Paul E. Zimmerman.com

On Easter Sunday, No One Can Hear You Scream

2013-03-31T08:28:00.000-07:00

Why Your Health Care Will Never Be Inexpensive

2013-03-01T10:31:00.002-08:00

The Pajamahadin: What Rights Would You Sell Out For Security?

2013-02-25T06:49:00.003-08:00

Chicago has America’s strictest gun laws and yet remains this nation’s most deadly war zone. For Americans, not even Afghanistan can match Chicago’s body count.

Roughly 80% of Chicagoland’s shootings are gang related. So it’s no wonder that, for the first time since 1929, the Chicago Crime Commission saw fit to designate a new Public Enemy, especially considering that, compared to Guzman, Capone was a piker.

The only surprise is that the crime commission pointed the finger at an actual criminal. The politically correct choice would have been to name firearms manufacturers or law-abiding gun owners as enemies.

If you give away one bit of liberty for protections that won't work, you'll end up giving it all away for nothing.

Read the entire article here.

How To Properly Address A Locust Voter

2013-02-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

I think I may have coined a new term, as I cannot find "locust voter" by doing a quick online search. Apologies to anyone who has been using the term before me, if any, but as I define it, a "locust voter" is someone who moves out of whatever dysfunctional, leftist hell hole they were living in and into a more free, vibrant locality to enjoy the economic and social benefits there, but who then begins demanding the establishment of the laws and practices of the place they moved from, those things largely being responsible for the miserable conditions of their former home.

Take this example:

‘BY ALL MEANS, LEAVE’: THE AMAZINGLY BLUNT RESPONSE ONE STATE REP. GAVE A CITIZEN WHO WROTE HIM OPPOSING CONCEALED CARRY IN SCHOOL

"Get out of here.

That was one Wyoming state representative’s message to a resident who contacted him recently stating her opposition to a bill that would have allowed people with concealed carry permits to carry guns in public schools, colleges and sporting events.

Rev. Audette Fulbright had emailed all state legislators, including Republican Rep. Hans Hunt, earlier this month to say she and her husband had just moved to Wyoming and were “seriously reconsidering” their decision amid the proposed expansion of gun laws...

...“I know of other new-to-Wyoming families in similar contemplation. Your choices matter. It would be sad to see an exodus of educated, childrearing age adults from Wyoming as a result of poor lawmaking,” she wrote.

Hunt’s response? “By all means, leave.”

Typical. As one comment posted in response to the article mentions, if you read between the lines of Fulbright's letter, the implication is "if you don't agree with what I think is right, you're uneducated/backwards/stupid, etc., and if I don't get my way I'll leave and you'll be poor because you're nothing without my amazing presence." Lovely.

In addition to her unsubstantiated firearms hysteria, Fulbright demands that the long-time residents of her new home suffer an economic apartheid: while she clearly had the resources to relocate to Wyoming without needing the economic benefits of fracking, she would gladly leave her new neighbors, many of whom probably have been there long before she ever thought of moving in, poor (Fulbright is a Unitarian Universalist minister, and speaking purely in terms of what clergy members represent to a community economically, she really doesn't contribute jack by being there, so her presence is definitely NOT a replacement for the industrial development she opposes). Just compare the unemployment rate of North Dakota (where energy development is blazing away) and Wyoming with the unemployment rate of her former home, Virginia. Fulbright left a place with greater unemployment, is now apparently comfortable in her own financial situation, and she's in turn comfortable with forcing Wyoming to endure greater unemployment than it needs to.

There are plenty of places Fulbright could have moved to that already feature these policies that she's demanding now in Wyoming. But she didn't move to those places. Why? Because they suck, and they suck because of some of the very things she's demanding. She deliberately chose the greener pastures of a place not blighted and destroyed by those idiotic ideas, and now she wants to consume the benefits while attacking their maintenance and continuance. Fulbright already has hers, so now she wants the liberties of everyone around her restricted (and of course, it's because she knows what's best for you). Just like a locust: swarm in, consume everything, render a location barren, then move on to the next better spot.

There is absolutely no good reason to cater to the whims of people like this or apologize to them for your own beliefs and way of life. The best thing you can do is exactly what Rep. Hunt did: tell the locust voter to go pound sand.

