I'm confused. Really, really confused. I found this article on The Economist: Why execution by nitrogen gas is so controversial. The article lambasts using nitrogen as an execution method. Reading the article, I found several rather idiotic points that I am compelled to point out.

First, according to the article, An anesthesia mask is placed over the mouth and nose of the condemned. That right there is not the best way. A helmet or a total enclosure (such as the classic cyanide gas chamber) is better for the "delivery" of the gas.

Second, this quote proves the idiocy of the source, and the author of the article:

"Moreover, if a prisoner's mask is not placed correctly, nitrogen could leak, putting other people in the room, such as a spiritual advisor, at risk."

Oxygen comprises about 21% of the air we breathe. We don't start getting into hypoxia until it falls below 17%. Math (and common sense) shows that to drop the oxygen level that much in a small room (10 feet square or so), the nitrogen would have to flood the room at several hundred liters per minute. Those kind of masks deliver 8-10 liters a minute at most. To deliver more than that risks rupturing the lungs, called a pneumothorax (collapsed lung; a very painful experience). I learned about this when I became a SCUBA diving instructor; I had to help a guy who developed one on the shore. You could run that mask at full blast while it sits there on the table by itself and no one would notice. The freaking HVAC system for that room moves more air in and out, so this is total garbage.

Then they mention the American Veterinary Medical Association in their 2020 guidelines wrote that, according to the article,

"...nitrogen hypoxia is not an acceptable euthanasia method for most mammals because it is "distressing."

The article didn't note that nitrogen hypoxia is okay with the Vets when the animal is sedated/unconscious. However. on the same page (page 58), the guidelines express approval of using carbon dioxide (CO2) as an "Inhaled Agent." Hang on, I have to step away for a moment, the stupidity is making me very angry.

If you are familiar at all with the respiratory cycle of all air-breathing creatures, you know that it is not the lack of oxygen in our system that makes us inhale, it is the build up of the waste gas CO2 that triggers the action to inhale. So when the air you breathe has more than 2% CO2, you start to feel like you're suffocating (you are). You normally exhale <1% CO2, which is why mouth-to-mouth resuscitation doesn't kill either person. When you exhale <1% and breathe in >2%, the body panics. The medical term is hypercapnia.

As a side note, carbon monoxide (CO, produced by incomplete combustion) is also approved by these quacks. CO is about 250 times more soluble in blood than oxygen (O2). The red platelets in your blood that transport the O2 from your lungs to the cells of your body can only hold on to that O2 for a few seconds before the platelet has to dump it (think that you're carrying a large box around. Not heavy, just awkward and hard to handle). The platelet is quite comfortable carrying CO around. This is why just a few whiffs of CO-laden air can kill you. All of a sudden, no platelets are available to carry O2, they're all carrying CO. And before you know it, you're in hypoxia.

By using nitrogen hypoxia, you are exhaling your CO2, so you don't notice anything. If you're inhaling >90% nitrogen, you're not getting enough O2. Again, your system is keyed to CO2 build up, not O2 intake. You get a euphoric feeling as your brain cells die. It's the same euphoria one gets taking illicit drugs, but I digress.

The article also states:

Several weeks before Mr. Smith's execution, the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights warned that the procedure could amount to torture.

REALLY? Color me shocked. I trust/believe what the UN says less than I do CNN, and my trust in CNN can only be expressed in large negative numbers...

Then, we have an article like this: Controversial ‘suicide pod’ that ‘kills peacefully’ gets go-ahead in Switzerland. This device, called a "Sarco" is a suicide pod that the person climbs into, then answers some questions and once the questions are answered correctly, the person inside can press a button to start the process. The pod is quickly flooded with nitrogen, dropping the O2 level to about 1% in 30 seconds. Hypoxia and death quickly follow.

Before I get into my questions I would like to ask these idiots, I want to make something clear. The body of any animal will always try to survive. The consciousness may be gone (inoperative by sedation or hypoxia), but the body will fight. Muscles will twitch and contract in their death throes. if we don't shit or piss ourselves in these throes, we certainly will when those muscles die and relax, no longer holding back those fluids. It's not a pretty sight. Please, don't conflate these last spasms of attempted survival to the consciousness that once occupied that body.

So, I naturally have some questions:

• How can nitrogen hypoxia be a method of torture and an acceptable method of suicide?
• If nitrogen hypoxia is not allowed to kill animals, but CO and CO2 are, why can't we use CO or CO2 to execute people?

Personally, I agree with the Russian method of execution. Strap the condemned into a chair, let them have their last words and during it, shoot them in the "apricot," Which the medical term is the medulla oblongata in that soft area in the back of your head just below the skull. The medulla oblongata controls the autonomous bodily functions (heartbeat, et.al.,), and it relays commands from the brain to the rest of the body. It's the best "off switch" to end someone instantaneously, without pain or perception that they're dying, like if you shot them in the heart. A hostage taker with a gun on a hostage, if hit there will never have the chance to pull the trigger. The connection will be severed before the signal can be sent.

After the execution, the family of the executed are billed for the cost of the bullet.

Innately knowing something as defined by Merriam-Webster as, "originating in or derived from the mind or the constitution of the intellect rather than from experience."

There are certain things we know, and we know them so deep many times we do not really know that we know them. As adults, we forget what it was like when we were children. We forget because it doesn't make sense to our adult consciousness. Let me remind you.

A child is born as a blank slate. They have no preconceptions, no biases. Every day is filled with wonder, amazement and experimentation. Every day has a totally unexplored region just around the corner. They know nothing. They question everything, including about themselves. So, they experiment with everything without preconceptions. And when they want to know, and can't figure it out themselves, they ask questions of those who are older than them. And for the most part, they believe the answers.

This is where it takes the dark turn. When a child brings a question to an adult with an agenda, the child will get the agenda answer, rather than the correct answer. And this is why we have to stop this "transing" of children.

I was recently turned on to Dr, Riittakerttu Kaltiala, A medical doctor from Finland. She has performed and reviewed a dozen studies that all show the same result: 80% of children and adolescents who express a desire to transition, "reconcile" their trans questions back to their gender of birth by 18. In other words, FOUR out of FIVE children who believe they are trans, end up being the gender they were at birth.

Now you tell me. I'm giving you a chance to go down to the casino and put this month's rent down on a single bet and I promise you an 80% chance of winning. Would you do it? What if that chance was 20%? Would you do it then? Except you're not betting the rent here, you are betting on the mental and physical health of your child.

Children are fundamentally different every day of their first 15 years or so. The child you put to bed the night before is not quite the same child who wakes up in the morning. They may say they're the other gender today and a unicorn tomorrow. This is what play is all about. In the end, it is all play and "what if..?" No sensible person would destroy a child's future because of a fleeting statement.

If they want to go through the surgeries, they can do it when they're an adult. Don't do it to them before they mature.

The fact that the percentage of children who declare themselves trans goes up as the age goes down shows it's a hip and trendy thing for them, not "better diagnostic detection." We have to stop transitioning children with puberty blocking chemicals and radical surgery. If a child wants to dress, act and be named as the other gender, that's called "play." If a teenager wants to do the same thing, that would be called "teenage rebellion" and is perfectly natural and expected. Teenagers rebel because that's their way of separating themselves from their parents and family to become their own person. I know it will be a terrible time for the child who is truly trans, and I feel for them. I am concerned about the majority of the children who "grow out of that phase."

Why must we sacrifice four children to save one?

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.

I'm putting this one under "Duct Tape Alert" because I suggest you wrap your head in duct tape before going any further. That way when your head explodes you can find all of the pieces.

Think about it. A law is a government-defined rule that declares specific acts to be against the best interests of the people within the jurisdiction, with a penalty attached. It doesn't matter what the act is, you're told "Don't do this. If you do, we will punish you in this manner." 

All that being said, just because a law is passed by using the approved methods does not make that law proper or good, or advances the interests of the people. After all, it used to be legal for one person to own and control another person. Or incarcerate people based on their ethnicity.

We've all seen the hashtag #DefundThePolice. If you have blindly agreed with and followed along with this idea, I will now explain, clearly and as simply as I can why this is a terrible idea. and why it won't address the underlying problem that manifested the situations to create this response.

Police (and Sheriffs, Marshalls, Special Agents and the rest of them) are known collectively as Law Enforcement Officers. That's because their job is to enforce the laws on the books. Police are not part of the process to make the laws, nor do they have the power to choose on a large scale what laws are or are not enforced. They are supposed to enforce every law equally. Upon complaint by someone or they themselves witness a possible criminal act, the police investigate to see if a crime has been committed and arrest who they suspect committed said crime. At that point, the police hand the suspect and gathered evidence over to the prosecutors (part of the Executive branch, you'll see in a moment), who determines what (or if) charges are filed and the suspect prosecuted.

Now, this is where some second-order thinking is necessary. Where did these laws that police enforce come from? Do you know? The legislative branch! Be it your local city council, the state legislature or Congress, they are the men and women who create the laws of this country. And by the number of laws they pass, you'd think they're on commission, getting paid by the number of laws they create. And there are a lot of stupid and inane laws, like in Arkansas, Men are not allowed to ask women to dance during the month of July.

