ricketyclick

Gun fearing socialist pussies everywhere, relax: my favorite African-American, Kim du Toit, is closing The Other Side of Kim, having gotten tired of shouting the ugly truth into the faces of people who have an ideological commitment to not hearing it.

When he started, he was one of the few strong advocates for the crazy idea that ordinary American citizens, men and women regardless of creed or color, were competent to run their own affairs, even in matters of life and death. He started the idea of National Buy a Gun Day, as a part of his Nation of Riflemen campaign, aimed at re-arming the militia of which the Second Amendment speaks, the unorganized one.

He has also been a tireless critic of communism, socialism, nannyism,and big government generally.

He was one of my very first daily-read bookmarks when I myself realized that the Second Amendment imposed much the same duty as the first: to actively participate in the nation’s political process in ways far beyond mere voting. (What, you thought the First Amendment was all about Freedom From Religion, and your right to buy, sell, and make child pornography?)

He put his money where his mouth is, nearly suffering financial ruin when his employer discovered he, uh, Spoke Real Truth to Real Power, and fired him. So great was his distress that he actually sold off some of his substantial collection of firearms to make ends meet. (And you may judge the size and value of that arsenal by the fact that selling off only a part of it actually made a difference in the finances of a family, including teenagers, who had recently purchased a new home in Dallas.)

He has also taken dozens of people, men, women, and children, Off to the Range, and taught them how to shoot. Fittingly, one of his last posts today was about one such excursion.

All Americans can be proud that when he escaped from the hell hole of South Africa he chose to come here; all Texans can be proud that when he abandoned Mayor Daley’s fiefdom to its own rot, he came here. He came not for a free handout, but to do his part in holding the line in the world’s Last, Best Hope for Liberty.

He, a foreigner, has been a better American than I, a native; indeed, a far better American than almost all of us, including especially many of those who now hold elective office. He took an oath to become one of us, he meant it, and he’s done his level best to keep it.

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Please enjoy having a private life again; you have already done more than your share.

Started in a bar, with the bartender acting as recruiter.

Now, after 233 years in defense of liberty, The Marines are widely respected by the free and feared by the wicked as one of the fiercest, and certainly the most honorable, fighting force ever fielded by any nation in history.

Over at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, 233 reasons to Love the Corp:

4. There’s no such thing as an “ex” Marine. (Well there wasn’t until Jack Murtha anyway - crunch)
5. Re-enlistment rates are higher IN the war zone.
22. “No better friend, no worse enemy.”
29. Recruiting in Texas is like hunting at the zoo.
50. [One of many individuals called out on this list. -- djm] Cpl. Gareth Hawkins, lying on a stretcher after an IED shattered his leg, demanded re-enlistment before medical evacuation. And got it.
61. Give a Marine some free time, and he’ll rip down your dictator’s statue.
142. The line to get “tazed” at a military gear expo. Marines will do anything for a free T-shirt.
154. The slogans: “The Few, The Proud, The Marines.” “We’re Looking For a Few Good Men,” “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” “Tell that to the Marines.” If they could only purchase the rights to Hallmark’s “When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best.”
126. Go to YouTube. Type in “bored Marines.” Enjoy. [I tried. I typed in "bored" -- and auto-complete put "bored marines" at the top of the list. -- djm]
128. The opposite of the Peace Corps.

And my absolute favorite, bar none:
78. Front toward enemy. It’s not just a visual reference on a Claymore mine, it’s a Marine Corps way of life.
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I am not worthy to be a Marine — literally, I couldn’t even pass the physical to be in the Air Force. When I tried to enlist, lo these many years past, I didn’t even consider the Corp, because I knew I’d never make it.

I am, nevertheless, profoundly grateful to live in a nation that produces citizens who can be Marines, and that they choose to so serve.

My gratitude to the Marines themselves is without bounds.

I pray that the Nation you serve continues to be worthy of your service, and as faithful to you and your ideals as you are to us.

And here’s the deal, folks: even if we do not fulfill our end of the bargain (say, over the upcoming Presidential term), the Marines will continue to be faithful to the Constitution, and to us, until the last one of them dies.

We are so screwed. Not, mind, because Barry Hussein’s going to be President, but because there are enough well-meaning idiots like these to vote him in:

With newfound patriotism, Seattleites want to wave the flag, hang it from their homes and stick it on their cars.

“The thing that’s kind of astounding to me is I never ever would have cared to own a flag,” said Rosemary Garner, 42. “This is the first day in my life I actually feel this funny sense of pride about my country. It’s a very foreign feeling, but it’s a good one.”

