In order to argue with a straight face that the right to keep and bear arms is inextricably linked with “service in an organized and sanctioned militia,” you would have to believe the following unbelievable things: 1) that the Founders’ intent in codifying the Second Amendment was to protect the right of individuals to join an organization over which the federal government has constitutionally granted plenary power; 2) that unlike every other provision in the Bill of Rights — and every other constitutional measure that is wrapped in the “right of the people” formulation — the Second Amendment denotes something other than an individual right that can be asserted against the state; and 3) that every major judicial figure of the era was mistaken as to its meaning — among them, Joseph Story, William Rawle, St. George Tucker, Timothy Farrar, and Tench Coxe, all of whom explained the Second Amendment perfectly clearly — whereas a few judges and politicians in the 20th century have been bang on in their comprehension.
I’m just glad that we got Heller before the court drifted too far from the Founders. But we are at the point at which any attempt to deprive us of our rights will result in insurrection. And fortunately, those defending their rights have the guns and knowledge to use them.
Both Paris and Copenhagen were twofers: the attacks on free speech were followed by attacks on Jews, at a kosher supermarket and a synagogue, respectively. To Obama, this second group of victims were merely a “random” “bunch of folks”. Couldda been anyone, but just so happened to be “a bunch of folks” who like kosher food. As I commented:
Bank robbers rob banks because that’s where the money is. In Europe, Islamic supremacists shoot up kosher markets, synagogues, Jewish museums and Jewish schools because that’s where the Jews are.
I think most of us understand that a huge percentage of Muslims really hate Jews. I have a high degree of tolerance for hate: I spent a lot of time in Northern Ireland during a period when many Catholics and Protestants seriously hated each other, and I came rather to appreciate the way they were entirely upfront about their mutual hatred. The problem here is that in the biggest resurgence of Jew-hate since the Second World War we’re not allowed to say who hates Jews.
That’s why free speech matters. Without free speech, there are only the official lies – about who’s killing Jews in Copenhagen, who’s sexually assaulting women in Cologne – and there is nothing to say in response to either except to crank up the old joanna for one more chorus of “Imagine”.
Also, from Bosch Fawstin: “if you’re Not drawing Mohammad, then you’re not Charlie Hebdo, and you can’t say ‘Je Suis Charlie’.”
I’m pretty sure that XCOR’s hangar isn’t over ten thousand feet long. I also think he overstates the difficulties with getting a payload on the ISS. Nanoracks has made that pretty painless. I wonder why he didn’t mention VG, which is rolling out the new SS2 next month?
When asked at what date climate change will have a net negative impact on the global economy, the median survey response was 2025. In the recent past, climate change likely had a net positive impact on the global economy, due primarily to the effect of carbon fertilization on crops and other plant life. However, even contrarian economists agree, when accounting for the vulnerability of poorer countries to climate impacts, global warming has been hurting the global economy since about 1980.
The NYU survey asked when the economic benefits we experienced up to 1980 would be completely wiped out; 41% of respondents said that’s already happened. Another 25% answered that it would happen within a decade, and 26% said we’d see net negative economic impacts by 2050. If we continue with business-as-usual pollution and warming, on average the experts predicted a GDP loss of about 10% by the end of the century, and that there would be a 20% chance of a “catastrophic” loss of one-quarter of global GDP.
There is no scientific evidence to believe any of this.
This is extremely bad news for America because it is very hard to have an effective democracy without compromise. But rising cross-partisan hostility means that Americans increasingly see the other side not just as wrong but as evil, as a threat to the very existence of the nation, according to Pew Research. Americans can expect rising polarization, nastiness, paralysis, and governmental dysfunction for a long time to come.
This is a warning for the rest of the world because some of the trends that have driven America to this point are occurring in many other countries, including: rising education and individualism (which make people more ideological), rising immigration and ethnic diversity (which reduces social capital and trust), and stagnant economic growth (which puts people into a zero-sum mindset).
This is extremely bad news for science and universities because universities are usually associated with the left. In the United States, universities have moved rapidly left since 1990, when the left-right ratio of professors across all departments was less than two to one. By 2004, the left-right ratio was roughly five to one, and it is still climbing. In the social sciences and humanities it is far higher. Because this political purification is happening at a time of rising cross-partisan hostility, we can expect increasing hostility from Republican legislators toward universities and the things they desire, including research funding and freedom from federal and state control.
Had progressives wanted to stem the tide of cultural libertarianism, the time to do it was a year ago. They could have edged back, been reasonable and won us all over. But instead they doubled down. Fine: now they get to lose. Let’s defend culture and free expression and push these odious halfwits back into their dreary studio apartments filled with cat-piss and alt rock records and let them know that we’ve decided to opt out of the soft bigotry of San Francisco-style nonsense. We possess a working sense of humour and we’re going to use it whether they like it or not.
Let’s hope. He’s a good general to lead the charge.
I don’t believe that science is done by “consensus,” but if you are sufficiently unfamiliar with how science works that you do, the consensus seems to be that CAGW is a crock:
Only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the 1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.
It’s also worth noting that the BS 97% number is not about CAGW.