Tag: defense

Added “Friction” Does Greater Harm to Good People

Kent McManigal

In my continuing “Scott Adams (is wrong) on guns” series (that’s a new tag), I have looked at many of his “halfpinions” (his word) concerning guns.

Here’s the next installment. Yes, this is something I’ve brought up before, but it bears repeating since he’s still misrepresenting the issue.

When people object to his anti-gun ideas by reasonably pointing out that bad people will still get guns and suicidal people will still kill themselves he likes to say that of course they will, but any new “law” will add “friction” to the process, and “add friction; get less of that behavior (crime/suicide)”.

Again he’s acting on the faulty premise– the assumption– that guns are bad; that they are the problem; that cutting back on their availability even a little is generally a good thing. They aren’t, and it isn’t. Starting from a flawed premise, he arrives at a dumb “halfpinion” of his own.

Yes, you might “add friction” to a bad guy getting a gun with which to violate innocent people but those aren’t the only people to whom you are adding friction. You also add friction to the good, innocent people looking to get a gun for defense at the same time you add friction to the bad guys looking to violate the innocent. You are adding friction to the girl whose crazy ex is promising to kill her. I lost a friend to this added friction about 26 years ago as she waited for governmental permission to buy and carry a gun for self-defense. Guess who didn’t bother following the friction-causing “laws”.

Who is more accustomed to dealing with added friction on a daily basis?

Who has the connections to do an end-run around your added friction? It’s not usually the good people.

It’s always going to affect those who want a gun for self-defense more than it will affect the bad guys who want a gun for offense. Add friction, you get less self-defense.

You might “add friction” to a suicidal person’s attempt to get a gun with which to end his own life. This might save a few lives– the lives of those who don’t have some other method immediately available and who will soon change their mind about committing suicide– but how many innocent lives are you sacrificing in the process? Do you really believe it’s worth the cost to trade one person who wants to die for one person who wants to live— even if those wants are temporary whims?

He pretends he’s already considering net “gun deaths”, but he can’t be. There is no way to record how many lives are saved with guns, so how can you credibly consider them? Very few of those cases ever get reported– to government or the media. Most cases of self-defense don’t result in the gun being fired. And even in the small number which do, unless a shot is fired and you’re in a town where the gunshot will attract unwanted attention, who’s dumb enough to call the cops on themselves? Even if you are in town, I’d bet in most cases the sound of a gunshot isn’t currently pinpointed if no one reports being shot. No one can know even a reasonable estimate of how many lives are saved with a gun, so there is no possible way to calculate the net “gun deaths”.

He’s only looking at half of the picture and ignoring the inconvenient part– just as he does in all his “gun control” [sic] ideas. This is his definition of a “halfpinion” which he claims everyone else is exhibiting while he’s the only one who isn’t…while he does it right in front of the world. And it’s because he starts with the predetermined assumption that guns must be bad, that guns are a problem, even as he paces gun owners by claiming to be “pro-gun; pro-Second Amendment“.

If you start with a faulty premise you’ll come to dumb conclusions because you’re thinking of the topic incorrectly.

I’ve tried to get his attention, but he ignored my attempts. He probably blocked me if he saw my tweets since I wasn’t kind or gentle with my criticism, and yes, I did make it personal because he’s personally advocating this toxic mindset. I didn’t expect to change his mind, anyway, but I want to give you the mental tools to refute the claims of anti-gun bigots whenever they crop up. They are wrong, even if they are popular and believe they are smarter than you and me.

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Michael Drejka is a Political Prisoner

Thomas L. Knapp

Just over a year ago, Michael Drejka fatally shot Markeis McGlockton in a Clearwater, Florida convenience store parking lot. On August 23, a jury found Drejka guilty of manslaughter.

Drejka should never have been charged with a crime.

Pinellas County sheriff Bob Gualtieri initially, and correctly, concluded that Drejka’s actions were protected under the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law. The charge was only filed after a calculated public relations campaign to create a “public outcry” based on political issues of gun rights and racial injustice.