Doing so might convince the locust voter to move on (doubtful, but it's worth a try). It can also attract the opposite of the locust voter: individuals who relocate to places not so they can begin clamping down on the liberties of their neighbors, but so they can enjoy living their own lives and leave others to do the same. These types of people don't come in looking to limit possibilities (opportunity), and in so doing the result is that possibilities flourish. If you can keep those kinds of people coming to a particular location, you stand a chance of repelling the locusts.

Washington House Bill 1588: Walsh Now Says "No"

2013-02-20T19:09:00.000-08:00

This email just now hit my inbox, so to be fair to Rep. Maureen Walsh in light of what I've written about her recently on my blog, here's what she has to say:

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Like you, I am shocked and saddened by the murders that have occurred in our country. The slaughter of innocent children in Newtown, Conn. still continues to haunt me as my heart aches for the families of the victims. People suffering with mental illness are responsible for these horrific deaths, and no legislation will ever be able to prevent all of them.

The state Legislature is carefully considering several approaches to addressing gaps in our current laws that could help prevent some of these mass shootings. School and public safety is the goal, and there are many facets to the cause of these horrific events. Mental health is certainly a component, as well as a lack of enforcing our current laws.

As many of you know, I did sign on to House Bill 1588 with the belief that it simply addressed an inequity (loophole) in the law concerning background checks at some gun shows. Although the bill has been amended to address some of the concerns of gun owners across the state, I have really come to realize that no legislation will ever address the criminal element as far as guns are concerned. Thus the bill only targets (no pun intended) lawful gun owners and the application of the law would not be logical. I will not be supporting the bill and thank everyone who wrote to me with their concerns. Your comments were very helpful to me in discerning this issue. I am honored to serve as your state representative.

Sincerely,

Maureen Walsh"

That's better.

Still though, I have to wonder how "careful" the consideration is that Rep. Walsh claims is being given to proposed laws seeking to infringe on our inherent right to self-defense, and its natural, logical expression, the ability to possess the common weapons of the day (to be more direct, being able to possess the same weapons in common use by the government's forces). By her own admission she signed onto a bill that she later realized would only target lawful gun owners, which she describes as "not logical." How careful is that? Further, what principle is involved here? Is it that the natural rights of sovereign citizens were being assaulted, and that this is simply wrong, or is it that this would have cost too many votes for her to be returned to Olympia again in two years?

In any case, it's good to know that the votes for WA HB 1588 just decreased by at least one, hopefully to be followed by many more defections in the days to come. I'll choose to be happy about that for now (I'll be feeling great after it fails). However, I think it prudent to remain skeptical of Rep. Walsh in terms of her worthiness of my vote next time around (and I may still buy something from Onion World between now and then, we'll see). Rep. Walsh has gotten it very right on big matters of individual liberty before, so the disconnect between those principles she acted on then and this present example are puzzling. Whether an action such as this is accidental or intentional, the damage it can do is the same. A move like this on something so fundamental to individual liberty by an elected representative warrants keeping a very close eye on them going forward in order to be sure that they truly are qualified - intellectually, philosophically, and morally - to be entrusted as a steward of our liberties.

WA HB 1588 Survives Committee, Goes To House Floor

2013-02-19T23:18:00.000-08:00

An update to what I wrote previously about Washington House Bill 1588, a "universal" background check bill:

The bill made it through committee today, receiving 7 votes for to 6 opposed. The history and text of the bill can be found here.

As I said before, one of my House reps, Maureen Walsh, owner of Onion World, is a cosponsor of the bill. I'll repeat what I've said about her in regard to this bill: she has lost my support in any future campaign for elected office she might undertake, and I will never again patronize her business. Anti-liberty statists like her do not deserve my support in any form.

My other House rep, Terry Nealey, voted against the bill in committee. I wrote to thank him for that and to encourage him to repeat his "no" vote on the House floor.

There are 38 sponsors of this bill. In the House there are 98 representatives. 50 votes on any bill is a majority. If the 38 sponsors of this bill can be counted as "yes" votes, then this vile trash is only 12 votes away from passing the House.

This is a universal gun registration bill.

I did not type that by mistake. I'll repeat: THIS IS A UNIVERSAL GUN REGISTRATION BILL. The bill is for universal background checks and contains no language calling for universal registration. However, it cannot work without universal registration. Why? It's simple. Thirteen words defeat the whole thing:

"I've owned all of my firearms since before the law was passed, officer."

