I have a part 2 below, as a related addendum to this point.

Before I begin the story that prompted this post, I have to relate my first encounter with the inner workings of government.

My beautiful Bride and I had been married for just a few months. Before marrying me, she was an advocate and lobbyist roaming the halls of the Hawai’i State Legislature. We had planned to go out and have a nice dinner-date one Friday night, when she got notice that a sub-committee that was considering a bill that she was lobbying for was open for public comment that night. We grabbed “dinner” (a couple of hot dogs) at a 7-Eleven and headed for the State Capitol. There were 3 State Senators, my bride and I, and about a half-dozen others. My Bride and several other people all spoke to the sub-committee and advocated in favor of the bill, urging the Senators to pass the bill as-is to the full Senate for a vote. No one spoke against the bill. After hearing everyone, the Senators looked at each other, and agreed to table the bill.

In Robert’s Rules of Order parlance, the act of “tabling” a discussion before the group means an indefinite suspension on the issue. While it is normally used in conjunction with a set date or declared "the next meeting" to put a discussion on hold until more information can be gathered and reported back to the group to help make a decision and resolve the issue, In politics, tableing a bill means that it will sit in that committee and never be brought to an "up-or-down" committee vote to send the bill to the floor of the legislature for a vote or not. All bills in committee or unpassed on the floor of the legislative body then “dies” at the end of that legislative session. This tactic is beneficial to the politician, since there is no record of a vote for or against that their opponents can screech about in the next election.

I have had several other interactions with state and local government “behind the curtain” since then, and they all shared the same path, the citizens are not listened to very little, if at all.

Which brings us to today. Back in June 2022, I got a notice that my County Government was forming a “gun safety council” and members of the public were invited to apply to sit on the council and solve this scourge of our community. It was formed to tackle children getting shot accidentally, gun crime and suicides. I applied, listing off my years of experience of being a gun owner and my research into the subject, and I was selected.

Going into this, I was holding out zero hope that any meaningful change would happen, however I was determined to give it my best shot. I have been wrong before.

I became kind of excited about bringing facts and ideas into a discussion like this. I sent the lady who was the lead liaison for the county government a nine-page, 1,923 word “stream of consciousness” (as it came out of my brain, it went into the document with minimal editing) document. While I won’t repeat it here, I presented several problems and solutions.

My take was to satisfy the curiosity of the child about firearms, so they know what it is and why they shouldn’t touch it without Mom or Dad right there with them. You can tell a child not to touch a hot stove a dozen times, but the lesson isn’t really learned until they do. Hopefully the parent is there to prevent a tragedy from happening. My objective was to teach these children, in a controlled environment and at an age-appropriate level so they know why to not handle a firearm without Mom or Dad.

Here were my major points:

1. Locks are a time machine. The only thing a lock does is slow the access to the weapon. The teenager has to bide their time to find out where the keys are or what the safe combination is before they can gain access to the weapon. If it’s during a home invasion or a smash-and-grab on a car, the amount of time the criminal has is very short. Generally, more than they have unless they brought the necessary tools with them.
2. Defang the serpent. Children are naturally curious. It’s their job at 4+ years old to touch everything and explore the world. When the parents hide something away, the child becomes even more curious about it and seeks it out, which leads to tragedy.
3. I also advocated for Eddie Eagle, and have it repeated over and over again, not just once.
4. Teenagers need to be taught conflict resolution so they can use words and maybe fists before guns. I suggested a “duel day” where one student could call out another and they resolve it in a physical, non-fatal manner under supervision. Paintball/laser tag, boxing, math problems, I’m not picky.

Then I went with the solution that I have repeatedly talked about here. The nuclear two-parent home needs to be brought back. Absent this, an organized in-school or extracurricular “Gentleman’s Club” where children receive attention from a positive role model. Because the gangs that perpetuate most of this violence also provide a role model for the child/teenager to emulate, it’s just not a positive model.

I also pointed out the societal mores that allow, if not encourage the behavior of teens in gangs, performing a never-ending stream of drive-bys and other gang-related activities that lead to bodies on the street. I said, “Solve these and you won’t have the gun problem.”

I’m first to admit, I don’t have all of the answers, or even most of the questions. What I do know is how to observe a program in action, then analyze the results to determine if minor changes to the program are needed, or this program will not accomplish its’ goals, regardless of time and funding. I am never interested in “conventional” solutions. Simply because if they do pass the criteria of “success,” it is a modest success at best. I was throwing ideas into the ring, with the intent to see what would work and what wouldn’t. I have no idea, which is why they would have to be tried.

My initial assessment and past experience turned out to be prescient. The Liasons almost immediately started talking about gun locks. A couple of the community organizers also spoke about raising awareness. When gun locks were brought up, every gun owner shot the concept down categorically. We all described that every new firearm is already sold with a gun lock, and detailed the numerous negatives and zero positives when using these that I won’t go into.

And after my time working in the healthcare industry, I already know “raising awareness” runs out about 15 seconds before the person throws the literature away, usually within an hour of having it handed to them. The only exception to this is when the person has been personally impacted and searches for more information.

A couple days after the second meeting, I received an email from one of the other government liaisons, asking to privately connect to “share some ideas and feedback.” Once we had a phone call, his feedback was for me to get behind gun locks, because the committee had a short action period of time and budget. I of course said, “No way!”

A couple days after that conversation, I received this email from the main liaison:

I want to start by thanking you for being one of a very few Memphians who stepped up to volunteer for the Shelby County Gun Safety Council. Your enthusiasm for the topic and knowledge of the issues is very evident in our brief time together. I appreciate that you have many ideas on how to make an impact in this area in our community, and I hope you pursue them. However, in order to move forward with the specific projects in the short time we have remaining and with adequate feedback from all council members, we no longer require your participation on the council. Best of luck in your future endeavors.  Please let me know if I can be of assistance. Thank you again.

Unexpected, yes. Surprised, not at all.

So, I spent over an hour crafting this response. To give context, the bit about “a felon with a gun running around Memphis carjacking people and shooting at them randomly” refers to an incident in Memphis in September 2022, where a 19-year-old felon fresh out of prison got hold of a gun, carjacked several people to keep the police off his tail while he drove around town, randomly shooting people. He killed 4 and wounded 3 more. The city was in lockdown until he was captured:

The definition of insanity is, "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." So, your goals are to cut gun deaths, and you're going to attempt that by "raising awareness" and "advocating the use of gun locks." I could get behind such a proposal, if you could show me where it worked in the past. Just once.

What you are trying to do is place a Band-Aid on a severed artery and expecting the patient to survive. I can promise you repeating a program that has been tried hundreds of times and failed every time will fail yet again. Which is why I suggested the things I did. I have no idea how well they would work, if they worked at all, but I do know they have a better chance of success than the zero percent chance of trying what's already proven to fail. If you also notice, my proposals address the root causes. If you solve those, you won't have what we just had, a felon with a gun running around Memphis carjacking people and shooting at them randomly. If government had addressed the root causes, he wouldn't have been a felon at all, because he would have had the structure, knowledge and skills so he would have never gone down that path in the first place.

Solving problems like this can't be done in six weeks. It can't be fixed in six years, but you would start to see the trend develop by then. It will be expensive, time consuming, frustrating and ultimately rewarding if you do it properly.

I want you to know you totally met my expectations I had when I applied to this council. My prior experience with government aligns perfectly with your current path, that government deems "looking like they are trying to solve the problem" is way more important than actually trying to solve the problem. In fact, NOT solving the problem is in the interests of politicians and bureaucrats because solving the problem means politicians don't get to continue to hold press conferences to say "we are working on the problem" and to use "I am working on the problem" as part of their re-election campaign. Actually solving problems also works bureaucrats out of jobs, since the problem is now solved. The downside is you are reassigned or laid off, like us people in the private sector have to go through periodically.

