Dishonest Brokers

     One of the simplest and most easily applied techniques for probing for that elusive quality we call fairness is this: Do both sides of the deal feel they’re better off for having accepted it?

     A deal in which both sides believe they’ll benefit is one that neither side needs to be coerced to accept. It might take some persuasion. One side might not see its self-interest as plainly as the other. But if there would be gains on both sides, eventually the deal – or an even better one – will be struck. No other basis for negotiation can sustain repeated application in plain sight.

     So what are we to make of deals that, in hindsight at least, favored one side but penalized the other? If such a deal is voluntarily accepted, the penalized side must somehow have been deceived. Perhaps it was actively deceived by representatives of the other side. Alternately, it might have contrived to deceive itself; such occurrences are not unknown. There are also “middle cases” in which active deception and self-deception operated cooperatively.

     If two communities repeatedly strive to strike deals, and one side always gets shafted, then unless the shafted folks are complete blithering idiots, eventually they’ll conclude that the other side has been deceiving them. The common term for this tactic is “bad faith.” That is, they conclude that the other side has been seating itself at the negotiating table with no intention to speak the truth. Admittedly, this does leave room for collaborative self-deception, usually under the veil of wishful thinking.

     Yes, I’m thinking of the right to keep and bear arms, but not that exclusively.

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     Via the esteemed Nitzakhon, we have this excellent display of what happens when an American community of interest realizes that it’s been screwed.

     When the state of Delaware decided to try to compete with New York and California as the most anti-gun state in the nation, there were bound to be some in the state less than pleased with their lawmakers. A recent town hall, ostensibly to bridge the gap between the two sides of the gun debate, proved that there are a lot more of those who love their Second Amendment rights than their opponents thought–especially after it got derailed.

     It took about 60 seconds to determine which way the crowd leaned.
     It didn’t take much longer to make it clear how strongly it felt.
     Most of the approximately 400 people attending a town hall meeting about gun violence Monday evening came to voice their opposition to several proposed gun control measures now in the General Assembly.
     The event, organized as an attempt to bridge the divide between opponents and supporters of gun restrictions, featured four Delaware politicians: Two Republican senators, one Democratic senator and the Department of Justice’s top prosecutor who is now running for attorney general.

     Tom Knighton goes on to tell us what we should have known long ago:

     I’m sorry, but this was a wasted effort. There is no bridging of the gap. The truth is, anti-gunners are simply doing what they always do. They’re demanding more and more from the pro-Second Amendment crowd while offering nothing in return, then blasting us as unwilling to compromise. Because of that, we’re sick of giving up any ground. That’s why there won’t be any bridging going on. There’s no bridging because the other side isn’t arguing in good faith.

     We all know that they’ll soon be asking for something else and using the same arguments, so no.

     That is exactly the case. Moreover, the gun controllers’ campaign might have been deliberately designed that way.

     Think about it! The rationale for every gun control measure ever proposed has been that it would improve our safety by reducing crimes of violence. That has never, ever been the case; no gun control measure passed in the U.S. has resulted in a reduction of violent crime. Often, such crimes have increased in frequency in the district afflicted by the gun control measure.

     Now think about what follows. The increase in crime leaves the populace feeling less safe. At times of that sort, people tend to turn to the State for “protection.” And what does the State usually do in response? It proposes more restrictive gun control laws.

     Never is any thought given to repealing the previous gun control measure under the reasonable supposition that the status quo ante might be restored thereby. No; it’s always more, more, more. The previous measure is somehow ruled beyond question. To suggest that it was wrong, even without the coupled suggestion that it was meant to fail of its ostensible purpose, is treated as unspeakable.

     And of course, firearms rights are only one case of this dynamic.

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     Nearly a year ago, the most excellent Dystopic / Thales / Asterix the Gaul / “Call me Ed or Pay me $5” wrote as follows:

     When a charity asks me to donate money, the question is often “how much?” And not just how much money they want from me, though that is important as well, but how much money is actually spent on the mission of the charity, versus administrative overhead.

     Yet with government spending, the question of how much is only ever answered with more. How much taxpayer funding do you need for welfare? More. How much is needed for paying school teachers? More. How much is needed for social services? More. How much taxpayer money do you need, period? More.