There is no need for anyone to comply with this law when conducting a private sale/purchase of a firearm simply by not seeking the background check and not reporting the sale. Anyone found to be in possession of a firearm would need only to claim ownership of it since before the passage of this bill, if it does pass. Absent a complete record of who owns what in this state, there isn't a way to prove that you purchased the weapon(s) in question privately after the law was passed.

There is no way that these treasonous legislators who sponsored this monstrosity will allow that to happen. These would-be tyrants are not going to let this kind of control slip through their fingers so easily.

If you care about your 2nd amendment and your Article 1, Section 24 rights (click here if you've never heard of that one before, especially if you live in Washington), start writing your state representatives and your senator NOW. You can find yours here.

How To Defeat Five Men When You're A 65-Year-Old Woman, Unless WA HB 1588 Stops You, and Goodbye Onion World

2013-02-10T18:26:00.000-08:00

It's simple: own and use a firearm.

Meanwhile, in my state, Washington, and despite what our state constitution says on the matter of firearm ownership:

Article I - Section 24 - Right to Bear Arms
The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.

...one of my state House reps, Maureen Walsh, is currently an active participant in an attempt to impair our right to bear arms. She is a co-sponsor of Washington House Bill 1588, which seeks to establish a "universal" background check system. This bill would criminalize the transfer of firearms between private parties without the purchaser first undergoing a background check, even including such absurdities as requiring a grandparent to not give a hunting rifle to a grandson or granddaughter unless they get a background check first! Those of us with valid concealed pistol licenses would see our privilege of same-day possession of newly purchased firearms stripped from us, too, as we would have to wait for processing of background checks that we have already passed! And, to add insult to injury, it will cost $20 EVERY TIME to have one of these checks run on us.

In short, if this bill becomes law, it will universally hinder the ability of law abiding citizens of Washington state to exercise our inherent right to self defense, and the natural extension of that, the right to keep and bear arms. Criminals, on the other hand, will universally ignore the law. Anti-liberty politicians, Rep. Walsh included, are attempting to make us pay to exercise a right. Does this remind you of similar terrible policies of the past that were designed to economically disenfranchise people from the exercise of their rights?

Unless Rep. Walsh withdraws her support for this bill, then I am withdrawing my support from her. I will not vote for her again and I will actively support her primary opponents in the next election. Additionally, the last time I purchased a sausage from her business, Onion World, will become the last time I ever do so again, too. I'm not going to hand my hard-earned money over to someone who uses the support my capital provides to launch attacks on my rights, someone who harasses the law abiding to the benefit of criminals. Unless it turns out that they're on the same page as Rep. Walsh, I'll bring my business to her competitors from now on instead.

For those in Washington state who are concerned about these assaults on our liberties, here is some further information on people in our state government that you can contact about this terrible bill. The committee the bill is in front of at present will be holding a hearing on it this Wednesday, February 13th, at 8am. We have between now and then to let the members of the committee know what a horrible thing HB 1588 is.

The Choice, Summarized

2013-02-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

Fun With Precedent

2013-02-05T09:43:00.001-08:00

White House: Don't Photoshop President's Skeet Shooting Photo

2013-02-03T02:03:00.000-08:00

Digital Journal: Surge of edited Obama photos after White House says 'don't edit'

"In order to insure the photo was used for its intended purpose, (to provide proof of the president's skeet shooting) the White House released the following statement along with the photo: "This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photography may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House."

ok.

The Learned Sergeant on the 2nd Amendment

2013-02-01T15:13:00.002-08:00

A buddy of mine, Jefferson Ragnar Griffeath, who blogs under the nom de typetype, The Learned Sergeant, put up a two-part post on the true nature of the 2nd amendment of the U.S. Constitution:

It is telling that those same men that seem to think it’s okay to control and micromanage our lives, in effect, people who think they OWN you are the same people WHO WANT TO TAKE THE VERY FIREARMS YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DEFEND YOURSELF FROM THEM WITH. Of course your oppressor wants to keep you unarmed.

And, as a bonus, his post highlights an important fact that people with the "red team vs. blue team" mentality about U.S. politics consistently fail to understand: whether republican or democrat, statists gonna state.