Let’s review the facts:

McGlockton physically attacked Drejka, blind-siding him and taking him by surprise, driving him to his knees in a parking lot with no plausible place to flee (even if Drejka had been obligated to attempt to do so), then loomed aggressively over him as a second potential assailant (McGlockton’s girlfriend) moved to Drejka’s right. Drejka drew his weapon and shot McGlockton. All of this transpired in a matter of about five seconds.

Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law required a reasonable belief on Drejka’s part that firing his weapon was “necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.”

Jury foreman Timothy Kleinman admits that “Markeis Mcglockton unnecessarily provoked Mr. Drejka by pushing him,” but claims that “[a]t the same time, using the gun wasn’t needed.  … He had time to think, ‘Do I really need to kill this man?’”

Forgive me if that statement causes me to doubt that Kleinman or any of the other jurors have ever found themselves in a situation where they were required to make “a kill or possibly be killed” decision over a of span of five seconds or less.

Speaking of doubt, let’s talk about the jury’s obligation. Their job was to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Drejka acted maliciously or negligently rather than in legitimate self-defense. Based on the key piece of evidence — surveillance video from the store — such a conclusion borders on the impossible.

Even Kleinman admits that Drejka was acting in self-defense up to the instant he pulled the trigger: “I think simply drawing the gun would have been enough.” Kleinman had as long to think about that as he cared to take in the comparative safety of the jury room. Drejka had seconds to think about it, on his knees, in a parking lot, during a violent physical assault that took him by surprise.

So why are we here? Because some politicians and political activists found a “lightning rod” case to push their agendas with. That’s a bad reason, an inherently corrupt purpose, for charging a man with a crime.

Yes, Drejka started an argument. But McGlockton started a fight. That bad decision cost Markeis McGlockton his life. It shouldn’t cost Michael Drejka his freedom.

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You’re Better Than the Mob; Don’t Forget it

Isaac Morehouse

There seems to be a strange willingness to destroy real individual human lives in defense of abstract imagined threats.

Watch the way people get excoriated on social platforms if it is believed that their actions, words, or even thoughts, are potentially not proactively in line with whatever imagined doomsday threat is en vogue. They don’t have to even do anything concrete or harm any specific individual in a specific way. They themselves only need to be perceived as a threat to the crusade against some big unsolvable boogeyman that no one actually really cares about but everyone pretends to.

What if we reserved active disdain for only those times when a real person took an action that caused us firsthand harm?

I cannot imagine any way in which the world would be worse.

The burden of proof would be on those rallying everyone against a public stranger to demonstrate such harm and show why additional parties ought to consider themselves part of the harmed in explicit provable material ways.

The danger of bad individuals – even “evil” if you insist – is utterly dwarfed by the danger of self-righteous mobs seeking to crucify them.

Mobs aren’t human.

They represent a reprehensible sub-human animal spirit that lurks behind mass man at all times. It is the spirit that believes some men ought or need to rule others. It is the spirit that suppresses the individual will with a nebulous collective death cult. It is a spirit that revels in the suffering of those envied more than individual progress.

In religious terms, it is Satan. In political terms, it is The State. They are essentially the same spirit. They exist only based on belief in and fear of them. Their incantations are collectivist words like “We” and obligatory words like “Ought”. They place an unfulfillable burden of responsibility on everyone while making accountability for anyone obscure to the point of impossible.

Their message is always one of what cannot be done without them. Their psychology is that of an abusive spouse angling at co-dependent manipulation. They desperately and cruelly whisper and shout a repeated hammer drum of what horrors and impossibilities await those who don’t yield to their necessity. They don’t pretend to be good. Their lie is that they are necessary. That without them you would die. But they are death. Of soul even when not of body.

Don’t give in.