I am kind of like a police officer, without the "being shot at" part. When I arrive at a site to fix critical broken equipment, the people I greet are having a very bad day. They look to me to solve their problem. I achieve results because when I repair things, I look at what's wrong, what's been done to fix it before me, what the results were and based on that try something else, then evaluate again, repeating that loop until the problem is solved. When I depart a site after I solved their problem, I say, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope it's a long time before you see me again." My faith in government would be partially restored if the elected officials and bureaucrats like you had that kind of a mindset.

I run a political commentary website. I am currently going through an upgrade, however once I am done with that I promise I will be relating everything that I heard and saw for this council, especially your email below and this response. It will be accurate, truthful, complete, and it will be polite. It will not be kind. Keep an eye out for it.

I have now fulfilled that promise. I have been polite, truthful, complete and contextually accurate as possible while valuing you, the reader's time. I respect the county mayor and his administration for wanting to tackle this problem. I am disappointed that while much effort will be expended, nothing significant will come of it. This post is not kind, because I have finally accepted that the needs and goals of the Citizens will always be at odds with the needs and goals of government.

It is the first priority of a politician, once they are in office, to stay in office. The only way to do that is to piss off as few people as possible. Most of the time that entails looking like they are solving the problem, even if they are perpetuating it.

It is the incentive of the bureaucrat to not work themselves out of a job by actually solving the problem. Look at our own diplomats with Israel as a prime example. Since the first day Israel was declared a country, Israel has been repeatedly attacked by their neighbors. When Israel decides to return the favor, we stop them by arranging a “cease fire” so the attackers can rebuild and reload. This "solve the immediate problem without adressing the real problem" has kept our State Department in-business and well-funded for eighty years, until Trump brokered deals between Israel and UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. None of which would have happened without a clandestine nod of assent from Saudi Arabia. Notice the Middle East has been quiet since, and not just because of the turmoil in Ukraine.

This part is a continuation for the post above, to address for one specific thing in another email from the main government Liason, sent out to the council to “get the discussion rolling.” The email had this video.

I pulled this article apart like cotton candy thusly. I have edited and clarified what I originally wrote, however the intent is the same as the original:

As far as the ABC news report, they shaved the facts pretty bad. But then again, that's what media today does.

1. The majority of the story was about prepubescent children (12 and under). Except when it came to the "7,391 children per year are hospitalized" with gunshot wounds. The problem is they are lumping teens into that number. Adolescent/teenagers are a whole different breed when it comes to emotional, social and cognitive differences compared to children. The reasons for their firearm injuries are also vastly different than children. Kind of like the often-touted "10 children a day are killed by gunfire" trope. When you look at the actual data from that, you'll see that they include 18 and 19-year-olds (adults, and by extension not children...) in those numbers and 70% of those deaths are teenagers (14+) and gang related.
2. There is no context to their number of "almost one every hour." This is designed to cause anxiety about the subject. The exact number is 71 minutes for context. The CDC has an infographic on "child injuries" (again, including 18 and 19-year-old adults, grrr...) and gives "every 4 seconds a child is treated in the ER for an injury." Again, CONTEXT, for every child that goes in with a gunshot wound, 1,064 other children are treated for other accidental injuries. According to my calculator, that's 0.00094%. Looking at the high-level data, firearms don't make this list, they are lumped in with "All other."
3. The journalists were shocked when the children looked down the barrel of the firearm. My question is, "were the children taught to not do that?" The answer is probably no. They looked at the firearm on all sides, including the muzzle end because they are curious and don’t know better.

And I must wonder how many times they did that test before they got that result. How many children did what they were supposed to do the first time? If they did this test with twenty pairs of children and this was the only time that it happened, I would call this a success, because we’re talking 95% of the kids did the correct thing. The fact that they didn’t mention the percentage of times they had to try this before they got the desired result is very telling. If it had been over 25%, the article would have mentioned it. The fact that they didn’t shows this was the exception, rather than the rule. This is like a "Man on the Street" story, where only the stupidest people make the cut.

Check my math:

525,600 minutes/year. 525,600 / 7,391 gunshot ER visits = 71.11 minutes

31,536,000 seconds/year. 31,536,000 / 4 = 7,884,000 ER visits/year

ER visit every 4 seconds = 900/hour, or 1,066.65 every 71.11 minutes. 71.11 minutes = 4,266.6 seconds / 4 = 1,066.65

7391 / 7,884,000 = 0.000937%

I understand this committee is charged with reducing these numbers and I agree and support that goal, otherwise I wouldn't be here and writing this. However in context, we will always have household deaths like this. Zero is an impossibility. We lose more children to poisoning, fire, falling and drowning then we do accidental firearm discharges.

SOLUTIONS TO TRY:

1. When a firearm is sold, have the gun store offer a free firearms safety class for 5-year-old and up children of the purchaser. Age appropriate and with live fire. This will impress upon the children the "WHY" of "don't touch."
2. Rebate for quick access biometric/pinpad handgun safes, where the firearm can be safely stored yet readily accessible. There is already a Tennessee ongoing tax holiday on gun safes and safety devices.
3. Defang the serpent by offering range discounts when a person brings their kid. I used to take my son when he was 5-7 out to shoot his .22lr rifle all the time when I went to the Shelby Farms range. One time, he accidentally pointed his (empty) rifle at the next person over. I snatched it from his hands, and told him what he did wrong. I then had him apologize to the person he pointed it at, then marched him to the Rangy Safety Officer, had my son apologize to him, then he spent the rest of the time sitting on the bench. He never did that again.

We cannot control others. We can only incentivize them to do the right and proper thing and hope they do so.

The tragedy of Feminism is that it has taught women to be the equal of men, when that is the furthest thing from the truth.

To compare the capabilities and purposes of men and women is like trying to make a Maserati and a Hummer equal. They are equal in the fact that they are human-controlled machines that are able to transport the driver and passenger(s) about, they have four wheels, protection from the elements, and an engine, And that is pretty much where the similarities end. The Maserati is meant as high-speed transport, in relative comfort. The Hummer is able to go where the Maserati can't. When in the same terrain, the Hummer moves a lot slower.

Men and women are meant to compliment each other, not compete with each other. Feminism has tossed the "compliment" concept out of the 12th story window. And we are all the poorer for it. The cry of "I can do everything a man can't do" has been replaced with "I can do everything a man can do!"

Which leads me to this video article at the end of the post. Nora Vincent was a lesbian, and a writer. She decided to write a book, Self-Made Man. She went undercover for a year as a male to understand what life is like for a man. Astonished is probably a good word for her reaction of it.

She joined a men's bowling team, and was instantly and unconditionally accepted. On the women's side of things, she would have had to earn her way into the group. Nora (as "Ned") tried dating women, and found that women treated men horribly on a routine basis. In today's world of courtship, men have to lavish praise, attention and cash just to get the woman to look at him. And the woman can and does say "no" for the smallest of reasons. Case in point, this video is a version of "in-Person Tinder." In this video, a woman starts with twenty prospective suitors, and as she puts out what she's looking for, and after putting out FIVE criteria (if she was attractive to them, likes to party/dance, likes to have a bit of rough intimacy, wants him to be taller then her in heels and older), she was left with ZERO guys. The last one leaving tossed back, "You're gonna be single for a while." They had one guy and twenty women, and ended (after all of the questions) with five women.

I have to refer you to my Fun Stuff article "The Husband Store" to reference the impossible standards women have been taught to have. And they leave as soon as "the butterflies" are gone. Statistically, of course. During a divorce, a woman gets half of everything, plus alimony and child support.

Getting back to "Ned," Nora found out how hard it is for a man to make it. Men are expected to not express their feelings (yes, men have feelings). We are expected to "Man up" and go to work to earn and provide for the (ex-) wife and children. We are not allowed to bitch or complain, except maybe in the halls of men-only social groups. Nora said she prefers to be a female, "I think it is more of a privilege [being a woman]."