Read JR's first piece here.

Read JR's second piece here.

Watch FPSRussia shoot some stuff with a remote-controlled helicopter here:

It's Good To Buy The King?

2013-01-30T22:55:00.000-08:00

Recently I decided to shuffle my retirement accounts somewhat. A mutual fund company I have kept an IRA with made some changes to their investment policies that I'm not particularly interested in (it's not bad stuff, it's just not a strategy that I'm using). Rather than move the funds to another mutual fund company, I've decided to put them into a brokerage account, which will give me the option of purchasing individual company stocks instead.

I'm a big fan of mechanical investing/trading systems, those being strategies that generate buy and sell signals based on simple criteria. I like these methods because, while they're not perfect, they help to avoid something I consider to be far worse: analysis paralysis.

There's also the time factor. Any approach to investing you can cite other than a mechanical method will probably consume a lot of one's time. I also consider this to be a bad thing because one's time is finite, so the quicker an effective strategy can be, the better.

Recently Cappy linked to an article that discussed this (among other things): Do This Instead of Investing Your Money...

Phil, for example, a very wealthy friend in his 40s, is an expert in municipal bond investing. But he didn’t become wealthy by investing in bonds. He got wealthy as a marketing and Internet entrepreneur and by leveraging some debts and eliminating others. Nowadays, he buys and sells bonds – but he spends only a few hours a month on it. For Phil, investing is a part-time way to increase the value of his savings. It is not – and never has been – his primary road to wealth.

It’s the same with all my millionaire friends. They all have their own investment preferences and practices. But like Phil, none of them spends more than a small portion of his working time on investing.

To paraphrase the article: work at increasing your income, keep dept in check, and put your surpluses to work for you. Just be sure that managing your surpluses (investing your cash) doesn't end up working you. Mechanical investing methods can be how you do this.

For years I've been intrigued by one such method, the Dogs of the Dow strategy. Simply stated, to use this strategy you buy the ten highest yielding stocks of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, hold them for one year, then sell any that are no longer among the ten, replacing them with whichever companies have moved onto the list. As far as annual returns go, this strategy does fairly well.

This certainly fits my criteria for being mechanical and simple, but it leaves out something that I think is important: rising dividends. Good, strong companies are able to raise their dividend payouts over time so as to return increasing amounts of cash to their shareholders. Thus, the yield on a particular stock can vary from investor to investor, depending on when each of them purchased their shares. For example: two people own Coca Cola stock. The first just got her shares and enjoys a 2.8% yield. The other investor had a lower yield when he bought his, 2.69%. However, he bought his shares in 1988 and held them so that now his yield on his cost is 33.69% annually (and that doesn't include the appreciated value of his shares).

You lose that if you sell, for once the order goes through, you're back to cash and your yield is zero. That's my big gripe with the Dogs. There's also the not-so-small point that by the Dogs methodology, a stock gets onto the buy list because it has a relatively high yield. That's something that can happen simply because of fluctuations in the price of the company's shares, which can occur even if the dividend is stagnant. If a company is not raising its dividend consistently, then you might as well just buy a bond.

Enter the Dividend Aristocrats.

I won't lay out what the Dividend Aristocrats are - I've linked to a definition of that so you can read it there. Unlike the Dogs, which qualify as buys simply due to a momentary yield, the Aristocrats only get to be on the list after having raised dividends consistently for twenty-five years and regardless of what their yields are. That's no guarantee that they always will, but it's a better place to start.

So then I could use that list instead of the Dogs list and handle it the same way, by picking the top ten as of now, hold them for a year, and adjust my holdings once each year. But, as I said, I don't want to do that because then I don't get to participate in what makes the Aristocrats what they are, companies that tend to pay their shareholders more over time.

Instead, I'm considering buying the top however many Aristocrats, then holding them indefinitely, unless any one of them cuts their dividend. Instead of selling positions that leave the top ten each year, I'll simply stop buying more of them until they return to the top, and instead begin building positions in the companies that have moved up the list.

But then I wonder, how many of "the top" should I buy? Ten is an arbitrary number. So would be nine, eight, seven, etc. But there's one number that isn't arbitrary: #1.