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Boondoggle-35

Elijah Henry

The U.S. government is infamously in debt. Since about 2012, the official national debt has equaled or exceeded the GDP. Shockingly, the real fiscal gap is much higher: with our $21.5T GDP and $22.5T official debt, we also have about $200T in unfunded liabilities over the next few decades. Most of that last number is due to programs such as Medicare and Social Security, but our regular debt comes from accumulated deficits: the U.S. government spends more each year than it steals in taxes. Since theft is its primary source of income, this situation is not sustainable.

The single largest item in the 2019 federal budget (contributing heavily to the aforementioned deficits and unfunded liabilities) is Social Security. The second-largest item is defense. The U.S. government spends more on defense than any other country in the world – by far. In fact, it spends about as much as the next eight countries combined. That is to say, the U.S. defense budget is approximately equal to the combined defense budgets of China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan.

Is spending of that magnitude necessary, or even remotely justifiable? Probably not. We’ve all heard infamous examples of gross waste and financial incompetence in the DoD – from $21T over a couple of decades that wasn’t correctly accounted for, to $1,280 cups, $999 pliers, and $640 toilet seats.

One of the biggest boondoggles in the U.S. DoD budget – and the focus of this article – is the F-35, AKA the most expensive weapons system in history. And of course, the costs continue to go up, according to a recent DoD report. The Pentagon first put out the project for bids in 1996, and the first F-35s were manufactured and flown in 2006. However, it wasn’t until 2018 that they saw combat for the first time when Israel deployed them. Since then, the USMC, USAF, and RAF have used them in combat only rarely. For a plane that is supposed to be sufficiently versatile and modular to replace virtually all other combat aircraft, the F-35 has been used very little.

Perhaps you’re wondering if this is a typical timeframe for a high-tech military project. Well, in 2001, the DoD expected to have its first combat-capable F-35s in 2010. That did not happen, not by a long shot. At least as late as 2013, these 5th Generation fighter jets could not fly in bad weather or at night. Despite all this, the F-35 program will cost about $1.5T, or approximately what the U.S. government spent on the entire Iraq war.

Last year, Defense News identified thirteen significant deficiencies in one or more F-35 models: from the possibility of a blown tire destroying the entire aircraft, to inadequate vision and sensor systems, to not being to fly too high, too fast, or in certain maneuvers without either apparent or actual major problems. Other issues included logistical and security concerns. Many of these have solutions in progress, although several additional issues with the weapons systems have been identified since then.

How does a project like this happen, and continue, despite perpetual problems? There are 1,400 subcontractors for the F-35 program, spread out over 307 congressional districts in 45 States. For those of you unfamiliar with the U.S. political system, that means there are 307 Congressmen (out of 435) and 90 Senators (out of 100) who have constituents whose livelihoods depend in whole or in part on the F-35 program.

Even the extraordinarily liberal (and openly socialist) Senator Bernie Sanders claims to oppose the program but supports having it partly based in Vermont, so his constituents can benefit from the subcontracting jobs.

It’s not just U.S. politicians who are financially committed to this disaster: there are eight other countries involved in the development of the F-35.

I don’t have a solution to the issues presented here. Really, since I oppose U.S. involvement in all the wars I’m aware of, I don’t really want to see the F-35 used more than it has been. Probably the myriad problems will be solved eventually, and perhaps most of the money to be wasted in this program has already been spent.

So, what’s my point? I want to draw your attention to absurd levels of waste and inefficiencies inherent in the government system, and I want to suggest that such waste is inevitable in the system as it stands.

What do you think? Is the system fixable? How would you fix it, or what system would you replace it with?

 

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Scott Adams is Still Wrong on Guns

Kent McManigal

The vilest anti-liberty bigots are those who pretend to be pro-liberty while misrepresenting liberty (or not even understanding what the word means). Anti-gun bigots who claim to be “pro-gun” are probably the worst subset of anti-liberty bigot.