     However much the government is taking today, it always wants more. And furthermore, the political Left is dedicated to guilt shaming you, via Weaponized Empathy, if you should disagree with them. How many Muslim refugees should be accepted by various Western countries around the world? More. Never is it a specific number, fixed and immutable, after which we might account our duty to human rights and dignity properly satisfied. Always it is more....

     I’ve never received a satisfactory answer to that question. What percentage of my income is demanded? More. How much of my assets must I forfeit? More. How much should I give up from my business and my career? More. I even ask Leftists, on occasion, to just give me an ideal average tax rate. How much should American citizens, as a whole, and on average, give up to the government? More. Never have I once received a reply that says “this is the tax rate that we want, then we’ll leave you alone.”

     This is the pattern dedicated statists follow: “We need more.” “What do we get in return?” “Sit down and shut up. We need more, and if you protest we’ll defame you, harass you, and call you everything but white.”

     Most important of all: there’s never a “refund clause.” Should the promised benefits (if any) not materialize, the expropriation is not reversed; rather, still more is demanded.

     No private actor could possibly get away with such blatant bad faith exhibited over dozens of transactions. He’d be lucky if a court were merely to strip him naked in restitution. In the Nineteenth Century West, a “snake-oil salesman” who didn’t have the good sense to move on quickly after a round of sales would be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. Some who didn’t were lynched. Yet governments, and those who aspire to rule, get away with far worse betrayals repeatedly.

     I submit that they know what they’re doing and are doing it with malice aforethought.

     We who prize the rights guaranteed to us by the Second Amendment have recognized the pattern. What will it take for the rest of America to catch up?

When The Political Becomes Personal

     Normally, my political op-eds have nothing to do with my personal life. This one will be different.

     Brace yourselves.

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     When Franklin D. Roosevelt succeeded in getting the Social Security system written into law, there was considerable consternation among persons of a conservative bent. The program was unprecedented in every respect. It taxed working people without reference to any present-time need for the money. It taxed employers as well, for daring to be employers. And of course, the nature of the ultimate benefit to be provided was both dubious – the average lifespan of an American worker was 65 – and nebulous – there were no statutory specifications for the payments to be made.

     Yet FDR was proud of his accomplishment, for political reasons. By instituting a tax predicated on the provision of the benefit, he’d achieved something no previous politician had equaled: he’d created a system whose beneficiaries, having compulsorily paid into it for the whole of their working lives, would never agree to the repeal of the system. He boasted about exactly that.

     The same is the case for Lyndon’ Johnson’s signature “Great Society” atrocity, Medicare. With 1.25% of Americans’ paychecks going to Medicare lifelong, the pressure to keep the system running (and therefore taxing) is incredibly strong. Never mind that every dollar taxed for either system is immediately borrowed and spent by the federal government. Never mind that the SocSec benefit is still statutorily undefined, or that in the face of ever-rising costs and ever-shrinking Medicare reimbursements more and more medical practitioners are “opting out” of the system. Both programs appear to be invulnerable to political antagonism despite their faults.

     And now, owing to the advent of my sixty-fifth birthday, I’m a prisoner of both.

---

     I’m not wealthy. I have substantial savings, but without SocSec disbursements those savings wouldn’t last very long, at least here in New York. Moreover, I have several chronic medical conditions that require frequent doctor’s visits and considerable pharmaceutical remediation. So like it or not, I’ve found myself compelled to accept the “benefits” of two federal programs I’ve opposed ever since I first learned about them.

     I’ve agonized over it. Could I refuse my SocSec payments? Yes, if I were to relocate off Long Island (to which my wife is bitterly opposed). Could I decline to get involved with Medicare? No, for firms that write medical insurance policies won’t permit it. Yet I still oppose both programs politically. Promises or no, they’re founded on an evil premise and should be repealed.

     But President Donald Trump, whom I’ve come to like and approve very much, has pledged himself to the continuation and sustenance of those programs. Glory be to God! If anyone should understand their perniciousness, Trump would be he. But keeping faith with “the deal” strikes him as more important.

     So how does one argue against those programs while accepting the benefits from them? With considerable difficulty. Leftist supporters of those programs play the argumentum ad hominem card almost before the first sentence has left my lips. “Would you be willing to forfeit those benefits if you could see them abolished?” they ask. I reply “Yes, I would.” And of course their rejoinder is “Suuuuuurrrre you would,” with the appropriate eye-rolling and dismissive smirk.

