I discovered an interesting gift early in my technical career, say 1980 or so – closing in on 40 years. Engineers are notoriously bad at and dismissive of documentation chores. And I rather had a knack for reducing dense technical material into matter more suitable for ordinary humanoids. As management and customers tended to be more normal humanoids than engineers, they were where the money and power came from. And so I could do well with this talent.
And so I focused much less on design and much more on technical documentation. I not only got very good at it, but very quickly was compensated far beyond what my engineering skills would otherwise warrant. With this very positive and almost immediate feedback, I focused on mastering that craft and improving it. It’s worked out very well for me personally.
One thing I did learn fairly quickly is that you can’t actually succeed at this game. You can only fail with varying degrees of grace. Kind of like singing. Try to only sing for drunk people and you’ll do better. And so if you only write for intelligent people, you will also.
And so I can be a bit dismissive of the fairly substantial group of humanoids who I really just can’t help anyway. Kind of a Biblical “Don’t cast pearls before swine” thing.
I’ve become a bit ensnared, really from just side comments, in attracting political engagements while describing batteries. it’s kind of astonishing, but such are our times. And my response is that it is NOT that I disagree with your position or point of view, but rather that I am astounded at your existence. And that is kind of the end of the conversation from my perspective. Nothing to see here, move along.
I’ve done some technical stuff in the past week or so and so to mix it up I thought a bit of philosophy and politics was in order. I don’t seek to debate with the alt-left libtard faction who I almost don’t beliee actually EXIST as I do to illuminate/clarify a couple of things for the sentient. Over the years I have become aware, by intent focus and study, of a couple of “life” things that might be interesting and useful for our intelligent viewers and readers. It is JUST that and a little squishy. Not precise. And not strongly held. But I find it a useful point of view and so endeavor to share it for those with an ear to hear as it goes quite to our current highly energetic national pastime – hating each other over politics.
And it involves God’s perfect plan for the world, which really is quite perfect.
Let’s consider a world that is bordered by perfect chaos at one edge, and perfect order at the other. And let’s describe the tendency toward chaos as LIBERAL and the tendency toward perfect order as CONSERVATIVE, just for the sake of the discussion.
Man has evolved over millenia and lessons have been learned and knowledge gained at great cost in human suffering over many thousands of years. Men have roles. Women have roles. Some form of political organization and governance is required in order to cooperatively build and do large things by groups of people and so forth
As a hive/tribe, it is imperative that those hard won lessons be carried forward generation to generation and century to century. I don’t mean it is important. It is IMPERATIVE. And so a tendency to order and maintaining our governmental, religious, family, gender roles, and corporate structures are of EXTREME importance to our personal and group lives, prosperity, success, and survival.
In pursuit of that perfect order, there is an inherent resistance to ANY change in the status quo. ANY change can pose a threat to our very survival. And so in the pursuit of order, all must be sacrificed to maintain the status quo. The CONSERVATIVE end of the view of mankind.
What that means and implies is that to keep having it as good as we have it, we can’t change ANYTHING. And so inherent in that assumption is that we cannot IMPROVE anything. We cannot PROGRESS at all.
And so it happens that for a certain quantity of humanoids, rather genetically and as their gifts, they have a countering point of view that we DO need to change things and we in fact need to deconstruct the status quo on a variety of levels to improve the lot of mankind and progress. We need to CHANGE things to fix them or improve them. And that point of view I would nominate as LIBERAL.
The extreme end of conservatism is a kind of tyrannical enslavement of the human individual to the purposes and survival of the hive. Ultimate ORDER at the expense of all.
And the extreme end of liberalism is the destruction of ALL forms of structure, hierarchy, traditional values, and organization. Ultimate CHAOS at the expense of all.
Picture a perfect circle with a line right at the center bisecting it top to bottom. Immediately to the right of the line, picture a row of people one person deep. It would be the tallest and so most numerous group fo people to the RIGHT or CONSERVATIVE side. One row to the right of that is MORE conservative, but of fewer in number. And one row to the right of THAT is a MORE conservative group of slightly less number of humanoids. And so it goes so that the LAST row consists of a single person at the extreme right at the three o’clock position on the circle.
This perfect circle is of course perfectly mirrored on the LEFT side. With the largest group of very slightly liberal humanoids adjoining the line of separation. And the row to the left of that being slightly MORE liberal but slightly fewer in number. And to the left of that, an increase in intensity toward liberalism and chaos but a decrease in total numbers and so on to a single individual at the nine o’clock position.
And so we have two factions, equal and opposite forces, with the total pressure of each half exhibited at the center line in opposition. If they are totally equal, it is a lockup. But with the slightest angular venctor caused by any deviation in mass left or right, the circle is FORCED forward toward you. Like a sailboat tacking in the wind. Let’s think of this as forward. And if the deviation is in the opposite direction, it would RECEDE BACKWARDS from you.
For movement either forwards or backwards, someone must cross the line. If someone just to RIGHT of the centerline crosses the line to join those immediately to the left of the line, FORWARD. And to move backwards, someone to the left must move right and cross the line. Not too hard to picture as the vast majority of people are of course immediately adjacent to the line and their conservative or liberal views are not very extreme or even strongly held. Indeed almost imperceptible.
The ideal is to be canted JUST a smidge left of the line. The left side provides motive power forward, and the right provides the counterbalance to maintain what has proven valuable over time. And so a perfect balance tacking slightly forward in the winds of an everchanging world. A perfect balance and course.
If no one crosses the line, there is no movement. We are locked up. So what causes liberal and conservative migration? Information. New information, new ideas, new facts, can cause personal growth and change in the point of view of individuals. In any direction. But without new information and the EXCHANGE of information and ideas, there is no change in anyone’s point of view. No movement. Or at least no course correction.
And so for many thousands of years, progress was made at a very limited pace because the flow of information was pretty much limited to person to person direct exchange using a common language. I suppose decrees from the King of any political structure would count. And wars and trade caused the fluid movement of humanoids about the planet mixing and providing for wider communication of information.