Scott Adams is a case in point. He’s been advocating anti-gun “laws” a lot recently, seasoning his remarks with the phrase “I’m pro-gun“. It shows how deep his misunderstanding of the topic goes that he believes he’s making sense.

The following is a point-by-point analysis of a recent podcast where he was pretending to be pro-gun while promoting anti-gun bigotry and government-supremacy. He’s always blocking people for saying “You’re wrong” without providing reasons. Since he likes reasons so much, here are a bunch of them.

“The government should make the decisions about gun policy… The government and the people should decide what our gun laws are.”

Nope. That option has been taken off the table by the Second Amendment. And “our” gun laws? I’ve decided what mine are. No one else has any say. Collectivism is ugly.

“But we get to change the Constitution, too.”

Not without abolishing the United States of America. The Constitution and Bill of Rights were a package deal which created the feral, ummm, federal government, and without which it has no existence. Change one word of the Bill of Rights (which, being amendments, over-ride the body of the Constitution where applicable) and the deal is off. I’m actually OK with that. Are you?

“I did not say ‘take away your guns’.”

Only because you can’t be that honest. You’ve parroted the dishonest claim of almost every anti-gun bigot, that “no one is talking about taking away guns“. Maybe you aren’t proposing door-to-door gun confiscations, but if you believe government has the power to ignore the natural human right to own and to carry weapons, and the Second Amendment’s prohibition on “laws” concerning guns, then you’re advocating allowing “laws” to be written which could (and have) result in actual law enforcers taking away people’s guns, and murdering them if they resist.

“I’m very pro-gun (…) but…”

That’s what they all say. And maybe you believe it. But without a clear understanding of the issue you say things that make you look foolish and dishonest. That “but” leaves you a lot of wiggle room but completely invalidates your first statement there.

“If the citizens of the United States, collectively, with their government, decided to make some gun laws, that I personally, Scott, do not think are the greatest, I’d still be inclined to go along with it, because the system produced that output. And I would trust the system.”

As long as a system isn’t harming people I’ll trust it. Provisionally. But as soon as it starts violating people, I’m out. The slave trade was a system. No one should have trusted it because it violated natural human rights. “Gun control” is a system which violates people’s rights. In fact, government is a rights-violating system. None for me, thanks. I prefer my own system which protects everyone’s equal and identical rights.

“Some of you are saying ‘My Constitution gives me my Second Amendment rights, and the NRA is helping me defend them.’”

Anyone who believes their rights come from the Constitution/Second Amendment or any document is uninformed. The Bill of Rights was written to place natural human rights– including the right to own and to carry weapons– off-limits to government meddling. Even the NRA seems weak on their understanding of this point. That’s why real gun rights (human rights) advocates call the NRA “surrender monkeys”.

As I recently posted elsewhere in response to a similar claim: You seem to have been misinformed about what the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does. It doesn’t give anyone the right to own and to carry weapons; it makes it a crime for government to interfere in this natural human right in the slightest way. “Gun control” is a SERIOUS crime.

The right existed before the Constitution was written— before the first government was a twinkle in the eye of a lazy thief, even— and it will still exist unchanged long after the last government is forgotten in the mists of Deep Time. No law or constitution can alter that right in the smallest degree.

“You love the Constitution. So do I.”

I don’t. And neither do you. If you did you would try to understand its purpose better; particularly the Bill of Rights– which is what you’re discussing here. The ONLY thing the Bill of Rights was written to do was to limit what government could “legally” do. If you miss that point your claim to love the Constitution is patently ridiculous. It’s like if I said I love dogs, but then talk about how beautiful and soft their feathers are.

“Do you know what else is in the Constitution? Well there’s something about a representative government and presidents and Congress and all that.”

Yep. And that makes placing natural human rights out of their reach that much more important. Because you never know what those people might decide to do. Or what the majority of v*ters might decide to do. Placing natural human rights outside the business of government is necessary if you’re going to allow government to exist.

“It gives the control of our decision making to our elected representatives.”