Now let's do even more second-order thinking and ask, "Who do the police work for?" The very concept of law enforcement is the purpose of the Executive branch of government. The Legislature passes the laws, the Executive enforces them. The executive branch is headed by the mayor, governor or president, depending on the level of government.  This person can and does direct their LEO's to provide maximum or minimum enforcement against individuals and groups. Then we have the prosecutors, who work for the Mayor/governor/president who exercise their own "prosecutorial discretion," which simply put, if the attorneys who prosecute people doesn't think the case is provable, or the department doesn't have the resources, or sometimes the prosecutor is sympathetic to the criminal or their cause, no charges are filed or any filed charges are dropped.

Right now there are so many laws on the books that it's impossible for you to go through your daily lives without committing at least Three Felonies a Day. The only reason we're not all in prison is it doesn't serve the interests of government. Unless you have earned the ire of the government. Then our lives and actions will be monitored and examined through a microscope until they find something they can use to make your life hell. Like Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was accused of violating the Logan Act (the last time someone was charged under this law was 1852). Too bad the facts showed he didn't. Then Flynn was charged with "lying to federal investigators" (a catch-all crime, kind of like Article 134 of the UCMJ) and threatened with 1) his son getting charged with crimes, and 2) dragging the investigation out until Flynn's attorney fees from defending himself would bankrupt him.

Let's take a step back here to look at this in total. First, you have a group that pass laws like a drunken sailor spends money (apologies to my shipmates), an Executive branch full of bureaucrats that makes more regulations with the force of law, coupled with mayors/prosecutors who routinely make go/no go decisions to prosecute based on politics rather than law, that right there is a bad situation. This is how tyranny comes to our door.

To make things worse, the good and professional police officers who have positive ethics and morals, who possess the spine to not enforce illegal laws, end up leaving for other professions. The police you have remaining are basically bullies who do what they are told and don't think about such moral quandaries because their paycheck depends on them not thinking about if they are doing the right thing or not.

For the empirical evidence on how successful #DefundThePolice experiment went, every city that drastically cut funding to their police departments experienced the same result, tragically verifying the outcome of the experiment over and over again. Every city that defunded the police experienced massive spikes of crime. Why? Because the Bad People who hurt, rob and kill other people knew their chances of facing the consequences of such acts dropped to almost zero. And as I wrote in the prior post just below, San Francisco will start paying criminals to not commit crimes. Talk about rewarding bad behavior.

How to fix this? It's simple, just not easy. And these would be the first steps, there's more once we get these done.

Cut the number of laws. I am not saying eliminate all laws. I am saying every law or regulation on the books that has a penalty attached should be reviewed by a Citizen board, and discarded if it unnecessarily or unconstitutionally interferes with the freedom of Citizens.

Reform the police and government. No one likes law enforcement when they are on the receiving end of it. Much like no one likes to be on the receiving end of an angry Pit Bull. It is a necessary fact of life that in order to have a safe and orderly society, we must either have a good and moral population, or we have to have police. Considering the former is rapidly disappearing, we must choose the latter. By only putting and keeping laws that advance society in place, and clearly defining police actions and authority can we strike the proper balance between freedom and law. Pay officers better and quickly weed out the bullies and corrupt ones.

To reform the government itself, that's a simple answer. Don't ever re-elect a politician. I don't care how outstanding a job they're doing. One term and you're out. Our Founding Fathers did not see political office as a career choice. He (or she) can go through the process when the next election cycle comes around. Make them live off their own efforts, not just our taxes.

Weaken Qualified Immunity. If you are unaware of the term "Qualified Immunity," it means a police officer cannot be held personally liable for bad acts they made while acting as an LEO. I think this should be weakened, not eliminated. If an officer commits gross negligence, exceeding their authority and things like that, those actions should expose them to legal and civil liabilities.

Like I said, these are small but foundational steps towards a better police force, a better government in general, and a safer community.

The Smithsonian put this rather racist “infographic” up the other day (and pulled it down just as quickly) and I just had to say something about it. So, let’s take this apart, section by section. Before I begin, some historical context.

When Mankind transitioned out of the “hunter-gatherer” stage about 12,000 years ago, we had eight major “groupings” of people. North and South America, East and West Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Asia and Australia. 12,000 years ago, the climate changed. It stopped raining and dried up. In four places (South America, Northern India, Syria and Egypt) Man developed the plow and learned to farm. That was the beginning of civilization. Being able to grow more food than you needed led to pottery to store the food, writing to mark whose food it was and all the rest.

Egypt and Syria are close enough to Greece for the Grecians to learn about this. Surplus food meant you could have people who weren’t farmers. This brought about philosophy and government.

Next, let’s jump ahead to 1492 and Columbus “discovering” the Americas (he never actually set foot on the continent until his third voyage, and even then it was South America). Let’s look at the world as a whole at that point.

The Americas, Africa and Australia were still in the “Stone Age” of technological advancement when White Europeans got to them. India and Asia had made technological advances (China had gunpowder and the printing press centuries before Europe) but didn’t do anything with them. They reached a certain tech level and stopped.

Before you start spouting Leftist tropes about how the Native Americans, et. al., were “living in harmony with the land,” let’s mention the downsides of that lifestyle. High infant mortality, human sacrifice, slavery, cannibalism, any wound could kill due to no medicine beyond a salve or two, shall I go on?

Rugged Individualism:

Until the founding of the United States, you mostly had Nobles and Everybody Else. Serfs were slaves, beholden to their Lord for a safe place in the walls of the castle when trouble roamed the land. It was the Greeks that came up with this idea of individualism. Their thinking about things like that has led to our concepts of this today.

Family Structure:

Most of this comes out of the 50’s, and is more of a straw man than anything else. The nuclear family (male and female parents protecting and raising their children) is a concept that just simply works. It has worked since we started keeping records of things like that, for multiple thousands of years. For the case “against” the nuclear family, I point to the Great Society. For the past 50 years, that has been a sociological experiment within the Black community where the nuclear family was purposefully destroyed. Just look at the results as of today and tell me the results are good or even acceptable. And broader studies across all racial lines have shown children from single parent homes do poorer than children raised in nuclear families.

Emphasis on Scientific Method:

The “scientific method” is the process to develop a theory, develop a model and a method to measure and test it, then test it to see if it works, correct errors, test again, and keep doing that until you prove or disprove the theory (or come up with a new one).

That method has led to the computers you’re reading my words on, the car you drive, literally everything in your world right now down to the fork and spoon in your silverware drawer. And this is a “bad thing” because it was developed by ‘White people’ how? Would have these things be “better” if they had been developed by non-Whites? Or are they just tools without intent or care if they are used correctly or incorrectly?

History:

Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted as saying “History is a set of agreed-upon lies.” There is no definitive source for the phrase “history is written by the victors.” But that is also true. History comes from the words “his” and “story.” Go ahead and call it sexist, it doesn’t bother me.

As far as giving women the right to vote and things like that, the experiment is still ongoing and I’m doubtful for a positive outcome on this experiment (that’s SARCASM).

Protestant Work Ethic:

Let’s turn these points backwards:

• Easy/no work is better than hard work
• Play before work
• You can meet your goals without working hard.

Can anyone realistically accept and promote those points? I thought not.

Religion:

Yes, in the United States, Christianity is the religion of the majority of people here. Non-Judeo-Christian religions are foreign (the word itself means “from somewhere else”), that’s a fact no matter what you say about it. In fact, Judeo-Christian is itself “foreign” to the Americas itself since it came about from somewhere else.

“No tolerance for deviation from single God concept.” In the comments below, please provide news articles where Christians firebombed or destroyed any polytheistic (that means more than one God) churches. I’ll wait but I’m not holding my breath.

Status, Power & Authority:

These points are male-related and I will not deny that. It’s how men keep score and since we’ve walked upright, it’s always been a “mine is bigger than yours” kind of competition.

Future Orientation:

Really? Really?? Do you want to make sure you’re around tomorrow? If you die, your children won’t want? That when you get too old to work you can live off your savings?

Time:

Time is a limited commodity, no matter how much you deny it. You spend the first third of your life learning just to be self-sufficient and how to interact nicely with other people. If you squander that time, you will perpetually suffer after that.

In conclusion:

A good portion of the bullet points (oh, gosh! Did I trigger someone with that gun-related microaggression of “bullet points”? Isn’t the term “triggered” also a gun microaggression? Get a life and get over it) of this “infographic” are sophistic strawmen, but in each case, I suggest you reverse each bullet point and ask yourself, “is that the kind of world I want to live in?”

If you’re tired of living in this world of “Whiteness,” no one is stopping you from divesting yourselves of all clothing and technology and going off to live in the wilds. Please do as a matter of fact.

History is brutal, only Big Brother types will deny that. There is war, hate, racism, genocide, slavery and so on. But there is also Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” AC/DC’s“Thunderstruck,” the works of John Coltrane, C.S Lewis, W. E. B. DuBois, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and way more.

In order for Man to do great things of good, he must also be equally capable of evil things.

So, the other day a friend tagged me on FB with this article and explained “This is why I left the GOP during the Reagan years.” I understand and sympathize with him, that's when I started becoming politically aware but stayed politically quiet for the same reasons. I don’t know if he followed my suggestion to read my thoughts on Trickle-down economics, but here it is again anyway. The Ultimate Strawman.

Let’s get right to the article in question, What don't most conservatives realize?

First of all, I commend Mr. Kruger for coming to his own conclusions, despite being raised in such a uni-polar household and community. I disagree with his assessments on a core level. Let me explain.

