Furry Not-So MREs

Venezuelans are eating pets and pigeons.

I would not be surprised to see the same thing in the States in the not-too-distant future.  Venezuela was flush with oil money which its tyrannical socialist government squandered through corruption and incompetence.

The last thirty years have pushed us closer and closer to the brink here, as well.  We have more parasites than producers.  The only way the producers win a national election is if the parasites are too lazy to go vote for a living.

On the bright side, the rat problem in NYC will be resolved, and the goose poop in the parks will be thinned down some.

The continued destruction of the middle-class is assured if Clinton is elected, likely even in the event Trump prevails.

If it does go down that way here, I hope they keep it in the cities or wait until I'm dead.  I really don't want to have to kill people who do stupid things because they are stupid and hungry on top of it.

0 Days Since Last Islamic Terror Attack

At a church in Normandy during Mass, hostages are taken at knife-point, and a priest was ritually beheaded.

I wonder who could have carried out since a barbaric act of blasphemous violence? 

More blood on the hands of the invader-hugging Pope and the self-serving politicians of the EU.

Somehow It Is the NRA's Fault

I don't feel like setting up the links now because they have been in the news.  We know that Germany has suffered three attacks by deranged Muslims, a couple of whom were refugees, in the last few days.  The first shooter was a German-born Iranian with a history of mental health issues.  He lured children into a McDonald's on the anniversary of Brevik's murderous rampage.  Though he would not have been able to obtain a firearm legally, he, nevertheless, managed to arm himself with a Glock 9mm that had no serial numbers. 

Did the fairly strict German gun laws manage to keep a homocidial maniac from acquiring a weapon?  Or did they merely disarm sane, law-abiding Germans? 

Those laws certainly made it easy and safe for the next attacker -- a Syrian refugee -- to carry out his attack.  He hacked a pregnant woman to death with a machete without fear of being shot by law-abiding German citizens.

Nor was the third attempted attack by a soon-to-be deported Syrian refugee foiled by gun laws.  He blew himself up after being refused entry to some event where he could have killed many others. 

Explosives, a machete, an illegal firearm from the underground, a madman does not fear statutes or the legal system, and his schemes are not hampered by the rhetoric of the political class. 

America is a very diverse nation.  We have a violent history.  We have lots and lots of guns. 

There are also 350 million of us.  That we have more "mass shootings" than Germany with its 80 million and France with its 64 million combined is hardly surprising.  That most of our "mass shootings" take place in the urban centers of Chicago, East St. Louis, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., is also not terribly surprising.  Take out the urban centers with their majority black populations, and America drops way down the list in terms of per capita homocides by firearms.

New Toy

I understand there is some kind of national circus going on this week in Cleveland.  It would be difficult for me to care less. 

This is not going to be a review because I just haven't had time to do anything with it.  I have too many things going on. 

The AR-556 is the low-end Ruger -- runs around $700.  My nephew bought an AR-556 a few months ago.   He has put a scope on his.  I've shot it.  His trigger is horrible.  The trigger on mine is merely heavy.  I could probably learn to live with it.  Whether I will or not is another question. 

I need to go buy some bulk ammo and get used to the sights. 

The Ruger is a standard, modular design, so anything I can't stand can be replaced. 

I never thought I would get one of these.  At this point, I am not particularly happy or unhappy with it, except for the fact that the ruling class doesn't want me to have it at all.  In that regard, I do feel good. 

I am not going to hunt deer, turkey, or coyotes with it -- though I could.  I don't really have a purpose for it or even a niche, but it fits in the safe, and I have it.

They are fun to shoot.  So there is that.

Commonsense Muslim Control

My prayers are with the French citizens murdered on their national holiday.

It is true that these innocents were murdered by a religious fanatic, but they were also the victims of an open-borders policy by their government and the European Union.

There is not much else to say.  It is getting harder and harder to be shocked that Muslims commit horrific acts of violence.

At this point, the crucial issue for all western nations is immigration.  If you want your nation turned into a third-world dungheap, if you do not want a middle-class, if you want your country to be run by a corrupt oligarchy, if you want constant violence, loss of liberty, and an all-seeing surveillance state then you should be a champion of open borders and unrestricted immigration.

The rest of us believe that good fences do make good neighbors.  We believe that potential immigrants should be willing to assimilate rather than annihilate our existing culture. We are unwilling to be replaced at the whim of the ruling elite.

Fly Little Butterfly

I have reviewed Bear & Sons aka Bear Manufacturing knives before.  I have a trapper folder that I like a lot, as well as a neck knife, and I wrote about the mods I had to make to the sheath (still working fine).