Why not just go right to the top of the list, buy up as much of the highest yielding Aristocrat at that moment (the "King," if you will) as I can, hold it, and in subsequent quarters, years, etc. buy up whatever other Aristocrats that in turn eventually take the top spot?

There's numerous reasons I'm aware of that some would advise against doing this, not the least of which is the possibility that something has a momentarily high yield because the underlying fundamentals of the business are crashing - a yield is only a stated yield and not an actual yield until it is paid; a stock going down in flames can suddenly gain a high yield simply because the board of directors has not yet announced a dividend cut from the prior level. This wouldn't create a diversified portfolio (at first), the value of the principal could fluctuate wildly due to being concentrated in so few positions, etc.

It's all just ideas for now. Like I said at the beginning, I like the time and effort that mechanical investing methods can save a person, but that doesn't mean that some time and effort isn't involved in getting them started. There needs to be a little thought put into the system before launching it, but if done right, the bulk of the effort should be up-front with subsequent maintenance of the strategy being relatively easy, leaving you free to get back to other stuff. In any case, the "alternative" - not thinking about it at all - doesn't work out so well:

Unintended Consequences

2013-01-29T15:24:00.003-08:00

If You Don't Need A Gun Because We Have Police...

2013-01-26T21:55:00.000-08:00

...then you don't need these either.

Really, leave it up to the professionals. You'll probably just squirt your eye out.

How Feinstein Will Make Iran Rich

2013-01-24T23:04:00.000-08:00

Senator Diane Feinstein, one of Commiefornia's seemingly undead representatives to the Federal government, today unveiled her latest attempt to undermine the U.S. Constitution that she has many times falsely sworn to uphold. As the headlines have it:

Feinstein: Goal is to Dry Up the Supply Of Weapons Over Time

What exactly does that mean?

"New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy expressed a similar sentiment saying, 'If they’re [assault weapons] not in the stores, they can’t be bought.'"

Presumably, there simply won't be any more evil black guns for sale, existing ones will wear out and break, and magically there won't be any at all!

The stupidity of these two (and others) on this issue is very similar to how this same crowd views taxation. I wrote something about that almost exactly one year ago today, a post about tax windfalls people like these two think they can count on simply because they've raised tax rates.

Obviously taxation and gun control are two different topics, but in both cases the people who come up with this crap always forget the most important thing: people react!

If you raise taxes, past a certain point people will stop ignoring it and begin avoiding them (which is what that post from a year ago is about), and projected revenue from an increase of X percent never materializes. You don't get the result you want from a dynamic environment simply because you've made a rule! When it comes to firearms, if you try to prevent them from being available in one place, and if people still want them, they'll be made available somewhere else and people will still have them.

Drugs, anyone?

Ban all you want, Feinstein, we will still have guns, and lots of them. See, much like the myopic "thinking" that goes into those tax proposals, your ideas about making guns just go away ignores the simple fact that anything you try to ban can be made anywhere else in the world! (And, just because you've banned something, that doesn't mean you've eliminated demand for it.) Somewhere else on the globe, someone will step up to produce the firearms that we still want, and there's a good chance that some of those folks won't give a damn about smuggling them into the U.S.

Like Iran:

A Trail of Bullet Casings Leads From Africa’s Wars Back to Iran

For six years, a group of independent arms-trafficking researchers worked to pin down the source of the mystery cartridges. Exchanging information from four continents, they concluded that someone had been quietly funneling rifle and machine-gun ammunition into regions of protracted conflict, and had managed to elude exposure for years. Their only goal was to solve the mystery, not implicate any specific nation.

When the investigators’ breakthrough came, it carried a surprise. The manufacturer was not one of Africa’s usual suspects. It was Iran.

Iran has a well-developed military manufacturing sector, but has not exported its weapons in quantities rivaling those of the heavyweights in the global arms trade, including the United States, Russia, China and several European countries. But its export choices in this case were significant...

...And for the past several years, even as Iran faced intensive foreign scrutiny over its nuclear program and for supporting proxies across the Middle East, its state-manufactured ammunition was distributed through secretive networks to a long list of combatants, including in regions under United Nations arms embargoes.