     There isn’t much that will offend me to the point of violence, but the denigration of my integrity will do it every time.

---

     “The personal is political,” say the Leftists. They’d surely like it to be so. By forcing the snout of government into ever more areas of human life, they’ve edged rather close to that goal. As America has “grayed,” the pressure on the federal and state governments to “keep their promises,” even to expand upon their benefits, has risen in tandem. There’s even talk of creating a program to guarantee Americans’ retirement. Social Security and Medicare have returned to “political third rails,” which no one dares to touch.

     It’s no use denying the realities. These programs are just about guaranteed to outlive me, and possibly you as well, Gentle Reader. The reluctance of even the most conservative legislators to discuss changes to them is enormous. I can envision a path to dismantling them:

     “Jerry sent his Social Security phase-out plan over yesterday,” [Sumner] said. “I like the approach he took. The payroll tax ends at once. Mandatory buy-outs for everyone under forty-five, voluntary but enhanced buy-outs for anyone over forty-five except for those already collecting, all buy-outs to be paid out over the next five years. We can afford it now that the budget is in surplus. But it’s a big step to take in the middle of a re-election campaign.”
     [Adrienne Sumner] smirked. “The third rail of American politics.”
     “Roosevelt designed it to be that way. There’s no way to undo it without pissing off a lot of people. Even Jerry’s approach, which ought to satisfy anyone’s just claim against the system, will draw a lot of fire. The senior citizens’ groups are bound to moan about ‘retiree income security,’ as if they had it now.”

     ...but few real-life politicians have the courage or moral fortitude of Stephen Graham Sumner.

     Thoughts?

On Coming Home

I took back my hand and I showed him the door
No dollar of mine would I part with this day
For fueling the engines of a bloody cruel war
In my forefathers' home far away.

Who fled the first Famine wearing all that they owned,
Were called 'Navigators', all ragged and torn,
And built the Grand Trunk here, and found a new home
Wherever their children were born.

Their sons have no politics. None call recall
Allegiance from long generations before.
O'this or O'that name can’t matter at all,
Or be cause enough for to war.

And meanwhile my babies are safe in their home,
Unlike their pale cousins who cower and cry
While kneecappers nail their poor Dads to the floor
And teach them to hate and to die.

It's those cruel beggars who spurn the fair coin.
The peace for their kids they could take at their will.
Since the day old King Billy prevailed at the Boyne,
They've bombed and they've maimed and they've killed.

Now they cry out for money and wail at the door
But Home Rule or Republic, 'tis all of it shame;
And a curse for us here who want nothing of war.
We're kindred in nothing but name.

All rights and all wrongs have long since blown away,
For causes are ashes where children lie slain.
Yet the damned UDL and the cruel IRA.
Will tomorrow go murdering again.
But no penny of mine will I add to the fray.
"Remember the Boyne!" they will cry out in vain,
For I've given my heart to the place I was born
And forgiven the whole House of Orange
King Billy and the whole House of Orange.

     [Stan Rogers, “The House of Orange”]

     Imagine yourself as a soldier sent to fight in a war far from your home...far from your country’s shores. Imagine that for whatever reason the war was botched – that thousands of your fellows were killed and maimed for no gain of any sort. Imagine further that upon being returned home you found that the war had “come home” with you – that it had sparked quarrels and hatreds of unforeseen and unprecedented intensity that threatened to rip your nation apart. Not a “flying lead” war such as the one you’d escaped, but a conflict of a bitterness and absolutism that precluded all reconciliation, irremediably setting brother against brother and father against son.

     You might actually wish you hadn’t come home, if it had to be to that. You might find yourself wishing that the conflict were a real shooting war, just so there might be some prospect of an end to it. A shooting war will end; eventually, one side or the other will be exhausted or exterminated no matter how ardent the emotions or committed the combatants. But conflicts of the heart, fueled by unarticulated and often unworthy emotions that override all reason and evidence, can go on indefinitely.

     What I’ve described here is something like the scene that greeted veterans of the Vietnam War upon returning to America. The war itself was a terrible mess: badly conceived and managed strategically and hamstrung by the tactical decisions of its field commanders, because the politicians, the generals, and the American people were divided about why the U.S. was in Vietnam at all. The lies and obfuscations emitted by the political elite made matters worse. The political scene of 1964 through 1973, with its confusion over issues, its continuous clamor, and its many violent demonstrations, was our domestic reflection of the combat taking place half a world away.