Not all of it. Some things were wisely taken off the table (by the Bill of Rights) before the game began. Including guns.

(About the NRA) “If it crosses that line into taking the job that the Constitution gives to the government…”

Again, the government can’t have the “job” to make up “laws” about guns. That is one of the things government is specifically and explicitly not permitted to do.

“The first thing I would note is that it’s already infringed.”

Agreed. That means all those various infringements are illegitimate and need to go away. It doesn’t justify more infringements. You couldn’t have justified expanding the slave trade with the observation that there was already a slave trade. The slave trade needed to be abolished. Gun “laws” need to be abolished… or ignored into irrelevance.

“Can you own a tank; a flamethrower?”

Ignorance? Yes, you can.

About “Second Amendment rights” [sic]: “98% of it’s gone and you didn’t even notice.”

Rights can’t “go away”. That the government– or other bad guys– violate rights doesn’t make them go away. It just violates them. Understand the difference.

And, I notice the violations. So do other people. Just because you don’t notice doesn’t mean others are that complacent and ignorant.

“Do you think that the Second Amendment, when it says ‘arms’, was just trying to limit it to muskets? I mean, that’s all they could imagine at the time…”

No. The Second Amendment was saying “You shall not pass!” with regard to making up “laws” to violate the natural human right to own and to carry weapons.

And they could “imagine” more than muskets because more than muskets already existed. Some of the authors of the Constitution were inventors. Does Scott really believe they couldn’t have imagined anything other than what already existed at the time? Of course, they could. That’s what inventors do. They knew how guns had evolved from massive unwieldy things requiring more than one person to set up and use to tools easily owned, carried, and accurately fired by one average individual. They were perfectly aware of how gun development could progress from its current state– they were already witnessing it.

And it doesn’t matter. They placed guns on a high shelf, out of reach of government “laws”.

“I see all the gun rights people bristling, but so far I haven’t said anything you disagree with.”

Seriously? See all the above if you actually believe you haven’t said anything an informed gun rights person would disagree with so far.

And, I didn’t bristle. I took it upon myself to educate and correct.

“… the key parts are ‘militia’ and ‘necessary to the security of a free state’… “

The militia is EVERYONE capable of using a weapon in defense– this was made clear by those who wrote and supported the Second Amendment. Using their weapons against whoever needed to be defended against. You display gross historical ignorance here.

Then you go off on a screed about “giving you the right to own guns...”, missing the purpose and intent of the Bill of Rights yet again. Government-supremacists seem to love this train of thought, which I derailed above.

Now, I happen to understand what a “state” is, so I also understand “free state” is internally contradictory. I’ll forgive you for your ignorance on this one.

“… a created right; a manufactured right…”

You can’t create or manufacture rights. Every human who has ever existed has/had equal and identical rights. Rights don’t come from governments. Governments can either respect rights or violate them. Those are the only two options. That governments– states– always choose to violate rights to some degree says nothing about the nature of rights and everything you need to know about the nature of government.

“Even the experts disagree about what the Constitution said or meant or how it should be interpreted.”

Only willfully. If you go back and read the related writings and discussions between those who were writing it, there is no confusion. “Smart people” often find ways to avoid understanding things which would invalidate what they want. That’s the most common thing in the world. It doesn’t give weight to your anti-gun position.

“My take is the government can do whatever it wants, with guns, as long as it makes sense. As long as the people are with it.”

It probably can. But it would be wrong and the US government would be immediately illegitimized by passing even one gun “law”. Oops. I guess that bridge has already been crossed and burned. But, again, this is the unethical government-supremacist position.

And “makes sense” to who? Everything makes sense to someone. Theft makes sense to people who want to justify stealing. Rape makes sense to rapists. Serial murderers always believe their acts somehow make sense. Violating your rights can’t make sense to me. No matter my feelings, or my wishes. If I feel your rights “need” to be violated on my behalf, then I need to man up and defend myself– by exercising my rights– from you. Begging government to do that on my behalf is a loser move.