About three weeks ago, I was out for a drive in the country with a friend.  We stopped by an out-of-the-way antique mall place.  Neither of us saw anything of much interest until we were on the way out.  The store had new knives of various kinds by the register.  My friend has wondered about butterfly knives since seeing one in a movie a while back and noted one in the case.  I noticed the maker and, in yet another impulse buy, decided to buy it. 

I thought of butterfly knives as a novelty item.  This particular Bear Manufacturing version is very solid and makes a pretty good everyday carry, general purpose tool.  I was pleasantly surprised. 

Let's talk about dimensions.  Folded -- just under five and a quarter inches.  Open and locked -- there's a toggle that locks the wings both closed and open -- 9 inches.  The cutting edge of the clip point blade is 3 1/2", tip to guard is just under 4".  The spine is a very solid 1/8" (3mm) and the material is Bear & Sons high-carbon stainless. 

I don't know the composition of the steel, but it sharpens up nicely, and, so far, it has held the edge well.  Admittedly I have not had time to do any serious cutting work with it. 

The knife looks great and has a good feel.  As I said, I am impressed by how solid it feels.  It tends to inspire confidence.  I'm not going to be doing any of the fast and fancy moves that you might see done with these knives in videos, but I do have fun flipping it around and playing with it.  I've only slashed a finger once to this point. 

Because of the sturdiness, weight, and closed length, a person would not even have to open the knife to benefit from its presence in the hand during an intense, close-range social encounter.  I think it would stand up to use as a serious weapon if such an encounter were to become potentially lethal.

I have been carrying it as a backup, hip-pocket blade when out on one of my bikes.  I'll probably continue to do that.

One of these days the grandkids are going to have a really good time figuring out who gets which of the old man's blades.  Nobody will have to end up with just one.

If you are like me, you're probably getting all the news and politics you could possibly want, so I have another knife review coming in the next few days -- if things work out.  I recently got a couple of nice-looking custom fixed blades from a knife maker in a neighboring state that I want to show off. 

After that, I may have a new firearm to review.  We'll see how it goes.

Again, on the Streets of Dallas

I’ve been to the old Schoolbook Depository in Dallas and looked out the window from which, we are told, Oswald shot Kennedy.  I have walked around Dealey Plaza and up on the Grassy Knoll.  Hundreds of times, I have driven by downtown Dallas, only occasionally recalling the tragedy that was acted out there. 

There was more tragedy on those streets last night.  I am saddened by the loss of life.  I pray for the families of the fallen officers and for those who were injured. 

I support the police in general.  That is, as agents of law and order, they are agents of civilization.  I support that.  I have been helped by the police a few times.  I have been harassed a time or two as well.  I like some individual law enforcement officers – I’ve even been friends with a few.  I don’t like the direction law enforcement has taken in this country. 

I don’t like a militarized police, police as an occupation force, or police referring to the rest of us as “civilians”.  Police officers are paid, in my opinion, to put themselves in harm’s way and to take risks that the rest of us do not routinely have to take.  For that, they should be respected.  They should also be held to a higher standard of behavior than the ordinary citizen.  A police officer who shoots a person who is not a threat deserves to be severely punished. 

There were something over five hundred individuals shot and killed by police officers last year.  Roughly half those killed were white.  I would guess that a very high percentage of the shooting were completely and unequivocally justified.  Based on what I have seen of the Minnesota shooting, that one was not justified.  The police officer who pulled the trigger four times on Philando Castile is a murderer. 

People of all races have a right to be angry about that shooting and probably about some of the others that have taken place.  If we don’t put a stop to this, the cops will become little more than uniformed gangs.  We have a police-prison complex that feeds parasitically off taxpayer dollars, requiring a bigger fix every year to keep the public “safe”.  Much of the “criminal” problem comes from Prohibition-style drug laws.  The more things that are made illegal, the more criminals there will be.

A bad man dressed in a police officer’s uniform did a bad thing in a Minneapolis suburb.  It’s possible a bad man in a uniform did a bad thing down in Baton Rouge.  Those individuals should be held accountable for their actions as individuals.  Evil can be given no excuse, and truth and justice should not be obscured by the color of one’s skin or the color of one’s clothes. 

Yet the divide our national leaders want to make is racial.  Obama has, time and again, sided with his tribe against whites.  The media and the political establishment have played up the acts of police officers in New York, Ferguson, Baltimore and other places – not necessarily because those acts were always unjustified, but because the people killed had dark skin.  Instead of having a discussion about and reform of police attitudes and procedures, they want to have a race war.