     And many a soldier, upon coming home from that war, viewed the mess he’d found in America, recoiled from it, and asked himself or his buddies, “Why couldn’t we leave all that over there?”

---

     Electoral politics is a bloodless equivalent of war. The contestants are fighting over the same thing: power. The determination of the contestants to seize that power will be manifested in the magnitude and kind of the emotions that flare over the contest. No matter how clear and decisive the result, a bitterly fought electoral battle can leave the same residue of hatred and division as a hard-fought civil war. We have the political struggles contemporaneous with our own Civil War for a case study.

     The electoral cycle that climaxed on November 8, 2016 is showing indications of the above sort. The losing side is so outraged by its defeat, so determined that the verdict of the election must be overturned, that it cannot cease fighting as would be proper for a purely political contestant. The Left and its political arm, the Democrat Party, is determined to keep fighting despite the incontestable victory of the Right and the Republicans. They refuse to accept “the peace for their kids they could take at their will.” Indeed, they appear determined to enlist their children in their parents’ bloody cause.

     So ardent are they for the power that eluded their grasp that they will stop at nothing to have it.

---

     Have a few illustrative columns from other writers:

• They Did Not See That Coming
• I’m So Old, I Remember When Liberals Opposed Military Coups
• 'Leftist Fight Club' trains UCF students to fight Republicans

     I could cite many more, but those will do for today. Politics, the “bloodless equivalent of war,” is being transformed into the real thing by the defeated contestants. Peace – the acceptance of the terms of surrender, the binding up of wounds, and the return to hearth and home – is no part of their agenda. In this they resemble religious warriors, they who “do not seek another war. They win or they die.” (The Descent Of Anansi) Their tactics creep steadily toward those of the UDL and the IRA – a classic religious war between Catholics and Protestants – and the Islamic fanatics for whom the subjugation of the whole of Mankind is their one and only aim.

     We are being forbidden to come home from the political battles of the year behind us. Willy-nilly, we are being forced to fight when all we desire is peace. But there is no peace. Because of the unending assaults from the adherents of the most destructive religion known to Man – socialist statism – we are forced to don our armor every day, many of us even at home. We must slink about warily, never knowing from what quarter the next blow might come.

     That’s what comes of a war in which the losers refuse to lay down their arms. But the sort of losers of which I speak here – religious fanatics – cannot be defeated. They can only slay or be slain.

     Food for thought.

The Ultimate Monopolist

     There are days I find myself wondering, “Would the aftermath of a full-scale nuclear war be any worse than this?” It can take me a while to dispel such a mood. It was brought on this morning by the realization that Frederic Bastiat, though he was right, lacked imagination enough to envision the horrors that would one day come:

     Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it....Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim—when he defends himself—as a criminal....

     But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

     That’s simple enough, isn’t it? It’s a test any halfwit can apply. Its answer would be unequivocal, impossible to “reinterpret.” Nevertheless, it overlooks a sheaf of important cases.

     There’s a species of legal plunder in which the stolen goods have no recipient.

---

     Here’s the story that triggered my apocalypticism:

     The American Royal’s World Series of Barbecue is a longstanding tradition for community members of Kansas City, Missouri. Since 1899, the event has attracted the most talented barbecue chefs from all corners of the state, who gather annually to show off their skills. With so many BBQ experts in one place, there tends to be a fair amount of leftover food once the festivities come to a close.

     Hating to waste such a vast amount of quality barbecue, some of the event’s BBQ gurus got together and founded the charitable group, Kookers Kare. Partnering with the Harvesters Community Food Network, Kookers Kare has made a tradition of donating the leftover food to local homeless shelters at the end of each annual event.

     This year, the two groups collected over 3,000 pounds of meat and 1,200 pounds of sides, all bound for a local nonprofit organization called Hope City, where it was to be served to over 3,000 homeless citizens in need.

     That sounds extra-tasty good, doesn’t it? Not only would this private, wholly voluntary organization feed the needy, it would feed them first-class barbecue! That’s not quite enough to make me wish I were one of the intended beneficiaries, but reading it did give me a warm glow. However, we’re not quite done with the story:

     However, the Kansas City Health Department put the kibosh on Kookers Kare’s attempts to feed the homeless before anyone was even able to enjoy the food.