The invention of writing was a key technological advance. It caused the storage and forwarding of information and ideas to be decoupled from a human carrier and indeed to become durable over time.
A rather “liberal” blacksmith, Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg entered the world in 1394 in Mainz Germany. In 1439 he produced a means to mass produce movable type and combined it with a screw press from a winery to create Europes first “printing press.” This has long been heralded as an invention of the ages but probably is STILL underestimated for its ultimate impact on the progress of humanity.
It enabled, really for the first time, the mass migration of information without the necessity of a humanoid to act as carrier. Writing had of course existed for many centuries but he productized and automated its distribution. And so more invention and technolgical change occurred in the subsequent two hundred years than had been achieved in the entire previous history of mankind. It dramatically increased the flow of information and so the promulgation of information and ideas within our rather simple analogy of the circle. And SO the Rennaisance and the introduction to the Industrial Age. The rise of financial structures. And so forth.
In the last century, newspapers and books were common and published in astounding quantities. But in the 1920’s transmission of audio information by radio waves was developed and in the late 1930’s the similar transmission of both audio and video – Fransworth’s “televison”. This drastically reduced the overhead and time and expense to disseminate information.
And so the twentieth century again saw more tehnological and social development than the previous entire recorded history of humanity.
Some of the social developments were not really that great. And Mao and Stalin and Hitler managed the murder of hundreds of MILLIONS of humanoids by ill combining RADICALLY LIBERAL concepts with RADICALLY CONSERVATIVE control structures. I would nominate this as a radical form of DEVIANT DERANGEMENT. It falls outside the circle. Indeed it is a rupture in the circle wall and you can view it either as the RIGHt wall or the LEFT wall with equal precision. But these FEW deviant deranged humanoids spume forth from the circle in a kind of excrement of humanity.
In the period 1980 to today, we have seen the development of “personal” computational devices connected by a global universal and free “Internet” which dramatically decreased the cost and increased the velocity of information and ideas. And so the atomic motion within the circle increased and indeed, technological advancements within this latest period again eclipse the SUM of ALL human technological advancement prior to 1980.
And as presented by STeven Pinker and linked in a recent blog here the quality of life among humanoids has DRAMATICALLY increased in the last 30 years and FANTASTICALLY increased in the past 200 years.
But the increased motion and heat within the circle has also increased the production of genetic mentally deranged deviants, the DERANGEMENT noted in Mao, Hitler, and Stalin. Deranged alt-left libtards. They are bent on the destruction of EVERYTHING. And so my question and note that I don’t agree or disagree with their point of view at all, I am ALARMED at their EXISTENCE and in previously untold numbers.
Ironically, I am almost universally viewed as an alt-rigth conservative or at least an extreme conservative. Which is hilarious to me personally.
I AM NOW AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN A LIBERAL
I did serve in the United States Navy and did work for Department of Defense contractors for a period – I suppose the ultimate structures for maintaining the status quo. But rather quickly went on to advocate the development and advancement of personal computers, the Internet, electric vehicles and solar power. Much of my adult life has been a virtual WAR with governmental structures, telephone companies, large corporate structures of all types, oil companies, and now electric utility monopolies. I’m not wanting to change them. I want to disrupt them and sit with a bag of Jalapeno Fritos and a Dr. Pepper chortling with glee as they sell off their office furniture at six cents on the dollar and all of their employees join the ranks of the permanently unemployed. I generally advocate their TOTAL DECONSTRUCTION AND DISMANTLEMENT. We can repurpose their stuff for more productive uses.
My first wife was from the PHilippine Islands and my latest love interest of the past 24 years now is an African American from San Francisco. I happen to know without any doubt at all that genetic cross-hybridization is INHERENTLY and essentially ALWAYS healthy and I’ve done my personal best breeding both widely and with some enthusiasm to improve the genetic makeup of the human race. And to no small success I might add and further note.
As an aside, some little known facts for the youngsters: there are about 3.5 MILLION young gorgeous educated black women in America with no HOPE of marriage due to a ridiculous 9:1 ratio of educated professional employed black women to similarly situated black men. And statistically, the rate of divorce of couples comprised of a white man and a black woman is less than HALF that of either white/white or black/black couples. I’m not making this up. Do with this information what you will to your advantage.
I found it HILARIOUS to hear Hillerary Clinton blame her presidential campaign loss on women voting as their domineering husbands directed. I stand in line at the polls with a little piece of paper my wife and Queen actually prints out for me with all the myriad state, county, and local races and the confusing and deliberately misworded ballot proposals on it that I can’t make hide nor hair of. She’s the freakin PRESIDENT of the local League of Women Voters and this morning I coffee sorrowfully and pathetically alone and bereft of supervision as she is in Chicago at their national convention. Bottom line is I kind of vote as she tells me. And yes, as a black American woman, she pretty much decreed we would both vote Trump. Did I mention she has a PhD in Information Science and her dissertation was on voting technologies and their implications? Hillerary is clearly a DERANGED alt-left libtard of the most ill-begotten sort and we are both intensely relieved that she didn’t accidentally somehow get elected POTUS.
The perfect circle really is perfect. We desperately and more so today NEED to retain the traditional values and structures that got us here – to maintain order and health. And of course, we face a vastly IMPROVED future by adopting technologies to dramatically reduce costs and inefficiencies in energy use for personal transportation and our homes businesses and factories. But for the perfect circle to work, it has to not only provide for the rapid and universal communication of information and ideas, but ALL participants of the circle need to be able to EVALUATE that information and those ideas based on common understanding and language. You have to have a baseline concept of what TRUTH is and what FACTS are and what ideas represent – a lingua franca. And you have to modulate that with a strong sense of fairness and justice. Truth, Justice and the American Way if you like. Or on a more spiritual level we must all LOVE each other and desire to HELP each other get through this life here on earth.
