Ken Nelson

Wish denied.

If I could snap my finger and get rid of all firearms in the U.S., would I snap?  

It’s a bit of a silly question, since it isn’t feasible.  But the “snap” does pose an interesting thought problem.

People hurt others with guns. People save others with guns. Guns help gain freedom. Guns help take it away.

I suppose the answer depends on what you value.   I value, very heavily, political freedom, economic freedom, and self-reliance. 

I don’t like, nor trust, the idea of relying on police to protect me, largely because they can’t, and also because they are very likely, in time, to oppress me rather than protect.  We see early trends of this now, as a result of “over protection” from drug wars, terrorism, and the inability of politicians to resist force based “solutions” to whatever bugs them.

We have too many police now, enforcing too many laws. I’d prefer less of them, focusing on far less laws that are of critical importance.

As horrible as recent events have been, I believe, firmly, that many many millions of people benefit from firearms ownership acting as a backstop for freedom and security.   In fact, I’d rather see MORE people own, train, and use them, than less. 

When I lived in D.C., I was forced to live without firearms.  I sat helpless as rioters over turning buses, police cars, and burning buildings approached my home. I watched helpless as thugs shot at a man beside me on the sidewalk. And I watched, helpless, as a one criminal shot another my home’s window in a “great NW DC neighborhood”.

So, no I wouldn’t “snap”. The calculus comes out wrong in my book.

I’d rather focus, instead, on proper prioritization of enforcement resources so that instead of arresting people for doing something millions do (drugs for example), they would instead have time, interest and inclination to check out reports of a psycho scaring students and faculty at a junior college.

This is a 1941 picture of German soldier, Josef Schultz, shortly before his death at the hands of his own comrades.

He refused to shoot Serbian civilians. After a quarrel with his NCO, he dropped his helmet and firearm, and walked to stand with the civilians. They were all shot.

His actions accomplished nothing. He died. The civilians died. The German Army clearly didn’t have our American Army concept of legal and illegal orders.

Should he have “worked within the system”? Should he have fired and missed? Who knows?  The details are lost to time. His actions inspire, but probably aren’t practical.

His result, however, is a clear message from the past, that dissenters to central authority end up on the wrong end of a gun.  Hence, we should be EXTREMELY reluctant to grant central, unquestionable authority of ANY kind.  The power will be abused.

On the “coarsening” political discourse in this country…

• Those making the accusation are invariably on the losing side of the political trends.
• Given how screwed up things are, we have a right to be angry. And there is nothing wrong with letting others know.
• If our political class would stop being so damned stupid, greedy and corrupt, we wouldn’t think so little of them.
• There is nothing the matter with calling somebody socialist, progressive, libertarian, conservative… if that is what they are. I’m a libertarian. Proud of it. If you are a Progressive and prefer to hide that, well… you might want to reconsider your beliefs.
• Calling somebody a Nazi is stupid. Nobody has been a “Nazi” since the fall of the 3rd Reich.
• There is anger, and there is insanity. What we saw in Arizona was the latter.

I’m irked I even feel the need to write this. But many on the left see everything in terms of political opportunity. Even tragedy is included in their calculus.  Well… to hell with them. How’s that for “coarse discourse”?

I’ve got valid reasons to be mad, and their tragedy opportunism isn’t going to stop me from expressing it… at appropriate times and in peaceful ways.

FYI… lest you go around thinking Sarah Palin put crosshairs on Congress people, this is the map her PAC created:

This is a survey location symbol:

Note how the lines extend BEYOND the circle. It is used to indicate a spot on a map.

This is a scope crosshair, in which the reticles  cannot extend BEYOND the perimeter of the scope.

I don’t mind having survey symbols identifying states we want political change in. Do you?

For that matter, I don’t mind crosshairs for the same intent, unless the rest of the message is a call to violent action.

The media should understand that if they react in a particular political way as a result of murder, they will spur on more violence.  I doubt they care.

It’s time for some St. George residents to look in the mirror.

About every 2 to 3 years the Feds descend on St. George and bust somebody for fraud.  This week’s was a doozy… a claim of $275 million in fraudulent activity by one Jeremy Johnson and his companies.  Jeremy is well known in St. George, mainly for donation of his various aircraft to search and rescue efforts and flying humanitarian missions where they need to go.  If you believe the Federal claims, the gas for those missions of mercy may have been bought with defrauded money from hundreds of thousands of other people.

I’ve been suspicious of his businesses since I first heard of them, so these charges surprise me not.  On issues of guilt or innocence, I’ll let the courts decide.  But if you read Jeremy’s defense of his business, your concern will rise:

Johnson said the order forms for his products prominently detail terms and disclosures that show customers will be charged $59.95 monthly if they do not call to cancel within a seven- to 14-day trial period. He pointed to prominent companies such as American Express that feature similar offers where consumers who are offered a “free” product must cancel or they will be charged for other goods or services.

