security for assholes.)

As the title of the article implies, Mr. Cook decided to point out his belief that most gun owners are assholes by being an asshole. He posted a list of every name of every gun permit holder in New York City. Nothing demonstrates the vileness of your intellectual opposition like attempting to publicly shame them. Fortunately gun ownership in the United States is still generally accepted rendering Mr. Cook’s attempt at public shaming almost entirely ineffective.

I appreciate the actions taken by gun control advocates such as Mr. Cook. Their childish antics demonstrate a lack of maturity and put into question their sanity, which makes my job much easier. I hope Mr. Cook invests the great deal of time necessary to comb through the phone book in an attempt to tie addresses (which he was angry about not receiving) to names. Such a holy mission would take a great deal of time and that would hopefully keep him too busy to write articles, which would help his employer save some face by not having articles appearing on their front page that appear to be written by a person with questionable sanity.

Something I’ve Often Wondered About Gun Control Advocates

There’s something I’ve often wondered about advocates of gun control. Most gun control advocates urge businesses to put up signs announcing that their property is a gun-free zone. On the other hand I don’t see many gun control advocates putting those signs on their homes. A professor at George Washington University is asking his fellow gun control advocates to correct that problem:

We should not wait for our elected officials, in President Obama’s good words, “to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.” We should do our share. One way to proceed is to mark our homes, apartments and condos, with a “gun free” sign. Parents should notify their friends that they would be reluctant to send their child over for a play date unless the home was safe from guns. Residential communities should pass rules that ban bringing guns onto their premises, clearly marking them as gun free.

Anyone who puts up such signs will become an ambassador for gun control, because they are sure to be challenged by gun advocates to explain their anti-gun positions. Here are some pointers they may wish to use against the typical pro-gun talking points.

I think there’s a reason why most advocates of gun control don’t advertise their dwellings as gun-free zones, it acts as a notice to criminals that the cost of burglarizing the house or committing acts of violence against the residents is very low. Most advocates of gun control ask others to declare their property gun-free zones while they fail to do the same. It’s a double standard.

I actually agree with this professor’s call for gun control advocates to post their homes as gun-free zones. Such an action would demonstrate the gun control advocate’s sincerity. Furthermore I believe they should take it a step further by stating that police will not be called in the event of somebody breaking in or that the police will be commanded to respond unarmed. We all know that the police perform violence by proxy. When somebody calls the police they are implicitly asking the responding officers to use violence against an aggressor. Shouldn’t a gun control advocate demand the police respond unarmed? After all advocates of gun control continue to claim that being unarmed is safer than being armed even. They claim that anybody carrying a gun will just have it taken from them by an attacker. In the name of officer safety shouldn’t gun control advocates call 911 and say “Quick, there’s somebody in my house! Please send the police but for God’s sake tell them to leave their guns at the station!”

When a Plan Falls Apart

I logged onto the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) news site expecting to see another feature article relating to gun control. Instead I was greeted with this story:

US Republicans have cancelled a vote in Congress on tax rises they hoped would help to avert a so-called fiscal cliff.

They pulled the vote after failing to get enough support for the bill, labelled “Plan B”, which would raise taxes on earnings above $1m (£614,000).

The shooting in Connecticut was probably seen as a blessing by the politicians in Washington DC who have been in the spotlight for weeks because of this so-called fiscal cliff fiasco. After the shooting all news outlets were covering that and urging more gun control legislation. Apparently people have tired of the Connecticut shooting already (it has gotten to the traditional one week shelf life for news stories) because news stations are starting to pick their coverage of the fiscal cliff fiasco up again. I guess the politician’s plan to sweep this fiscal cliff mess under the rug and vote something through clandestinely didn’t pan out so well.

If at First You Don’t Succeed Lower Your Standards

People mistakenly believe that the goal of public schools is to educate children. This isn’t the case. In fact one of the top priorities of public schools is to provide circuses for local communities. What happens when continuously diminishing academic standards threaten the participation rate in sports? School boards consider lowering the standards:

The Minneapolis School Board was considering adjusting the GPA requirements to keep athletes interested in school by keeping them in sports — but they have tabled the plan because there are too many unanswered questions.

