Quote of the Day

Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.
--M. Scott Peck

Fundamentally Wrong

I couldn't live in a place where if someone breaks into my own home I can take no action to protect my family and myself. How can anyone think that is right? Why don't they just ban locks and make it legal for anyone to take anything they want?

Father arrested for murder over knifing burglar

The householder was home alone when the two men broke in, according to Greater Manchester Police.

His wife and 12-year-old son returned home during the incident, said Chief Superintendent Tim Forber, but they were able to escape unharmed.

England: Making it safer for a criminal to be a criminal.

How do your do, sir? Don't mind me, I'm just here to pick up a few things. I'll be wanting your TV, is that show almost over?

Don't worry, nothing good on anyway. I put fresh batteries in the remote. Here you are.

You're daughter is quite the looker, think I'll have a go.

Tokyo Slo-Mo

Get Your Filthy Hands Off the Economy

Back to the Future: Part II

Almost nobody seems to be hoping that the government will leave the economy alone to recover on its own. Indeed, almost nobody seems at all interested in looking at the hard facts about what happens when the government leaves the economy alone, compared to what happens when politicians intervene.

The grand myth that has been taught to whole generations is that the government is "forced" to intervene in the economy when there is a downturn that leaves millions of people suffering. The classic example is the Great Depression of the 1930s.

What most people are unaware of is that there was no Great Depression until AFTER politicians started intervening in the economy.

When people play God, catastrophe results, things get effected that you never thought of and can't control. Our present "leaders" seem to like things going badly as it plays into their plans for more government control over your life.

Part I is here.

Progressives are at War with Mass Prosperity

Number 5 of the Top 10 Best Quotes from After America: Get Ready for Armageddon according to John Hawkins.

But the bigger government gets, the less it actually does. You think a guy like Obama is going to put up a new Hoover Dam (built during the Depression and opened two years ahead of schedule)? No chance. Today’s big government crowd is more likely to put up a new regulatory agency to tell the Hoover Dam it's non-wheelchair accessible and has to close.

...So called "progressives" actively wage war on progress. They're opposed to dams, which spurred the growth of California. They're opposed to air conditioning, which led to the development of the Southwest. They're opposed to light bulbs, which expanded man's day, and they’re opposed to automobiles, which expanded man’s reach. They're still nominally in favor of mass transit, so maybe we can go back to wood-fired steam trains? No, sorry, no can do. The progressives are opposed to logging; they want a ban on foresty work in environmentally sensitive areas such as forests. Ultimately, progressives are at war with mass prosperity. — P.34

9/11 Revolver

Saw this just now, something I hadn't seen before. There is a short video to watch, very moving.

9/11 Revolver: Recovered from the World Trade Center

High quality photos and closeups at the NRA Museum

Thugs of America Unite

Just can't work up any sympathy for the Pacific Northwest longshoreman's union. In fact, I can't figure how none of them are in jail.

You're Doing It Wrong

I Have My Doubts

An Economics Lesson Even a Liberal Can Grasp

The more President Obama calls for a second stimulus spending spree to create those jobs the first spending spree failed to create, the more he sounds like the grocer in that old joke about the lady who wants her money back because the dietetic ice cream the grocer talked her into buying hasn't helped her lose weight. The grocer thinks for a moment and says, "Eat more of it."

Since the president and his advisers haven't got a clue about how our economy works -- which isn't surprising, since these people have less practical business experience than any kid with a lemonade stand -- here's an economics lesson so short and simple even a liberal can grasp it:

It's not that they are incapable of understanding, it's that they won't. For all their talk of having an open mind, liberals are some of the most close-minded people I've ever met. You can't learn if you already know everything.

You Have No Right

Union Violence

Six guards were held hostage for a couple of hours after 500 or more Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, he said.

No one was hurt, and nobody has been arrested. Most of the protesters returned to their union hall after cutting brake lines and spilling grain from car at the EGT terminal, Duscha said.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union believes it has the right to work at the facility, but the company has hired a contractor that's staffing a workforce of other union laborers.

Lesson for America

We used to know this.

If God has given you prosperity, no one has a right to make you feel guilty about it. At the same time prosperity does demand some obligations.

Going After Gibson

This video explains why the government is going after Gibson guitars, but why not other guitar manufacturers?

Creating Wealth vs. Redistributing Wealth

The perils of philanthropy

Wealth is ultimately the only thing that can reduce poverty. The most dramatic reductions in poverty, in countries around the world, have come from increasing the amount of wealth, rather than from a redistribution of existing wealth.

What kind of world do we want – one in which everyone works to increase wealth to whatever extent they can, or a world in which everyone will be supported by either government handouts or private philanthropy, whether they work or don't work?

It is not an abstract question. We can already see the consequences on both sides of the Atlantic. Those who have grown used to having others provide their food, shelter and other basics as "rights" are by no means grateful.

On the contrary, they are more angry, lawless and violent than in years past, whether they are lower-class whites rioting in Britain or black "flash mobs" in America. Their histories are very different, but what they have in common is being supplied with a steady drumbeat of resentments against those who are better off.

Politicians, intellectuals and whole armies of caretaker bureaucrats are among those who benefit, in one way or another, from picturing parasites as victims and their lagging behind the rest of society as reasons for anger rather than achievement.

Leading people into the blind alley of dependency and grievances may be counterproductive for them, but it can produce votes, money, power, fame and a sense of exaltation to others who portray themselves as friends of the downtrodden.