I think anybody who bases a business on fine print that takes monthly $60 fees that they can’t cancel easily is doing a bad thing.  The courts can decide if laws were broken. I’ll just say the business model was contemptible.

Now here is the rub…

the complaint says. Johnson and others (emphasis added) then created dozens of “shell” companies to accept credit card payments in order to avoid fines and detection, it says.

There are people running around this town, the “others” mentioned above, that helped Mr. Johnson in his schemes. I’m sure I know some of them. I just have to wonder how they feel about being part of such shoddy business practices and how they kept doing it so long.

I’m reading Angelo Codevilla’s Advice to Wartime Presidents.  I got it after seeing him on CSPAN Book Notes.

This excerpt sums up his premise:

Losing wars while winning battles is hard and rare. Yet American presidents and their advisers have managed to do just that for nearly a century.

and the books goal is to basically explain statecraft to the people purporting to practice it.

The introduction thrashes every President of the last 90 years. And treats every Secretary of State even harsher.

If you don’t want to read the book, you still may find the CSPAN Book Notes segment informational:

http://www.c-spanclassroom.org/Teachable/867/Advice+to+War+Presidents.aspx

Last night, at midnight, 725 new California laws went into effect  This is on top of the 75,000 laws already on the books.

Jewels “protecting” you newly as of last evening:

AB 119 prevents insurance companies from charging different rates for men and women for identical coverage.

Are men safer drivers than woman, or worse? Do men have a higher risk of accidental death?  Not any more.  Really what this means is that the safe subsidize the risky.

SB 782 prevents landlords from evicting tenants who are victims of domestic or sexual abuse or stalking

Gosh… do you think this will be abused? 

SB 1317 allows the state to slap parents with a $2,000 fine if their K-8 child misses more than 10 percent of the school year without a valid excuse. It also allows the state to punish parents with up to a year in prison for the misdemeanor.

Parents, we need your biology, but we will take it from there.

AB 97 bans the use of trans-fats in food facilities.

Will there be any restaurants open in 2012?

I was thinking of relaxing in San Diego again this summer. I’m not too sure now. Perhaps a coastal town in Texas instead?   And Disney has “Disney World” in Florida for my wife and kids to waste time and money as well as Disney Land ever provided. 

The Tea Party amazes. It confounds. But will it “work”?

First… what does it want?  I’d submit, two things, primarily:

• a fiscally controlled government
• a constitutionally controlled government

Both, by the way, I agree with whole heartedly.

But… what if the two conflict?   How can we have a fiscally controlled government when the Constitution that runs it gives it unlimited taxing and commerce regulatory powers?  The two can’t co-exist.

Ultimately, the Tea Party has to change the Constitution, mainly the 16th Amendment. But it should also add in, perhaps in the 16th’s replacement, perhaps in a separate, a direct and detailed limit on the governments “Commerce” and “Common Good” roles.

Tactically, I think the focus on state government assemblies is brilliant. That is where an Amendment must pass 2/3rds. They are tantalizingly close to having a lock on that many, by the way.

My preference is a new Amendment, passed by the Congress, and sent to the States that reads like this:

* The 16th amendment is repealed.

And a second new Amendment, passed by the Congress, and sent to the States that reads like this:

* An income tax may be levied on adult individuals only. Such tax shall be proportionally equal, there will be no deductions, and no credits. The Congress shall set a minimum fee that any adult, competent, citizen must pay set at the proportion of the governments spending to the Census national based population. Any non-tax fees charged to individuals or businesses must be simple and equal.

Finally, a third new Amendment, passed by the Congress, and sent to the States that goes after the culture of careerism in politics:

* No individual may hold political office more than 2 terms without at least a 2 year interim not in office or in the employ of the public.

There, that about does it.  We can fund government, but all share the pain. And more of us will be serving in government, and it will be service, not career.

If the Tea Party got that done… they would rank with George Washington, Plato, and Newton in terms of service to humanity.

Apparently, more effective than local NY region governmental plows

An emailer sent me a story about citizens bitching about New York roads being unplowed.  His subject “Citizens Demand More Government”.

I wouldn’t put it that way, nor do I see it that way.

There are things government can and should do. Like roads. Like defense. Like things specified for it in the Constitution.

What I take away from stories like what is coming out of New York’s snow is that if the government can’t keep the roads going, which is one of the few things it actually should be doing, why is it DOING ANYTHING ELSE?

BTW: Those of you familiar with the joy of local public unions won’t be surprised that much of the problem turns out to have been a ham-fisted union protest.  I have this mental picture of fat kielbasa eating mustached fools with that irritating New York suburb accent saying “that’ll teach the f****ers”.

