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Mike at Cold Fury excerpts two great articles contrasting the fascination of the socialist left with tyranny,  and what happens when you really do speak truth to power.

Excerpting his excerpts, here’s a whiff of Ralph Peters:

The extreme left loves to pretend it stands for freedom. It never has and never will. From the Reign of Terror in Paris onward, its core agenda has been the tyranny of egomaniacal intellectuals. The hard left hates an open debate - especially these days, when it’s out of new ideas.

The truly outrageous aspect of such comparisons is that the American left, with its Stalin-redux willingness to rearrange history, neglects to mention that, outside of Japan, all of the 20th century’s great totalitarian regimes had roots on the political left.

[Note: Japan's regime arose from a true imperialism, not capitalism or libertarianism.]

And a good strong snort of Christopher Hitchens, himself a leftist who seems to be waking up:

The simplest way of phrasing it is to say that Solzhenitsyn lived “as if.” Barely deigning to notice the sniggering, pick-nose bullies who followed him and harassed him, he carried on “as if” he were a free citizen, “as if” he had the right to study his own country’s history, “as if” there were such a thing as human dignity.

Read the whole things, all three of them.

Joe Horn, the Pasadena, Texas man who shot two burglers leaving a neighbor’s home with a bag full of cash, was eventually cleared by a Grand Jury. (I wish I could link to an article from my local paper, the Houston Chronicle, but although they published several opinion pieces by goblin supporter Lisa Flakenberg, their archive did not return any articles about the Grand Jury’s decision. I did find such a link on another Horn story, but it returned a “file not found” error. Gosh, it’s almost as if the Chron doesn’t want you to know Horn was cleared….)

I just ran across video of the police interviewing Horn the night of the incident, as he walks them through his house and yard at Chris’ Simple Musings from a Guy with Guns. The Chron does have this video on their website, but I can’t find a way to link directly to it there.

Here’s a link if the embed doesn’t work for you.

Two things stand out for me:

• Horn is visibly upset as he describes the shooting. He is not proud of having taken lives.
• The goblins were right there in his yard as he came out his front door. He did not chase them down, nor did he shoot them on his neighbor’s property.

Falkenberg’s ignorant ranting aside, this is not a case of a bag full of cash being worth human lives. It’s a case of the people being safe and secure in their homes being worth lives. If anyone decided the stolen goods were worth lives, it was the goblins involved — they just didn’t expect that it would be their lives.

(Also, see Chris’ comments on keeping your mouth shut while talking to the police. I admit, though, that in this case it doesn’t seem to have hurt Horn’s case.)

So, I’m kinda thinking maybe I shouldn’t vote this year.

…They know that my vote is a fundamental nod in favor of their existence. Go watch those creepy assholes on NBC doing their video bumpers and telling me how important it is that I should vote.

They know the whole fucking charade would fall right over if they could not claim to ‘represent’ us.

Right, right, right!

Update via my favorite African American, Kim duToit, quoting Get Liberty:

America appears to have descended into a one-party system.  And the only people today’s hand-holding politicians want to please is each other.

There is today, simply and solely, the “Governing Party.” There are those with power, and then there is everyone else.  Conservatives understand this as we have been sold out time and again on everything from tax cuts to illegal immigration to the size of the Federal budget.  And the Hard Left is quickly finding this out as the presumptive Democrat nominee, Barack Obama, moves his politics to the center to curry the favor of moderates, waffling one key issue after another—like NAFTA, public campaign financing, and the death penalty.

One major reason Americans are losing faith in their government is precisely because of broken promises.

I’m still, still, thinking I’ll vote. B. Hussein Obama represents a huge step away from limited government and individual liberty, while McCain merely twitches spasticly in place. (Then there’s the whole business about a vote for Obama being a vote for a Daley Machine puppet that still has that factory-fresh out-gassing circuit board smell, while a vote for McCain is a vote for an actual, if deeply flawed, human being with decades of experience and a proven willingness to fight and suffer for his country. Not to mention that a vote for McCain is a vote for telling the Main Stream Press Gang to go stick their titties in their inkblood-stained rollers….)

But damn, I’m gonna feel dirty.

What’s that? I should move somewhere else? (Have I mentioned the profound irony of socialist “liberals” telling me I should “love it or leave it”? This probably won’t be the last time.)

There is no place else. This is it. “The last, best, hope,” and all that. There is no “magical palace on the moon”. Plus, it’s mine. Ours. Not theirs.

