Politics not a good look on anyone

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 3, 2021)

Politics has a strange effect on people.

I'm stunned at how many people can't let go of Donald Trump. They cling to him like a life raft in an ocean of uncertainty.

I'm not talking about Trump's supporters, but about those who hate him passionately. Those who suffer from what is known as "Trump Derangement Syndrome".

Most Trump supporters have moved on. They accept the reality he'd be too old for the presidency in four years. He'd be seventy-eight by then, and no one that age should be subjected to the pressures of the presidency. This includes the current seventy-eight-year-old White House occupant.

But the dedicated Trump haters can't move on. They obsess over revenge fantasies which they dishonestly call "justice". Against Trump, and everyone they believe wasn't sufficiently anti-Trump while he was in office-- or now.

Without Trump to hate and focus on, they'd have to look closely at what they put in the White House, which would not be comforting. They don't dare take off their anti-Trump spectacles and look with objective eyes.

Pointing this out gets me called a Trump supporter, which shows the depth of their self-deception.

On the "other side" are those who can't let go of "Q". If you aren't familiar with "Q" don't dig in to it unless you have spare time and mental health to waste.

No matter how badly the Q predictions missed, those who are desperate to believe in "The Plan" only remember the predictions which-- by coincidence and sheer numbers-- appear to have been right. In other words, it is like a carnival psychic or a horoscope. You'll see whatever truth you fool yourself into seeing and forget about the misses.

Even outside these extremes, politics makes otherwise normal people support things they'd never consider doing personally because of their morals.

This isn't new. It's been the same as long as people have entertained the belief that it's OK to try to govern each other in addition to themselves.

Politics doesn't look good on anyone. There must be something addictive about it, though. People keep trying it on in various guises. The strange political obsessions of this year will fade away, only to be replaced with different strange beliefs in future years.

People will continue to imagine their own political beliefs are reasonable and the political beliefs of others are delusional. It's as predictable as the tides

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Dumb experts

It's so fun to be scolded for "denying science" by Branch Covidians.

It's hilarious to be lectured on economics by people who have fake economic credentials based on Keynesian "economics".

It cracks me up to be told what "real anarchy" is by people who learned the word from government schools, the mainstream media, socialists, or other government-supremacists.

It's silly to be "educated" about guns by people who used guns (and bombs) to promote the US feral government's agenda in foreign countries and who, because of this experience, "know" that an AR15 is a "weapon of war" that no one should be allowed to own.

Some people's "expertise" (or submission to "the experts") makes them dumb.

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Renouncing citizenship seems pointless

Why would anyone bother to renounce "their" citizenship? I'm not going to assume you are the property of a government-- a "citizen"-- unless you publicly affirm that you are. Who would do otherwise?

How can a person renounce something they never explicitly agreed to or embraced? 

If a crazy person imagines she owns me, is it necessary for me to publicly confirm that she doesn't?
If someone imagines I'm a dog, do I need to renounce my status as a dog?
If someone has gotten it into their head that I'm a brain surgeon, do I need to file papers proving I'm not one?

Now, if the crazy person is going around announcing to everyone I know that I am their slave it might inspire me to say "No, I'm not", but if the delusion exists only inside their head what is it to me until they act on it?

If someone else gets the idea that I belong to Crazy Cora or a government, or that I'm a dog, the problem is obviously theirs until or unless they act on it. Other people's craziness isn't my responsibility.

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Being "polite"

On various issues, Scott Adams has long been harping on doing what one side (usually the Left-Statist side) demands because he says doing otherwise is "impolite". He says, why be impolite when you can just be polite?

Well... Because "polite" is as subjective and imaginary as "fairness", which he has criticized as a concept invented so that idiots and children could feel like they are participating in the conversation. In all but a few cases, "polite" is exactly the same. 

Sure, almost everyone would consider it impolite to sneeze in someone's face or sit there picking your nose enthusiastically across the breakfast table from someone, but the issues where he calls for politeness aren't nearly so clear-cut. 

Being polite is going to mean different things to different people; sometimes things that are directly incompatible. One person's "polite" is another person's "rude".

Scott believes that historical statues are impolite; while I believe demanding that someone take down a statue to soothe your feelings is impolite-- even if the statue is of someone I consider a monster, like Hitler, Lincoln, or FDR-- any military or political figure, for that matter. Yuck! But they neither break my leg nor pick my pocket by existing.

He considers it impolite to not use incorrect or made-up "gender" pronouns and to not validate someone's opposite sex cosplay, while I consider it impolite to police (sometimes literally) the words people use when they are simply trying to communicate in an obvious, truthful way using words that have been standard speech all their life. I consider it impolite to demand that someone lie.