Though board members had planned to vote on the concept on Tuesday, the meeting didn’t go as planned.

The proposal would have lowered the athletic GPA standard from 2.0 to 1.0, but many board members say they simply don’t know whether the move would hurt or help students in the long run at this point.

“Many of our students slip through the cracks because of a lack of academic support at school and at home,” said Rebecca Gagnon. “National research shows that students engaged in school via student activities and sports do much better academically than their disengaged peers.”

Most school districts don’t have a GPA bar, Chief Commission Officer Stan Alleyne told FOX 9 News — but he said the 2.0 standard sets the school system apart from others in the state.

Perhaps a student with a GPA below 2.0 should be concentrating on something besides sports.

What We’re Up Against

With emotions running high, gun control advocates dolling out death threats, and supposed friends abandoning us we gun control activists sometimes lose sight on an important fact, many of our philosophical opponents are really dumb. I received a screenshot from an anonymous source demonstrating the incompetency of gun control advocates. This screenshot is from a Critical Thinking class discussion board at Hennepin Technical College. After reading this one must wonder how such an individual could not only graduate high school but also get accepted at any form of higher education institution (click to embiggen):

These are supposedly high school graduates. Notice that their grammar and spelling would net a failing grade in any elementary level English class. On top of that the second person stated that the first person’s argument was good but there was no argument, just a long poorly written diatribe typed by an angry college student who appears to be incapable of either mastering the English language or expressing his thoughts in a coherent manner. It’s like stacking stupid onto of stupid. This is what we’re often up against and somehow they find other people that are willing to take them seriously. It’s almost laughable… until you realize that the author is a college student, then it becomes depressing to think about.

Something that Amazes Me Regarding Shootings

Something that always amazes me about shootings is the way everybody seems to play fast and loose with the facts. If you’ve been paying attention to the news revolving around Friday’s shooting in Connecticut you’ve probably heard that the shooter use an AR-15 and that the AR-15 was found in the trunk of the shooter’s car. You’ve probably also heard that the shooter’s mother was a teacher and was entirely unconnected with the school.

The media, in its frenzy to get ratings immediately after a disaster, is often willing to report rumors as facts and seems unwilling to perform actual journalistic groundwork. Instead of researching and presenting facts the media reports on information obtained through second-hand interviews with individuals whose connection with the events in question are usually questionable.

The media’s coverage of the Connecticut shooting reminds me of their coverage of the Zimmerman case. Immediately after Zimmerman’s fatal confrontation with Martin media outlets were reporting about Zimmerman’s racist statements and stalking of Martin, neither of which panned out to be true. Now we have contradicting information being reported about the Connecticut shooting leaving those wanting facts high and dry.

I really wish the media would take their time and report on facts as they’re confirmed instead of rumors as they’re developed. As it currently stands we probably won’t have an actual picture of what happened for a week or two. This fact won’t stop gun control advocates and politicians from acting though. Already there are calls for a new “assault weapon” ban even though we don’t know for sure if the shooter used an “assault weapon” (better known as a magazine fed semi-automatic rifle). Our society is now based on reactionary policy instead of policies developed around confirmed facts.

The Difference Between the Pirate Bay and the Library

Representatives of the recording, publishing, and movie industries constantly gripe about Internet piracy. They claim rampent piracy will lead to the death of music, literature, and movies because individuals will no longer pay money for them. Considering this why don’t those industries gripe about another source of obtaining such media for free? You never hear those representatives complain about public libraries, do you? Why is that? It’s because public libraries are too inefficient:

It begs the question why every author, filmmaker, and musician isn’t up in arms about the New York Public Library’s rampant sharing, while there’s a ton of opposition to the sharing habits of BitTorrent peers who use The Pirate Bay. After all, The Pirate Bay’s community shares significantly less than the New York Public Library: just 1 million items in 2008 (and the collection certainly hasn’t grown 5000% since then). The reason that The Pirate Bay is offensive, and the New York Public Library is not, is because of its efficiency.