This put Nora on a darker path, and trying to be a guy screwed wither head enough, that she ended up spiraling downwards, and ultimately led her to travel to Switzerland and on July 6th, 2022, ended her own life under a doctor's supervision.

Men and women are driven by different things. They contribute different things to the family. Women raise the children while men provide for the family. Women build the social network while men build the buildings. Women protect the children, while men let the children take risks while they're nearby. It is this system over the past 10,000 years that has got all of us to this point. To change all of this, so much and so quickly will destroy us. Our population is declining in every country and culture that is going for this feminism. Feminists don't want to have children because it will interfere with their career, men don't want women because she will destroy his finances as soon as the butterflies are gone.

Can we please get back to team building?

With the exception of girls starting their puberty "growth spoke" slightly earlier than boys, across the human life-cycle males are bigger, faster and stronger than females. As Serena Williams put it, "Men's Tennis is a whole different sport from Women's Tennis." 

Transgender athletes are causing havoc to no end in women's sports. When this thing started, the transgender girls had to be "post-op," meaning the "gender reassignment surgery" had been performed and two years of hormonal therapy. Which, at this point, according to the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the performance differences between the transwomen vs. women, and transmen vs. men had become negligible.

Today, however, transwomen are allowed on women's teams as soon as the transwoman "consistently states their new gender." That means no surgery and little to no "gender affirming hormones." In the end, this means the transwoman has all of the strength and speed they had prior to their becoming transwomen.

Within this context, anyone with a modicum of sense could have predicted this: Horrific moment female high school volleyball player suffers serious head injury after transgender girl in rival team lobbed '70mph' ball at her head and struck her.

A transwoman volleyball athlete from Highlands High School in North Carolina spiked the volleyball during a game into the face of an female opponent. It's only an estimate of how fast the ball was travelling, however it is safe to say the speed and power of the spike was at a men's level, not a woman's. The female athlete suffered a concussion, neck and eye injuries. Injuries that will impact the rest of  her life.

Thankfully, someone had an outbreak of common sense, as the Cherokee County school board had decided to forfeit all games against the Highlands High women's volleyball team, presumably as long as this transgender student is on the team.

To me, it is unconscionable to allow pre-op transmen and transwomen to play sports. The transwomen have a clear advantage, and the transmen have a massive handicap. In my previous article, Fixing Trans Sports, I talked about having one league with multiple performance tiers. I don't know if that is THE answer, however it's at least AN answer.

Entrapment for this context is defined as:

The act of government agents or officials that induces a person to commit a crime he or she is not previously disposed to commit.

This came out last week, and I found it over the weekend, however before I get into it, I want to reference a prior post, from January of 2022,  The enemy of the people:

Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asked a very simple, straightforward question of Jill Sanborn, who is the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI.

Cruz asked,

"Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of January 6th?"

Ms. Sanborn answered: "I can't answer that." My view here is any answer short of an unequivocal "NO" answers Senator Cruz's question as a "YES."

So this comes out: F.B.I. Had Informants in Proud Boys, Court Papers Suggest. 

I would have actually been shocked and surprised if the FBI does not have informants in the Proud Boys, the various Antifa chapters, BLM and all of the rest. That's part of their job, both as a national police and the secret police that performs intelligence operations on citizens. The FBI has self-imposed this mandate for domestic intelligence operations.

So, the new and significant question is, "How active were those CI's in the planning and executing of things? What events might have they instigated, directly or indirectly?"

Of course, our good and moral government would never entrap its' citizens, would they?

-An ATF CI hounded Randy Weaver (Ruby Ridge) for three years to cut the barrels of a couple shotguns to make them under 18"

-FBI CI's actually proposed and helped in the planning to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.

-And now we have FBI CI's involved in the "riot" on January 6th.

I hope their full involvement and complicity comes to light and they, as well as their handlers are prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law. It ain't gonna happen with Merrick Garland running the DOJ, but I can hope.

Good news: This website is now running under the current CMS version and PHP.

Bad news: The links are way out of whack. They work now, but the website is writing the urls the way it wants to, and my CDO (that's OCD in alphabetical order, the way it should be) is having a great difficulty with it.

Good news: lots of content (including a new section, The Armed Citizen) is coming your way.

I started this website on Blogspot, in 2003. A few years later, I got this domain and ran it under a well-known CMS (Content Management System) program. I'm not mentioning which ones to piss off the script kiddies who like to hack websites. A couple years after that, I stayed on this domain and moved to a new CMS. And, yet again, I am upgrading that CMS.

I have managed to find a utility to move my content without losses and have successfully transferred my content to a sandbox (testing site, as opposed to Production, this site you're currently visiting). Now what I need is to get some software to maintain my search engine friendly URLs and install it.

For example, the SEO version of this post you normally see is https://www.theconservativezone.com/blog/moving-the-website-again.

The Non SEO friendly version is https://www.theconservativezone.com/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=101&catid=9&id=905&lang=en&view=article.

See what I mean Vern?

The good news is, as soon as I get the new website looking the way I like, I will transfer the Sandbox setup to Production. You'll know that happened when you see the layout change. Only slightly, as I am trying to keep the look as close as possible.

Giving you a fair warning, I am having to take a pause on posting. Not only am I working 60 hour weeks, This website is facing a forced shutdown. I'm running on an old version of PHP that will stop working soon. When I try to upgrade the PHP, it breaks the website. Add to that the CMS software itself has undergone a major revision that I must also upgrade to, with some of the modules I use not upgraded or I have to buy a whole new package. The look may change as well, as I may have to go to a new template. Hopefully not though.

So, all of my time normally allocated for posting is now forcefully allocated for doing these upgrades. Fair warning, you might come here one day and find a static webpage. Rest assured I am diligently working on making it through these trials and tribulations.

See you on the other side.

If you haven’t heard by now, as part of the “Inflation Reduction Act,” the IRS has 87,000 new positions open to be for the most part tax auditors, and a lot of people were upset that these agents will be armed.

Let me tell you, the most fearsome tool a law enforcement officer has on his person is not his sidearm, but his radio. A LEO wears a sidearm for the exact same reason armed citizens do, self-defense for when they are confronted with violent resistance. One-on-one, any person in reasonably good shape has a chance of besting a LEO in a fight. However, if that LEO is able to get on the radio and say “officer needs help” you will quickly find yourself surrounded by 38 officers that will start at the top of the “Use of Force continuum” model instead of the bottom.

But that’s not the way to look at this situation.

Government grows. Once you are employed by the bureaucracy, it would take some particularly heinous acts (and a few felonies) to actually fire you. And positions themselves almost never go away either.

Once these agents are in place, they will be locusts. Not “like locusts,” they will be locusts. Insect locusts live underground until the time is right, then they will emerge and swarm, before descending upon the nearest farmers’ field and strip it bare, consuming everything of value. Then the locusts will move on to the next field, and so on until they come around again to strip the first farmers’ field bare again. Government locusts will be required to justify their employment. To keep their jobs they must audit so many households, “find” their quota of unpaid taxes and confiscate said taxes.

I lost the link to a story where a couple was “deemed” to owe taxes (there is a whole terrible story that I can’t remember accurately and thus will not relate). When the IRS agents showed up to the house to collect the debt, they confiscated every asset in the house all the way down to the cash in their child’s piggy bank.

So, these agents will start with the second quintile (because there’s already lots of agents on the top quintile), strip those households bare of “unpaid taxes,” then move on to the third quintile, then the fourth, then the fifth, and back up to the second again. And this cycle will repeat.

Oh, before I forget, the new department being set up to run these 87,000 locusts is headed by Nikole Flax. You don’t know the name, but she was one of the seven IRS managers whose laptops crashed mysteriously and without backup when IG’s were sniffing around the IRS in 2014, due to the kerfuffle over the IRS not granting non-profit status to Conservative non-profits.