It's the same with many other sorts of words. No matter what words you use, soon someone will decide to change the acceptable words so that they can condemn you for the (now) "rude" words you use. It's a Red Queen situation where you have to keep running as hard as you can just to stay in place. Ridiculous in the extreme.

He has suggested it would be impolite to not edit Dr. Seuss's books to fit a modern sensibility. I think it is impolite to judge them by the w0ke standards of today.

I consider it very rude to impose mandates and legislation to enforce someone else's idea of politeness. Now, I don't intend to be rude, but if you can't satisfy someone no matter how much you bend for them, I say it's past time to stop trying.

Politeness is a trap. A better metric is archation. Don't violate the life, liberty, or property of-- don't initiate force or property violations against-- anyone. Politeness is fuzzy; archation is concrete.

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Texas flirts with liberty

The Texas governor announced he is ending the coronapanic shutdown in Texas next week. Finally! 

Since he didn't have the right or the imaginary political "authority" to impose any shutdowns in the first place, it would have been great to have never gone along with it, but better late than never.

Now he needs to end the criminal ban on "constitutional carry" in Texas, too. By pressuring whoever needs to be pressured to finally stop being a criminal state (at least on that dimension) and be compliant with the law.

It's always good when government decides to stop violating the natural human rights of the people.

Of course, those in the Cult of Covid are weeping, wailing, and gnashing their teeth. They are acting as though this means they won't be allowed to wear a mask anymore. I haven't seen that suggestion anywhere. (Surely they are all Californian imports.) They are presenting "Beto" as the "hero" Texans need to hold us prisoner longer. I don't need a governor other than myself. They can keep Bob'O; I'll keep my guns and my liberty.

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The Wisdom of knowing when to keep quiet

These days it feels like it's hard for most people to have pleasant social interactions with others who "believe" differently. 

I think a large part of that is due to people feeling it's OK to make everything political, and to air their every belief. You know they believe differently because they feel the need to rub it in your face.

Just imagine how it would go if everyone you interacted with on a daily basis felt the need to tell you what kind of crime they commit regularly. You meet someone and one of the first things they tell you is how much they enjoy burglarizing houses. Or that their hobby is shoplifting. Or rape. 

And then they expect you to just go ahead with whatever you were going to be doing with them?

Sure, you'd pare down the number of people you willingly interact with that way, getting rid of some deadwood in the process, but wouldn't it look a lot like what I see happening now?

Personally. unless someone admits to being a murderer/politically-inclined person, I'll assume they are OK. Most of the time, if I need to interact with them anyway, I'd rather not know the worst things about them unless I'm going to be living with or working with them. You are a kitten-stomper? As long as you don't brag about it I won't know. You support Politician X or Z? Keep this horror to yourself and I won't feel the need to ridicule you or run away from our casual interaction.

Some might claim that there's no comparison, but they'd be lying. If you advocate using any application of the political means against others, any difference between you and any other monster is only a matter of degree (if that). It would be best to not go around yapping about it unless you want people to treat you differently based on what you admit to.

This is my problem when most celebrities (including "science" celebrities) start interjecting politics into their public statements. It's also the same with anyone I know casually. I don't want to know how horrible or stupid you are. Why would you want me to know? And once I know, do you really expect me to have no reaction to this revelation? 

Dragging your politics into the open cripples society.  It's anti-social and shameful.

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YOU can do great things if you ignore those who would hold you back

Those who see "racism" in math, science, grammar, general excellence, and ethics are using those things as a mirror. They are only seeing their own reflection.

I believe anyone of any "race" is perfectly capable of great things. And by "great things" I mean things that improve the lives of humans in general (and sometimes other life-forms, too) without archation.

To imagine that doing great things means you've accepted the "superiority" of one "race" or its ideas is to belittle yourself. It's not "colonialism" to embrace good ideas. To hold back the lives of anyone tragic enough to listen to you express this sick belief is to be the worst enemy they have.

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Can do without Biden's 'unity'

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for January 27, 2021)

John Brennan, an ex-CIA director from Obama's administration, claims the federal government is targeting "religious extremists", conservatives, and libertarians for extra scrutiny. All these people are said to be potential domestic terrorists.

He recently stated on MSNBC, “[M]embers of the Biden team ... are now moving in laser-like fashion, to try to uncover as much as they can about what looks very similar to insurgency movements that we’ve seen overseas, where they germinate in different parts of the country and they gain strength, and it brings together an unholy alliance frequently of religious extremists — so authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, and even libertarians,"

What scary company!

For people who only want to leave everyone else alone, libertarians sure to seem to attract a lot of powerful enemies. The worst things libertarians do are exercise the natural human right of self-defense and engage in non-compliance when legislation violates human rights. Not terrorist behaviors, but behaviors for which the government-supremacists hate and fear us. Maybe it's because we-- along with conservatives-- are the ones with most of the guns.