However, this might be the election where the American people finally give it all away.

Gonna be an interesting fight.

Press Ganey is an outfit that does…uh, something having to do with… um, making hospital administrators feel good about themselves, maybe? Their mission statement:

For more than 20 years, Press Ganey has led the health care industry with a clear mission based on partnership, results, solutions, support, and care.

In other words, their mission statement is:

We have a mission statement.

One of the things they do is to give doctors awards based on patient satisfaction surveys. It seems that doctors are properly skeptical about this methodology.

But that’s not what I want to talk about.

Here’s the award:

Why would anyone want a health care award that looks like this:

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Dean Barnett, slamming Ezra Klein for claiming that “Democrats, even liberal Democrats” supported the surge:

Before charging forward, I should mention that a while ago I swore to ignore Klein’s commentary, regardless of how counterfactual or juvenile it was. I made this commitment at roughly the same time I vowed to stop knocking the walkers out from under enfeebled old ladies as they crossed the street in front of my house. I had come to the realization that picking on the lame and defenseless was wrong.

Got this from Mike at Cold Fury, who says, “They’ve got balls the size of church bells, I’ll tell ya that for nothin’.”

“I’ll tell you that for nothin’.” I like that. “I’ll buy that for a dollar!”

Pharyngula points to a poll that asks us if we “agree with the Genocide Awareness Project’s stance that abortion is genocide“.

Certainly not! Abortion is the result of an individual’s choice exercised against her own body. Genocide is the result of official government policy against a whole people. (However, forcible abortion can be used as an instrument of genocide.)

The right to an abortion, like the right to keep and bear arms, flows from our right and responsibility to govern our actions by our own consciences, even in matters of life and death. When we abdicate that right to the government, we enslave and degrade ourselves.

===

I’ve had this post mouldering in my Drafts folder for more than a year now. I don’t have time to blow the dust off, much less polish it up, but I really need to get it out where it can be looked at.

I wrote it in response to an email from a family member who is passionate about protecting abortion rights, but aggressive about abolishing the right to keep and bear arms. That may have ever so slightly affected the slant. ["Slant? There's a slant to this blog? Why wasn't I told?"]

Whatever. Here it is, for better and for worse. I’ll very likely come back and clean it up later, when I have a bit more time, and (with any luck) some feedback from both sides.

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Legal and social context of the right to keep and bear arms (KABA) versus the right to an abortion:

KABA: Directly, the right to own a tool.
Indirectly, the right to use that tool in defense of your life and liberty.
Abortion: Directly, the right to end the life of a human embryo or fetus.
Indirectly, the right to govern your own body and your personal resources as you see fit.

KABA: The legal right to keep and bear arises from English common law, itself based on a primal instinct to defend one’s self and family.
Abortion: The legal right to an abortion is mostly a 20th century innovation. Abortion was forbidden under English common law. However, it appears to have been quietly ignored; and even outright infanticide immediately post-partum, while a felony in common law, is often ignored in practice. [Um, according to my hasty web research. I welcome clarification and correction on this point.]

KABA: Explicitly enumerated in and protected by the Constitution.*
Abortion: Protected by a Constitutional “penumbra” vaguely defined by the Court.

KABA: Applies to all competent, law-abiding adult citizens, at least in theory. “The right of the people…shall not be infringed” is as broad and absolute a prohibition on government interference as exists in the Constitution. In practice, of course, there are many jurisdictions where the right is denied even to retired or off duty military and police personnel.
Abortion: Applies to adult females, even violent felons, non-citizens, and (in some jurisdictions) minor children without parental oversight. In any case, though, only to females. Males, even the fathers, have no legal standing in most jurisdictions.

KABA: Rarely discussed in the classroom, even at the college level. In fact, many public schools effectively forbid discussion.
Abortion: Routine sex-education topic, even in junior high.

KABA: Press coverage is extremely hostile, and often inaccurate and deceptive. Sources who have never handled a firearm and are blatantly ignorant are cited as “experts”.
Abortion: Press coverage is generally sympathetic, although it may be just as inaccurate and deceptive. Sources are often professional advocates, health practitioners, or women who have had abortions. (Of course, the fetuses involved are rarely interviewed, photographed, or even mentioned.)