That's just one example from another continent and a different entity trying to ban an activity, but the idea is the same: somewhere, people want arms and ammunition, someone else meets that demand. There are rules in place that forbid the trade, but the folks meeting the demand find ways around the barriers and the people who want the goods don't care how they got there. Besides Iran, there are no doubt others out there that would be only too happy to keep us well-supplied with small arms and ammunition. Many of them are probably just as despicable as the regime that rules Iran, and thanks to idiots like you, Feinstein, they'll be that much wealthier.

Japanese Finance Minister: Government Should Let Old People 'Hurry Up And Die'

2013-01-22T16:54:00.002-08:00

"Japan's finance minister Taro Aso said Monday the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" instead of costing the government money for end-of-life medical care.

Aso, who also doubles as deputy prime minister, reportedly said during a meeting of the National Council on Social Security Reforms: "Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die. You cannot sleep well when you think it's all paid by the government."

Read the complete Business Insider article here.

The article I've quoted and linked to goes on to describe Aso's statements as him "putting his foot in his mouth." Really? I don't think so. Then again, I'm not a politician who will say anything and/or hide any truth so as to cling to power.

This is the truth. The longer people live who do not have their own funds with which to do so, the longer someone else must pay for them to exist. The only real problem with Aso's statement, unless Japanese culture is very different in this regard, is that hardly anyone loses sleep over "the government" paying for the prolonging of their metabolic functioning (as opposed to their life - two very different things). In the minds of most people "the government" is some sort of real entity separate from the individuals who make it up, and the individuals it forcibly extracts resources from. This reification of an abstract allows many to carry on being supported by theft without experiencing a shred of guilt.

Aso's statements also reveal a further bit of truth, and that is the nature of the relationship between an individual and a collectivist society: if you're not an asset, you're a liability.

Don't fool yourself into believing that this only applies to the elderly.

A Double-Edged Sword

2013-01-22T09:09:00.000-08:00

Funny!

Truth is, however, that this isn't how it would go in real life. Many (if not most) of the "laws" enacted in D.C. only apply to us commoners.

Utah Sheriffs' Association to the President: Molon Labe!

2013-01-21T16:11:00.001-08:00

"We respect the Office of the President of the United States of America. But, make no mistake, as the duly-elected sheriffs of our respective counties, we will enforce the rights guaranteed to our citizens by the Constitution. No federal official will be permitted to descend upon our constituents and take from them what the Bill of Rights—in particular Amendment II—has given them. We, like you, swore a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and we are prepared to trade our lives for the preservation of its traditional interpretation." [emphasis mine]

-- Utah Sheriffs' Association

17 January 2013

Come And Take Them, If You Can; We'll Print More

2013-01-19T16:14:00.000-08:00

"This project might change the way we think about gun control and consumption. How do governments behave if they must one day operate on the assumption that any and every citizen has near instant access to a firearm through the Internet? Let’s find out."

-- Defense Distributed

Forbes: Gunsmiths 3D-Print High Capacity Ammo Clips To Thwart Proposed Gun Laws

"Five months ago, the group of homemade gun enthusiasts known as Defense Distributed set out to create a lethal firearm that could be downloaded and 3D-printed entirely from scratch, circumventing all gun control laws. But as new gun bills have been proposed in the wake of recent shootings, creating a bootleg weapon with digital pieces may soon be far easier: As simple as printing a spring-loaded plastic box.

Over the past weekend, Defense Distributed successfully 3D-printed and tested an ammunition magazine for an AR semi-automatic rifle, loading and firing 86 rounds from the 30-round clip."

A fully functional 3D-printed firearm is still a ways off, but a while ago not even a functioning 3D-printed magazine was possible to make. The technology is on its way. This is a good thing.

As per the quote at the top of this post, that's what it's all about. Despite what the anti-gun crowd thinks, that the 2nd amendment is what gives us our right to keep and bear arms (it does not, it merely describes a right that we naturally possess, and exists to restrict governments from impairing that right) and can be legislated away, and that it's really all just about hunting deer, the truth is that our ability to possess arms is to have the means to resist tyrannical governments.

There's a quote out there often attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When people fear the government, there is tyranny." There's some debate as to whether or not Jefferson actually said that. Much like the anti-gunners that think they really have something because memes attributing total gun control to Hitler are historically inaccurate, they would probably foam at their liberty-hating mouths if they discovered that this is in fact an incorrectly attributed quote.