Bad idea dudes. We “learned” but not the lesson you intended.

The basic problem with snow plowing is that it COULD be done privately, but is done by government. We don’t have any choice.  When I had a plow guy that didn’t show up at my place in Vermont, I fired him.  So can we fire these union morons?  No. And that is why their service sucks.

Brave. But they have a union for this sort of thing, don’t they?

Today is December 21st, 2010.  Nine years have passed since 9/11/2001.  Democrats have controlled the Congress for much that the intervening 9 years.

Yet now, 9 years later, they MUST pass a bill costing billions, with who knows what pork or other nonsense buried in it in the dying days of a lame duck senate.  Waiting a couple more weeks, or even a couple more months WILL COST LIVES… they claim.

Democrats, after 9 years, are in an all fired hurry.  I don’t trust them, and my mistrust is WELL EARNED.

I suspect, if you scratch slightly, you will find this bill helps unions avoid costs to their members.  Pushing union obligations onto the public is a major goal of the Democrats.

Halt this bill. Reconsider, with level heads, in the New Year.

Picture of Virgin River, via KSL.com

A friend of mine just posted this view from the Bloomington side of town on Facebook:

I don’t live too far from where this picture was taken, in fact I walk it with the dogs many times a month, including just two days ago.  But a week of rain has cause the river to jump the banks, putting where I walk the dogs, and the trail I bike ride regularly under water. In other spots the river is now a few hundred yards wide.

There doesn’t seem to be any risk to houses, unlike in 2005. The at risk houses aren’t there any more.

Here is another Facebook friend’s view from the Green Valley side of town, this is the Santa Clara river, which caused most of the flood damage in 2005:

Here is the river by my house as it was 2 days ago while walking the dogs, up with recent rain, but not over the banks yet.

and here it is a few weeks back running up from its summer low, but well within its banks.

Megan McArdle is the brightest spot about the venerable but increasingly ludicrous Atlantic magazine.

Today she asks a very tough question of liberals. Basically, if Congress has unlimited taxing powers, which they seem to support, can it use that power to get around its power limits, such as free speech, privacy, so forth. She uses a liberal touch stone, abortion, as her example:

1)  Can Congress enact a $50,000 tax on second term abortions?

Good question Megan.

How about a $25,000 tax on registering Republican?  Or a $15,000 tax on writing negatively about Congress? Or a $100,000 tax credit for registering a number of Democrats?  Are there limits? As currently thought by Congress and the courts, no there are not.

The 16th Amendment was poorly written and is a HUGE risk to freedom. It needs to be eliminated, and if we decide to permit Congress to tax again, replaced with a carefully worded document that LIMITS what Congress can do with the power to tax.

What happens when the group becomes more important than the individual.

Between 2 and 3 million of these victims were tortured to death or summarily executed, often for the slightest infraction. People accused of not working hard enough were hung and beaten; sometimes they were bound and thrown into ponds. Punishments for the least violations included mutilation and forcing people to eat excrement.

More here.

Skeptics will say “oh that was China, it couldn’t happen in a Western Democracy”.  Uhmmm… it has and can again, if you let force become centralized.

I’ve placed the earmarks found in the bloated Omnibus Overspending Bill (courtesty Tom Coburn) in a searchable, public, online Google document:

http://goo.gl/O4vIh

Search it for pork near you!

Here is what I’ve found near me:

Row 665, Dixie State College, $400K, Cybercrime Detection and Computer Support Training

Row 857 Cedar City Police, $300,000, Prescription and OTC Drug Abuse

Row 1635, Army National Guard, Unit History Records

Row 1683, Utah National Guard, $1.2M, Counter Drug State Plan

Row 1732, Utah National Guard, $4.8M, MRAP virtual trainers

Row 2803. Rural UTAH, 22.5M, for water and damns

Row 3468, South Utah Electric District, $1.0M, Hydropower Facility

Row 3925, Utah Remapping of Rural BLM districts, $300,000

Row 5357, Jobs training St. George, UT, $608K

Row 5522, Southern Utah University, Museum Exhibit, $400,000

Row 5945,St, George  I-15 Bike/Walking Underpass,  $500K

This is just a start. I’ll update as time permits.

Basically, there is a lot of wasted spending, mixed with with perhaps useful spending that could be done by the State, mixed in with a very small amount of directed federal spending that is primarily political, probably to donors.

About 45 percent think government is a threat to personal liberty. Only 3 percent of those polled said the government did not need major reform.

More at Commentary Magazine.

Well, sure, 97% of people can be wrong. Happens all the time, square earth, sun revolves around earth, so forth. But in this case… they are right, and I suspect the 3% of miscreants who think not misread the question.