For all their so-called genius, liberals just don't understand the creation of wealth. They don't understand the spiritual aspect of money.

"Relationships build money, money doesn't build relationships."

--Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Redistributing the wealth will NEVER solve the problems they intend to solve, it will only make things worse.

The Problem is the Man

46 people shot in New York City this weekend and who does the mayor blame?

"There are just too many guns on the streets and we have to do something about it," he said, and urged for more federal control and stricter gun control laws across the country.

But it's already illegal to carry guns in New York City, the only people carrying guns in New York City are police and criminals. Perhaps they should try getting the criminals off the streets? It's not the guns. If guns didn't exist the problem would be swords or knives or clubs. Getting rid of guns does not solve your criminal problem, it actually makes it worse. Ask England about that. But Mayor Bloomberg has to blame the guns because to do otherwise would admit the failure of the nanny state - if not for those pesky guns life would be perfect.

Guns are good in the hands of a good man and evil in the hands of an evil man. The problem is the man.


From The Blaze

New York already has among the strictest gun control laws in the country. Currently, possession of an unlicensed handgun requires mandatory jail time (even for an NFL celebrity like Plaxico Burress).

As it is, law-abiding citizens have a near-impossble time acquiring a handgun permit in the city that never sleeps. Technically a "may issue" state for firearms, some legal analysts believe New York is really more of a “no issue” state- unless you have connections.

This end-run around the 2nd Amendment in New York City began over a century ago as a result of corrupt, liberal politicians pandering to anti-immigrant sentiment.

The hundred-year-old Sullivan Law (also called the Sullivan Act) was initially a Tammany Hall patronage measure that allowed favored constituents of corrupt politicians to carry concealed handguns. Under the Sullivan Law, the police- not the Constitution- would determine who could and could not concealed carry a firearm in New York. Simple possession of more common weapons- razors, brass knuckles, or dagger, for example- was a felony, whereas possession of a firearm without license was a misdemeanor.

A series of similar gun legislation followed suit in urban areas across the country.

Fast forward a century: the current state of New York City’s handgun laws are so Byzantine, it appears almost impossible for law-abiding gun owners to comply with, or even understand them.

Perhaps that's the point.

The corrupt political elites want the advantage over the peons so they can do with them what they will.

The Root of Liberty

The Christian nation

There is no room for honest debate on the subject. The United States of America is a Christian nation with a secular government. From its inception, it has been a Christian nation with a secular government. And, as de Tocqueville correctly noted, its liberty is directly linked to its Christianity. The main reason American liberties have been systematically reduced since 1851 is because the influence of Christianity throughout the nation has declined. How can freedom possibly be said to come from the U.S. secular government when most of the constitutional protections devised by the Founding Fathers were erected to guard against that very government?

The truth of the Bible has also been eroded out of Christianity as it has from the nation - "having a form of godliness, but denying the power of it;"

Sad, but True

From Victor Davis Hanson in Zero Jobs 101

We are almost an entire generation of parasites that cannot create anything new and so feed on the capital and labor of the past.

The irony is we believe we are better and smarter.

A Lot of This Going Around Lately

Especially on the left.

Well, sometimes a man can hate too much, Chester. It can twist him till he doesn't know the truth anymore.

--Marshall Dillon, Gunsmoke, season 4, episode 127

Stealing Credibility

Bill Whittle has his truth. Pacifica Radio's Amy Goodman has her truth. Everyone has their own truth. This is the mantra of the left today, and if you think about it, it has to be the mantra of the left. Find out why.

Shedding still more light on the insanity of "enlightened" thinking.

This Explains a Lot

Sources of Madness—The Insane Thinkers of the Modern Age

What is more characteristic of our modern day than crazy and wholly indefensible “policies”? It seems one of the undeniable characteristics of our times that many of the West’s most common practices and theories appear the result of insane conclusions. Perhaps this did not occur by accident. Instead, many of the founders of this modern age were troubled individuals who struggled with profound emotional and mental issues.

While one might assume that such an unstable background would preclude a person from being chosen as a leader, nothing could be further from the truth. Yet, there may be an explanation as to why such crippled minds were chosen as role models to the modern era.

One of the most obvious aspects of a crazy idea is that it is transparently unacceptable to the average person. And yet, if one wants to set about radically changing society they must have a model or philosophy to draw from. It would therefore help to find a mentally unwell person as a source for morally or intellectually unacceptable theories. Because these types of people would be most likely to suggest theories that were quite different and undermine traditional society. Correct? The topic of this essay is the clearly insane bent of much of our modern thinking, resultant from mentally infirm intellectuals like Nietzsche and Comte, and how this creates madness in our everyday lives.

Read through this article, which really isn't very long, and reflect on how many times you've said to yourself, "This is crazy," when hearing about this or that policy, idea, or incident, especially of late. Listen to Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid or any number of elected officials speak, especially leftists. Sometimes it seems like you're on another planet - bizarro Earth. The inmates are running the asylum. The ideas sound crazy because they are.

The notion of removing God and liberty so that man may be free is more properly found in Lucifer's playbook than the Founders.

And so a little more light is shed on the problem.

Hat Tip: Isn't It Rich

That's About Right

Solyndra to Declare Bankruptcy

Solyndra was touted by the Obama administration as a prime example of how green technology could deliver jobs.

That is about how green technology is delivering jobs, so I'd say he was right about this being a prime example.