In the 80’s, the Conservatives made a large and fundamental error that has since been corrected. They attached their religious philosophy to their political ideology. This was a case of "I believe in God, therefore everything I think and say is good and proper.” And thus was born the Moral Majority. That backfired on Conservatives, just as the rabid beliefs of Liberals concerning global cooling warming cooling climate change, transgenderism, guns or Trump are alienating huge sections of the American populace from having calm and rational discussions on those subjects and more.

Today, Conservatives on the personal level are returning (unknowingly) to William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman and others. I agree with Mr. Kruger and the philosophy of Buckley, “Let’s take our time and think through all the ways any proposal could backfire.” I think any change to a new (or return to an old) way of doing things should be discussed openly, frankly and sincerely. I am totally against instances where one side hurls epithets to the other or exercises the “Heckler’s Veto” when opposing voices want to speak. Once a method is clear, try it with the intent of doing it more when it works, abandoning it if it doesn’t work. And it shows your bias if you say, “It didn’t work because we didn’t have enough funding or didn’t try hard enough.”

Let’s get on with the point-by-point:

Before I begin, I just want to note that I believe a large part of Mr. Kruger’s anger and resentment might flow from his disdain of his brother-in-law, who’s evidently a Ben Shapiro fan. The BIL has a Shapiro “Liberal Tears” travel mug.

1. You’ve redefined conservatism to mean “reactionary.”

I haven’t seen an original, forward thinking idea out of conservative circles since I was a kid.

Obviously, he hasn’t been reading my blog. ;-)

They don’t see the concept of conservatism as tapping the brakes on the wide-eyed and sometimes overly idealistic utopianism of liberals. They see it as their mission to undo it all. To say not only no, but to actively undermine and dismantle anything done by liberals because it was done by liberals.

“Tapping the brakes” won’t do the job when we’re ready to launch off a cliff like Thelma and Louise. From Common Core math, to mandating Americans purchase overpriced and inadequate government healthcare (and pay for it even if they don’t want it), to out-and-out abolishment of the Second and Fourth Amendments, the list goes on-and-on. These major changes came almost overnight, forced by government and without discussion or heeding the will of the People. You don’t think stopping anything that occurs like that is worth stopping? If a Republican administration started using the power of the Executive branch to mandate the actions of the Press, or a Republican Congress made laws for “reasonable restrictions” on news organizations, I would oppose that just as actively as I oppose what I mentioned earlier.

And the bit about Alan Alda’s “tax cuts” from The West Wing, seriously, do you believe that was anything approaching reality? That was a caricature of a straw man, written and produced by people with openly liberal views, which was performed by an actor who also holds liberal views. Another caricature of a straw man was when in season 5, President Bartlet’s daughter Zoey was kidnapped and he stepped down via the 25th Amendment, leaving the Speaker of the House (John Goodman) as Acting President. His first comment as President? “Let’s blow some shit up.” Bad examples that only proves my point, not his.

I am not for “undoing the 20th Century.” Women’s suffrage, the Civil Rights Acts, the continued elimination of discrimination (not just racial) are all good things. I stand against any act of government, or social more that I believe, when sifted through my core principles, hinders the individual unnecessarily or without justification.

2. You have a nostalgia for that which never really was.

Conservatives love to wax poetic to me about the great halcyon days when America was the shining city on a hill. When the markets and the men were free and liberty flowed in every stream. When the families were nuclear and divorce was rare and people had morals by gum.

[…]

It’s bullshit. It was always bullshit.

Then comes the (semi-rhetorical) question

First and foremost, freedom and prosperity for whom?

Human beings, as part of our physical and mental composition are imperfect. We never get it right the first time, and rarely even through the 25th time we try. There was still racial discrimination, and sexism, and a whole lot more back then. Then we came to a point where things like that became unacceptable and they changed. It doesn’t matter where the first push for change came from, it only matters it happened.

Freedom is a zero-sum game… to the Left. In the past 20 years, they have been systematically expunging any non-Liberal belief from universities across the country. Liberals (the big “L” kind) are acting like they believe that any position on any subject that does not coincide to six decimal points to the Groupthink must be destroyed, even if it’s a fellow Liberal. Just ask Rebecca Tuvel. It’s especially important to take heed of the quote at the end of the article.

Could you lose your job at a higher education institution for saying the conservative thing? Yeah, you could. Guess what? For most of U.S. history, that’s what it was like being a black guy saying something about racial injustice. It’s funny how conservatives didn’t seem to have a problem back then and were enshrining that lack of a freedom into law.

For this, Mr. Kruger is correct. From the 1950’s and before, any Black man who became angry and voiced his displeasure over his treatment would be branded an “Uppity N*****” and have the crap beaten out of him and/or lynched. It started changing in the 60’s and we don’t see that any more, do we, Mr. Kruger?

Today we have college groups like the Young Republicans and the Young America’s Foundation who invite speakers like Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klaven, Allen West, Dinesh D’Souza and more to a campus. The more Leftist campus organizations would hold protests with physical disruption (blocking halls, taking up auditorium seats, yelling during the event, etc.) at a minimum. The more extreme end is the threat of or actual violence, making the damage or security costs prohibitive and the event gets cancelled.

Now I call on anybody to show where this was done by Conservatives against a Liberal speaker. Not just on a university campus, but anywhere.

To get on to his next point:

Ah, all those regulations, you say? You’re mad because you wanted to drain that wet patch on the back 40 for a few extra acres and some gubbmit stooge came around and fined you over it. It’s your property, right?

Yes, it is my property. That’s one of the cornerstones of the United States. I should be able to do with my property as I please. In this case, you have a patch that floods occasionally and you want to build drainage in so you can use it. Then an EPA (who has SWAT teams by the way) inspector declares that occasionally wet patch as “protected migratory bird wetlands” and now you can’t get near it.

I do a lot of work with administrative law. Every regulation is written in blood. They all exist because someone decided to be an asshole and caused damage saying, “Well, it wasn’t illegal!”

I hate to tell Mr. Kruger this, but every regulation is not “written in blood.” I could write a 4,000 word treatise about federal regulations and their unconstitutional impact on citizens, but this article is not that time or place. Here’s one rule not “written in blood.” In the 80’s, The BATF just made up a regulation that “Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant” (APCP for short) was a “low explosive” and they had the power to regulate it. APCP deflagrates, but does not explode. This compound is used as solid rocket fuel and was used in the Space Shuttle’s two SRB’s. It’s the only solid propellant that is “man-rated,” meaning it’s safe enough for people be launched into space on it. BATF didn’t even follow their own rules to determine if this was a Low Explosive or not. This meant citizens interested in high power rocketry had to have licenses, special containers to store and transport APCP, were subject to inspections and more. It took over 20 years and millions of dollars in legal fees to slog through the federal court system to get a judge to vacate that regulation.

I will agree that every safety regulation is written in blood, I’ll give him that. I am naturally distrustful of unelected bureaucrats who write regulations that have criminal penalties attached to them. I don’t care if Congress passes a skeleton bill which includes an “All federal agencies tasked with regulation and enforcement of this law may pass, as they deem necessary, additional regulations.” My elected officials are accountable to me for their actions every so often. If they have angered myself and my fellow citizens enough he's out of a job. I have no such authority over a bureaucrat. So by default, I don't want him to have such power over my life.

The very Framers that conservatives so often revere to me believed in ordered liberty. Not just the famous Jefferson quote about your right to swing your fist ends at my face. They generally agreed that all liberty came with responsibility, and I’ll happily point you towards the writings of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau that they were directly influenced by regarding that.

The Founding Fathers believed in maximum personal freedom and minimal government interference. They also believed that the laws should be written in such a way as to be understandable while running. I can’t comprehend most bills passed by Congress today sitting down and with six weeks uninterrupted reading time. Open up any volume of the Federal Register and you will quickly understand.

Responsibility is an internal thing. A person who has the moral code to “do the right thing” has that responsibility within himself, to be imposed on him by himself alone. Accountability is the term used to describe the result of the government imposing penalties on a person for violating a law or regulation.

3. You are a lot more racist than you really understand, and your tolerance of open racism in your coalition makes you complicit.

First point here: If I see discrimination of any kind, imposed on any person, I promise you I will be in the asshole’s face like R. Lee Ermey. I’m pretty sure I speak for most Conservatives as well.

On the liberal side of things, we have the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” How condescending do you have to be to believe things like “These Black people can’t do it on their own. They need our help” while actively engaging in malfeasance. Just to be clear, misfeasance is when you see a disabled person in a wheelchair tumble out of it and fall to the ground, and you walk by without helping. Malfeasance is when you give them a swift kick to the head or break their chair while they’re down.

The biggest malfeasance done to Black society was committed by just the simple rule of denying Welfare to a married couple, but giving it to an unmarried mother, the more kids the better. This more than anything (but public schools are a close 2nd) has led to most of the racial divide today. Blacks in the 1940’s had an illegitimacy rate of 14 percent. Today it’s 75%.

4. You have just as much a problem with “identity politics” and “virtue signaling” as liberals, if not more.

Before I get in on this section, Mr. Kruger’s examples are all virtue signaling, no identity politics. I don’t have a problem with virtue signaling, as that falls under the whole “freedom of expression” thing. As far as identity politics goes I do have a problem with that, because when a political party does that, because it means a voter’s skin color or any other externally measurable demographic is more important than the actual thoughts, beliefs or needs of the individual.