I came across this the other day on FB, in one of the pages I frequent. I provide the post here, edited slightly for clarity. Read it, then read it again.

Collectivism is never about the Collective.

A month or so ago I joined a Facebook group. I learned after a short time that the admin of the group had left, and it was more or less a free for all. Cretins were posting porn (really nasty porn) scams, ads and pretty much anything regardless of the intended topic of the group. However, the group members, still numbering almost 50,000, did nothing but complain.

So, I took it upon myself to begin reporting the porn each day (FB seems to take porn almost a seriously as it does political thought it disagrees with) and within a week it had almost vanished, those posting it giving up, to annoy other groups. But still the group members complained. I pointed out that, collectively, we as members, could report the scams and off-topic spam and if enough people agreed, the FB bots would remove them, admin or not.

The response?... crickets.

The group members were entirely passive to whatever was given to them and had no interest in working collectively to modify the environment they had voluntarily subjected themselves to.That is human nature.First century Roman historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus once said, "Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master."Thus the foundation of all politics. A few desire to actively control and shape society while the rest whine for more bread and circuses. Good leaders promise discipline and hard work, and deliver prosperity. Evil leaders promise the bread and circuses and deliver slavery.Most people listen only to the promises and thus remain slaves.As I’ve said repeatedly, politics boils down to one of two core political ideologies: Collectivism and Individualism.The Individualists wants the freedom to determine his own life, future, wealth, safety and prosperity.The Collectivist (followers) are—as Sallust put it— concerned about a “just master”.However, the Collectivist leaders see the Collectivist followers as cattle to be herded, sheared, milked and exploited for the pleasure and prosperity of the Elite leadership. It’s never about the Collective to them, but about what they can squeeze out of the Collective for themselves.It only takes a while dealing with the Sheep to understand why, even initially-good-intentioned men, will often give up trying to better the environment and simply exploit the Sheep.

I have brought this here to make a point. It is ideas and concepts like this that lead to the creation of the United States and America. Not ‘The United States of America,’ rather AND.

It has been my point for years that being a citizen of the United States and being an American are two separate things. While millions of people are both, there are millions more that are only one. Being a Citizen of the United States merely entails being born within the borders of one of the fifty States of America, or one of the Territories claimed by the United States. You can be a Citizen by being born of two US Citizens outside of the US, or you can be a foreign national and go through the naturalization process set forth in the US Code.

Being an American is not decided by where you were born. It is decided within your heart. A need you can’t quite put into words, the closest you can describe it as a yearning to be free and to choose your own path in life, without an overbearing government micromanaging you. Americans are born every day across the globe. This is why these United States have immigrants from every other country in the world. People who shut themselves into cargo containers for two months to cross the ocean. Who cross miles of open sea in vessels that would have a rough time in a kiddie pool. Who walk across miles of open desert. These people risk their lives to do this. A third of girls and women are sexually abused at least once during such journeys. Or whose overloaded boats sank at sea with no one else in sight. Or those who bake to death in a trailer abandoned by the human traffickers when the air conditioner fails and it’s 100 degrees outside.

There must be something special in this place, not found anywhere else that inspires people to risk their lives to come here.

This sign sums it up pretty well. Read this one out load several times. If you can read this without choking up, a tear rolling down your face or your soul soaring, then I’m going to be pretty sure you’re not an American.

This is what has happened in the United States. Those in power have treated us all like sheep, not realizing that most people want to go on with their lives as they see fit and not be bothered.

“You go do whatever you want and leave me out of your beliefs and problems.” And yet, this is the one thing Leftists cannot do. They are so inherently insecure about themselves and their choices that they need not only acceptance, but enthusiastic validation.

And the real Americans are reaching the end of their patience. Both of my parents were WWII veterans. Dad was Navy, Mom was Army Air Corps. They told me about that Sunday afternoon on December 7th, 1941. How they felt and how everyone developed a slow, burning anger and a firm resolve to settle that issue once and for all.

I am seeing the smoldering anger in more and more people, the “Don’t make me get up out of this chair” attitude and resolve the issue once and for all, so they can be left alone.

The Japanese were taught that lesson. The Leftists are getting close to getting that same lesson applied to them. A good, solid, hard and long beat-down that their grandchildren will feel.

You have been warned.

(Yes, I know I am way behind. Been on an unplanned adventure last week and still recovering.)

On Monday August 2^nd, 2022, the Citizens of Kansas voted on a referendum on abortion. In the wake of the Dobbs decision by SCOTUS that let each State determine its’ own laws on the subject, Kansas did just that.

My concern is not over the ballot issue, how it might have been confusing, or even if it passed or not. My point is, the State government presented the issue to the People and the People decided. This is how it's supposed to be. The government determines most of the laws, however on large and ideologically charged subjects, the Legislature should step aside and let the People make the choice.  California has this process of direct democracy, however most of the time the losing side finds a judge that throws out the will of the People.

I am purposely not acquainting myself with the particulars, if it was a win for babies in the womb or for women to kill their unborn children. My being happy or upset with it will not alter the outcome one whit, Nor can I do anything about it as I don't live in Kansas. So I am not going to spend my time and mental energy that could be spent better on things more important to me.

Again, SCOTUS said “let the People decide” and that’s exactly what Kansas did. This is what should have happened in 1973 by SCOTUS returning the issue to the States, making it clear that Abortion is not the purview of the federal government. It's not in the Constitution, directly (find the word "Abortion" in the Constitution, I have $1,000 cash for you right now), nor is it in there indirectly (no branch of the government under the Constitution has the authority to regulate medical care).

This goes for both the Left and the Right: If the state you live in votes differently that what you wanted on abortion or any other issue that’s important to you, the only thing I can suggest is figure out which state has the laws you like the most and move your sorry ass over there and stay there.

We are fifty independent countries, bound together in common cause under a federal government, not subservient provinces of Washington DC. Each State has its’ own personality and its’ own way of doing things. The Garden State, the Empire State, the Volunteer State, the Aloha State and so on. Use the Corsale method to figure out the best place for you and then go to where you’d be happiest.

It is scary amazing what comes out of my brain sometimes…

This started when I got into a discussion with a former acquaintance who went trans. She stated “Trump was a transphobe” and I asked for evidence. I’m willing to look at anything and if she had made her point, I would have altered my support for Trump, and not for the better. She ultimately gave me a video of Trump lamenting the win by Lia Thomas, who is a transwoman and who smoked the race to win. The acquaintance became quite hysterical when I pointed out the fact that he didn’t say anything transphobic, other than making the observation that performance-wise, Lia was just as strong and fast as when she was a man (not supposed to deadname).

But this got me thinking, and finally a coherent thought (I know, I know) popped out of my head on the best way to end this whole argument. Instead of having Men’s sports and Women’s sports, let’s combine them together. Men, women and trans, all in the same place.

Now, hear me out. For every sport, figure out 2-3 physical tests that is a crucial skill to the sport. For anyone who wants to participate, you perform these tests to determine the “Tier” you’d compete in. Someone smarter than me can figure out a better name. These would be set criteria, not adjusted by gender, age, whatever.

You would have 6-10 Tiers or whatever you’d call them. Once placed in a Tier, you would compete at that level, regardless of the male/female/trans mix. After a sanctioned competition, the first and second place winners of that competition would be promoted up to the next Tier. The two lowest players would be demoted to the next lower Tier.

This way we would have players stratified by ability, rather than gender. This way, if a female player could match or beat male players, they should compete against male players.

This would actually solve the issue (that only Conservatives seem to see) where a mediocre male athlete could announce they are transitioning genders and once on the women’s side of things, totally dominate the field. It would solve the issue because if we ignore the persons’ gender status, their physical abilities would determine the level of competition, not which pronouns they use.

