Truth Revolt isn't necessarily the kind of site I recommend, and Gavin McInnes is more than a little off-putting, though he does have the good sense to agree with me much of the time. To explain why I am posting this link, then, I have to say that we will occasionally run across comments by people to the effect that if western countries would just stop invading Muslim countries and killing thousands of people, the Muslims would not be attacking us.
This is not true.
Say what you like about the followers of Christ, the Founder of Christianity is above reproach when it comes to advocating non-violence and acting virtuously. I cannot and will not put Mohammed on the same level. Islam appears to have been founded to establish an earthly kingdom by force where necessary. Elements of Islam, particularly in Sufism, have managed to transcend the political and the earthly. Most of Islam remains at war with those considered infidels. This is what we need to face.
Anyway, here is what McInnes has to say. Follow the link -- it may get blocked if you are at work -- and read the his entire argument (which includes some additional links). The slightly sanitized bottom line:
At this point, you start getting what editors call, “example
exhaustion.” After 10 examples of innocent countries being attacked by
Muslims, you start to go, “Okay, I get it. They don’t hate us because of
our foreign policy or Israel. They hate us because we are
non-believers.” Unfortunately, the Western world’s appetite for excuses
is as inexhaustible as the terrorist’s demands. Liberals refuse to blame
the extremists even when the extremists themselves are trying to take credit. We’ve become an Onion sketch.
If you really respect Islam, open your ears and listen to what it has
to say. It’s telling you to f*** off. Not because of what you’ve done
but because of what you believe. Appeasing them is not going to change
that. It’s going to fuel the fire. The only way we’re going to be able
to combat terrorism is to stop denying reality and accept that tolerance
of intolerance isn’t how we go forward. It’s how we go backward.
Updated to fix a typo and to add that I should have made the title of this post "The Tolerance of Intolerance".
I do not see much for Tuesday's elections. Around here, we have nothing going on in terms of battleground votes. My Republican Congressman couldn't lose if he was found drunk and naked in the gorilla cage at the zoo. At least he is not a lawyer. He was an auctioneer and local radio "personality". He's not a bad guy other than voting against shutting down the NSA, but I'm voting for whoever the Libertarian is.
I think the Republicans will pick up a few House seats, though I don't see that it will make much difference unless they pick a new speaker.
As far as the Senate races, I am baffled. Polls are only as good as their selection models. I suspect there are and more people like me who hang up on survey calls. I've done it several times over the last month or so. With the models being so inconsistent, I don't think the polls are reliable. I tend to think the Republicans get the majority in the Senate, but I would not be shocked if they didn't. The DNC may be overly optimistic about their net pick-up among governors. Pennsylvania and Florida are probably Democrat pick-ups, but they could conceivably lose Colorado.
I trust election results less and less, and, ultimately, I think the results of federal elections matter less and less. If there is anything good coming out of the election of Obama and the ensuing federal tyranny, it might be that more people have awakened to how dangerous the Beltway Behemoth really is. I hope so. I'd hate to think we put up with this idiot and failed to learn a thing.
In 1998, when Christeson was 18, he and a cousin broke into the home of Susan Brouk in rural Maries County, Missouri near the little town of Vichy on Highway 63, about ten miles north of where that road intersects I-44 at Rolla. The two men bound Brouk's 12-year-old daughter, Adrian, and 9-year-old son, Kyle. Christeson then raped Brouk in her daughter's bedroom.
Adrian recognized and identified Christeson's cousin, 17-year-old Jesse Carter. Christeson decided that they "had to get rid of" the family. Murderpedia gives the gruesome details:
At some point during the confrontation, Ms. Brouk and Kyle were both
struck in the head with a blunt object. ...
They forced Ms. Brouk and her children into the back seat of Ms.
Brouk's Bronco and also loaded her television, VCR, car stereo, video
game player, checkbook, and a few other small items. Christeson drove
down the highway, down a gravel road, and then across a neighbor's field
to a pond at the edge of a wooded area.
They forced Ms. Brouk and her children to the bank of the pond.
Christeson kicked Ms. Brouk just below her ribs with enough force that
she was knocked to the ground.