     Claiming they had no fore knowledge of this charitable tradition, the health department forbid the food from being served to the needy. Suspiciously, the inspectors just happened to be doing a random inspection of Hope City the day the BBQ arrived.

     “All of that food was uninspected, so that makes it from an unapproved source, it cannot be served to the public,” Kansas City Health Department Operations Manager Joe Williamson said in response to the department’s decision to stop the food from being consumed.

     The health department did not stop at simply forbidding the food from being served, they demanded that it be destroyed immediately. Those who had worked diligently to collect the food were forced to douse over 3,000 pounds of award-winning barbecue food with bleach, in order to ensure its destruction and appease the local health department. Meanwhile, 3,000 homeless individuals went without a meal that day.

     If that doesn’t enrage you to the threshold of violence, check your pulse: you may have died and not noticed.

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     I once encountered a young man who claimed that “government is for doing the things we can’t do for ourselves.” I have no idea where he got that notion, though I have my suspicions. I wonder what he would think of the actions of the Kansas City Health Department as chronicled above.

     The original rationale for involving government agencies in charity was that private action is insufficient: i.e., that only government could guarantee that all needy persons would receive the assistance they require. We were entertained with imagery of the most macabre sort: streets filled with the corpses of beggars who’d starved to death, because the private charities that had always filled needy bellies had run out of food, or had otherwise “missed them.” Complementary to the horror images were images of clean, efficient government offices to which everyone could go for sustenance at need. Somehow these organs of the State would succeed in discriminating between the importunate idler and the genuinely deserving sufferer, such that none of the former would be served yet none of the latter would be turned away.

     It’s quite possible that those who proposed government involvement in charitable action were moved entirely by wholesome motives. It’s even more likely that, like Bastiat, they lacked enough imagination to foresee what would follow. For the State is ruled by a particular dynamic: to grow without limit. When it enters into an enterprise already occupied by private individuals and organizations, its natural tendency is to expel them by force.

     In commenting on the antitrust laws, Isabel Paterson made the plainest case imaginable:

     Government cannot "restore competition" or "ensure" it. Government is monopoly; and all it can do is to impose restrictions which may issue in monopoly, when they go so far as to require permission for the individual to engage in production. This is the essence of the Society-of-Status.

     Governments view a monopoly over charitable action as no less desirable than a monopoly over the use of coercive force. Indeed, such a monopoly is exceedingly valuable to a government, for it furthers every government’s fondest dream: to insert itself into every variety of human interaction, such that private citizens are unable to communicate or trade without State mediation.

     If generosity itself is a subject for government “regulation,” what aspect of human life is omitted from its scope?

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     I’ve cited more than once the efforts of government worshippers to take over all retirement funds. The rationale proffered for such a move differs little from that for a government takeover of all soup kitchens: “You can’t trust private actors. You can only trust the State.” That after six thousand years of recorded history there are still persons who accept that statement is striking counterevidence to the claims of the Darwinists. Yet such persons do exist; I’ve met them.

     “Redistribution of the wealth” has been a rallying cry of the government worshippers for a century and more. Did those of Marx’s time envision a point at which, rather than “redistributing” extra food, governments would command its destruction rather than allow the penurious to have it? For no more than fifty years after Marx’s death, our federal government did exactly that...under the pretense of “price support” for agricultural products.

     What a government once did supposedly to “help the farmers,” it now does to “protect the public” from the danger of award-winning barbecue. One rationale will serve quite as well as the other. What really matters is that the State possess a monopoly undreamed of by any corporate titan: unbounded and irresistible power over all things. Not even charitable action will it permit to escape its aegis.

     Perhaps it’s time for me to lie down and close my eyes for a bit.

“We Can Use This!”

     Just in case you’ve been living in a tree in the jungles of Malaysia this past decade: Dr. Michael Mann, he of the “hockey stick” approach to that greatest of chimeras of contemporary policy disputes, “anthropogenic global warming,” is pursuing a defamation suit against columnist Mark Steyn that has now been dragged out for four years and shows no signs of approaching resolution. In yesterday’s emission, Steyn tells us of the most recent developments:

     Notwithstanding that it's the most consequential free-speech case in half-a-century (as the ACLU, NBC, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune et al recognized in their amicus brief), in the DC courts it just sits there, with no discovery and no trial date. As today's Daily Caller headline has it:

     Mark Steyn's Case Against Climategate Scientist Is Taking So Long A Key Witness Died

     Technically it's the Climategate Scientist's case against me, but let's not get hung up on details (and I do have a counter-suit against the litigious Dr Mann). Michael Bastasch reports:

     Lawyers representing conservative political commentator Mark Steyn have asked the D.C. Superior Court to expedite his case against climate scientist Michael Mann, mentioning a key witness died waiting for the trial to go to court.