KABA: Heavily regulated by a hostile, arbitrary, and incompetent federal bureaucracy (the BATFX), and many usually hostile, or at best benign, state and local agencies.
Abortion: Regulated by ordinary medical practice, and many state and local agencies. Depending on jurisdiction, these agencies may be supportive, benign, or hostile.

Self Defense: Sole legal justification is defense against a direct, violent threat. In some jurisdictions, you must make every effort to escape before mounting a potentially lethal defense, even allowing an aggressor to chase you from your home or business.
Abortion: No legal justification required. Personal justification ranges from blocking an imminent threat to the mother’s health, to ending an inconvenient annoyance.

===

Consequences of exercising the implied right to use a weapon in self defense, or the direct right to have an abortion:

Self Defense: Very often, merely displaying the tool ends the threat, and there is no injury or death at all.
Abortion: Exercising the right inherently involves killing the embryo or fetus.

Self Defense: Target is typically a career criminal with a long history of lawlessness and violence who is deliberately threatening the shooter.
Abortion: Target is, excuse me, there is no other word, an innocent, and is not in any way responsible for the problem. On the other hand, at least for abortions in the first two trimesters, the target doesn’t have anything resembling a human brain, either. It is not self-aware, and does not have a conscience. It is innocent in the sense an earthworm or minnow is innocent (although even those creatures have mature, functioning brains).

Self Defense: Bystanders may be accidentally injured or killed. Such incidents are closely investigated, and the shooter is typically criminally responsible and civilly liable.
Abortion: Accidental abortions are called “miscarriages”, and can result from both preventable and non-preventable causes. Either way, they are typically not investigated by law enforcement. Only the mother and the affected fetus are involved. However, abortions are used to terminate “accidental” pregnancies, which often result from careless sex.

Self Defense: Self-defense decisions are made in the face of extreme threats, such as rape or death, and must be instant and instinctive. Weapons owners should, as part of their training, carefully think through the issues and decide under what circumstances they will employ lethal force, in order to act appropriately when the crucial moment comes.
Abortion: At puberty, girls should be presented with the facts and advised to carefully think through the issues. In any event, however, if an unexpected pregnancy occurs, the mother typically has hours, even days or weeks, to think things through and consult with family, friends, counselors, physicians, and, it is to be hoped, the father.

Self Defense: Merely displaying your weapon to an attacker (”brandishing”) can result in a police investigation, possible jury trial, and fine or imprisonment. As for actually putting a bullet in someone? Always, if the act comes to official notice, there is at least a police investigation, possibly resulting in life in prison, even execution.
“Every bullet comes with a lawyer attached.”
“Better to be judged by twelve than buried by six.”
Abortion: In most jurisdictions, abortion is a private, privileged matter between a woman and her doctor. Often, not even the father (or, for older minors, the parents) have standing. Under most circumstances, the matter never comes to the attention of law enforcement.

===

The asymmetry can balanced in two ways: relax constraints on the right to keep and bear arms, or tighten constraints on the right to an abortion. I strongly favor the former.

===

* In fact, the Second Amendment protects one of the two tools mentioned by the Constitution.

Pop Quiz: what’s the other? Hint: Not obstetrical forceps or curette.

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Ghost of a Flea links to the Quote of the Day from Kathy Shaidle:

The difference between what the Nazis said about the Jews and what people today are saying about radical Muslims is…

What we’re saying about radical Muslims is true.

To pretend otherwise is to perform the intellectual equivalent of hiding Nazis in your attic during World War II.

By the way, not only is what’s being said by pro-War commentators  about radical Muslims true, the radical Muslims themselves are saying it, proudly, and are demonstrating and even rioting to get their points across.

Oh, by all means, you should definitely read the whole damning thing, which includes this QotD runner up:

But then again, Muslims don’t care much for books, do they?

Except for the Koran, which contains more hate speech than every issue of Maclean’s published in the last hundred years put together.

(Now THAT would be an interesting case for the Human Rights Commission. I’m a free speech absolutist, but I’d love to see how a case calling the Koran “hate speech” would play out, what with all its calls to violence against “apes and pigs” , i.e. Christians and Jews.)

Yeah, you should probably read the opinion piece that triggered her outburst, in which Haroon Siddiqui attempts justify the tyrannical “Human Rights” Commissions of Canada.

Q & O has a calmer, more detailed critique.

As always:

There is no God, not even Allah, and Mohammed was no one’s prophet, but a psychotic child-raping, hate-mongering, mass-murderer.