IF you take the cynical view to POLLUTE the information pool with lies, deception, and misdirection in order to create an imbalance in favor of your own agenda, you are a DEVIANT and a DERANGED outcast from the circle. If you intend to distort the flow of information with ANY form of approval or disapproval of the words and concepts used to to transmit information, ie the entire CONCEPT of Politically Correct speech, you are a DERANGED and DEVIANT non-viable life form that should be outcast from the circle entirely. And so the true HITLERs and STALINS and MAO’s of our world are PRECISELY the DERANGED DEVIANTS that seek to destroy this perfect circle. Ironically, they screech these labels at perfectly sane LIBERALS within the circle most of all.
And so to clarify, Trump is not now nor has ever been a conservative. Ridiculous notion. Everything he’s ever done in life is devoted to change and progress. He may be the most liberal President we’ve ever had. He virtually lives to dismantle our current political status quo and on a global basis.
Elon Musk is a raging liberal.
Jack Rickard is a raging liberal.
Most hilarious is the emerging number of rising stars in the alternative media of the Internet and Youtube. Some of these people actually BELIEVE they are neo-conservative “red pill” conservatives. They are as liberal as they ever were, but the alt-left libtard deranged deviants have forced them to THINK they are conservatives to join forces with normal humanoids to eject the DERANGED from the circle.
Dave Rubin comes to mind. He’s homosexual and “married” to another man. But he’s been ostracized by the alt-left libtards, indeed ATTACKED by them as he increasingly interacts with conservatives and other displaced disenfrachised liberals on his actually quite EXCELLENT YouTube news show. https://www.youtube.com/rubinreport
Candace Owens is a raging liberal.
Jordan Peterson has likewise been VICIOUSLY attacked by alt left libtards who were seeking to legally RESTRICT non politically correct pronouns. They comically portray him as HITLER and an alt-right conservative. For Christ’s sake the man is a Harvard Professor, more recently at the University of Toronto , and noted author in PSYCHOLOGY. He’s a poster child for true liberalism, though I would see him as just left of our perfect centerline – very well balanced actually. His book “12 Steps to a Successful Life” has sold MILLIONS of copies and his Youtube videos often get a million views. https://www.youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos
He’s currently on a national tour with David Rubin and they are seeing SRO crowds of almost entirely young twenty-something MEN. Essentially ALL their audience are liberals but very uncomfortable with the deranged mantra of the alt-left libtards who have somehow hijacked the “liberal” flag while leading them into depression, dsyfunction, and ultimately in the extreme – suicide.
I would posit that this represents MILLIONS of such young men. They ALL know SOMETHING is really very very wrong. Peterson and Rubin are very effective at communicating just what that something is, and offering concrete steps to escape it. Ergo the attraction to the message.
Liberals are devoted to the deconstruction of the status quo in favor of progress and improvement. But they play by the rules. They seek TRUTH not misdirection and misinformation to “get their way.” And they discourse with LOVE not HATE.
Demonically deranged alt-left libtards have stolen the “liberal” flag and this has led to the wholesale displacement of true liberals by their lies, deception and hatred. Who does that sound like to you?
As Dana Carvey the Church Lady was wont to say “Might it be….. SATAN.” You can actually detect them quite easily. Disdain for Truth, Justice and Fairplay. They will say anything and do anything in any twisted lie to disrupt the game toward their own agenda/ends. They have no sense of rules or propriety. Anything goes on the road to seeking maximum power and impact. And they spew venomous accusations of “equivalency” with the proper use of truth and logic. It is a vomit of hate and deception.
The man I most admire in the World was Winston Churchill. When confronted on his running for a Parliament seat as a conservative that he had held years before as a Liberal, he put it rather succinctly. ” A Young Man who is not a Liberal has no heart. And an old man who is not a conservative has no brain.”
I buy into that. But then I never really grew up.
I would urge all to stay true to their proper roles in the perfect circle. We DO need to preserve what is valuable and hard won lessons of millenia as the human species. But we do also need to progress. And if we hold to our views and express them with love and a strict adherence to truth and justice and fair play, we face a remarkable and indeed astonishing future of promise, hope, and unbelievable properity and joy. Your opponents views have extreme value to YOU. And yours to them. They should be communicated freely, but with a common backdrop understanding of reality. Rules. Truth. Justice. Fair play.
And as to Satanic alt-left libtards, liars, and deranged deviants, they must be outcast, resisted, and eliminated from the perfect circle. Perhaps with a little love and effort, some can be reclaimed from the clutches of Satan. But not something I feel personally called to invest in. It is NOT that I disagree with their point of view. It is that I am ALARMED and deeply offended by their EXISTENCE. And they routinely soil and pollute the pubic discourse within the perfect circle. That they have infiltrated our primary communications media is a temporary abherration. We’ll simply reinvent the media. So Bravo Rubin, Peterson, et al.
The Internet detects censorship as damage, and routes around it. So if status quo forces at Google Facebook etc. attempt it, you know what to do.
Presenting themselves in the media they control, you would think half the country is of this ilk. They simply are not. They are a tiny minority who have leveraged liberals in opposition to conservatives to destroy the circle and thus mankind. And liberals are awakening to this shitshow of deception.
Relax you are NOT a conservative. It’s perfectly ok to remain liberal. But you also don’t need to support Joseph Stalin to be one. In order to “walkaway” you may have to vote Republican for about 12 minutes. But unlike the DNC, the Republican Party is not only a large enough tent to handle different opinions, but indeed has already exhibited a clear delineation of conservative “tea party” Republicans and moderate Republicans. The addition of a scant few millions of liberals won’t even cause a hiccup in our two party system. I expect subsequent to the DNC meltdown bloodbath of November 2018, we’ll see the wholesale capitulation of Democrats. Not to worry. Within 12 to 15 minutes, the Republican party will simply split into “conservative” Republicans and “moderate” Republicans. Opinion and point of view are essentially endlessly partitionable.
I find it amusing that the American populace has largely FORGOTTEN the origins of the Republican Party. The first public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement where the name Republican was suggested for a new anti-slavery party was held on March 20, 1854 in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. The main cause was opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas. The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil. The Republican Party was EXTREMELY liberal while the Democratic Party was very much for the maintenance of the status quo. Incredibly, in the 1860 election just six years later, the party won control of BOTH houses of Congress and the Presidency with the election of Abraham Lincoln. Their existence was almost solely under the unifying concept of abolishing slavery. And they originated as basically an all-white liberal group in the extreme northern states.