That's what the lazy thinkers that populate the statist ranks love to do, catch people on trivial technicalities and substitute that for independent thought and truth (not to mention superficially reading the Constitution and concluding from that all kinds of restrictions on us that do not exist). So Hitler didn't disarm everyone, and in fact did enact firearms laws in Germany that actually expanded ownership. Great, right? That means supporters of the 2nd are wrong and you can go on your merry, brain dead statist way. Except for one thing: Jewish people were not included in those relatively more liberal firearms laws, nor were people in lands conquered by the Nazis. We know how that ended up.

As for the Jefferson quote, would it not be true if it were someone else who said it? Of course, it still would be. Government's power correctly comes from the consent of the governed. Governments do not always remain legitimate, as history has shown again and again, instead becoming an entity staffed by individuals who see government as an end in itself, something that exists for its own sake. Such governments derive their power from what force they are able to wield. Then, what government wants (really, what the individuals who happen to make up the government want) becomes what the government gets. Whatever stands in its way simply gets moved (or eliminated).

In a nation dominated by such a government, one that has turned rotten and corrupt, what you want in life simply does not matter. The priorities and goals for "the nation," "the people," "society," etc. identified by the elites in charge take precedence. You become the muscle that will be used to achieve those visions. It won't matter if you happen to agree or if you do not, the choice will not be yours. If you are deemed to be too troublesome, too much of an impediment to the achievement of the elite's goals, then you'll have to go.

Naturally, such a government cannot tolerate any rival power, and it will not so long as the rival power is weaker. At the first available opportunity, that government will attack the smaller, weaker rival and attempt to eliminate it.

“If [a firearm technology] is used by law enforcement or military, you can bet they say it shouldn’t be used by you.”

-- Cody Wilson, Founder, Defense Distributed

For now, possession of firearms is our ultimate backstop against our own government turning all-out tyrannical. Even so, look at how they treat us with contempt! They pass laws and create agencies that seek to harass us in our day-to-day lives. They have taken to demanding that we buy certain products as a condition of being alive. They create regulations "for our own good, for our protection" that limit the average person's opportunities while preserving their own. They swear oaths to uphold our Constitution, and then they openly mock it and seek ways to circumvent it. They constantly seek ways to undermine the integrity of our elections so as to further cement themselves in power. They recklessly incur greater and greater amounts of debt that they then demand that we repay, even as the amount becomes so large that it cannot be repaid. The list goes on.

Think it's bad now? Further restrict private firearm ownership, or even eliminate it all together. How much better behaved do you think they'll be then?

That's the beauty of this new technology. Right now, production of firearms is more or less a centralized activity - there are only so many manufacturers in the world, after all. The fewer points of production that exist, the easier it is to shut them down. Limited production also increases the cost of the end product, especially if it is in high demand.

What if the points of production literally became almost everywhere, all at once, and it were impossible to find them all?

The answer: power, in the form of physical force, becomes more widely distributed and therefore more balanced. A rotten government bent on total centralization of its power will do so to the extent that it can use its available force unopposed (relatively speaking). The greater the extent that force can be centralized, the easier it will be for said government to dominate its subjects. Conversely, the greater the extent that power in the form of physical force can be decentralized, the ability of any government, gang, mob, etc. to dominate becomes less, even eliminated. They are then returned to their proper place: allowed to exist and deriving power only by the consent of the governed.

I look forward to the continued development and success of Defense Distributed's work. This technology cannot get here soon enough.

Hey, Kid, You Pick Up The Tab

2013-01-18T23:37:00.000-08:00

Fast and Furiously Funny

2013-01-18T15:48:00.001-08:00

Ruger Firearms: Take Action Now!

2013-01-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

Ruger Firearms has created a website through which you can send emails in support of your 2nd amendment rights to all of your elected representatives, from the Office of The President all the way down to your local representatives to your state government. It takes less than two minutes.

http://ruger.com/micros/advocacy/takeAction.html

Forex Stuff: Japan’s Economic Stimulus Plan

2013-01-17T08:09:00.000-08:00

Japan's Economic Stimulus Plan

"The government’s latest plan is not all about stimulus spending though. Pressure on the Bank of Japan (BoJ) to become more aggressive in its approach to monetary policy is immense. Indeed, the recent election was seen by many as a vote on this issue. Abe, having won, wants the BoJ to take a much more aggressive monetary policy stance (the BoJ’s balance sheet has grown little since 2006). These include setting a higher inflation target of 2%, focusing partially on employment on top of inflation, and actively intervening in the value of the Yen.