Christeson then placed his foot on her mid-section, and reached down
and cut her throat with a bone knife. She bled profusely, but she did
not die immediately, and as she lay on the bank of the pond, she told
Adrian and Kyle that she loved them.
Then Christeson cut Kyle's throat twice and held him under the pond
water until he drowned. Carter pushed Kyle's body farther out into the
pond so the body would sink.
At Christeson's direction, Carter retrieved cinder blocks from a
nearby barn, and while there, heard Christeson fire a shot from one of
the shotguns. When Carter returned to the pond, Adrian was struggling to
free herself from Christeson.
Carter held Adrian's feet while Christeson pressed down on her
throat until she suffocated, and Carter then pushed Adrian's body into
the pond. While Ms. Brouk was still alive, but barely breathing,
Christeson grabbed her arms and Carter grabbed her legs, and they threw
her into the pond on top of her children's bodies. As she drowned,
Carter went into the woods to get a long stick, which he used to push
the Brouks' bodies further out into the pond.
Both Susan Brouk and her son Kyle -- remember this is a child of nine -- died, not from having their throats slashed but from drowning, helplessly bound, in the cold, murky water of a Missouri farm pond in the middle of January. Christeson slowly and deliberately choked a little 12-year-old girl to death.
But he didn't have really good, expensive lawyers. So, instead of being the 9th murderer to be executed by Missouri this year, he will get another shot at life in prison where he has spent nearly half his life already while taxpayers feed, clothe, and house him and foot the bill for his appeals.
Susan Brouk and her children did not deserve to die. Mark Christeson does. At least that is the way it seems to me, but I am, after all, just a simple man.
Now I'm the kinda man that'd not
harm a mouse
But if I catch somebody breakin in my house
I've got twelve guage shotgun waiting on the other side
Now don't go pushing me against my
will
I don't want to have to fight you but I dern sure will
So if you don't want trouble then you'd better just pass me on by
As far as I'm concerned there
ain't no excuse
For the raping and the killing and the child abuse
And I've got a way to put an end to all that mess
Just take them rascals out in the
swamp
Put 'em on their knees and tie 'em to a stump
Let the rattlers and the bugs and the alligators do the rest
You know what's wrong with the
world today
People done gone and put their Bible's away
They're living by the law of the jungle not the law of the land
The Good Book says it so I know it's the truth
An eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth
You better watch where you go and remember where you been
That's the way I see it I'm a Simple Man
As much as I love the Second Amendment, I am usually even more thankful for the First Amendment. Despite the current assault on religious liberty and speech by militant homosexuals, we still haven't descended into the Hate Speech abyss.
His crime? As he was being forced by airport security to remove his shoes, he remarked, "I'm not a Muslim, am I?"
The security guard accused him of racism and called the police, telling
them that he had been upset by the remark. After taking him to an
office to be interviewed, the police allowed him to continue on his
journey only to arrest him a week later as he was passing back through
the airport.
That causes me to wonder if the screener was a Muslim. We can't discriminate, right? Also, since when does making another person "upset" constitute a crime of any sort anywhere?
A threat for the purpose of intimidating someone can be a crime -- unless you work for the IRS or are a cop. There's no evidence, as the police eventually admitted, that Mr. Griffith was attempting to intimidate or do anything other than express his exasperation and disgust at the thought that he was being treated -- without good reason -- as a criminal.
When you think about it, all these searches and ridiculous restrictions at airports are "unreasonable searches". Ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine-nine percent of airline passengers would really like for the plane to stay in the air until it is supposed to land. But everyone of us who boards a plane is treated like a Muslim suicide bomber. That's not reasonable.
Another point to all this:
His case was adjourned by the Magistrates and was due to be heard
last Thursday, but with just 24 hours to go the Crown Prosecution
Service dropped the charge, as they conceded that there was not enough
evidence to mount a case.
“I have never fallen foul of the law before and the whole affair has
been a complete waste of police time, the court’s time, my time as well
as taxpayers’ money. It has been incredibly stressful – all because I
asked a question and apparently dared to use the M word,” Mr Griffiths
said.
Frank Ferguson Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS East of England,
commented “Following receipt of the evidential file a full review of
the evidence took place.