Pre-COVID, Trump boasted “the lowest unemployment numbers for Blacks since the numbers were kept.” I don’t see that as identity politics because the unemployment numbers were at historic lows for everybody, not just Blacks or minorities in general. Trump didn’t work to lower just the unemployment for Blacks, he did it for everybody. Contrasted with the Democrat message to Blacks and the elderly, “VOTE FOR US OR ELSE THE REPUBLICANS WILL CUT YOUR BENEFITS!!!!!”

I’ve been told by prominent conservatives on Quora over and over again that they don’t like liberals because of the “identity politics” and “virtue signaling.” The implication of this is that conservatism is purely merit-based and doesn’t play identity politics at all.

This is bullshit. This has all the self-awareness of a dog licking its balls in public.

Conservatives openly complain that the United States should be a theocracy based on Christianity.

Um, not that I’ve heard of since Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. Get with the times, dude.

The ones that are more subtle about it talk about “religious freedom,” but when it’s time to protect religious freedom for Muslims, they’re dead silent or pushing resolutions to ban Muslims from holding party leadership. (This was an actual caucus proposal at a Republican caucus in Minnesota and it almost passed.) [Note from Mark, this happened in 2018]

Two points on this: First, it DIDN’T pass, so a majority of Republicans involved didn’t like that idea. Second, I’ve looked at several news stories on it. It was introduced at the precinct caucus level (Coon Rapids-Brooklyn Park, find it without Google, I dare you) out of the 4,000+ precincts in Minnesota. So 0.00025% of precincts has a person who liked this idea. If it passed the district caucus, from there it would have had to go through a Congressional district caucus before making it to the state caucus. I can’t find where it was voted down.

Now with any large group (Left and Right) there will be some fringe people. When a supporter of Bernie Sanders shot up the GOP Congressional softball team, I don’t know of any Conservative who blamed anyone other than the shooter for the tragedy. No Conservative tried to say “Bernie told him to do it!” So don’t blame all Minnesota Republicans for the bad actions of a few.

(Just as an aside, Liberals love to blame the NRA for mass shootings, even though none of those mass shooters were NRA members. I’m moderately sure most of the armed citizens who stopped mass shooters mid-rampage are NRA members)

5. You seriously have a problem with corruption and skirting the law.

Really. I am all for equal application of the law. I don’t check for political affiliation at all when it comes to bad actors. The difference between “skirting” and “breaking” the law are just like tax avoidance and tax evasion. In both cases, the former is legal and the latter isn’t.

Tell me, how many major news reports have you seen concerning Tara Reade? If you haven’t seen it, Ms. Reade has accused then-Senator Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993. Just as a comparison, how many reports did you see about a teenage Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulting a girl in the early 80’s? Don’t you think that such a serious accusation against a presidential candidate should get as much, if not more investigative reporting and coverage than a Supreme Court candidate?

As far as two GOP Senators who sold stocks after a meeting and before the market dropped from COVID (Richard Burr, Kelly Loeffler), Burr has asked for an Ethics investigation into his actions and they are presumed innocent until proven guilty (that’s another cornerstone of the United States, just in case you haven’t heard of it).

Then you bring up case after case of Republicans who violated the law, were tried and convicted, removed from their office and sent to prison. Other than a slight mention of the “Caucus Scandal in the early 2000’s,” you don’t bring up any Democrats walking the line.

In fact, you say this:

Over the last 30 years, a stunningly high number of conservative Republicans have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and ended up with prison sentences compared to their liberal counterparts. If you want to complain that liberals do it just as much, then you have to at least tacitly admit that conservatives are just that much more incompetent at hiding it. [Bold is me]

So you’re tacitly admitting Dems do break the law, but for whatever reason don’t face prosecution. You’re putting better criminals into office than we are. Is that really a boast you want to be proud of?

The first step to solving any problem is to admit you have one. Conservatives, you have a hell of a problem with your own ranks when it comes to law and order.

Yes, we do. We admit it, confront it and send the guilty away. We don't cover it up like a cat does his business in the litter box. Mainstream Republicans disavow racists like the KKK and other groups. Democrats can’t seem to disavow violent Leftist groups like Antifa, Black Lives Matter and more. You might want to start admitting to those problems on your side.

6. Your demonization of intellectuals and science is going to get us all killed.

I’m not demonizing scientists. I can get behind the demonizing of agenda-driven intellectuals who distort and mischaracterize falsehoods meant to goad regular people into advocating for a position based on “sound good” soundbites, rather than “good, sound” facts. Like the whole “97% of climate scientists…” line. Invariably, it’s con jobs like that (big problem, need to act now, no time to think) which result in more power for government and less power for people.

I also have a problem with the NOAA guessing for massive amounts of climate data, or ships at sea being used to collect ocean temperature data (the ships are hot, so they distort the data. That’s kinda important to know), or “proving” global warming using data from a weather station that wasn’t even built at the time.
The rest of it is all poorly-made strawmen. I don’t want polluted air or water for my descendants, nor do I know of anybody that does. The United States is getting cleaner, because we’ve found ways to minimize or reuse byproducts that used to be just dumped. When was the last time you heard of a river catching fire? I also realize that renewable energy technology is not to a technological level that can replace our current infrastructure. I fully support renewable energy that does not negatively impact the environment. It’s just not economically feasible right now. To totally stop or vastly curtail the use of fossil fuels will kill billions from starvation, because the trucks that bring food, medicine and other goods from farm and factory to table will stop running. Forcing the current renewable technology to replace fossil fuels will likewise crash the economy, again leading to mass starvation.

For Conservatives banned from speaking on college campuses, here’s some articles on it. 1 2 3 4 5. Just as a note, when The New Republic and Washington Compost notices and says something about it, it’s probably pretty bad.

And for the record, here’s a video of Ben Shapiro being an asshole as he’s turned away from speaking on campus.

Of course, Mr. Kruger ends his rant with a disclaimer. “You, you’re okay. It’s all of the other assholes saying they’re Conservative that is why I’m ranting over this.”

Mr. Kruger is entitled to his opinion. I’m just showing up with facts.

In my previous post I wrote about how the teachers' unions in Rhode Island are blocking a proposed law that would make it a crime for school personnel to have "intimate relations" with a student over the age of consent but still not a legal adult. I am neither for or against a law like this, I am upset because this is enough of a problem that a law has to be considered to address the issue.

When I shared the link to the article on my FB page, I paraphrased Darth Vader by saying, "I find their lack of morality disturbing." Several times in my life, I have said something off the cuff that did not make sense until later. This has been bothering me all week and I finally was able to articulate it. Here it is:

A person who is in a position of authority, of leadership, a professional in their field, is burdened with the responsibility of a certain code of ethics. The finer points of the ethics differ from profession to profession, but the major shared points are these:

• An obligation to do what your employer tells you to do, within legal boundaries and ones own morality.
• An obligation to your customer, to give them the best good or service you can for the price.
• To do no harm to those in your charge, be they employees you supervise or those you mentor.

What these teachers are doing violates all three of the above core ethics. These "teachers" destroy the trust of the customers (the parents) in their employer (the school system) and the teacher themselves, by having a "teacher's pet" the quality of services to all of the students suffers. The "pet" will have certain benefits and attention, while the others will not. The "do no harm" is the worst of all. This will give the "pet" the impression that if they sleep with whoever is in charge of them, they will have an easier time in life, plus it will provide encouragement to those struggling to try that path to improve their lot in life. I promise you, that never ends well for anybody involved.

In the context of a professional field, a union who wishes to maintain the air of professionalism needs to have a severe form of self-policing. Many other professions already have these mechanisms in place. One story like this puts a negative light on every other member of that profession unless the board of ethics deals swiftly and fairly with the matter. If a violation has been found, then the offender should be disbarred from the profession, no matter where they go. Right now if a teacher is terminated for such an event, they lose their job and their state license to teach. This "teacher" can then move to another state, obtain that state's teaching certificate and be back in front of students.

To know the unions will not uphold a minimum level of ethics and morality in their members, or worse yet actively run interference for their immoral ways, makes me want to never deal professionally with anyone in that profession again.

I have several other articles that I want to get out, however I feel this is the most important of the set.

I came across an article about Rhode Island House Bill 5817. An Act Relating to Criminal Offenses -- Sexual Assaults. This is a bill to make it a Third-Degree Sexual Assault felony to a school employee who engages in sexual relations with an under-18 year-old student. Because under current law, a teacher can legally "get it on" with a 16 or 17 year-old student, due to the legal age of consent for sex in RI is 16.

This is what caused the uproar: James Parisi of the Rhode Island United Federation of Teachers and Patrick Crowley of the Rhode Island National Educators Association registered to testify AGAINST the bill.

Let me say that again. The two biggest unions that represent teachers and other educators in Rhode Island testified their opposition to a potential law that would criminalize a teacher having sex with minor students who have achieved the age of consent (16 years-old).

But don't take my word for it:

Just to check up on the status of the bill, I went to the Rhode Island Legislature's bill tracking website (you have to manually enter "5817" in the Bills field) to check the status of the bill. It is currently set at "Committee recommended measure be held for further study." Which, in Robert's Rules of Order terminology, is to "Table the bill," or put it into a suspended state for reconsideration at an unspecified future meeting. If the bill is not brought back up before the end of the legislative term, it dies a quiet death. In other words, many bills that are tabled die in committee, never to be heard from again.