Alarm is not my intent. Simply awareness and reassurance. The deranged have already lost and their current hysterical screech is a clear sign of it. It’s what it sounds like when the devil takes his due. Everything ultimately for the perfect good and in it’s time. And our system of governance has proven remarkably durable, fluid, and adaptive over time.
Aside from asking the satanically deviant deranged to leave the room, the existing news media has to be taken out back and put out of its misery as well. The four minute talking head interview is simply no longer useful or relevant. Rubin/Peterson et al are showing that LONG form deep discussion of varying opinions can not only be tolerated, but millions of Americans appear HUNGRY for it. Brevity is the proper dress for music and cat videos.
So, it looks like you need to get your IDW badge and join Dave on his show. Would you be open to that?
I would be pleased to be on Dave’s excellent show. I don’t know what an IDW badge is of course. SO it would be unlikely I would appear with one.
Ok. I get it. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html. While I don’t normally wear badges, I will make an exception in this case. Yes. I would put on my IDW badge.
Jack,
– Liberals and conservatives both enforce their own brands of politically correct speech. You may recall that NFL players peacefully protesting were ostracized by the right for being un-American.
– To say Hitler, Stalin and Mao were liberals is pretty wacky (though it is a common rhetorical tool to claim your opponent is Hitler.) By your own definition, Hitler was advocating complete order. His definition of citizenship was perfectly tribal form that pre-dates the Greeks and Romans.
– Donald Trump may be up ending many things, but he is certainly not liberal. He is authoritarian and tribal.
– A more fundamental distinction may be self-reliance vs. empathy.
gw
I see. So in your opening statement, you FIRST seek equivalency. You HAVE to establish that to join the conversation. Right out of the playbook. I call that out. Bullshit.
NFL Players expressed their views rather freely as I recall. And the vast majority of NFL viewers expressed their response, which was the NFL players “speech” was in an inappropriate place and time and ill advised. What’s the problem? There is no imperative to AGREE with all speech. And there is no requirement for your employer to provide a platform for it. These guys were paid to play football but because they have a moment in front of a lot of people chose to hijack that “forum”, clearly owned by others, for their own political message. They STOLE it. After incurring HUGE financial losses last year, the NFL has wisely chosen to forego all that this year. ALL speech has consequences.
As to Hitler and Stalin, AGAIN you must immediately demand EQUIVALENCY where it is a ridiculous notion They are not EQUIVALENT. I didn’t say they were liberals. I said they were deranged deviants that coupled EXTREME LIBERAL CONCEPTS with EXTREME CONSERVATIVE CONTROL STRUCTURES resulting in the murder of millions of humanoids. What could be MORE liberal than actually murdering all the participants in the earlier government and completely disbanding all the existing governmental structures and replacing them with your own? The violent elimination of not only the entire previous structure but anyone who disagreed with your dismantling of it. THAT is the extreme drive to change and chaos. But what they replaced it with was totalitarian structure where ALL individuals ONLY exist to serve the needs of the hive as defined by the supreme ruler and again, anyone disagreeing is murdered. Thus my thesis that these particular rulers could be viewed as a rupture on the right extreme of the circle or on the left with equal precision. They are neither liberal or conservative. They are insane. Genetic mutations forming a non-viable life form. The resulting carnage is unimaginable. The numbers were staggering. The human mind can’t go there.
For the majority of people voting for Trump, their hope was very deliberately that he would go to Washington DC and burn the place to the ground. He’s doing a pretty good job of it, though in kind of a slow and measured way. He is absolutely non-tribal. He’s married to an immigrant. He personally employs thousands of African American and Latino people. Your notion is demonstrably absurd on the face of it. And his management style has always been to hire smart people and seek concensus among them while intently watching them disagree.
OBAMA sought change by Presidential decree. As a constitutional scholar, he somehow confused the Presidency with the concept of ruling from the bench.
Trump has enacted change through the legislature in the case of taxes and repeal of ObammaCare, 1 out of 2. He’s employed long established Presidential power to manage immigration, just blessed by the Supreme Court. Has sought to manage trade by tarrif and negotiation, again long held and authorized Presidential powers. Has sought to manage our relationships with other countries such as China and Korea by negotiation – again expressly authorized. And has thus far FAILED to build the wall and stem an actual foreign invasion and attack on our nation by deferring to Congress inappropriately in this instance I would posit. He’s not nearly authoritarian enough. He’s got a Department of Justice and a Federal Bureau of Investigation that have apparently attempted a coupe and overthrow of our Constitutional form of government and stands by wringing his hands while both departments are ENTIRELY legally under the control of the Executive branch. He could simply eliminate BOTH departments in their entirety with a wave of his hand. I don’t think he needs to even sign anything. And it would be a perfectly appropriate exercise of Presidential powers and responsibility and yet he does nothing. What part of the definition of authoritarian are you struggling with? You clearly don’t even know the definition of the term.
In any event he’s a poster child for change. That was entirely the basis for his attraction and election. Hillerary represented a continuation of the current government, and Trump represented a dramatic change in it. And he has changed it plenty. As I said, he may represent the most liberal President we’ve ever had although I defer to Lincoln’s role as well and Washington actually represents the epitome physically effecting the radical overthrow of the previous government entirely of course. So I guess he technically could NOT accurately be nominated as the MOST liberal.
My presentation was not entirely self contrived. The notion of yin and yang and chaos and order is not precisely an original thought. It is thousands of years old and generally accepted as a valid or at least useful representation of life and the universe. If that basic construct escapes you, I don’t quite know WHAT common ground might form basis for dialogue. Likewise the concept that forces for chaos could be considered liberal and forces for order might be considered conservative are not bizarre or even highly original to my way of thinking.
Self-relliance and empathy are personal traits. Gifts. Both generally viewed as positive but having what to do with this discussion?