One last thing. All records are now team only. No more “fastest female swimmer” or whatever. Each athlete is measured against their prior performances. Hey, no system is perfect.

Warning: I have an alcohol level in excess of 0.2% Barriers are down, spicy content is ahead. You have been warned.

Bifurcation, as in "the point or area at which something divides into two branches or parts."

Growing up, I was a voracious consumer of Sci-Fi fiction. The Big Three of Asimov, Bradbury, Clark, certainly. E.E "Doc" Smith, Pohl, LeGuin, Crichton, frequently. Series such as I, Robot, Lensman, Venus Equatorial, Foundation, Dragonriders of Pern, you betcha. Not so much once I became an adult, but as a teenager, it was rare to see my full face, as it was usually buried in those books.

I am also an avid player of a miniature wargame known as Battletech. Not going to go into the particulars of the game, because it's not germane to this article. One of the most prolific writers of the lore of the universe for this game is Blaine Lee Pardoe. He is a major contributor to the lore of the Battletech universe (every time you say "fluff" a kitten dies) and is responsible for a large part of the "lore bible" (a book for writers who want to write stories for this universe that details fixed events, major characters and their personalities/habits to provide a consistent world to the reader across multiple authors). As long as there has been lore about Battletech, Blaine (BLP for short) has been there. I personally don't read any fiction anymore, so I know next-to-nothing about BLP.

The other day, BLP spouted off against a poor review about his latest book. All I can figure was he caught BLP just right between what the guy said and where BLP was at the time, and everything in the world BLP was (might be) angry at became focused on this hapless creature, much like a magnifying glass on an ant during a sunny day. BLP took the reviewer to the woodshed and verbally beat him like the proverbial red-headed step-child. It seems the "reviewer" had an issue with which military unit was used in a given situation. In the grand scheme of things, this "issue" was about as important or earth-shaking as a bear shitting in Alaska north of the Artic Circle.

UPDATE: After delving deeper into this issue, I learned that this "reviewer" had been stalking BLP for a long time, and had made physical threats against him. The company attempted to mollify this angry person, which did not apparently succeed. It then progressed to "several people" to complain (sock-puppet accounts are hard to verify) to the company, and as an attempt to make the whole matter go away, simply ended their relationship with BLP. I am not blaming anyone (other than the stalker), however I need to point out that any attempt to mollify screeching banshees like this (the stalker, not BLP) only embolden them. You give an inch, they take a league.

Let me be clear, I am an apologist to nobody. I am only explaining from my perspective and insight non-evident thoughts and feelings about these or other events. My opinion and $7.85 will get you a cup of hot flavored water at a Seattle-Based caffeine dealer.  Was this a good and proper response by BLP? I doubt it. Was it appropriate? In a personal setting, maybe. as a professional, no. Was it cathartic for BLP? I'm sure it was, I can feel the anger dissipation from here. If it had been me, let's just say the only thing that would have been left by this idiot would have been a smear of something like tomato paste. The fallout from this was entirely predictable because it's been replicated ad nauseum too many times in the past few years.

And due to the squealing and whining of less than five people, the owners of the Battletech IP have decided to part ways with BLP. The numerous works of BLP has entertained thousands of young adults and "adult" adults since the 1980's with his writing. Not to mention earning the owners of Battletech bucket loads of money through building that following.

As such, we have the latest example of the bifurcation of the US economy. Half of the country gets pissed off about something that happened (or didn't happen) and have decided to go off on their own. And because many of the largest tech companies are sympathetic to Leftist causes (Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et.al.), it has taken many brave souls to break out the saw and bifurcate themselves from the Leftist corporations. Thanks to Facebook and Twitter going Woke, we now have platforms such as Locals, Parler, Rumble, ThinkSpot, TrueSocial and so on. We have The Daily Wire getting into producing movies in direct competition of Hollywood. We have news websites such as 1440, Bongino Report, The Daily Wire, Not The Bee, and more trying to provide Conservative (or at least balanced) reporting of the news.

This is the interesting part, and a major difference between Leftists and Conservatives: Leftists get all outraged and angry, march with signs and protest. A couple of months later, the anger dissipates and they tend to go right back to the offender. Conservatives don't "hate" (dislike) quick, but when they do, they "hate" hard. Once they make the change away from a company, it will be a long time, if at all, before the come back. Conservatives vote with their wallet. They don't complain, they don't raise a ruckus, Conservatives just stop buying from whatever Woke Company and they find an alternative and not come back.

A good example is Disney. Here's the stock value history I just grabbed from Business Insider:

Since Going Woke, they have been going Broke. This is a good example why its a bad idea for businesses to involve themselves in social or political issues. Their purpose is to provide a wanted good or service at a price point the desired consumers can afford.

I am terrible at predicting the future. While many Battletech players are heavily into the "gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes" over this issue at the moment, they are basically stuck, as no other game system is as good (IMO). That being said, they will be most likely purchasing less Battletech lore from now on. BLP gets the last laugh. Blane has diversified his writings into several avenues that are all returning money. He will still get royalties from what he has written. The assholes who told him to bug off will still have to cut a check to him every month for a long time to come. No better payback than that. As a sign of support, I just bought his techno-thriller, Blue Dawn. I bought it cold, just to support him. I haven't read a techno-thriller since Clancy. When I get to reading it, I will give you an honest review.

The event last month that put Uvalde, Texas on the map was horrific in more ways than one. While Uvalde will join names like Columbine, Parkland and Sandy Hook, it will stand on its own for what I’m going to discuss, and I sincerely hope the failings there will outlast the terror and heal the pain caused by those events.

I try to be consistent in my moral application of events, and this is no different. I explained this in a previous article, “The Why of the 2nd Amendment Part 1”,

“…what is the extent of their [Broward County Deputies] moral, ethical and human duties to those in the school? Undoubtedly to rush in, singly or as a team, find, engage and stop the shooter, even at the expense of their own lives. Those duties apply to LEO and legally armed citizen alike.”

The fact that the police waited an hour to charge in and engage the shooter is not what I’m wanting to talk about. The officers met their legal obligation and secured the scene to prevent the killer from leaving the scene. The officers failed in their human duty, and that’s still not what I’m talking about.

What I do want to talk about is the legal aftermath. While the police are immune from prosecution for not going into the school to engage the shooter in a timely manner, they may be open to civil and criminal prosecution for preventing private citizens from trying to rescue their children from said shooter. I’m no legal eagle, however I have heard this aspect talked about from a couple different sources. Again, I’m not a lawyer, I don’t play one on TV and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so I don’t know the validity of such a claim either way. The fact that at least one of those parents is being harassed by the police seems to lend credence to this position: Police Are Harassing Mom Who Pulled Kids From Uvalde School Shooting, Lawyer Says.

What I do know is every officer involved in that debacle, from the chief to the officers on the scene doesn’t deserve to ever wear a badge again, even if it’s from a box of cereal. There must exist a certain level of trust from the citizens toward the police, in order for the police to perform their duties effectively. I see that trust has evaporated for that community.

Now we come to the title of this article. This happened on June 13th, 2022: Police in Texas kill a man who fired his weapon inside a gym hosting a children's summer camp. I’m going to guess this was a “gun-free zone” as no staff returned fire. That being said, the police were on scene in two minutes and ended the threat. There’s really nothing more to say about that, which is why when everything goes right, it’s a short local story that never goes national.

I am not saying “this is how it should be” either. Someone somewhere should pay attention to events like these, investigate into the “why” it happened, then figure out how they might be prevented from happening at all, so these people don’t start rampaging in the first place. The mechanism for that is way above my pay grade however. I’m smart enough to know I don’t know how to go about it, only that it needs to be done.

The other day, we were greeted with the terrible news that the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, was assassinated. This shows several glaring truths, which I will discuss in detail with you.