Teachers unions notoriously donate large sums of money to Democrat legislators. Perhaps a marker or two that accompanied the donations was called in? Just something to think about. This kind of law should be a slam-dunk. What sensible adult would be against the criminalization of an act that a person who has at least a modicum of morals would find abhorrent? To have a person of authority over a minor engage in intimate acts with that minor, no matter how willing the minor is or is not, is a level of depravity that does not sit well with me at all.

This is what happens when you keep calling the United States a Democracy: Think the Constitution Will Save Us? Think Again.

Okay folks, words matter. Words have distinct meanings and must mean the same thing to everybody. Except for Leftists and people fooled by Leftists. In their case, words mean what they want them to mean and the same word at the beginning of a sentence can have a different meaning by the end of it.

Let's go over this. One. More. Time.

THE UNITED STATES IS A FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC.

This country is called the United States and not the United People is because the Constitution was not written by or for the People, it was written by delegates from the thirteen State governments. The Constitution was not ratified by a popular vote, it was done so by the State governments.

Here's what those words mean:

1) FEDERAL - Pertaining to or of the nature of a union of states under a central government distinct from the individual governments of the separate states.

2) CONSTITUTIONAL - A system of fundamental principles according to which a nation, state, corporation, or the like, is governed.

3) REPRESENTATIVE - Each declared district elects one person from their group to represent all of the citizens in that district in the body they are elected to.

4) REPUBLIC - A state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.

When I look up Democracy, I get this: 

Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

I know I live in a Republic and not a Democracy because of this simple fact: In Memphis, TN, 63% of the population identify as "Black or African-American" and a majority of City Council members, 7 of the 13 are Black. If this were a democracy (direct or indirect), a motion could be introduced to the people as a whole or to the City Council that would read, "Starting September 5th, 2018, any person who is a legal resident of Memphis, TN can bring the head of a White person to the courthouse steps, shall receive a bounty of $50 per head."

In a Democracy, if a majority of the people voted for this (either the citizens as a whole, or their elected representatives), that bounty would be law. There would be no court to overturn it because a Democracy is "the will of the people." And until the "will of the people" changes, it is the law. In a Republic, where the rule of law applies to all and is intentionally hard to change, this would probably never happen.

So when I read the article I posted at the top of this article, my head almost exploded, which is why this is filed under Duct Tape Alert. This is the first paragraph:

Consider a few facts: Donald Trump is in the White House, despite winning almost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. The Senate, the country’s most powerful legislative chamber, grants the same representation to Wyoming’s 579,315 residents as it does to 39,536,653 Californians. Key voting rights are denied to citizens in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and other United States territories. The American government is structured by an 18th-century text that is almost impossible to change.

The Congress is a bicameral legislative body balancing the interests of the People (House) and the States (Senate). In order for a law to pass, it must advance the well-being (supposedly) of both the States and the Citizens. The House I believe is the most powerful chamber, as it controls the money of government. To balance that great power, the Senate was given many lesser things that have to do with the government itself, internally and externally. These are in the interests of the States, not the People, which is why those powers are invested in the Senate. The Constitution gave equal power in the Senate to each State (two Senators) for the declared purpose of that the larger States could not force their agendas down the throats of the smaller States.

The irony is thick in the second paragraph. First of all, they quote from Federalist #10, The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection:

For James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 10, “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention” incompatible with the rights of property owners.

I guess it's a normal and expected thing for the New York Times to misquote and take out of context people they don't agree with, especially Dead Rich White Males. Here's the whole sentence that Madison wrote and they misquoted and took out of context:

A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. [emphasis mine]

Democracies are the tyranny of the majority. Because the "rule of the people" is the only measure, there can be no stability. What is the law one day can be changed the next. Republics, through the rule of law and hard processes to change those laws, actually protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

Even some liberals like Vox’s Matthew Yglesias rightly worry that the current system of governance is headed toward collapse.

I agree that the current system is headed towards collapse. However, it's through the ballooning federal government, the overspending and a whole lot more rather than the structure provided by the Constitution.

Yet whether or not the president knows it, the Constitution has long been venerated by conservative business elites like himself on the grounds that it hands them the power to fend off attempts to redistribute wealth and create new social guarantees in the interest of working people. There’s a reason we’re the only developed country without guarantees such as universal health care and paid maternity leave.

Yes, there is a reason why we don't have universal health care and paid maternity leave. It's called the #1 economy in the world at $20 Trillion GDP. This derives from  the freedom to choose to do what you want to do with your money, not the government. If we redistribute all of the money from "the rich" to the "not rich," (with the government taking "its' fare share", of course) then we will not have an economy. Because the people who own the businesses lose their money, they can't run companies. No companies, no jobs.

While preserving and expanding the Bill of Rights's incomplete safeguards of individual freedoms, we need to start working toward the establishment of a new political system that truly represents Americans.

There they go again. The Bill of Rights do not "give" Rights from the government to the People, they recognize that Man has these Rights by the nature of his Birth. Thus, the Bill of Rights clearly restrict the government from infringing on those Rights. You might want to read the Preamble for the Bill of Rights, because it says it in there.

So here's the payoff for the article, but only the intermediary objective:

Our ideal should be a strong federal government powered by a proportionally elected unicameral legislature. But intermediary steps toward that vision can be taken by abolishing the filibuster, establishing federal control over elections and developing a simpler way to amend the Constitution through national referendum.

So let's break this down:

• Strong federal government - More power for Washington, less power for States and Citizens.
• Proportionally elected unicameral legislature - One House, no Senate. A great way for the big bully States to force their agenda on smaller States.
• Abolishing the filibuster - A senate procedural rule. Filibusters are stopped by a Cloture vote. The number of votes to invoke Cloture started at 2/3's (67 votes), it's now down to 60 votes and several subjects are exempt from it, namely Supreme Court nominees. This rule protects the minority party, which the Democrats are right now.
• Federal control over elections - Elections are currently run and certified at the county level, all 3,133 of them. Yes, there are corrupt and mismanaged counties. Which would you prefer, several counties that might have "incorrect" vote tallies, or a federally run system where one person could switch a million votes to the candidate they support? Stalin is credited with saying, "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
• Amend the Constitution through National Referendum - Something like California's Proposition process? Too bad the courts have overturned at least 9 of them in recent years. And remember, the Constitution was set up for the States, not the People.

This is what you need to consider. Our system is meant for long periods of deliberation, then a vote to set the direction for the next several years. when you allow for a shorter cycle subject to the transitory will of the People, nothing but chaos will result. Look at how quickly high-heeled Crocs came and went. Do you want a Constitutional Amendment that is the legal equivalent of that?

Of course, I said "intermediary objective" for a reason. I am sure that Leftists want to either abolish elections altogether, or render them moot. As a real world history lesson, if you belonged to the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, you were required to vote. If you didn't belong to the Party, you didn't vote. Each elected office had one person on the ballot you could vote for and no write-ins allowed. If that's the kind of electoral system you want, please go somewhere else.

When you engage in armed conflict, where you fight is just as important as what you fight with. Use or denial of terrain is an important component of any battle plan. A successful commander picks where he will engage the enemy, so that the terrain and conditions favor him more than his opponent. At the Battle of Agincourt, Henry V positioned his forces so the French had to cross open, muddy terrain to reach the English forces. When the French advanced, they became mired in the mud, which in turn destroyed their maneuverability and the advantages of their cavalry. This allowed the English archers (armed with that famous English Longbow) to obliterate the French forces. The French could not hide, could not evade and could not retreat. That day, for every Englishman who died, the French lost over 10. No wonder Shakespeare immortalized this battle in his play Henry V ("Once more into the breech, my friends, once more;").

Engagements in the battle of ideas are no different. We do not fight physically (okay, in other places like the Japanese Diet they do) but there needs to be a common language and set of terms used in this debate. I can best relate this in a video I remember but can't find, the guy brings flowers home to his wife as a gesture of his love and devotion to her. She is mad because she doesn't like flowers and ignores the fact that he tried to do something nice for her. It's sad that they are arguing with each other about two completely different subjects. He is asking for recognition of his expression of love despite the miscue, while she is arguing that he doesn't love her because he doesn't present her with what she wants. This is why when we discuss controversial subjects, we need to use the same words and terms, and those words and terms mean the same thing to both sides. If we don't agree on the battlefield (words, terms and their meanings) then we are just yelling at each other in different languages for different reasons and nothing gets resolved.

How are the two preceding paragraphs related? If one side was to let the other define the terms and the scope of the discussion, the side that defines the terms and scope is Henry V and the English, while the poor sap that has to charge across that open quagmire is Charles d'Albret and the French.

Case in point: This young man is debating his very Liberal Indoctrination Facilitator Teacher and she puts forth the silly notion that the Las Vegas shooter was a terrorist. I have queued the video to the appropriate part, but you should watch the entire video.

https://youtube.com/P-8k7YKl8hE?t=5m0s

The student gives the correct definition of the word terrorist, namely someone who engages in terrorism, which is the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. Did the LV shooter's actions cause terror? Of course, I don't doubt that for a second. If I had been on that killing field, I would have been terrified. Did he have a reason to kill all those people, such as to "punish Trump supporters," or "to coerce people to convert to Islam or die" (both of those are political reasons, BTW)? If he did, he was stupid enough to not tell anyone his reasons before his heinous act and subsequent death, thus squandering the opportunity.