And again, it doesn’t matter whether or not that’s true. What matters is that I have the perfect right to say it, no matter how offensive it is.

[updated to include the runner-up QotD and Q&O.]

For a long time now, the Associated Press has been working hard to lose your trust by acting as a mouth piece for terrorists, publishing staged and altered photos, and pandering to the lowest sort of anti-American Americans.

Now, in a classic move to lose readership, AP has started suing people who link to and quote their stories.

Fine.

They haven’t been an important source for this blog, but it’s my plan to not give them any more links or quotes, at all.

Drink ink and die, AP.

The daughter of the head of state of the world’s leading republic was married yesterday. The press expressed some puzzlement that the bride and her father opted for a relatively small, private ceremony, when it could well have been a major affair of state and a huge public gala.

Let me explain to the idiots with mikes and cameras: In a monarchy, marriages are indeed affairs of state, what with the succession and all that. The doings of Princes and Princesses and Queen Mums are essentially legitimate public business.

Some folks, on the other hand, fought a war to rid themselves and their descendants of that crap, and were careful to explicitly forbid it: “No title of nobility shall be granted “.

The refusal to make this wedding a public affair quite properly reflects that attitude. The leader in question is going to rule for less than a year, and his successor will not remotely be a member of his family. His daughter is in no way a player in national politics. The wedding is in fact a private affair, and is none of my business, or yours, or of anybody not invited to the wedding.

To the degree you members of the press do not understand this, you are not fit for your jobs. To the degree you slather after the opportunity to treat as nobility a man and his daughter you have reviled for almost eight years now, you are cowards and hypocrites.

To the degree you would have used invitations as an opportunity to take the most unflattering, even humiliating, photos and videos you could manage, you are poltroons and boors.

Lou Dobbs at CNN is covering the frightening story of how feral federal agents are savaging David Olofson for loaning a broken tool to a neighbor.

[update]

Part Two,  revealing that the BATFX fraudulently kept exculpatory evidence from trial. Again, via War on Guns.

And don’t miss Kevin Baker’s excellent discussion, with many tasty links, over at The Smallest Majority.

[/update]

At the range one day, Olofson let his friend use his completely legal, semiautomatic rifle, an AR-15. (The civilian version of the full-auto rifle that is standard military issue.) The friend fired hundreds of rounds, one trigger pull at a time.

Then the 20 year old gun malfunctioned, and began firing multiple times with single trigger pulls.

Olofson was arrested, charged, and convicted of “transferring” a full-auto machine gun. The arrest was performed through a full-dress SWAT raid, including forcing Olofson’s door with a hydraulic ram. His guns, computers, and even gun books were confiscated, although nothing illegal was found. He was not shown a warrant.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, known here as the BATFX, tested his weapon and found it was not a machine gun. Unhappy with this result, they tested it again with different ammo known for having sensitive primers, and this time determined that it was.

Olofson, heretofore a law-abiding citizen, an Army veteran and Reservist with a spotless record, is now a convicted felon awaiting sentencing. He could face six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

For possessing a malfunctioning tool, a malfunction so subtle the BATFX themselves couldn’t find it the first time they tried.

Under BATFX rules, apparently, I am myself a dangerous federal felon, as I’ve noted before, having used a malfunctioning pistol that double fired.

The CNN report notes that BATFX testing procedures are undocumented, and defendants are not allowed to witness tests. (And, if you can muddle through the orange-on-black type, Mark Knapp notes here that Olofson’s own expert, Len Savage, wasn’t even allowed to examine and test Olofson’s gun in preparation for the trial.) There are two bills before Congress, HR 4900 and HR 1791, requiring written testing procedures, and the video taping of every test.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: as the BATFX currently operates, firearms agents cannot report for duty without violating their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. They are traitors acting under color of authority, and deserve to be put up against the wall and shot, after being allowed the same due-process consideration they’ve accorded David Olofson.

Remember, folks: these are the Only Ones gun-grabbers say are fit to keep and bear arms. They, and the BATFX, want us to be docile, helpless sheep–and they themselves are not sheepdogs, but wolves.

Not at all by the way, kudos to Lou Dobbs and CNN for covering the Olofson / BATFX story. This is real speaking-truth-to-power here, not only to the BATFX, but to the generally anti-gun, pro-tyranny press as well. Thanks, Mr. Dobbs, and keep up the good work. I hope this story gets legs and wider coverage.

Via The War on Guns.