“If 99% of the people said ‘Hey, government, take our guns away’…”

So, mob rule, then. The belief that rights hinge on the opinions of the majority. The wishes of all the people but one can’t excuse violating the rights of the one. Not if you call that violation “slavery” or if you call it “gun control”. If someone doesn’t want a gun in their house there is nothing to prevent them from getting rid of it. I’m completely in favor of allowing them to do so. If, however, they don’t want guns in their own home this gives them no right to force everyone else to get rid of their own guns, or else. Not by “law” or anything else.

This is the same loserthink behind rich people who say “Raise my taxes– I don’t mind. I want to support government more.” If they want to give the government more of their money, they can. No new “law” is necessary. Just do it. To wait until a “law” is imposed forcing others to do the same is evil.

“…a vague statement in the Constitution hundreds of years ago…”

It’s only vague if you try really hard to not understand it. “Shall not be infringed” can’t be more clear.

“We can do what we want as long as there’s a system we all respect.”

Too bad for you, then. Or, do you not really mean “all”, but just all government-supremacists and anti-liberty bigots? Because, as I’ve already pointed out, I don’t respect systems which violate natural human rights.

“…’it’s in the Constitution!’ True, but does it matter?”

Only if you want to keep your government. If not, that’s OK with me. I don’t need your government and don’t feel like supporting it. I can’t afford it and don’t want or need it. So I’m not going to argue with you on that one. That’s just a case of you arguing against yourself.

“To all of you who thought you were disagreeing with me, and were wrong, I say: your opinion I care about… If you disagree with me on guns, I care about your opinion. I might disagree, but I want to hear it… You and I are on the same page.”

OK. I’ll send this blog post to you, then. I hope other people also forward it to you (@ScottAdamsSays) any time you talk about guns.

But, no, we are not on the same page. Not even close.

I’ll close with one final admission on your part:

“I know one topic I don’t understand: any topic on gun control”

Yeah, that much is painfully obvious.

So, no Scott, I’m not interested in any system which makes it easier to violate the natural human rights of my fellow humans (or myself) and therefore makes it more likely those rights violations will occur. Just not interested at all. When you’re right, you’re right. But when you’re wrong, you’re probably advocating government-supremacy.

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My Scary Manifesto

Kent McManigal

You do you; I’ll do me.

I accept that I, as a human being, have no right to initiate force or violate property rights– both those concepts being covered by the statement: I have no right to archate.

You also have no right to archate, but if you do anyway it’s your problem.

I believe that if you are doing something you have no right to do, you are doing something wrong. If you make a habit of it you are one of the bad guys.

I don’t believe in punishment, which I see as revenge.

I do believe in defense.

I also believe in justice, which is punishment’s polar opposite. I won’t go after you claiming “justice”, although if you violate someone and don’t pay restitution I will not lift a finger to help you in any way. I will then advertise the fact and hope you die alone, exposed to the elements and starving for food and water. But it’s not my job, nor any human’s job, to do what nature will take care of just fine without my help.

I don’t believe there’s any such thing as a “right to govern” and see all attempts to govern anyway as archation; as attacks on the life, liberty, and property of others. I’m not obligated to stop you– but I won’t step in and prevent consequences from paying you an unpleasant visit. Play stupid games; win stupid prizes. And I may exercise the right to defend myself and others from your violations– at my discretion. If you choose to violate others, watch your back forever.

I don’t recognize your political government nor its “laws” as anything other than thuggery. The reality is that there will always be bad people around. I won’t let them dictate the terms of my life. Some bad people aren’t somehow “better” than others. If you continually choose to archate you are the same as every other person who continually chooses to archate.

If I try to impose myself or my values on you, you have the right to stop me. Whatever it takes. I have the same right if you are the one trying to impose on me. It doesn’t matter if this imposition and violation is called a “law” or an opinion.

Live and let live. Anything less is barbaric.

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