Garner, a self-described “flag virgin” who lives on Capitol Hill, bought eight flags Wednesday — some to wave and others to stick on her car to “mix and match with some nice Obama and peace signs. Then I bought a couple of flags for some friends who wanted to hang them from their truck along with their biodiesel stickers.”

“Flag virgin.” Gah.

So, tell me, is dissent still the highest form of patriotism? Because I’m planning on being real damned patriotic for the next few years.

And yes, my flag is still out on my porch, still right-side up, just like it has been for the last four years or so.

You want me to take it down because the wrong guy is in the White House, or because you think that I don’t deserve to show it since I didn’t vote for that guy and strongly disagree with him on most things, you’ve got a fight on your hands.

From the DEBKAfile, which I understand is not always reliable:

More than 35 missiles have been fired against all the Israeli towns and villages within range of Gaza since early Wednesday, Nov. 5. Two upgraded Qassam missiles hit Ashkelon’s main street and industrial zone. Three shock victims were hospitalized. Israel’s emergency services in Ashkelon, Sderot, Netivot and the villages around Gaza are on the ready for further attacks but not all the schools within range of Gaza have shelters or fortified classrooms.

The Palestinian barrage, which coincided with Barack Obama’s victory rally in Chicago, followed a battle that erupted Tuesday night when an Israeli armored force crossed 250 meters deep into the Gaza Strip to demolish a Hamas tunnel dug from Al Bureij the Israel military position at the Kissufim border.

Via SondraK.

The Geek With A .45 lays it out:

Entire Societies Can and Have Gone Stark Raving Batshit Fucking Insane.
…
We know the stakes: it is nothing less than the soul of the Republic itself.

Right now, the Gods of the Copybook Headings are inking up the rubber stamp that says “Epic Fail”, and at some point on Wednesday morning, that stamp will come down on either Barack Obama’s head, or on We The People as a whole.

If our inner thirst for the false promises of a Philosopher King has finally weighed heavier than our memory of freedom, we will well and truly get what we deserve.

[Emphasis and link mine.]
Yeah, yeah, read the whole thing.

We have been warned.

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When I was younger and even more foolish than I am now, I professed myself terrified by Presidential Candidate “Ronald Raygunz”, as I called him in hip disdain.

When he was elected, I thought about leaving the country to escape the inevitable police state, but it was too much trouble.

Amazingly, the result was that a real police state, East Germany, fell, along with The Wall. I was too hipply ignorant at the time to realize how profoundly ironic that was.

This time, though, I think I really am…deeply, deeply troubled. The difference is that in Reagan’s case, I was only afraid of a man about whom I knew almost nothing. This time, I’m afraid not only of Obama himself (and I know much more about him, and about politics and history generally), but I am also terrified by his parents, his teachers, his friends, his wife, his preacher, and his political backers. Most of all, though, I’m afraid of the news media that has relentlessly hounded his enemies while jealously protecting him. And I’m afraid of his worshipers, the likes of which I have never seen in any political movement in my entire life. Faint shadows of it in Bobby Kennedy, perhaps, but…faint. No one else even comes remotely close.

This time, even if Obama loses, I will still be afraid, because the fact that he is even on the ticket shows how profoundly the American people have abandoned their dream.

No matter what happens today, folks, it’s going to be a long four years.

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I have one hope: I hope that if Obama ascends to the Oval Office, he finds the Levers of Power to be so unwieldy, so jammed, so filthy and crusted, that he can do little or nothing with them. Many of the most impressive will turn out to be for show only, unconnected to anything. Many of the most important will be insignificant, hidden, mislabeled.

I think his own inexperience will work against him here; he really does not know how to run an operation the size of a state, much less a country.

Most of all, I do not think the press will shield the Man in the White House, not even the One they have anointed. The Press Room is a shark pit, they will not be satisfied with scraps. They’ll want, and need, live meat. And Obama has never suffered any scrutiny at all, nothing more than fawning adulation. I seriously doubt he will be able to handle real teeth, real fire.

Bob Woodward does every thing he can to destroy the nation that trusts him to tell them what is going on.

Bob, you fucktard, I wish there were a God, just so that I could pray for your slow, rotting death and eternal damnation.

Whatever Bush is doing, it was working. If Bob’s book “works”, it could undo a very great deal of good, and do a great deal of harm.