To be frank, any act of violence usually causes terror in the receivers of that violence. By a simple extrapolation of her definition, every person who commits a violent act is a terrorist. So, if every violent criminal is a terrorist, it dilutes the term to uselessness by the time a real terrorist (Ted Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh and Osama Bin Laden to name a few) arrives on the scene. And by a small leap of logic ("Liberal logic" is the worst oxymoron I can think of) every White person is a racist, every male is a sexist, every straight person is homophobic and right on down the line of identity politics.

Are those prior suppositions true? I am sure zero of the above suppositions are no where near the truth. Why? For two simple reasons. First, you can't say "all" in any of these cases. I'm sure I could find one White person who is not a racist, simply because they love and/or married a person of another race. I would call that pretty extensive evidence contradictory to the original claim. Second, none of those suppositions follow the definition as written in the dictionary.

Just for discussion's sake, let's suppose that this young man accepted his "teacher's" incorrect and distorted definition of terrorist. Do you think he could have held his ideological ground in that discussion as well as he did? Not really, he would have been fighting an uphill battle. Do you think she would have had a great advantage in the discussion? Yes, for the very reason I explained in the opening paragraph of this article. By letting the terms and boundaries of the discussion to be set by distorted definitions, he would have seceded the selection of the battlefield to her and would have consequently been mired down in her twisted definitions and cut to pieces by her "Liberal logic" (that term leaves a bad taste in my mouth just thinking about saying those words!). Also, if you accept a different definition of a word or term at the start of a discussion, you leave the door open for a re-definition in the middle of the discussion, putting you at a further disadvantage because there is now a third definition in play. Of course, if during the discussion one of the other definitions is more advantageous to the Liberal's argument, they will switch to that and not tell you. Think of it as a "Verbal Calvinball."

This is why when words are used, everyone needs to agree to what they mean, and the dictionary is the neutral ground. "Sociological Context" is merely the Political Correctness of the 21st century.

In this article I talked about the importance of integrity, the demand that your word be impeccable in your trustworthiness.

So now it comes to light via The Australian (sorry, it's behind a paywall) that the Thredbo Top weather station has been deleting record cold temperatures (remember it's Summer in the US, it's Winter in Australia). Two meteorologists noticed temperatures of about -10C (14 degrees Fahrenheit) disappear from the records.

The culprit? A smart card reader. Riiiiiiiiight.

It has been reported online that electronic smart cards were allegedly fitted to the BoM’s automatic weather stations, which put a limit on how low temperatures could be recorded in official weather data. The BoM declined to comment ahead of the internal review.

[...]

On her website yesterday, Dr Marohasy said it was not the recording­ devices that were at fault. “To be clear, the problem is not with the equipment; all that needs to be done is for the smart-card readers to be removed,” Dr Marohasy said.

I deal with card readers every day in my job. If a smart card reader is deleting data, then the idiots who wrote the firmware for the reader need to be flogged. There is no computational power in the reader itself to manipulate data other than to translate it from "computer-speak" to "smartcard-speak." At best, there has to be an logic trap that they screwed up on as part of the translation process because the deleted readers are all two digit negative numbers. At worst, the logic trap was intentionally there to "shave off " low temperatures. I will lean toward the former due to Occam's Razor, but I'm not entirely eliminating the latter.

I have said for years, I can insult you and several of your preceding generations using words perfectly acceptable at a ladies' tea cotillion. A Liberal made me prove it tonight.

A friend made a post concerning the basics of health care. I commended him on a thoughtful, well-written post. I had to disagree on him concerning the concept of "forcing" those who decline/can't afford to have health care to pay the tax. This one Liberal and I then proceeded to banter back and forth like a tennis match. I tried to stick to the issues. This ...person... repeatedly attacked me personally. When I had enough, I gave this liberal a mild tongue-lashing, about a 3 on my insult scale. R. Lee Ermey is an 8 on that scale. Here's what I wrote:

[Liberal], I have been polite with you. I have spoken about the issue with you politely. I have been respectful to you as a person. Yet you have repeatedly insulted me personally without cause. Since it seems that your whole repertoire consists of insults rather than coherently expressed thoughts back by appropriately verifiable facts, if you want to be insulting, I can certainly stoop to the level above you.

You are a pusillanimous, insignificant and self-important blowhard. You are so narrow minded you can look through a peephole with both eyes simultaneously. You are a vacuous, mealy-mouthed cross-dresser who thinks they know more than they actually do. The lint in my pants pocket is worth more than your opinion or you personally. You are such a closed-minded low-grade moron, each of your friends and family have probably lost at least 15 IQ points because they have been forced to endure multiple sessions of your immense ignorance. Everyone who has personal contact with you agrees with you simply because it gets you away from them quicker than voicing a differing opinion. I personally would rather give myself a root canal with a power drill and a 2" paddle bit in a 7-Eleven restroom than interact with you personally.

I didn't use any curse words above simply because you're not worth it.

I worked for UnitedHealthcare for years. I know the ins and outs of medical insurance. I know about diplomacy and international affairs because I've been a part of it. I've done things in my life you wish you had the courage to put on your bucket list. What most people term as "due diligence" is my initial research.

If you shut up and listen to what people with a different opinion or viewpoint than yours say to you with an open heart and mind, with the intent to understand rather than the intent to reply, you might actually learn something, instead of letting that echo chamber between your ears do all the talking for you.

Like I said, this was a 3. Don't make me go to eleven.

This post is filed under the category, "Duct Tape Alert." Since I haven't used this category in a while, let me repeat what this means: A Duct Tape Alert means that I suggest you wrap your head in duct tape before reading, because when (not if) your head explodes, you will be able to find all of the pieces.

So I find this on the Huffington Post, and I am seriously wondering, "Who ties this guy's shoelaces???"

Justin Curmi has a three part series (so far) on "A Revision of the Bill of Rights." Part I, Part II, Part III and Part III, Questions Unanswered. All I can infer is there will be another seven articles until he has gone through nine of the ten Amendments in the Bill or Rights. I'm thinking he will probably skip the Third Amendment.

Justin misses entirely the purpose of the Constitution, which is a limitation on the scope of a federal government. I do agree that the Preamble sets the tone for the entire document, however he misses the overall point. He also seems to consider the Bill of Rights to be a secondary Constitution, rather than what they are, changes to the scope of original document.

The original Bill of Rights actually consisted of twelve, not ten amendments. The first has never been ratified, it being a plan on how to change the proportions of citizens to representatives as the population of the country grew. In 1911, Congress fixed the number of Representatives at 435. The second amendment ultimately became the 27th Amendment in 1992.

There is a preamble to the Bill of Rights:

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution. [Emphasis mine]

So, the Bill of Rights is a recognition that the rights of Man come from a Higher Power and the government constituted under this document must respect and not infringe upon these Rights. Every word of the Constitution as originally drafted and the Bill of Rights have the sole purpose of clearly defining and restraining the power of the federal government.

So, in Part II he says this:

If there are grievances, the people have the right to peaceably protest and write the government to address the grievance. Thus, the government cannot make a law but if there is a grievance brought to them by the people, they can ban or bar what is causing the grievance.

Again I am asking myself if someone pushes the straw into his drink box for him...

"The government cannot make a law but if there is a grievance brought to them by the people, they can ban or bar what is causing the grievance?" Really? Really? Of course they can make a law. And the various federal agencies can make additional regulations. They make these laws and regulations "public" in the Federal register, which it takes a special breed of person to effectively make their way through that and retain their sanity.

The United States is founded upon three Boxes: the Soap Box (as in the free expression and exchange of ideas and political opinions), the Ballot Box (throw the bums out of office) and the Cartridge Box (armed revolution if the first two don't do the job). If the government makes an unpopular law and the People protest, the government has two choices: either they can amend the law to remove the offending sections or void the law entirely, or tell the People to go screw themselves and start punishing people for violating the law. The People then have the option at the ballot box to vote in people to overturn said bad law, or rise up, overthrow the current power structure and try this experiment in freedom again.

His last paragraph in Part II almost gets it:

If a person is unaware of his or her rights, they will be doomed to laws that establish religions, prevent religious expression, limits free speech and press, and the right for people to protest peaceably. Ultimately ignoring the powers that an individual has, which is a detriment to democracy.

I agree, if the People are unaware of their Rights and Responsibilities, they will be doomed to laws that encroach upon their freedom.

It's Part III that really gets my blood boiling. It's about the Second Amendment. Again, Justin gets it wrong on the most basic level. Oh, sure he gets some of it right, but again, he misses the true intent by attempting to be nuanced.

The Second Amendment exists to recognize the Deity-granted right of citizens to defend themselves and limits the government from limiting that Right. It doesn't matter if the attacker is a local criminal or the federal government. That weapon is the power of the citizen to put an exclamation point to the word "No!"

Justin also does not grasp the basic concept of what exactly a "trial" is. In this instance, a trial is a legal process where another citizen or the state makes an accusation that another citizen has violated a law of the land. During this process, the accuser (the government) shows what law was broken and why the accuser believes the accused is the one to have committed the act. There are standards that the accuser has to meet, as far as the integrity of the investigators and the facts used to show the accused actually committed said offense. When we say "fair trial," we intend that the accuser must prove guilt, not the accused must show he did not commit the offense. If the accused must show innocence, this would be like standing outside on a sunny day at Noon, then trying to prove at that moment that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. You can't do it.