Jack, everyone who thinks an AR-15 is a great gun to own is a liberal. This means “conservatives” are liberal “liberals” are conservatives in todays terms of gun control.
As implied in the blog, there is great fluidity among both liberals and conservatives in a very wide range of views and indeed, great exchange of body fluids and migrations back and forth across the line. With the vastly improved communications, it is a bubbling stew of ideas, concepts, points of view and information and is really quite beautiful, though it becomes very difficult to pigeon hole just who is in favor of or opposed to what because we are each kind of an admixture of different things. The categorical structure really fails in this era.
I don’t, for example, actually hold a strong view on guns per se. Due to early experiences with war, I kind of don’t like loud noises if you know what I mean. But I deeply resent the alt-left libtard attempts to game the system with misinformation, disinformation,and attempts to use courts, the press, and legislative legerdemain to flaunt our constitution.
If you want to ban guns its very simple – pass a constitutional amendment. If that’s too HARD, all that means is that less than 66% of the body politic want it and so it should probably be left as is. It’s certainly not impossible or even implausible, we have 27 of the damn things now. And that is the correct redress and the test of the wisdom of crowds. I actually probably wouldn’t vote either way. But I could easily be viewed as a rabid gun rights activist because I am so disgusted by the process techniques of the deranged deviants.
ANd I have to point out, you don’t need permission of either the Congress or the President to enact a Constitutional Amendment. There are several perfectly serviceable paths to it and they work. As I said, 27 times.
But to your point, yes, if I wanted to hurt somebody it would not be with a toy AR-15.
12gauge tactical .76 caliber slug is more my style. If you want to jack somebody up, jack em UP. And careful aim doesn’t suit my personality or talents.
To the demonically possessed deviant deranged alt-left libtards. I DO love you and I want to help you. But I do own a 12 gage tactical and just don’t suffer any qualms or conscience issues about its use.
While you are hitting upon the idea in the first paragraph, I am not sure you get the point because of your next comment below. My point is that you can not really put a label or definition on something without knowing how (to use your words) “to pigeon hole just who is in favor of or opposed to what because we are each kind of an admixture of different things”. Let me put it this way, yes I do get the “I kind of don’t like loud noises if you know what I mean.” in part because I to am a vet but also my neighbors shot guns both yesterday and today here in rural MS, in other words, I got experience. But, I also “deeply resent the alt-[right Nazis] attempts to game the system with misinformation, disinformation,and attempts to use courts, the press, and legislative legerdemain to flaunt our constitution” just as much (if not more) as you do to the “alt-left libtard”s.
Also, there is no need to pass a constitutional amendment to ban the AR-15 because of the same reason why grenades are ban and TNT is “well regulated” in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The major problems here in the US is parties which are run by people who currently do not know what is going on because the nation has grown older while the parties have grown more senile. It is time for the youth to take over again.
As an “originalist” of Scalia notion, I don’t see ANYTHING in the 2nd Amendment giving the U.S. government any authority at all over hand grenades or TNT. And I would suggest that any such disinterpretation was performed illegally and as a matter of convenience to a court all too given to catering to its own convenience. Differentiating modern “arms” based on the notion that our founders could not have foreseen them is simply nonsense. Thermonuclear explosive devices are clearly arms and our citizens right to own them shall not be infringed under the current U.S. Constitution. I don’t actually advocate the private sale and use of them, but again, it should have been done properly.
Convenient misappropriation of Constitutional definition ultimately leads to no Constitution at all and the forfeiture of all power to the U.S. Supreme court for interpretation, unbounded by any written agreement the several states may have originally entered into. Kind of a Ruth Bader Gindsburg royalty with her as queen.
I am not in favor of that form of government and would call for a constitutional convention to fire ALL of the current government and draw a new constitution first.
But that’s probably because I’m a raging liberal.
LOL.
That all is an unpopular opinion but one I’ve shared with people many times. There is no actual constitutional basis for the government being able to tell people that they can’t buy cannons and grenades. For Heaven’s sake, cannons and grenades basically both existed at that time, they could have easily said you can’t own cannons if they wanted. Instead people owned cannons back then. The concept of grenades already existed too. Heck, very shortly after the revolutionary war a “gatling” type of gun was invented. There is some argument to be made that arms would include only things you can “bear” yourself. As such, thermonuclear weapons wouldn’t really be personal arms nor would tanks or F-16’s. But, perhaps cannons count as do any and all firearms – even automatic and silenced firearms. As said, if the government and the people agree that some things are off limits they ought to put that in the constitution. I’m really pro-gun but I’d be perfectly OK with a constitutional amendment saying you cannot privately own nukes, ICBMs, fighter jets. I’d say tanks and such are fine. Obviously there’d have to be some debate on where we draw the line.
The point of the 2nd amendment seems to have been to allow the citizens to be the army and not having a standing professional army except in times of dire war…. Well, oops. We did it anyway. We were supposed to be be Switzerland and we didn’t end up that way. However, our failure to keep our hands off other people’s countries does not invalidate the constitution itself. We could go back to minding our own business and letting our citizens defend our homeland. There was a likely fake quote from a Japanese military commander who said he wouldn’t invade the US because there would be a gun behind every blade of grass. And, yeah, there most certainly would have been. There still would be today. It would be total suicide for any country to try a land invasion here. They’d need to nuke us to the stone age first and even then they’ll get shot as soon as boots hit the ground. There really is a deterrent factor to there being hundreds of thousands of pissed off rednecks with guns and Budweiser. People seem to downplay this possibility even as they see it playing out in Afghanistan and various other Middle Eastern lands. We had the troops but we can’t totally break the resistance because they’re armed and they’ll shoot at us and conduct guerrilla warfare. People see how we can’t leave the Middle East and still they think we couldn’t do the same thing here if we had to. The average US citizen is a lot better armed than the average Iraqi.