“In order to successfully prosecute a charge of racially or
religiously aggravated disorderly conduct, we first have to show that
the language used was threatening or abusive and in these particular
circumstances we could not show that to the high criminal standard
required.”
So we have the tax money and police resources wasted on an investigation because a screener was upset. Meanwhile, I'm sure there were actual crimes being committed that could have used those resources. This is one reason that the whole idea of a "hate crime" is so contrary to good sense. Cars are being stolen, homes burglarized, people being assaulted and even murdered, but the government thinks it has unlimited resources such that it can waste time and money and manpower prosecuting a 75-year-old man with a bit of a sense of humor.
If the government and prosecutors and police departments have those kinds of resources, I need a tax cut.
As you know, there was a shooting in Canada. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a felon who could not legally own a firearm, somehow acquired what was reported to be a .30-30 rifle. He first murdered a soldier, Corporeal Nathan Cirillo, standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. His next target was Parliament. There he encountered Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, who retrieved a handgun and killed the terrorist.
We won't even go into the bizarre coincidence that the murdering thug's mother is a highly-placed official on the Canadian Immigration Board.
Back when the psychopath shot up the movie theater in Aurora, CO, using a .223 semi-automatic carbine, some people said that civilians with handguns would not have been able to stop him.
Mr. Vickers is not your average Canadian citizen. He is former RCMP. We can assume he is at least a fair-to-middling shot and knows how to use cover, and he was on his own ground, so to speak.
Now, certainly, given the choice, I would never to into a gunfight with a handgun. Still, a handgun is better than nothing. My Winchester 94 Trapper .30-30 is a sentimental favorite and not all that much of a disadvantage if it ever came to using it for self-defense. I can tell you one thing for sure: if I ever fired it off in the house without plugs or muffs, I would not hear anything for a week. They are loud. Not as loud as Dad's old Remington 760 in .30-06 with an 18-inch barrel but plenty loud.
A university professor says that climate change, at this point, is irreversible. Humanity is, apparently, going to be wiped out. Mises Institute contributor, Ryan McMaken concludes this should allow us to relax and party on:
After all, if there’s nothing we can do to stop it, then we can just
get on with our lives and leave humanity to dealing with environmental
problems as they come, which is what homo sapiens have been doing for millennia.
So, McPherson’s pronouncement that it’s irreversible is a real load
off. We can stop having the debate about whether or not to crush human
economic progress with global regulatory efforts to massively reduce
everyone’s standard of living via carbon emission controls (except for
the super-wealthy and politically-well connected, of course).
Except the professor thinks, since we are doomed, we should immediately commit suicide as a species and "terminate industrial civilization". As McMaken points out -- if you could get humanity on the whole to buy into something so stupid -- it would result in death for millions by starvation and disease.
Meanwhile, the question is asked: Can we buy extra time? McPherson answers: ‘What we can do is
enjoy and create moments of joy while we are here…humans will reach the
end of the line in a relativity short time’
Starvation is fun!
I suppose if we went back to horses and sailing ships, it would be harder for Ebola to move around. We could all just starve in place. The professor lives in a straw house -- straw bale, I'm sure -- presumably in Arizona. I want to know, though, how he got to Australia. My response to bozos like McPherson, Al Gore, and Robert Kennedy, Jr. is "you first".
You can listen to what the gentleman says, if you can afford to have your IQ dropped five points. He feels that we should outlaw all guns and all potentially lethal knives. Perhaps he is a vegan so he doesn't face the challenge of trying to carve the Thanksgiving turkey with a spoon. I suppose we would have to have hammer and nail gun registration. No more mail order or internet nail sales. If you have a criminal record or psychiatric problems, No nails for you!
Making fun of a person like this is kind of like making fun of a retarded kid. I feel bad about it. This is a man who clearly has psychiatric issues himself, or, as we say down home, he ain't quite right in the head.
He apparently doesn't know that making a lethal knife is not terribly difficult or that men were killing one another quite effectively in the Neolithic with stone and bone and wood. Or that, worst of all, I can kill you with my brain. And a shoelace.
I am not nearly as concerned with the Undead as I am with the ramifications of the Unthinking Apocalypse.