Under threat of legislative reform to its structure and operations, the Bank of Japan has already indicated that it will heed Abe’s instructions on the inflation target, even if institutionally BoJ officials feel that demographics, not monetary policy, lie behind Japan’s chronic deflationary trends."

I heard of this yesterday morning over my work rig's radio, that the Japanese government under the direction of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, was pledging to further devalue the Yen by 2%. So, while hurtling down I-84 in thousands of pounds of 6.5L diesel-powered steel at 70 miles per hour, I tapped an order into my Android phone and bought the USD/JPY cross. Technology is fun. :)

As of this morning and as I type this, that trade is up 8.94%, with a small portion of the profit locked in with a stop-loss order; can't lose now!

This has to be the easiest, laziest way to trade Forex that I know of: listen for the Japanese government to promise to debase the Yen, then get in and wait because they will deliver on that promise.

Gun Control Explained

2013-01-16T21:05:00.001-08:00

I'm tired after a long day on the road doing pest control stuff, so instead of attempting to write a whole bunch, here's a pic that explains why the obsession over firearm magazine size is dumb:

I think the people who buy into this crap must think that a shooter can't just... oh, I don't know... carry more than one magazine?!

Let's say there were such a thing as a 3,000,000 round magazine. It wouldn't do the shooter much good if he/she fired a few rounds off and was then killed when someone fired back; the remaining rounds can't fire themselves. Take firearms away from good people who would attack the shooter, reduce the number of people who can fire back, and the shooter can use up that whole magazine...

(by the way - I have no idea who made this pic, I found it on Facebook. Credit to whomever it was, don't credit it to me if you decide to share it from here.)

NRD: Obama's default threat bluff

2013-01-15T20:02:00.002-08:00

Have you heard the President saying lately that Social Security and veteran benefit payments won't be made unless Congress agrees to raise the debt ceiling again? Probably, if you pay attention to the news even a little bit.

Turns out, he's only half lying.

It's true that those payments might not go out if the debt ceiling stays where it is right now (and I hope you at least realize that this exposes the big lie about the existence of the Social Security trust fund...).

What's not true is that there isn't any money to pay most of the bills:

"Out of the $2.8 trillion of annual revenue the White House expects in 2013, only about $360 billion, or $30 billion monthly, will go to paying gross interest on the debt.

That means even if the debt ceiling were reached, the government could still refinance existing debt up to the limit, and would have ample revenue to pay interest out. So, there would be no need to default.

In fact, in addition to paying interest, there would be enough revenue to pay out Social Security ($820 billion), Medicare ($564 billion), defense ($700 billion), and veterans’ benefits ($79.5 billion).

Even after that, if the Administration’s estimate of revenue in 2013 proved correct, there would still be $600 billion left over to spend on other items."

So what's the great need to blow up the national credit card even more? According to the Treasury, it's because no one has told them exactly what to do:

"So, why default? Because the Treasury views that it lacks the statutory authority to prioritize payments, according to a recent Inspector General’s report.

“While Congress enacted these expenditures, it did not prioritize them, nor did it direct the President or the Treasury to pay some expenses and not pay others,” the report states. “As a result, Treasury officials determined that there is no fair or sensible way to pick and choose among the many bills that come due every day. Furthermore, because Congress has never provided guidance to the contrary, Treasury’s systems are designed to make each payment in the order it comes due.”

I think I'm going to try this one of these days. I'm going to call up my creditors and say, "well, I don't have a spending plan that establishes a hierarchy of priority for paying my bills, and my cash flow came up $1 short this month, so instead of paying anything, I'm not going to pay any of you. Give me more credit."

Think they'll go for it?

The solution here is simple. Congress needs to pass a law prioritizing the items that are in the budgets it passes, which the Treasury can then follow. That would also force Congress to actually think about what the Federal government should and should not spend our money on. This "all or nothing" approach is shockingly moronic and it is leading us deeper and deeper into debt.

Of course, if they did that, then politicians couldn't run around threatening grandma. Can't have that.

Click here for the full NRD article.