Before the New York Public Library can share an item with you, you first need to schlep all the way to 5th Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan. Then you have to walk around the massive building to find what you’re looking for. That is, if the item isn’t checked out. See, the New York Public Library has a peculiar system of storing their items: in finite, physical form. If you want to read a book or watch a film, there are only a few copies available. You can take an item home for a limited time (which forces other people to wait until you return it), but only if you live in New York State.

Were libraries as efficient as online piracy sites representatives from the recording, publishing, and movie industries would be demanding their immediate shutdown. So remember, you can borrow intellectual property for free so long as you do it in an inefficient manner.

Comparing Apples to Orangutans

The spillover of politics into circuses continues to approach the level of full retard:

Whitlock spoke out against the NFL’s handling of the aftermath of Jovan Belcher’s suicide and gun issues in his Sunday FoxSports.com column. During Martin’s podcast, he likened the NRA to the Ku Klux Klan and tied the group to the dangerous street culture that unfortunately dominates “so many black youths.”

I’m not the biggest fan of the National Rifle Association (NRA) myself but comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is, at most, a blatant attempt to use shock and awe in place of actual argumentation. Granted shock and awe is an effective strategy when one attempts to win hearts and minds but it’s a strategy that requires some subtlety and believability. When you attempt to make a connection between a group you dislike and a group that is almost universally disliked you need to find some common ground. In the case of Whitlock’s comparison he attempted to connect the NRA with the KKK by claiming the NRA is responsible for the culture that, as he says, dominates black youths. This comparison, to put it very nicely, is a stretch.

First Whitlock’s implication requires the assumption that gun rights causes the violent culture that, according to Whitlock, dominates black youths. An easy way to test this theory is to see if there are any places where gun rights are severely restricted or nonexistent that also have a high rate of youth violence. Chicago is such a place. Even though Chicago has very strict gun control laws they also have a very high rate of youth violence. Considering this it’s difficult to connect gun rights to youth violence.

Second Whitlock’s implication requires ignoring the starkly different methodologies used by the NRA and KKK to advance their causes. In the name of advancing gun rights the NRA promotes hunting, self-defense, and firearm safety education. The NRA also spends a great deal of time and money lobbying politicians and working to get proponents of gun rights elected into political offices. In other words the NRA uses mostly nonviolent (using the state is almost violent in some regard) strategies in order to advance its cause. On the other hand the KKK has a history of using violent tactics such as lynching African Americans and destroying property to promote its cause of white supremacy.

Third Whitlock’s implication requires ignoring the vastly different causes each organization is attempting to advance. The NRA’s primary goal is to advance gun rights for the entire American population while the KKK’s primary goal is to make other racial and religious groups subservient to white christians. While the NRA is working to expand liberties that KKK is working to retract liberties.

Whitlock’s implication is asinine and fails to even establish a believable connection that would assist him in his desire to use shock and awe. In his zeal to demonize guns and gun owners Whitlock lost focus of his initial cause, opposing violence, and became obsessed with an object that he associates with violence. This is a common trap individuals fall into when they become too obsessed with an object or action they associate with their initial cause. Opponents of violence become obsessed with weapons instead of acts of violence, opponents of human trafficking become obsessed with prostitution instead of sex slavery, and opponents of racism become obsessed with speech instead of the idea that one race is somehow superior to another. Losing focus of your initial cause will lead you down the path to ruin and open you up to scathing criticism from amateurs that operate blogs.

You Keep Using that Word

Do you find something amiss in this excerpt:

More than 200 women’s rights groups are calling for laws to make paying for sex a crime across the European Union.

More than 200 women’s rights groups openly acknowledge that women have many rights but having sex for money isn’t one of them. This stance seems contradictory to the advancement of women’s rights. Women’s rights groups generally fight against the idea that men own women, which is still prevalent throughout the world. One would think that a rights group fighting the idea that one person can own another would fight that idea that any entity can own a person. By demanding the state use its monopoly on violence to prohibit women from having sex for money these groups are stating that they believe the state owns women. If the state owns women then the state has the right to do with women as it pleases including transferring its ownership to another entity either temporarily or permanently. Supporting the idea that the state can own women also supports the idea that men can own women so long as the state gives its blessing.

Claiming to be a rights group while campaigning to restrict voluntary behavior through coercive force is hypocritical.