The article implies that Bush actually granted interviews to Woodward; if so he really is as stupid as they say he is. Woodward should be banned from the Whitehouse, and the Post should be banned from the press room.

I mean, shit, it’s not like being friendly has won Bush any points here.

Not against the war, just on the other side.

I mean, it’s Ramadan. It’s not like those religious whackos need yet another excuse to riot and kill.

Edwin Leap says the most important thing you will read today:

…The modern emergency department is a kind of social sciences laboratory.  In fact, about 30 years into the existence of the specialty of emergency medicine, I feel comfortable saying that we have shown.with remarkable precision that the more radical social revolutions of the 20th century were shameful, stunning failures.  And the reason I can say it is not based on carefully designed studies, or because I’ve observed it from the comfort of the ivory tower of academia, but because I, and many others like me, treat the casualties of those social revolutions day, after day, after day.  Some examples, you ask?

• Drug use is normal, good, relaxing and enlightening.
• Sex is natural and anyone who tries to limit sex is an old fashioned prude
• The way to fix poverty is to give services, food and money to them, so that they will feel compelled to improve themselves
• Families can be defined in any way, family integrity is over-rated and men are entirely unnecessary for a proper home!
• Religion is an impedance to modern thought, and we need to be liberated from it by the clear, crystal light of pure science.

The mantra of ‘free love’ that began in the 60’s wasn’t about liberation; it was about enslavement to the desires of those who started it and who wanted no restraint on their behavior.
…
Do you know why I see children who are anxious and afraid? Do you know why children seek each other out for sex, and have children of their own at such young ages? Because they are terrified. Why is that? They lack the peace of safe and stable families. They lack the boundaries and discipline, born of love, that proper families give. They want the protection, wisdom, affection of a man and woman, together for the long haul. Without those things, we see what we do in the ER; teen mothers, teen fathers, irresponsible parents shifting sexual alliances from week to week, month to month, moving in with lovers and moving away from them.

Read the whole thing. I excerpt here only the barest whiff of the rotting corpse he wants taken off life support.

As noted in comments there, ERs have a huge selection bias. Also, I believe there’s a big difference between condemning bad behavior socially, and punishing it with the law. Sure, drugs are bad, but the War on Drugs is even worse, because it deprives even the sober of their freedom.

Nevertheless, the attitudes Leap describes are real. My generation, the hippie generation, the peace and love and grooviness generation, is to blame, and we will go down in history as social traitors who destroyed, in only one or two generations, the richest, freest, most powerful nation that has ever been.

===

I cannot resist adding: Obama and his party whole-heartedly embrace the attitudes and policies Leap excoriates. The eyes of Palin, her running mate, and their party leaders, are clouded by decades of socialist, feel-good pap, but they dimly perceive the truth (McCain, of course, survived years of the tender, loving instruction of Obama’s idols), and they are struggling, however weakly, to campaign on the twin pillars of liberty and duty.

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representative, represents these San Franciscans, attending the “Up Your Alley” street political demonstration. This is not a private party on private property, closed off from the public, but a public event, officially sanctioned by the SF city government. Budweiser is a sponsor, although their presence is much reduced after last year’s Folsom Street Fair.

The given link goes to a content-warning page, rather than directly to the photos.Take that warning very seriously, but click through, blurred or unblurred, and take a quick look.

These are the folk who put Pelosi in office, that she is beholden to.

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We’re supposed to be tolerant of “gays”, because, hey, there’s not enough love in the world, is there? And who are we to deny it wherever it blossoms?

Do you see anything here suggestive or supportive of stable, long-term loving relationships?

Gay Marriage? See anybody here you’d trust to so much as sell you diapers, much less raise children of their own?

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I regularly see charity panhandlers here in Houston, soliciting for “AIDS Awareness”. Do you really believe that these people are not intimately, personally aware of AIDS and its risks? Seriously, folks, how much do think the government needs to spend to make this kind of behavior even remotely “safe”? And why should I pay for it?

I’m told that one of the pictures shows a hepatitis testing station; I don’t want to go looking for it. Gosh, I don’t remember seeing one of those at the last gun show I attended. (Although perhaps a cholesterol testing station wouldn’t be totally out of place….) I’m struggling to imagine behavior this careless being tolerated at a gun show. I’m struggling to imagine the kinds of restrictions placed on personal behavior at gun shows  being enforced here. Tell me again, who are the dangerous, irresponsible ones?

Oh, yeah: I dare you to try to get a permit to hold an open-air gun show on the streets of SF. Or here in Houston, for that matter. Go ahead. I dare you.