If a criminal just so happens to select an armed citizen as their next victim and the criminal becomes dead in the process of unlawfully imposing their will on the victim, that was the criminals fair trial. I am 100% sure that if the criminal had not performed the act, the citizen would not have forced the criminal to assume ambient temperature. As Baretta said, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

In Part III, Questions Unanswered, Our boy Justin gets it totally wrong, again. He questions the fair trial concept in the Fifth Amendment and fails to comprehend at any level what it means.

The appropriate part of the Fifth Amendment Justin is not understanding is:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger;

In order to stand trial for a capital crime (generally felonies), the accuser (district attorney) must present their evidence to a Grand Jury, who will either approve or "no-bill" the charges. The accused nor the defense team is present at these proceedings. This is purely to determine if enough evidence exists to possibly prove the guilt of the accused. If someone is in the military under active duty status, they do not get the Grand Jury step of the process. An officer on the field of battle can summarily execute a soldier under their command right then and there for something like Cowardice Before the Enemy, desertion of his post or a similar offense that could result in the entire unit getting killed.

It is plain to me that Justin does not understand the concepts he is talking about. His views are so contorted and convoluted I have no frame of reference to truly comprehend this mans ignorance.

And another wonderful example of how some people are willing to twist things to their own advantage. Outrage as LA School District argues that child can 'consent' to sex w/ teacher. So, the lawyers are stating that because the molested minor female was able to lie to her mother about her whereabouts, she could reasonably consent to sex.

Arguing that a child can make adult decisions, Keith Wyatt, the school district's trial attorney in the case, argued against the child, stating plainly, "She lied to her mother so she could have sex with her teacher. She went to a motel in which she engaged in voluntary consensual sex with her teacher. Why shouldn't she be responsible for that?" Not quite done yet, Wyatt also went on to insisted that a 14-year-old can be mature enough to consent to sex with an adult. Telling reporters, Wyatt also said, "Making a decision as to whether or not to cross the street when traffic is coming, that takes a level of maturity and that's a much more dangerous decision than to decide, 'Hey, I want to have sex with my teacher.'"

A 14-year-old is not emotionally mature enough to make such life-determining choices on their own. When an authority figure such as a teacher abuses the trust society places on them and engages in such conduct, they violate that trust, as well as the child. I am happy to note that child molesters are the lowest rung of the pecking order in prison, so our "teacher" is getting "schooled" by Bubba every night for his three year stint. Personally, I think Mr. Wyatt, for those kind of idiotic statements should suffer the same fate as the molester. It boggles my mind how such a person can be so craven to make statements like that. Knowing that this is in California, it's actually likely the family of the molested teen will lose this case. It's that screwed up in that state.

WARNING: Wrap your head in duct tape NOW, before you read this article. That way, when your head explodes, you will be able to find all of the pieces.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay absolutely stuns me. You don't normally get into a position of authority and power like this without some kind of intelligence. That being said, the level of absolute, unmitigated stupidity she shows makes me wonder how she is capable of drawing breath.

...U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said to members of the media at an “emergency” meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council that Israel was falling short in its duty to protect citizens in the Gaza Strip from getting killed by its rockets. The U.N. group listed among its reasons for making that claim that Israel outright refused to share its Iron Dome with the “governing authority” of Gaza — which is Hamas, Breitbart reported. Ms. Pillay also condemned the United States for helping to fund the Iron Dome for Israel, but not granting any such accommodations to those in Gaza. “No such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling,” she said, Breitbart reported.

So let me get this straight. This supposedly intelligent person, who should be seeing the attacks from Hamas, et.al. provoke the Israeli retaliation, and that Hamas hides their weapons in civilian areas, and launches missile attacks from schools, then has the cojones to demand that Israel gives their enemy a defensive system to protect the civilians who Hamas puts in harms way by hiding behind non-combatants like the cowards they are? The mental gymnastics she must go through to actually say this puts Cirque de Soleil to shame.

Two glaring examples on how the federal government is becoming an enemy of the People: Case #1: Big Chill: Feds Want To Scour Net, Media For 'Hate Speech.' Two Democrat lawmakers, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. have come up with a bill, "The Hate Crime Reporting Act of 2014."

The Hate Crime Reporting Act of 2014 “would create an updated comprehensive report examining the role of the Internet and other telecommunications in encouraging hate crimes based on gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation and create recommendations to address such crimes,” stated a news release from Markey’s office.

So, in effect we would have more "watchers" monitoring all communications, for that ever ambiguous "Hate Speech." And just who determines what is "Hate Speech?" Why, the GOVERNMENT, of course! After all, they have done the job of solving racism, illegal immigration, job creation and healthcare so well, right?

Yeah, right.

Case #2: DOJ's 'Operation Choke Point' May Be Root of Porn Star Bank Account Closings A quote from the article:

Under "Operation Choke Point," the DOJ and its allies are going after legal but subjectively undesirable business ventures by pressuring banks to terminate their bank accounts or refuse their business. The very premise is clearly chilling—the DOJ is coercing private businesses in an attempt to centrally engineer the American marketplace based on it's own politically biased moral judgements. Targeted business categories so far have included payday lenders, ammunition sales, dating services, purveyors of drug paraphernalia, and online gambling sites.

So, what the government "finds objectionable" but isn't against the law (yet), President Obama, Eric Holder and the people who work for them are basically strong-arming the banks into having them refuse to do business with businesses and persons the DOJ doesn't like. There is precedent for this. After all, the Clinton Administration pressured banks into lending money for people to buy homes, even when the banks knew the person could not meet the obligations of the loan. But it's not all Clinton's Fault. It can be traced all the way back to Jimmy Carter and every White House afterwards. If you don't know what happened, I suggest you read this. So, there you go. Two examples that the government "knows what is good for us, more than we know what is good for us."

I weep for us all.

This is a classic example of overreaction. Zero Patience for Zero Tolerance just shows how much of a prison camp our schools have become.

And so, an 11-year-old is taken away in handcuffs for drawing a picture of a gun; an 8-year-old faces expulsion for a keychain that contained a cheap nail clipper; a fifth-grader is suspended for drawing the World Trade Center being hit by an airplane … The stories go on and on.

These are not extreme examples, this is regular, everyday behavior of kids. Well, these are extreme examples of adult overreaction to kids normal actions.

But here’s the payoff paragraph:

In commenting on the study in the journal “National Association of Elementary School Principals,” Roger W. Ashford wrote, “The study concludes, however, that even though there is little data to prove the effectiveness of zero-tolerance policies, such initiatives serve to reassure the public that something is being done to ensure safety. Therefore, the popularity of zero-tolerance policies may have less to do with their actual effect than the image they portray of schools taking harsh measures to prevent violence. Whether the message actually changes student behavior may be less important than the reassurance it provides to administrators, teachers and parents.”

Oh. So Zero Tolerance doesn’t work, but it makes everybody feel safer. That makes it okay. No it doesn’t. When you institute a policy, when you perform any act, you need to have a positive result. If you don’t, you need to reevaluate the process, make changes and try again. You don’t fail when you don’t get the expected result, you fail when you give up trying. Not changing the process after not getting the expected result is counted as giving up trying.

Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. I can attest to this method personally. It doesn’t work. There needs to be a positive feedback loop to continually improve the process. That’s the way you make change and that’s the way you succeed. To do something and not expect success is stupid. And Zero Tolerance is far down that road already.

I happened across this article, California Fires Reignite Forest Thinning Debate and I have to cry a little bit.

In Genesis 1:26, God gave man the responsibility to rule over the earth. That means we are supposed to take care of all the animals and all living things. The eco-terrorists are working against that responsibility, thinking that nature is better off being “untouched by man.”

Over 700,000 acres have burned so far this year in California alone, along with the loss of 20 lives and more than 2,600 homes destroyed. Last year, wildfires burned nearly 7 million acres, killed 23 firefighters, destroyed more than 800 homes and cost taxpayers more than $1.5 billion.

No good has come of this policy. The loss of life, both animal and human is appalling. The financial cost is staggering. And for the most part, if we manage the forests like we were told to the costs would be much less, both financially and in lives lost.

We are faced with a decision. Do we cut down 50 trees to save a hundred, or do we lose all 150 to a forest fire. What good is it to “protect” the breeding grounds of the curly-tailed gecko if it gets burned out every five years? How many times must they have to rebuild their population? How many endangered species are lost altogether because their environment was burned down around them? The eco-terrorists have made a decision to lose everything to fire. And their precious forests go up in flames when they don’t have to.

The timber companies realize the importance of “renewable resources.” They plant more trees than they cut down. There are more trees in the US now then there were a hundred years ago by a large margin, because of proper management of renewable resources. Sure it looks bad when you see several acres clear cut at a time, but you need to come back a year later when there are thousands of seedlings planted and happily growing there.

It truly is a sad state of affairs, because the eco-terrorists see the results of their work and ignore it. Or they blame it on us because we didn’t do anything about it when they prevent us from doing anything about it.

Sheesh.

This article, Feds Finally Confront ‘Slave Reparations’ Criminals talks about how people are defrauding the government through tax returns to get what they think they deserve.