First, knowledge cannot be “un-invented.” Tools, be they screwdrivers, firearms or nuclear weapons, cannot be just “gotten rid of.” The fact that the concept exists, means any reasonably intelligent person can reverse-engineer the actual tool, or something similar. The concept leads to the physical tool.

An example would be the Manhattan Project, which developed the first nuclear devices. It took over $2 Billion ($36 Billion in 2022 dollars), four years and the construction of a couple of cities to make it happen. The greatest physicists alive at the time had to develop the physics and mathematics to understand and control its use. They then had to design and build the machines to process the fissile material, then machine it and so on. Today, someone with a Masters in Physics could lay the theoretical work necessary, and the processing equipment can be procured on the open market. The only hard part is obtaining enough of the proper fissile material that can be refined into “weapons grade.”

So this man, armed only with a basic knowledge of firearms, built a double-barreled black-powder shotgun out of what is available at any hardware store. Pipe, wood, duct tape, charcoal, saltpeter, sulfur, screws/washers (the projectiles) and a device to create an electronic spark to set off the powder. Building a “pipe shotgun” in the US is way easier because we have access to actual shotgun shells.

The second point is evil, as in the intent to hurt other people. This is a horribly mangled quote, I’ll update it when I find it:

“Evil can never be defeated. It is merely driven back, where it changes form and waits to strike again.”

Evil will always be with us. It cannot be legislated, willed away or defeated. It is just as much a part of us as our heart. Evil is just as essential as well. Why you ask? If things were all good all the time, how would you know that’s a “good” thing? It is by the contrast of Evil that we can understand the real beauty of love, happiness, joy and so on.

My third point is about time. Evil acts occur only when it’s the best circumstances for it. Good is almost always caught flat-footed when Evil acts. This is why Good has to conceptualize how Evil can manifest itself, devise how to act against the threat, then train and practice to do just that. Evil can plan and take its’ time until they have everything they need and the conditions are just right, Good must go with what it has then and there.

All this leads to point #2,419 that we cannot create Utopia. We cannot reach that, and it is dangerous to even try.

For once, no politics in this post. One of my core moral values is maximum personal freedom and accountability. This is one of those moments where my thoughts and views on a subject come into direct conflict with my morals. I have rewritten this a dozen times because my personal views keep sneaking in and bring my sarcasm with it, and this subject is not a time or place for it.

If you are a sexually active woman of childbearing age who decides that you have had all the children that you want to have (which is a whole number between Zero and ‘Leventy ‘Leven), here is a Google docs spreadsheet sheet of OB/GYN doctors who will perform a “no questions asked” sterilization procedure on you. Many women have related to me that it is nigh-impossible for them to convince their OB/GYN that they are happy with the number of children that have now.

While this is aimed at women, guys, if you like “dipping your wick” in every hole that’s amenable, but you don’t want to pay child support, there’s the Bimek SLV, basically an “on/off” sperm switch. The caveat is, it takes a month or so to “purge the queue” and get the sperm count from full to zero and vice versa.

The context for this is in the recent climate since Roe v. Wade was overturned we now have women who are sexually active and either do not want to use birth control, or they are afraid the birth control they do use might fail, rendering them pregnant with an unwanted child. Since abortion as a post-coital birth-control method has been taken off the table in many parts of the country, sterilization becomes a reasonable choice.

On the subject of abortion, I will always speak for “that clump of cells” that if left alone, will grow into a baby. I fully agree, “my body my choice,” as you must have full autonomy over any cells that have 100% of your genetic DNA. Except that zygote/embryo/fetus only has half of your DNA, so while it might be in your body, it might affect your body, it is not your body.

And if there is no baby, what you do is none of my business.

June of 2022 has shown the true legacy of Donald Trump. The three Justices he was able to seat on the Supreme Court have drastically altered the legal landscape of this nation. The rulings they sent down on the First and Second Amendments, the limitation of federalism and the bureaucratic state are figurative and almost literal ideological earthquakes.

Kennedy v. Bremerton School District That a man may pray and give thanks to his Creator on his own during a public event, without suffering drastic negative results, was and is a bedrock of the ideals this country was founded upon.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen That a right of a citizen to defend themselves and their families in the face of a sudden and violent act be unfettered, be it in methods, tools or places and to loudly proclaim “this is not a second-class right.”

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization That the rights of each of the fifty states exist, that they may set laws as they see fit for their own citizens, without a federal mandate rending them provinces, rather than independent countries.

West Virginia v. EPA That reduces the ability of the Executive Branch to write regulations as they see fit, to fulfill their political agenda based upon indistinct and poorly-written laws passed by the Legislature. The Legislature passes such laws so they are “not responsible” that such laws are interpreted for the benefit of an agenda and not to advance the interests of the people.

All of these decisions, and the philosophical basis used to reach these decisions will have rippling effects on our laws for decades to come.

The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones. - Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

I am glad to see the reverse happen for once.

One of my Markisms is by Barry Goldwater,

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."

In 1973, for the case Roe v. Wade, the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) in a 7-2 decision found the (small "r") right for women to have an abortion in the Constitution. I, however have not been able to likewise find it. And I've tried several times to find any rights relating to health care, or abortion, or any other Leftist talking points in the Constitution.

Five of those seven Justices were appointed by Republican Presidents, two by Eisenhower (Brennan and Stewart) and three by Nixon (Blackmum, Burger, and Powell).

What this ruling did was take away the authority of the states to set abortion laws within their borders. Up until then, the states set the rules for themselves. Because, you know, the Tenth Amendment, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

You need to remember, a federal government is meant to be a "government for governments." The ordinary citizen was meant to have zero to very little day-to-day interaction with the federal government. If you actually read the Constitution, all eight Articles and at least the Bill of Rights, these described the structure of the federal government and its’ declared powers. If the power isn't in the Constitution, the government does not have the authority to do it. Like the authority to transfer trillions of dollars to individual citizens. The hook they hang their hat on for those is, "promote the general Welfare" is in the mission statement, not a declared power. The federal government is meant to regulate the interactions between states, and protect the country as a whole. Other than limiting the federal governments’ ability to infringe on the individual citizen, we’re not in the Constitution.

Because SCOTUS made up a "right" out of whole cloth, all it took was another SCOTUS (last week's in this case) to state that this "right" does not, in fact, exist. And I blame the Democrats for this. They had 50 years to pass a bill or Constitutional Amendment codifying abortion into law, however they decided not to. Because of that, all it took was a Conservative, Strict Constitutionalist SCOTUS and the right case to undo everything. Which is exactly what happened. I will admit, they made a half-hearted attempt to do that after the draft decision was leaked, which failed spectacularly, since the Democrats have razor-thin margins in both houses and it didn't take a lot of effort on the part of the Republicans to kill it.

And because Leftists don’t think or reason beyond their assigned talking points, there is no true understanding of the particulars of this issue. All this ruling did was return the power and authority on how to regulate abortion to each state. And because Leftists don’t understand, this is what happened: Abortion rights activists continue protests across Los Angeles on Sunday. I hate to tell them this, but the abortion rights in California didn’t change, and if they do change, it will only get better for them, as the California State government no longer has to worry about the federal government interfering.

Now, some states like Mississippi, Texas, and Missouri with very restrictive laws on the books, things will change. If you live in these states, I’m sure California will start offering “abortion holiday packages” soon, where you fly to California, get an abortion, then spend a week or two on vacation before heading home.

I’ll admit right up front that I have not seen What is a Woman? By Matt Walsh in its entirety. I have seen clips. I’m sure it would be cringey and entertaining at the appropriate parts, however in essence, it’s a MOTS (Man On The Street) documentary. A very classy and dignified MOTS, but still a MOTS.