While we’re at it, try to find anywhere in the constitution that gives the supreme court authority to tell us what the constitution does and does not mean. It’s not in there. They don’t explicitly have that right, they never did. An early supreme court chief justice gave himself that ability because he reasoned that someone needs to interpret the constitution and it might as well be him. Their constitutional purpose was to be the end of the line for lawsuits from lower courts. That’s all they’re supposed to do. They’re the last line of appeals. That doesn’t mean that they necessarily get to tell us what the constitution means though I suppose that’s a sort of indirect result since the meaning of laws can get hashed out in the courts. Still, there is no written section of the constitution giving them that power so technically it could be argued they haven’t got it and that power would have to rest with the states or the people since that’s where all powers not given to the federal government trickle down to (Or, actually, stay with.) Since I don’t think any state reserves the right in their constitution that means the people are the ultimate arbiter of what it is and what it means. Which, kind of makes perfect sense actually. We were supposed to have a form of government where each section had only the powers ascribed to it and NOTHING else. All other powers and rights were to be retained by the people. Why didn’t we?
The real failure of our people has been to meekly bend over and ask for more every time the government oversteps its bounds. We can’t blame them for that. Power corrupts. Power has always corrupted and always will. We let them get a taste of power and they wanted more. They got more because people let them. You can’t blame someone for taking power you let them have. Our ancestors were weak minded cowards who wouldn’t stand up when the government oppressed them. So are people today. This is why democracies cannot last and never have. The people are just plain too stupid and too lazy to keep one. It’s very pessimistic to say but you tend to get the government you deserve.
It’s ironic when people use their free speech rights on the Internet to claim that the Second Amendment only applies to muskets. All the rights in the Bill of Rights apply even when technology changes.
The Supreme Court has held that the Second Amendment covers the weapons soldiers use, so it seems odd to me that anyone thinks that an M-16 or grenades should be forbidden to ordinary citizens. But soldiers don’t currently toss nukes around on the battlefield, so I think it is not unreasonable to say that the Second Amendment doesn’t cover nukes. If we imagine a science fiction battlefield where soldiers are wearing powered armor “mecha” suits and tactical nukes are commonplace, then maybe the Second Amendment would cover those nukes; but right now maybe not. This is a mere detail of course; I basically agree with you on all points.
Also, while I don’t use any recreational drugs other than caffeine and theobromine (i.e. coffee and chocolate) I am alarmed that the federal government grabbed the power to wage a war on drugs. A century ago, everyone knew that the federal government didn’t have the power to ban alcohol, so they did the hard work and changed the Constitution to give that power to the federal government. (Then they decided it was a bad idea and undid it with another Amendment.) Now, everyone knows that the federal government has the power to ban any drug it wants, and the courts allowed it with a tortured reading of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. This is a loophole you could drive a Tesla Semi through.
I came across this Dave Rubin interview with Amy Chua (Political Tribes author) and Michael Shermer (The Believing Brain). I haven’t been following Dave Rubin but it would seem that I should be. https://www.youtube.com/embed/QhQQtU8IvLk
Hey Jack (and Collin),
Thanks for all you guys have been doing.
I stumbled across this Arduino with CAN and LIN http://carino.io/ and wanted to share. Not much documentation, and I wonder what libraries they are using. I was actually looking to see if anyone was working on LIN using the standard I/O pins for serial data, as in the NewSoftSerial.h library found on github. I think you guys did LIN on a pump/fan(?) a while ago, but I thought that was using the CAN transceiver. Might be best for isolation I guess.
LIN tends to just be an alternative serial mode so while we haven’t done a lot with it I don’t see any reason existing boards couldn’t be used to connect to LIN with limited external hardware. I hadn’t heard of this CARINO board before. It seems like it has been in development for a while but there is almost no information about it. It most certainly uses an AVR 8 bit processor which is disappointing. Such a processor really isn’t fast enough to keep up with a lot of traffic on all the buses. It looks like it has 4 different communication buses on that one board. That’s probably about 3 too many for that 8 bit chip. I don’t know what libraries they’re using but plenty of CAN, SWCAN, and LIN libraries exist for the AVR processor. Overall I’d say that board looks well laid out and professional. It’s an interesting board but I think they really ought to have upgraded the processor if they were going to have 4 buses, bluetooth, and microSD on the same board.
What does the “well regulated” part of the second amendment mean? I haven’t seen a good explanation of how regulated should be interpreted. I had a discussion where I was told regulated meant something different in 1791. So, since it was 1990s I called the library and they faxed me the page of the OED and it said something of the effect ‘to make laws to control’ from 1600s.
Why can’t we make laws to regulate the militia/guns?
to interpret a legal document no part should be ignored. “Well regulated” is regularly ignored.
The text: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The creation of a federal power to maintain a standing army was controversial. And the rights of the individual “free States” to maintain a well regulated Militia was a balance to this federal right to have an army.
Militias were citizen armies where unpaid civilians were provide modest “training” in discipline and maneuvers. This is the “regulated” that is used as an INTRODUCTORY REASONING as to WHY this amendment was necessary.
Implicit in the history and concept of citizen militias was the fact that the citizen paid for and maintained their own arms. They could then be called up and could be counted on to show up already fully armed.
And so this amendment precluded the Federal government from taking ANY action, legislative or OTHERWISE to “infringe” in any way the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms and there was no limitation of any kind on what those arms were or might be in the future. Thermonuclear devices included.
The fourteenth amendment made clear that this and all bill of rights amendments could not be circumvented by individual states.
And so it remains the law of the land under the constitution your absolute right to keep and bear arms of any and all kinds. Legislative attempts and Supreme Court rulings notwithstanding that is what it says and why it said it.
I have no sympathy for the parsing and tweedling over this. It says what it says no matter how inconvenient you are anyone else might view it. And there really isn’t any reasonable debate about that, only over just how inconvenient it might BE in any given hypothetical situation.
The reason I have no sympathy here is that it is always in the form of a minority view attempting to impose a different and more convenient “interpretation” of what the meaning of “is” is and so forth to enforce it on the majority. Bullshit.
There is nothing holy about the second amendment. It can be eliminated in it entirety at any time and for any reason. You simply amend the constitution again. Of course it can be done. It’s already BEEN done 27 times. If you have a problem with it, the honest solution is right in front of you and well provisioned in the original constitution. Amend it. There are several ways to do that, and as already pointed out, it’s already been done to death. You can even do it without permission of a single solitary soul in Washington DC.