     "Something needed to be done to jumpstart this case, a case that threatens the most fundamental First Amendment freedoms," Dan Kornstein, Steyn's lawyer, said in a statement.

     The mills of justice sure do grind slowly, don’t they?

     Now, it’s clear that Steyn, who’s already expended over a million dollars in his defense, wants this over with. He says later in the linked column, that “I hope that Mann, who purports to want his day in court, will support me in attempting to hasten it.” But to me that’s not at all clear...nor is Mann the only party to this controversy who might want to see it dragged out to the horizon.

---

     Government is inherently a device for limiting the freedom of private persons and their voluntary associations. Some such limitations (e.g., laws against violence and fraud) are praiseworthy, but most, in my entirely un-humble opinion, are not. But the natural dynamic of government is to grow ever larger, absorbing ever more of its subjects’ freedom and wealth, until the resulting situation collapses of its own weight, a process we’re currently witnessing in Venezuela. That dynamic causes a government to favor anything it can use in service to its growth.

     Australian jewel Joanne Nova opines that Mann’s case will be guaranteed defeat as soon as discovery is allowed to proceed:

     The process is the punishment. Agents of the Big-government Blob have access to a bottomless pit of lawyers. They can not only afford endless trials, for them it’s an advantage. Drag it out, wear opponents down, exhaust their coffers. And while the case is ever-pending and never-ending it’s already a win for the accuser — silencing critics, and endorsing celebrity “victim-status”. When the defendants witnesses are older and wiser, there’s another dark advantage too — vale Bob Carter.

     What they cannot afford though is discovery.

     So they can’t afford to sue a guy like Mark Steyn.

     Nova and Steyn are agreed that at the bottom, the issue is freedom of speech:

     While Mann would suffer, at least in reputation, from losing, that result would also put the quietus to attempts by the Left, including the Obama Administration and its allegiants at the state level, to silence those who are skeptical about “anthropogenic global warming.” (In case you were wondering, I’m one such.)

     “Anthropogenic global warming” is the most promising rationale for taking totalitarian control of national economies the Left has ever happened upon. Acceptance of the thesis would justify the absolute regimentation of all human activity. Nothing anyone anywhere does for any reason would be immune to State control. Thus it appears likely to me that it’s not just Mann who favors the indefinite protraction of the delays in this case.

---

     Cui bono? asked the great Marcus Tullius Cicero. Who benefits? It’s a question that must be asked about every proposal in public policy, especially in these times when governments no longer respect Constitutional bounds.

     Some proposals would allow for transfers of wealth to favored insiders. Sometimes – often, really – the “favored insider” is government itself. Some proposals would assist the government in limiting its subjects’ ability to resist its arrogations of power. Some proposals would permit it to squelch expressions of dissent, atomizing potential resistance and rendering it harmless to the masters of the State.

     The protraction of Mann v. Steyn is so plainly a delaying tactic intended to preserve the fiction of “anthropogenic global warming” against adverse evidence and commentary, and thus to sustain the Left’s best rationale for regimenting the American economy, that I’m surprised no one else has seen the connection. Who has asked where Mann’s funding is coming from? Who has asked about the motivations for the D.C. court’s interminable stays and delays? Who has asked whether there might be a wee bit of influence from the Department of Justice in the mix? And given that all governments and all politicians want to see their powers expanded to the horizon and their positions rendered immune from all consequences, who would happily guarantee that a Republican Administration would act in any other manner?

     Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that no one’s out to get you. – Old maxim

Creating children vs. protecting them

Thanks to a post a few days ago at Western Rifle Shooters, which revealed the Nanny-Statist mentality to me in a whole new way, I reacquainted myself with the NRA's "Eddie Eagle" four step gun-safety program. Here's where I discuss the UK's "Stay Safe," guncrime safety program. All the pertinent links can be found below the YouTube video.