A MOTS is where the interviewer and crew occupy a street corner and ask people to talk with them on camera, then ask them questions on the subject the interviewer is assigned to cover. In an hour or two they might interview twenty to thirty people. When the video gets edited, there’s one smart person who’s very knowledgeable on the subject, and 3-5 people whose knowledge of the subject is best represented in negative numbers that make the cut to be in the video, thus “proving the point” the interviewer was trying to make from the start.

I am moderately sure that Matt interviewed more people than appeared in his video, and he chose the most extreme examples of the Leftists he interviewed. This is not praise or criticism, it is an observation based on prior personal experience. And if I were commenting on a Leftist who had made a similar documentary, the comments and points I just made would be identical. That’s how Conservatives roll.

Personally, in the current political climate and “gotcha journalism,” agreeing to participate in something that is the polar opposite to your beliefs is always a bad choice. To believe that you will beat them, convince them or otherwise win, well Londo Molari from Babylon 5 said it best:

Now let’s get on with the content itself.

Matt, in each interview that I saw, metaphorically dropped a coil of rope between himself and the interviewee, then instructed the person on how to fashion a hangman’s noose, suspend it from the ceiling and hang themselves. Matt didn’t have to coerce, threaten or anything. These Leftists literally hung themselves by their own words, not only willingly, but gleefully. The look in the eyes of these people, going from smug, to confused, to the “awshit” moment when they realize what kind of situation they were in, then fear, and finally a transition to total panic is priceless.

Here’s my main point about Leftists in this video and Leftists in general. They hear a “sound good” idea (as opposed to a “good, sound” idea) and not only agree, believe and proselytize it, they accept it into themselves like it’s an additional vital organ that they can’t live without. These talking points become an integral part of themselves, and to admit the idea is factually wrong, counterproductive, and destructive to their psyche and so on, is to deny themselves. Which is why when forced to see and admit to irrefutable evidence where they are patently, factually and totally wrong, they have a mental (and sometimes physical) grand-mal-like seizure.

The fact that it must be this way with zero variance is another hallmark of Leftists. An action or event assigned to Trump generates a split-flinging apoplectic tantrum, yet the same exact story with “Biden” instead of “Trump” doesn’t even elicit a “so what” response. Their reaction is based on the name or the party, not the act itself.

It also makes perfect sense that when a person has incorporated such blatantly stupid ideas into themselves, any challenge to these beliefs can only be seen as an existential threat against themselves, which warrants the visceral hatred and physically aggressive responses we have come to expect.

This has also brought me to the realization that Leftists are children, emotionally speaking. They latch onto the idea of their choice, much like a six-year-old believes in Santa. And has pretty much the same temper-tantrum reaction as that child who runs to the tree on Christmas morning, only to find no presents and Mom and Dad telling them Santa is not real.

Leftists have nothing outside themselves to measure against. What feels good, right and proper at this moment is accepted as fact, without the foresight that will not necessarily be so in a week or a month.

What I am looking for now is a method to deprogram the knee-jerk reaction and restart an unbiased thought process in my Left-leaning friends and acquaintances. This is a good start.

Part one is here.

After finding this video, I consider myself as dead on in my assessment. This gentleman took the county election results, ran a hidden program and altered all of the votes in the county. Without setting off any alarms, without anyone noticing. The only way to discover this change would be to go to every polling location's master tabulation and recount the votes.

Just like I said:

So, if you wanted to hack a machine, which would it be? How about the one that combines all of the precincts?

You were saying?

I get a lot of “windshield time” in my job, which means I usually drive 1-2 hours between calls. It is during this time I think. For most of my articles here, their first draft is in a speech-to-text app on my phone.

One of the thoughts I mulled over in one of my many 100+ mile trips, was, “What would I do to straighten everything out in this country,” kind of like the 4th book Executive of the Piers Anthony series “Bio of a Space Tyrant.”

I got pretty deep into it, like the abolishment of the 17th Amendment, elimination of most of the bureaucracy, permanently banning all current members of the House and Senate from serving in public office, Freezing the federal budget, etc.

And then I stopped cold.

I have repeatedly said, “The only way to end mass shootings is to change the heart of people doing them.” Well, it hit me, cutting the cancer out of a patient only buys time if you don’t get the whole thing. It will regrow and present the same threat, or even worse.

The problem you see is US, you and I. We did it. We let things slide, content in our lives. The cultural turn was imperceptible at first, very slight. Because no one of any importance raised the alarm, the course change became greater, and the rate we were turning increased. Which leads us to where we are today.

As V in the Movie V for Vendetta said,

“…And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there?
Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.”

No one man, even with the total and enthusiastic power of our federal government, can change the hearts or the minds of the half of this country who have surrendered most of their cognitive abilities to the group. To inexorably tie their ego and identity to ideals that sound good at first glance, but evaporate like the morning dew under any examination, let alone intense scrutiny. And because these people have incorporated these ideals so deeply into their psyche, to deny what they have been told is the truth is like denying their own existence. Not gonna happen.

This is why Trump failed. This is why anybody in that position would fail. He held that mirror up to their faces and the shame and realization was so great they couldn’t gaze into their own eyes and admit it. So anyone who couldn't face themselves, attacked the one trying to help them.

No governmental power can change a person’s mind or heart. No government should have that kind of power in the first place. And even if they did, it would take just as long to get things right as it took to get here. Pray whoever has the helm then doesn’t oversteer and we go off the deep end in the other direction.

I know I don’t have all of the answers. Hell, I don’t even have most of the questions. I do know this: each of us must at least try to wake (not “woke”) these people up, one at a time.

If we fail, we don’t lose just the United States. We will lose America, which is the ideal that all men are free by default.

With the recent events in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX, we have people on both side of the gun-control issue lining up for their moment in front of the microphone to shout their outrage and cry for their solution to be enacted. And, like the true politicians they are, it’s a “vote for me and I’ll fix this” kind of thing, but it never does get fixed, they just get reelected.

I will say this plainly, NO GOVERNMENT CAN FIX THIS. There is evil in this world and all each of us can do is be ready to meet it head on when it surfaces. No law can stop evil, it can only punish the actor after the fact. We are the only ones who can stop evil. We do something about it when we see it.

For you IDIOTS who think "If we take away the guns, this won't happen," I have two words (since I don't mention the killers' names), "Oklahoma City."

Here’s my suggestions.

1. Deny the shooter their fame. I understand a mass killing is news. I am saying don’t show their picture, don’t say their name. Don’t interview their mother or family member about how they were “a good, sweet kid.” The president says nothing at all or names the victims.

2. End gun free zones. All they do is become magnets for events like this. Every active shooter rampage is stopped when they meet resistance. Either the police/armed citizen shoots them right then and there, or cause the shooter to retreat and end their own life. Allow parents with CCWs “known to the school staff” on campus. Allow staff who have a CCW to also carry on campus.

3. Harden soft targets. These will slow or stop the shooter, giving time for the staff and police to react and counter the shooter, trading speed for time. Make “airlocks” for schools. You get buzzed through one door, then after you’re in there, a second door must be buzzed to get you all the way in, or back out. Keep classroom doors closed and locked while occupied. No child has died in a school shooting if they were on the other side of a locked door from the shooter. We have kids practice fire drills, we need to have them practice active shooter drills.

4. Bring back the nuclear family. That means a mother and father in the home. Kids with adult males in their lives as positive role models, especially the biological dad, do way better in every measurable aspect of their lives than those without dads.

5. Return morals to kids’ lives. In church, in school, I don’t care. Instill the last six of the Ten Commandments into them. Honor your elders, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t murder and the rest. Give them guard rails when they’re young. Think the gutter bumpers we use at a bowling alley for young kids that are put away when they’re older.

No one thing will fix this. Well, changing the heart of the shooter so they don't want to kill innocents is the one thing that will end all shootings, however we haven't figured out how to so that yet. Until then, we need to do the five things above.