If 35 states pass it, no federal action is required at all.
The issue is that either by congress and the President, or by the states, it basically requires 2/3 of the populace to want to make the change. It is SUPPOSED to be hard. It is not supposed to be possible. But gun control advocates know that they can’t get this supermajority onboard. And so the subversive attempts to reinterpret it instead.
If the American people want to declare the USA a gun free zone, it is certainly within their grasp and abilities to do so. And if they don’t, courts and legislatures using lesser measures are not supposed to. It must be a matter of clear concensus and that is a 60% majority under the constitution.
I don’t personally have much of an ax to grind other than it seems clear to me that law enforcement simply fails to “protect” me or my family from the bad guys and so I have an inherent right to do so for myself. If your position is that bad guys SHOULD be free to rape murder, steal and kill, I think you are some kind of really sick dude. And of course, bad guys don’t care about laws so they can have all the guns they want. So if you want my guns, you have self confessed to being one of the bad guys yourself, and implicitly you feel you have a right to rape my wife and daughters and murder me in the process, stealing whatever you like along the way.
Imagine that I take exception to that. And I have to note that your “supreme court”, the President, and the Congress all have armed guards surrounding THEM all the time why they try on various thought experiments in the afternoon over tea over what I should be allowed to expect THEM to ALLOW me to do in self defense.
It the light of those thoughts, do you understand why I might view your pedantic and misinformed reinterpretion of “regulated” as assinine and an example of what might happen were a majority of the population to actually be that stupid in public? It is a grave and alarming danger.
Jack Rickard
In the idiom of the time when the Second Amendment was written, “well-regulated” meant “in good working order”. The overall meaning is something like: “Because a militia in good working order is necessary for the security of a free country, the right of the people to own and carry weapons shall not be infringed.” Nobody who is intellectually honest and has researched this issue disagrees.
Google for the phrase “well-regulated chronometer” and you will see that the phrase meant “a chronometer in good working order”. (Ships used chronometers as part of navigation before we had GPS. Does it matter how many laws cover a chronometer, or just how well it works?)
Also, in the idiom of the time, the word “militia” meant “all the citizens who could fight”. In those days that meant only the men; and it meant men of fighting age, and those men would have been mostly white. But it didn’t mean anything like the modern National Guard, and anyway that first clause is not restrictive but rather explains why the second clause is important.
It’s exactly parallel to if they had written: “A well-informed citizenry being essential for a republic, the right of the people to own and read books shall not be infringed.” Note that the first clause simply lays out the reasoning for the second clause. The important part of the Second Amendment is the main clause: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” What part of “shall not be infringed” is unclear to you?
Many intellectually dishonest people who don’t like weapons try to find “wiggle room” to say that the Second Amendment doesn’t mean what it says, and they hang their hopes on the “well-regulated militia” part. The “shall not be infringed” part seems too clear but maybe throwing up some confusion will confuse people. Sadly, even the American Civil Liberties Union has pushed this dishonest argument. (That’s the ACLU for the whole USA; some state-level chapters of the ACLU support the entire Bill of Rights, not just 9/10 of it.)
No less an authority than the Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment describes a right of the people. Who are “the people”? They are the same “the people” as the people who have a right to free speech under the First Amendment, the same people who have a right to avoid unreasonable search and seizure… the same “the people” who are covered by all the Bill of Rights.
Ask yourself: did the “Founding Fathers” who had just fought a war of independence, and who were adding ten Amendments to the Constitution to protect rights… did they intend nine of the Amendments to protect individual rights but they just intended for the second one to protect the ability of the government to have a National Guard? It fails the laugh test, even before you consider that the National Guard hadn’t been invented yet and would have been regarded as a “standing army” by those people. All ten of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights protect individual rights.
But don’t trust me, research this issue for yourself. Here is a link with lots of references:
http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndpur.html
You end with a question: “Why can’t we make laws to regulate the militia/guns?”
Of course we can, just as we can make laws to regulate free speech. It has not been held unConstitutional to forbid libel, to require a permit for a huge demonstration, or to forbid falsely warning about a nonexistent fire to cause a panic in a crowded theatre. Similarly it has not been held unConstitutional to make it illegal to “brandish” a weapon, to use a weapon in an unsafe way, or even to require a license to carry a weapon concealed.
But anyway, firearms are covered by thousands of laws in the USA. It’s hard to pin down an exact number; some people have claimed “20,000” as the number but that seems high.
https://www.quora.com/Just-how-many-gun-laws-are-there-on-the-books-already-in-the-United-States-including-local-state-and-federal-This-guy-says-20-000-Is-that-at-least-in-the-ballpark
What nobody is allowed to do is pass laws that infringe on the right to own and carry weapons. This makes many “gun control” laws unConstitutional on their face, but historically the courts have not been as diligent protecting Second Amendment rights as other rights. But just this week, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled that it’s unConstitutional to pass a law requiring a license to carry a weapon, and then never give out any licenses.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns-court/us-appeals-court-upholds-right-to-carry-gun-in-public-idUSKBN1KE28C
Jack, you’ve argued strongly here against political correctness. You’ve also argued that words matter; that language needs to be sincere. “Or on a more spiritual level we must all LOVE each other and desire to HELP each other get through this life here on earth.”
Yet, in conveying your points, you’ve employed the word “libtard” exactly a dozen times.
You’re a very smart guy and you almost certainly know this, but maybe you haven’t actually considered it: “libtard” is a portmanteau of “liberal” and “retard.” The word “retard,” of course, being a slander against people with mental disabilities. It’s a word I heard (and said) a lot on the playgrounds growing up, and it was always meant to demean – the recipient, obviously, but also those with mental disabilities, since their unfortunate condition was being leveraged as an insult.
So, by peppering your otherwise interesting arguments with the word “libtard,” you may think you’re just mocking people of a certain political bent, but as a consequence you’re literally mocking people with mental disabilities.