And yes, which public event supports an activity explicitly protected by the Constitution? What’s that you say? There’s a “penumbra” around the First Amendment right to assembly that permits public fornication, but the Second Amendment doesn’t really mean what it says about a “right of the people” and “shall not be infringed”? You know what, asshole? Piss off. But in private, please.

And again, don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare, try to lecture me about how angry I get here.

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By the way, I still support these guys. I still say that, barring felony records, even the people in Zombie’s photo have the right to keep and bear arms.

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These pictures are courtesy of the anonymous Zombie Time, who devotes a lot of time photographing leftist, socialist, Democratic, homosexual, and antiwar public demonstrations in the SF area, and putting the pictures up for all to see.

For instance, here’s Zombie’s photo essay on the Code Pink demonstrations and vandalism at the Berkeley Marine Recruiting Station, officially sanctioned by the Berkeley city government. The Marines, by the way, were recently denied a permit to film one of their drill teams for a recruiting video in the Bay area. Do you really think the Marines would be more disruptive, more dangerous, more in violation of American ideals, than Up Your Alley?

I’m not a fan of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-People’s Democracy of Frisco, CA). She’s a commie gun-grabbing terrorist-enabling would-be tyrant, but fortunately she’s also an incompetent weakling. She has led Congress to its lowest approval ratings ever, in the single digits, worse than the Bushitler.

Now, Slashdot points to a story on the righty Chicago Boyz blog featuring her latest attack on our liberty:

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who would like very much to reimpose the old, so-called, “Fairness Doctrine” that once censored conservative opinion on television and radio broadcasting, is scheming to impose rules barring any member of Congress from posting opinions on any internet site without first obtaining prior approval from the Democratic leadership of Congress. No blogs, twitter, online forums - nothing.

The Boyz, prompted by Rep. John Culberson (R-Shitkickers, TX) link to a PDF of the enabling letter from Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Massaidiots), then continue:

Set aside the nakedly partisan aspect of this plan for a moment - on the technological merits alone this may be the goddamn dumbest thing I’ve heard of regarding the Internet coming out of Congress in a long, long time. The dinosaurs who are uncomfortable with computers, the unwashed masses being aware of their actions and free political debate want to turn the clock back to the 1970s. Except during the 1970s no one would have dared to propose controlling what a democratically elected member of Congress could say to their constituents. Doesn’t it register in the Beltway that they are talking about public information that already belongs to the people of the United States? Senators and Congressmen should be interacting with citizens more freely, not less; the U.S. Congress needs radical transparency not greater opacity imposed by the Democratic House leadership to better hide shady dealings

It’s a brazenly Orwellian and most likely unconstitutional power grab by the Speaker of the House unlike anything dreamed of by any previous speaker - not Sam Rayburn, not Joseph Cannon. Nobody.

Oh, delightful! Downright tasty! Too good to be true!

Well, yeah. Too good to be true, indeed.

As many comments point out, both on the CBz site and on Slashdot, the letter appears to say nothing of the kind. In fact, it seems to be aimed at making it easier for Representatives to host official House documents, particularly video, on servers other than the the official House servers. It isn’t aimed at the personal communications of House members, nor at content they generate. The closest this document comes to “prior restraint”, as far as I can tell, is a restriction, “to the maximum extent possible”, on posting official House documents where they “may appear with commercial or political information or any other information not in compliance with the House’s content guidelines.”

[The PDF is a scan of the letter, so I can't cut and paste text, and I'm too lazy to retype it.]

In other words, as I read this, Congresscritters shouldn’t pass off stuff produced in the name of the House at large as being the product of their own offices, or vice-versa. This is not an attempt to restrict the dissemination of “public information that already belongs to the people of the United States”. To the contrary: it’s intended to make that information easier to get to.

C’mon, folks. Pelosi and company really are evil. They do plenty of actual bad stuff. It does us no good at all, and great harm, to make transparently unfounded accusations like this.

That’s stooping to their level, that is. We don’t need to.

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The 24-hour rule should be in effect on this story: come back tomorrow, after the dust has settled, and see where things are then. I, personally, am crossing my fingers in the hopes that Pelosi is as evil, and as stupid, as the Boyz make her out to be, and that her fellow ‘Critters boot her out to the street for interfering with their Constitutional right to dispense rabid propaganda to their sheep constituents.

In the meantime, I’m saving the text of this page, and the letter, in case they change or disappear.

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!”