I am old enough to remember November 22, 1963.  I am also old enough to remember 1964, 1965, 1967, Harlem, Newark, Watts, and Detroit.  It is liable to get a lot worse, and, in my lifetime, it may never get better.      

Do I have an answer?   Long-term, yes, I do.  Tell the truth.  People are different.  They are different based on genetics as well as environment.  If we stop denying this and admit that we tend to get along better with those more like ourselves in various ways, we could go a long way to eliminating the tensions and conflicts of multiculturalism.  A more homogeneous society is a more peaceful society.  The globalists are wrong; the nationalists are right.  Stop wasting money trying to turn people with an average IQ of 89 into rocket scientists.  Stop turning young men into criminals through drug prohibition. Stop training paramilitary law enforcement officers and start training peace officers.  Give people local control of their own destinies.  Get rid of welfare and centralized, big government interference in peoples’ lives.

Short-term, no.  More blood is going to be shed, and it is going to be on the hands of those fomenting the Black Lives Matter agit-prop.   

Leftist Politician Lies about Rape

Shocking, I know.  A German politician who works with refugees was ambushed and sexually assaulted by three men.  She reported the rape but lied about the ethnicity of her attackers.  She claimed they were "German speakers".

Why would she do this?  She feared "backlash" against refugees.

This is much like what happened after the Orlando shooting here in the States.  God forbid the issue should be laid at the feet of the political religion that motivated it.  It is quite acceptable to condemn gunowners, to create a backlash against NRA members and "homophobic" Christians.

I can't imagine why the countries from which these invaders supposedly flee are such hellholes.  Could it be because they don't believe in the rule of law, free markets, free will, Christian values of human life and decency?

If you are oppressed by a sick culture/religion/political system, the way to be delivered from that oppression is to renounce it and divest yourself of it.  Your sick culture needs to be replaced by a healthy one.  This is called assimilation and is what it used to be required to become an American citizen.

What doesn't work is carrying the virus of Islamic fundamentalism, tribalism, or third-world criminality onto fresh dirt.    

What We Owe the Government

Nothing.

Kurt Schlichter explains it pretty well:

It is high time to declare our personal independence from any remnant of obligation to those who have spit upon the rule of law. We owe them nothing - not respect, not loyalty, not obedience.

He then explains, much as I did yesterday, why:

The idea of the rule of law today is a lie. There is no law. There is no justice. There are only lies. ... Only power matters ... 

Schlichter is angry and speaking the truth in the article at Townhall.  By all means, read it.

The trouble is that I am afraid Schlichter and those like him will change their tune if they were to get their kind of elitist elected.  Then everything would be hunky-dory, and we should be obedient little peons because the rule of law matters to "conservatives".

I could be wrong about Schlichter.  I certainly used to think that there were at least a few Republicans who were different.  I was wrong about that.

I will not encourage anyone to rebel or try to overthrow the federal government.  I will also not encourage anyone to break state or local laws.

Further, I will not encourage anyone to vote for any candidate for any federal office.

I will personally always obey all federal laws whenever I might get caught.

I do have a decal on my truck window that says, "I aim to misbehave",  and I am in the habit of doing as I please.   

Law and Outlaw

Unsurprisingly, the head of the FBI decided not to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton and her operatives to the Department of Injustice.  Lynch had already said she would accept the FBI recommendation – because, despite Comey’s denials – she knew what was coming and told Bill Clinton during their 30-minute meeting in his airplane last week.  To announce this decision on the day after our patriotic “Independence Day” celebrations is just one more slap in the face to people who believe in liberty. 

If you or I failed to do our best to protect classified documents, we would go to jail.

When the laws that apply to the citizens do not apply to their ruling class, we have a pretty good definition of tyranny.

 When the police operate under a different set of laws than the peasants, you have a police state. 

When laws can be selectively enforced by the whim of those in power, being a law-abiding citizen loses its meaning.

 

Or, perhaps, it changes its meaning.  To be law-abiding now means to be a subject, a slave to those who make the laws.  Everything the colonists objected to was a law.  Slavery was law.  Jim Crow was law.  Prohibition was law. 

Laws do not make things right.

Eminent domain is a law.  Seizure of property and freezing of assets without due process is the law.  Restrictions on ownership of firearms are laws.  Forcing people to buy insurance is the law.  The income tax is law.

Then sometimes we citizens make laws by petition and referendum in the states only to have them overturned by unelected judges in the federal courts.  The courts’ decisions then become law.

The problem the rulers face is always the same.  What happens when everyone is an outlaw?