The Second Amendment

Even Barack Obama gets it better than the leftist activists:

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.

The Ghosts of Charlie Hebdo

Thoughts on the first anniversary, that started a terrible year of terrorism, from Mark Steyn:

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’.”

#SciTech2016

I’ve been at the SciTech2016 conference in San Diego (drove down from LA this morning ahead of most of the rain). Posting will probably remain light until tomorrow afternoon or Thursday, when I get back to the office.

I should say, though, that Bill Anders was very politically incorrect in the plenary session this morning. He was basically singing from my hymnal, about the obsession with safety, and Apollo not being about space, and he had unkind words to say about Orion, with a poor young woman from the program sitting on the dais with him (it was pretty funny when Ann Sulkosky and another Lockmart guy came up to him afterwards to gently remonstrate with him). It was particularly hilarious, because they’re the primary sponsor of the conference; there was a big Lockmart logo above them.

I introduced myself, and gave him a copy of the book. He said he’d read it (future tense), and I hope he does. It’s nice to run into an Apollo astronaut who’s thinking in 21st-century terms. He said Elon was on his poop list (he used a different word) because he was one of the few Apollo guys who had stood up for him against Cunningham and Cernan, but Elon had stood him up for lunch. I don’t think Apollo astronauts are used to being stood up for lunch.

“Expert Climate Economists”

Are apparently morons:

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.

Ideology

Now trumps all:

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.

They’ve made their bed.

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