Don’t do that.
Troy:
You simply are not authorized to tell me to “Don’t do that”. You have no power over my freedom of speech and I am entirely free to use that expression 17 times or 1700 times as I wish.
If you don’t like the term, and are not amused by it, generally it is my experience this is because you are an alt-left libtard. And I’m fully cognizant of the use of language generally and don’t need instruction on what “retarded” means or liberal or left. I didn’t stutter. I didn’t stammer. And I didn’t make any mistakes. These people are outside of the viable political circle and offer NOTHING OF USE TO ANYONE on any topic, at any time, and in any place. They should NOT be tolerated much less catered to. They are pathologically dishonest, hypocritical, and evil to the core. I suspect satanic possession. And I will call them out at every opportunity and in every venue.
I am a relatively “smart guy” and that is my take on the topic.
Your comments remind me nothing so much of Judge Piero on The View. She offered her opinion that Whoopi Goldberg suffered from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Whoopi disproved this thesis by throwing a screaming hissing spitting shit fit, and literally physically chasing the Judge out of the building screaming expletives at the top of her lungs. This is the agonized thrashing and screaming of an alt-left libtard bereft of reason or purpose, simply shrieking in rage over the suggestion that she might be deranged by her hatred of Trump. Proving unequivocally that she is in fact deranged, and particularly with regards to Trump.
Obviously I can’t police your speech and I don’t remotely intend to. That’s a straw man.
Instead, I’m imploring you to be a compassionate human and to realize that to use a variation of the term “retard” is to literally mock mentally disabled people. Not “retarded,” as that’s not a pejorative term, but “retard,” as the noun form of that word was only ever created to demean. Would you think twice about calling a person with Down syndrome a “retard” in person? If so, maybe think twice about calling people “libtards” when there are plenty of other choices you could make that don’t necessarily demean disabled people.
If you enjoy demeaning the mentally disabled, or just don’t care, or think I’m somehow “triggered” because I don’t appreciate it when people use abusive language against helpless individuals, then I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t persuade you not to be an asshole if you’re wholly determined to.
It is not a straw man. It is a response to what you deliberately wrote.
And while we’re on the topic of decreeing what I might utter, you also don’t get to redefine its intent. It is absolutely NOT mocking or demeaning disabled people. It is mocking and demeaning ALT-LEFT LIBTARDS.
That’s what it says. It’s what I intended it to say. It is what it would be commonly understood to have said. And it is not for you to reconfigure or redefine it to serve your twisted purposes. It says what it says. Not what you wish it said or would like to enlist others to view it with you as having said it.
This is the essential battle of the age. There are no longer NORMS of accepted reality that can be assumed in conversation because the outcome of the discussion doesn’t suit ALTLEFTLIBTARDS. I find it astounding this now extends not only to accepted behaviours or an assumption of truth and goodwill, but actually to language. Any redefinition will do as long as you win.
And this devolves quickly into Bill CLinton’s what “IS is” definition.
If you want to participate in public discourse, you don’t GET to redefine language, grammar and pronunciation to suit your aims.
Are you being deliberately obtuse, Jack?
Again, “libtard” is a portmanteau of “liberal” and “retard.” The word “retard” is a pejorative term for mentally disabled people. The word “libtard” is thus mocking liberals by comparing them disparagingly to mentally disabled people. I don’t know how to be any more clear about it than that.
Please read the “Origin” section here:
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/libtard
If “libtard” means something else in your world, that’s your problem, not mine. Everyone else that uses the English language on planet Earth understands the origin of the term, or can at least admit it when shown the evidence. I’m not redefining anything.
And if you’re going to interpret my statement “don’t do that” as an attempt to literally police your speech, then you must have a pretty serious persecution complex. Maybe I left out the “please,” but that’s because I really don’t think one should have to plead with someone to stop mocking the mentally disabled.
Seriously, this is not a political debate. Call me whatever cute political terms that make you feel good, but if my imploring you to respect people with mental disabilities somehow makes me your political opponent, then your brand of politics is just flatly fucked.
And there you have it. The Whoopi response. On cue. On the accusation of altleft libtard, basically being called out for nonsense, you go into a screaming hissing shitfit of expletives and spitting and foaming at the mouth, to prove you are rational and reasoned?
On reflection, I think you ARE right. The term DOES comprise a perjorative term for those with mental disabilities. But only because it unfairly associates THEM with the ALTLEFT absurdities of cultural Marxism and identity politics when many many retards might actually be of a more rational and reasoned political bent.
Your entire never ending diatribe devolves to nothing but attempts to redefine language and reality. I don’t NEED to know anything about you – you reveal all necessary information in every poisonous oily word. Initially polite smarmy poison but it took very little to bring you out from behind your posing facade into the screaming thrashing cursing beast you are in your heart. And so yes, you meet all criteria for the label ALTLEFT LIBTARD.
And yes, I rather like the term and use it often. It encapsulates a multitude of deep sins into one handy monicker that communicates a great deal universally and briefly. It’s a very EFFICIENT term. But the reason I like it so is that it just ENRAGES ALT LEFT LIBTARDS. Everyone else simply reacts with a wry smile of recognition. Note that both extremes of political thought actually agree on its meaning, but one end really really doesn’t like it because of its efficiency in calling them out on their utter nonsense, irrational thought process, and deeply destructive intent and effect.
After enduring frustration in trying pointlessly to call ME out on its use, as if I’ve made some sort of political speech blunder, it’s most endearing effect is to MAKE THEM GO AWAY. And I see it is working here as well.
While you are busy going away, have a look at the WALKAWAY movement. As you learn that your brand of political activision has lost its effectiveness, you would eventually become disenchanted with the whole schtick.
In the meantime, what you can live with and what you can’t live with is of of course of intense and deeply emotional concern to me personally. I love you and I want to help. Pandering to nonsense is not part of that mission statement.
You know Jack, you could be a pretty good president. I would certainly be entertained. The cartoon editorial pages wouldn’t be to flattering but I think you are insulated from that already.