I have to admit, I am for it in some cases. For those on Welfare and its related programs, let’s make it a one time grant, ending all entitlement programs for those people for all time. That would save the feds a lot of money in the long run.

But generally, I think we should stick to the original deal, either 40 acres and a mule, or a one-way ticket to Liberia.

Since the civil rights movement in the 60’s, racism is largely a thing of the past. Blacks are now treated equally when they give that treatment to others. I admit, it’s not perfect, but it’s a damn sight better than Africa where they still practice slavery to this day.

A $500,000 per person grant is outrageous and not warranted by the circumstances. No one in America today has suffered from the institution of slavery.

And what about all of the white indentured servants? I’m sure at least one of my ancestors was such, don’t I get anything?

Feh.

We’ve been over this subject before. Compassion-Based Schools Teach Kids ‘Untrue Drivel,’ Critic Charges.

Of course it’s centered in that great Liberal stronghold of San Francisco. Unabashedly teaching unsubstantiated left-wing psychobabble to children and passing it off as “humane education” makes me want to pull out what little hair I have left.

“They are going to be teaching alarmism, which inherently means filling their heads with untrue drivel designed to breed a new generation of modernity-loathing robots,” Horner added.

This couldn’t be more of a brain-washing indoctrination if it was being done in China or South Korea. I understand that these people must exist (how can you have good without bad?), but it’s the influence that they have on our young that enrages me.

Fight this wherever you see it. Please.

I just found this on Right Wing News, The Democratic Underground Post Of The Day: We’re Geniuses, You’re Stupid!

It’s too late to offer my usual insightful commentary, but I offer you this quote:

#1 – I would dare to assume that most of us here are in the upper 1%-20% of the population intelligence-wise. We must come to the realization that the majority of the population is in the lower 80% to 99% percent of the bell-curve. WE are not the norm. The Republicans understand that the average American is not very bright. They cater and pander to the masses. The Democratic Party tries to appeal to the population about “issues” that these people just don’t understand.

Yeah, that’s all that the Democratic Presidential candidates have been talking about, issues. They haven’t been mercilessly slamming President Bush and his policies without offering one iota of their own ideas other than, “I wouldn’t have done it THAT way!”

Like I said earlier, meaningful compromise is impossible with people who believe like that.

I first heard about a DTA from Glenn Beck. He warns his listeners to “Wrap your head in duct tape. That way when your head explodes over this, you will be able to find all of the pieces.”

This is one of those moments.

I just found this article, Group Calls for De-Legalization of Marriage and knew from the title that this was a DTA.

Marriage and children are given their advantages because that is what the government wants you to do. Get married and have a bunch of kids. Raise them as part of a nuclear family to raise the population and you get rewarded with the tax breaks and other incentives.

To eliminate the advantages of marriage will devastate everything associated with it, with no possibility of any advantages. This is a concerted effort to destroy the nuclear family. Study after study have proven that children do better in a two-parent household. The best possible situation is to have one parent at home with the children (i.e. stay-at-home/home office parent).

I am not in favor of gay marriage, but I am also against a Constitutional Amendment favoring heterosexual marriage. An amendment would be swatting flies with a sledge hammer and should not be used for such purposes. The last attempt at such Constitutional social engineering was Prohibition. I am against gay marriage solely because they cannot produce children by themselves. As far as infertile heterosexual couples go, they have a distinct medical reason, not from a lack of trying.

I want to make this clear: I have no problems with homosexuals. I believe they have as much choice to be homosexual as I have to be heterosexual. I commend them if they are in a committed life-long relationship. But marriage is something that is not in the cards if you are homosexual, just like due to my life circumstances I can never own a firearm ever again. If they want to work at a company that recognizes same-sex life partners, go for it! I am not happy with the decision and I have no alternatives, but kids and marriage is out of the question. Sorry.

I read Steven Den Beste at USS Clueless every day. I came across this scathing analysis of Liberals in his log entry Democratic Contradictions.

Of course, if everyone in the world embraced the Tranzi vision, the process of establishing that utopia would be very straightforward. But it’s not to be expected that this take place, and the Tranzis understand that the majority of the human race will resist it to the end, for a wide variety of reasons all of which are fundamentally wrong. Those who would oppose it are unwise, unenlightened, indoctrinated, deceived, dogmatic; but they cannot be reached intellectually, so it’s necessary to force it onto them. Once it’s in place, they’ll come to realize that they were wrong and will accept it and even support it, but there’s no way to convince them of that before the fact.

It chills me to the core that such people exist. Not the Transnational Progressivism, you can combat that every day with clear, logical arguments and pointing out their hyprocracy. No, what scares me is a group of people who have no morals whatsoever and are willing to violate anything to achieve their ends, because the Liberals/Tranzis think their idea is what everybody should live under, not caring that the people don’t want to.

On a lot of levels, Liberals are the same as any dictator. They work within the system until they achieve power, then ruthlessly crush any opposition and then do whatever they want.

These people must be vehemently opposed and ideologically destroyed. You can’t negotiate with them, you can’t compromise or reach a consensus. You must go after them like Reagan did, not stopping until they are totally defeated. Expose their nonsense, lies and hypocrisy for what they are and defeat them utterly.

Because they are trying to do the same to us. Every time they can get us to compromise, they win and we lose. Because they will come back and want you to compromise and give ground again, just because you did it the last time.

There can only be victory, as the alternative is too horrific to consider.

Talk about timing. Less than a minute after my last post, I found this story, Everglades Cleanup Exposes Environmentalists.

One thing’s for sure. The Everglades controversy is a great showcase for the eco-activists’ insincerity and unreasonableness.

This just goes to show you. It sounds like to me that the level of run-off and the timetables were pretty much pulled out of a hat. It also shows that the eco’s target is not to clean the water, but to unreasonably curtail the runoff in the first place.

I lost the link, but a related story said that we have to double our farm output in the next 30 years or so to take care of the world’s exploding population. That means we are going to have to accept the possibility of some environmental damage to related lands. But when there are ways like this that can handle the run-off and side effects, we ought to applaud their achievement and ingenuity, not scrap our present farming practices and lose years of progress into more efficient farming.

Wildlife areas left to themselves are not balanced. They need some kind of maintenance. Look at our great forests out west. By correctly managing them, wildlife populations are controlled, underbrush is cut back and in case of fire, the fire is easily controlled. By not managing them, animals such as deer go through periods of population explosions, followed by periods of famine and/or encroachment into suburbs and cities. Wildfires take thousands of acres and hundreds of homes.

The greatest conservators of wildlife and their habitats are hunters and fishermen. The money raised from their licenses helps maintain wetlands, rivers and wildlife preserves. Their hunting keeps the population under control and is a humane way to cull the herds. It is in the hunters best interest to keep the forest in good shape, the herds in good health, and they quietly do the job.

The eco-terrorists on the other hand, have only personal and political power as their goals. They do not see progress by Man as a good thing. Of course, they need their SUV’s, but nobody else should have them. They do not care if a tenth of the local large animal population starves to death over the winter instead of humanely culled, they want nature to be “pristine” and “unspoiled by man.” They are driven by their own neurosis to do unreasonable things and despised acts.

I found this article, YOU HAVEN’T ‘FAILED’ – YOU’VE ‘NEARLY PASSED’ and it upsets me.

In the US, we’re already three-quarters of the way there with being self-esteem centric in our schools and scoreless sports. The self-esteem being taught in our schools today is a false one, because it avoids failure. This is the absolutely worst thing you can do to a child. School is supposed to teach children to handle life. Sacrificing the truth about weather or not they succeed on a test or project does nothing but set them up to fail when they get out into the real world.

Out in the real world of having a job, you have very clear pass/fail standards. If you don’t consistently pass, you lose your job. The people who graduate from high school and realize that the school had stupidly easy standards feel let down because the school failed on it’s basic premise.

Making things easy and not really grading also teaches children not to try. When they realize that they pass without putting any effort into a project, they stop putting effort into anything important.

Feeling good and getting a self-esteem boost when you win is easy. You just pick on someone weaker than yourself. Earning self-esteem is when you pick on someone bigger or better and winning.

Sometimes failure is the best way to teach self-esteem. No matter where you go in life, no matter what you do, someone will always be better than you. When you are defeated, you have to ask yourself, “Did I do the absolute best I could?” If you did, then you have nothing to be ashamed of. You take that and everything you learned and make yourself better than you were before. Then go out and try again. That is the American way.

Small business owners frequently fail in their first several business attempts. NASCAR can only have one winner out of 30 or so cars racing. Even the best professional baseball players only get a hit 1 out of every 3 at bats. None of these guys give up, they keep plugging at it until they win. Or should we let them “win” first time, every time?

In MechWarrior:Dark Age, the wargame that I play, there are two prizes handed out at a sanctioned tournament. First is Champion, for the guy who had the best record of the night. The other prize is Fellowship. This goes to the player who was the best sport. This is typified by who helped out less experienced opponents, who didn’t lose their cool when getting the stuffing knocked out of them by a superior player and so on. The Fellowship prize helps foster a positive attitude among all of the players. Sometimes, not very often, the Fellowship prize is actually better than the Champion prize. That really makes things interesting.

We are doing irreparable harm to our children when we feed their self-esteem this way. We teach them to take the easy path that goes nowhere instead of the difficult path that leads to the stars. Please don’t do this to your kids.