A “Policy Wonk” is a government official/consultant who is “very knowledgeable” on a single subject. I refuse to use the term “expert” because that title is usually-self-declared.

Before I get into this, I need to clarify the difference between "Authority" and "Responsibility," which the Navy pounded into me every day. Authority can be delegated, responsibility cannot. The Captain of a ship can delegate the authority to helm the ship as the Officer of the Deck to an Ensign. It is the job of the captain  to make sure the Ensign has the knowledge, skills, wisdom and judgement to safely steer the ship and stay within the rules of navigation and the Captain's general orders. If the Ensign runs the ship aground (or into another ship, etc.), the Captain pays the price for the act. The Ensign will get yelled at by the Captain, but will not get yelled at by the Admirals. Back to the subject at hand.

I am reminded of an episode of The West Wing, where President Bartlett was facing the looming probability of a recession. He spends the episode talking with a multitude of his policy wonks on how to avoid this recession. Their answers were unanimous, “The last guy you talked to is an idiot. His ‘solution’ will cause long-term problems here, here and here, making things worse. What I suggest is you hammer hard on the one aspect of the economy I am an expert on and that will fix the problem." President Bartlett, as all good leaders do, said, “Maybe the answer is not to hit one part hard, but to hit all of them gently and at the same time.”

Trump screwed up big time when he let a single medical policy wonk dictate economic policy. I can see the furrowed brows from here. Making people stay home and not go to work when a new infectious disease we "know nothing about" *cough*BULLSHIT*cough* might be a reasonable medical policy, but it carries grave economic consequences that Fauci does not have the training or knowledge to consider fully. That being said, there's the "superpower" called "common sense" that should have entered into Fauci's calculations. Obviously Fauci lacks that superpower. And because any economists Trump may have consulted deferred to Fauci, rather than provide Trump the context and ramifications on a possible course of action. Or, it is possible Trump ignored the economists or never even consulted them.

MAKING POLICY AND DECISIONS IS WHAT POLITICIANS ARE SUPPOSED TO DO. THAT'S THEIR JOB. Politicians are elected to office because a majority of the people believe this person to be the best candidate out of those provided to make good and proper decisions in a timely manner. While the politician should consult with a multitude of advisors before making any decision, the decision must ultimately be made by the politician.

The job of the wonk is to advise, then follow the directives of the politician, for good or bad. To tell a single wonk “Take care of this as you see fit” is the worst decision the politician can make. Because the wonk, pounding on one thing, will make so many other things go bad, and the politician gets all the blame when things go sideways.

Again, the Economic Left parrots Leftist idiocy, without any consideration or cognitive effort. California Mayor Fights For A “Right To Housing” Ordinance To House Every Single Resident. The story that he references (but has broken links to) is here, This Northern California mayor wants to give everyone a right to housing.

This is a wonderful example of the difference between Rights and rights. A Right (big R) exists without the presence of government. A right (small R) requires government to enact it, usually by compelling a third party to provide the service the government is paying for. And it's rather magnanimous of him to "give everyone a right to housing," isn't it?

As someone who has worked with (and been) homeless, I have a little personal authority to speak on this subject. First of all, people lose their stable place to sleep for a thousand specific reasons. The general categories that they fall into are these:

• Economic no fault of their own (job loss, catastrophic injury, etc.)
• Economic by their own fault (substance abuse)
• Mental health issues (debilitated to the point they cannot take care of themselves and have no family support)

Living on the streets is very hard. You have to learn skills that will keep you alive that don't translate well in "normal" society. You have to constantly hustle to get what you need for the day, be it cash, in line at the soup kitchen, or to the shelter for a bed to sleep in.

I used to work for a wonderful woman who's job and personal mission was to house the homeless. She worked to get funding to build apartment complexes, ranging from a 10 studio apartment building to a 25 family unit complex. She worked with HUD to get the funding, local contractors to build them, HUD some more to get them set up as "Section 8" housing, where you paid 25% of your income as rent. She also got them furnished. She then worked with the local mental health agencies to screen clients to become residents. The complex office was also a therapists' office, where these people could get the emotional support and resources they needed.

And what did these people do with these apartments? Mostly, they kept off the streets. Some would relapse into substance abuse and would have to vacate, some stayed there a while before moving on to bigger and better things, Most would stay there until something forced a change. One guy I knew, it took over six months for him to sleep in the bed in his apartment. Those first few months, until the "you are safe now" light came in in his head, he slept on the floor, curled up in the corner of the room, with all of his possessions stuffed into the corner behind him, because that's how you slept on the street to protect yourself and to keep your stuff from getting stolen.

And what government giveth, government can taketh away. Programs like this are never more than one spending cut away from disappearing. You know, that "running out of other peoples' money" thing. So you depend on the largesse of government, being subtly (and not so subtly) reminded of, "you're here because we want you here, and you couldn't have gotten here or stay here without our help."

Government builds apartments to be sturdy and low maintenance. Esthetics are not a significant consideration during design. One of my best friends ended up in one of these complexes. It was dank, dark and crowded. His apartment was a 200 square-foot studio. The elevators were not functional a good portion of the time, and his apartment was not comfortable to live in due to a lack of air conditioning during the summer when it's 90+ outside. The heat was on full blast all the time during the colder months and no thermostat to even slow it down. His neighbors were barely functional drug users, and/or had serious mental issues. Roaches and bedbugs were also prevalent. Given a choice between living in an apartment like his or the street, that would be a really hard decision to make.

The last point, people by and large do not appreciate what is given to them, especially if they don't have to worry about maintenance or repairs. Invariably, the more you give, the more they want. It never ends well.

I've had some time to think on this, plus the recent developments in Florida to expand on my thoughts of Killing Butterflies in the wake of the push of school officials to “help” children transgender, let me offer this:

“Grooming” is one of those words where you need to apply context in order to determine if the act has positive or negative aspects. You can be groomed for a political office, groomed to be promoted in your job, or groomed to be abused. Grooming is more than training or teaching. I can train you how to do something, say some kind of management position. Or I can groom you for that position, which means extra work for me to make sure the person being groomed knows exactly what to do (and not to do), along with specific knowledge or skills.

Now let’s put it to the test. Remember when you were 6 years old. You had no experience, no moral compass, and every day you learned something new. You were a sponge, absorbing everything the authority figures in your life (parents, family, teachers, etc.) told you. You absorbed it without too much cogent consideration (remember, you’re still six years away from your pre-frontal cortex really beginning to develop) and took it at face value. “An adult said it, it must be true.”

Every day held new challenges. As you grew, you always felt unbalanced, too small or too big, constantly unsure about everything in your life, especially who you are.

I do oversimplify, and there are always exceptions to the rule here. That being said, trusting good adults is how children grow up and mature into adults who do good things.

Now let me introduce our groomer. The groomer has an agenda, or a personal belief held so deeply no amount of facts will shake their belief.

When a person decides to go on a quest to “help transgender children,” that quest will never end. They will look until they find one (or more) and sometimes what appears to be a borderline case is “close enough.” The appropriateness of this quest will never be questioned, for (as C.S. Lewis put it) "[F]or they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Children and young adults as part of their nature question and try almost everything. Why else would a two-year-olds’ third word (after momma and da-da) is “NO!”? Because they try everything without any concept of it will hurt them or not. We, as the adults have to guide them properly.

When a groomer exploits a child’s questioning about themselves, the unsureness they have about who they are, this is when the groomer swoops in to steer the child to what the groomer wants.

I remember an episode of Diff’rent Strokes (Season 5, “The Bicycle Man” in two parts) where they showed exactly how a child molester works.

The methods for a child molester and a “transgender advocate” are exactly the same. Get the kid interested in something, get them to trust you. Then slowly push the kid further and further in the direction you want them to go until they get there.

When I put it like that, the concept is terrifying, is it not?