Category Archives: Social Commentary

Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Wyoming

53 Comments

…is about to take preemptive action:

The bill – HB0104 – states that “any federal law which attempts to ban a semi-automatic firearm or to limit the size of a magazine of a firearm or other limitation on firearms in this state shall be unenforceable in Wyoming.”

The bill is sponsored by eight Wyoming state representatives ad two state senators. If passed, the bill would declare any federal gun regulation created on or after January 1, 2013 to be unenforceable within the state.

In addition, the bill states would charge federal officials attempting to enforce a federal gun law within the state with a felony – “subject to imprisonment for not more less than one (1) year and one (1) day or more than five (5) years, a fine of not more than two thousand dollars ($2,000.00) five thousand dollars ($5,000.00), or both.”

The bill also allows the Attorney General of Wyoming to defend a state citizen from any prosecution by the United States Government.

You know, if Barack Obama or Joe Biden had read a little history, they’d know how the Revolutionary War started.

Economics, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Communism

2 Comments

…and fascism:

One of the features that distinguished Bolshevism from Tsarism was the insistence of Lenin and his followers on the need for a complete overhaul of society. Old-fashioned despots may modernize in piecemeal fashion if doing so seems necessary to maintain their power, but they do not aim at remaking society on a new model, still less at fashioning a new type of humanity. Communist regimes engaged in mass killing in order to achieve these transformations, and paradoxically it is this essentially totalitarian ambition that has appealed to liberals. Here as elsewhere, the commonplace distinction between utopianism and meliorism is less than fundamental. In its predominant forms, liberalism has been in recent times a version of the religion of humanity, and with rare exceptions – Russell is one of the few that come to mind – liberals have seen the Communist experiment as a hyperbolic expression of their own project of improvement; if the experiment failed, its casualties were incurred for the sake of a progressive cause. To think otherwise – to admit the possibility that the millions who were judged to be less than fully human suffered and died for nothing – would be to question the idea that history is a story of continuing human advance, which for liberals today is an article of faith. That is why, despite all evidence to the contrary, so many of them continue to deny Communism’s clear affinities with Fascism. Blindness to the true nature of Communism is an inability to accept that radical evil can come from the pursuit of progress.

And like “progressive,” “progress” is in the eye of the beholder.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

How To End School Mass Shootings Right Now

7 Comments

Abolish pretend “gun-free” zones:

The policy has been in effect for years in Utah, and there have never been any problems caused by armed teachers. Not a single one.

At Utah public colleges and universities, the same law has applied for years, so that school employees, and students who are least 21 years old, can carry lawfully. That has been the rule at Colorado State University since 2003, at almost all other Colorado public institutions of higher education since 2010, at the final hold-out (the University of Colorado) since early 2012, when CU lost 7-0 in the Colorado Supreme Court. Opponents have raised all sorts of hysterical scenarios (e.g., 18-year-olds bringing Kalashnikov rifles to a kegger; students pulling a gun during a heated debate in a literature class), but of course none of these scenarios have come to pass.

But hysterical and ignorant speculation is all they have.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The Left And The Media On Gun Control

7 Comments

Thoughts on the stupidity:

The position of pro-Second Amendment Americans is that gun ownership is part of the fundamental human right to self-defense, explicitly stated in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers due to an overarching political philosophy regarding the balance of power between the individual and the state.

The position of the anti-gun activists in the Obama administration is “guns are icky.”

The media consider them the intellectuals in this debate.

…Most laughable (and this is no laughing matter, which makes the White House’s position even more angering) is the “stiffened penalties for carrying guns near schools.”

So Joe Biden’s telling me that Lanza, overcome by his mental condition to the point that he’s murdered his mother and is headed to an elementary school on a killing spree, is going to stop 1,000 yards from the playground and think, “Hey — I don’t want Obama to take away my student loan subsidy. I better keep these guns away from school!”

These are the thoughtful, well-reasoned ideas from the Obama brain trust?

The Obama brain trust has always been intellectually bankrupt. And yes, I know the post title is redundant.

Health, Philosophy, Social Commentary

Amnesia

5 Comments

…and the self that remains when memory is lost.

This is the concern of cryonicists: what is the nature of identity?

If you don’t have any recollection of your own past, are you still you? If you forget who you are, but have maintained a record of your life, when you go back and read it and refamiliarize yourself, are you “you” again? If so, why wouldn’t anyone who read it become “you”? And if that is “you,” then why not just clone yourself and educate the clone with your memories? Intuitively, it feels like it might be someone else who thinks it’s you, but it’s not really you. Of course, Star-Trek-like teleportation has the same problem — is the person who stepped out of the transporter you, or a physical copy of you with the same memories? Is that continuity sufficient? How does it differ from the you that went to bed last night and woke up this morning (or in my case, the several mes that woke up repeatedly during the night)? Is that the same continuity, or one different in kind?

I’m sure that I’ve told this story before, but years ago, at the California Science Museum in Exposition Park, there was a display on health and medical ethics and it had various questions to poll the visitors. One of them was:

You have an inoperable brain tumor. If a donor became available because their body had failed, would you accept a brain transplant to save your life?

An astonishing number of people said “yes.” Which means they apparently had difficulty with the concept.