The truth is, John Brennan should look in a mirror.

Brennan and his sort are the authoritarians; the people who crave and worship imaginary political authority. According to fellow liberty advocate and author, Larken Rose, belief in political authority is the world's most dangerous superstition. I think he's correct.

How can Brennan fear fascists? Political government is always fascistic as well as being socialistic. Does he fear himself?

I would say Brennan is also a religious extremist, only his god is the state. Look who and what he is willing to sacrifice for his religion. Anyone who doesn't buy the leftist narrative is seen as a danger. You're probably an infidel, just like me, and liberty-- which he appears bigoted against-- must be treated as blasphemy.

If what he says is true, the Biden administration seems to agree with him.

Will Joe Biden wait for Congress to make up legislation to target us, or will he squeeze out yet another executive order? I wonder if they'll give Brennan the job of going after these "dangerous" people. Time will tell.

I wasn't a supporter of Trump, nor a supporter of any president or even of the office, but I like Trump as a person a lot more than I like Biden. So far, Biden's notion of "unity" is one I can do without.

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"Just test it small"

You can't just judge slavery and say it's bad. You need to test it in some limited way-- or region-- and see how it works out. 

The same goes for genocide. It's small-minded to just come out against it until you test it and see if it's right for some state or city. You're just not a smart person if you automatically say it's wrong to commit genocide.

Sure, these things have been tested multiple times and found to be awful (maybe the tests were flawed), but this time might be different. Right...?

This is the government-supremacist justification for anti-gun legislation, for $15 per hour minimum wages and other government economic interference, and for climate legislation. Until you've tested every idea, how can you credibly criticize it? So why pretend you can just pre-judge those other things I listed at the beginning?

Because you're smarter than those who believe anyone has a right to test such things.

If a plan would violate the life, liberty, or property of any individual, it would be just as wrong to "test it small" as it would to impose it on the entire population of Earth. It doesn't matter whether it works. It doesn't matter if you really want to know how it would turn out. There are things no one has the right or the imaginary political "authority" to do. You don't need to test them to figure that out-- just have worthwhile ethics.

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Politics destroys civility

Do people really have to wonder why politics divides people and makes them angry? I've explained it before, but I still see people who seem confused over the mechanism at work here.

How can they not understand? Or is it a matter of not understanding what they don't want to understand?

If you constantly call for government violence to be used against anyone who doesn't believe the same way you believe-- which is the nature of all politics-- you are dividing people. You are going to be making these other people angry. You are threatening them with deadly force-- threatening to take their life, liberty, and property, so what do you really expect? 

You are showing yourself to be an anti-social simpleton who can't get along with others because of your desire to control them.

It doesn't matter if you imagine you are "right" or "left"-- government-supremacism is government-supremacism. Government can have no "rights" or imaginary political "authority" to do anything. Trying to cheat the system and act as though it does is going to make you the cause of division and anger. Every time.

If you're going to decry the lack of civility; the anger and division, with one breath, and then call for government violence to be used against other people with the next, I can't take your concern seriously... but I may still take your threats seriously.

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It's a new month on the Time's Up flag sales.

I remind everyone that they'll stay available as long as I sell at least 2 per month.

In which I toy with an anonymous troll-wanna-be

A few days ago I got called a "Randbot" for saying "Government is garbage" in response to a post pointing out some horrible thing a government had done to a population.

The articulate argument against my point was "Not all government is garbage", and then he spent hours trying to find ways to insult me, saying I'm in the Trump cult and various other nonsensical things. Just totally off the rails, was he. 

I pointed out that Rand was a government-supremacist who believed in the legitimacy of the "night watchman" government-- and that I don't. So he kept trying to move the goalposts to find an insult that would stick. He never succeeded.

I don't know who he thought he was trying to attack, but he was wrong.

It was kind of amusing seeing someone double down on being wrong and looking dumb over and over. I don't know if I've ever seen one person so dedicated to so many scattered positions, and all of them wrong. It was quite the spectacle.

He even said I probably see myself as a "patriot", just before he went off against guns. For some reason, he was very offended when I pointed out there's no such thing as "assault rifles". He said I should check a dictionary and didn't like it when I said that if a dictionary said an "assault rifle" is semi-auto and includes such firearms as the AR15, then the dictionary is wrong. 

Oh, but he owns a gun he tells me! So he's an expert, doncha know!

I don't know why it's so hard for people to accept that dictionaries can be wrong, since they often only tell you how words are used, not what they really mean.

One thing he kept harping on was that I had posted a link to one of my shirt designs, and he hated that I was using the internet to try to make money selling my "sh***y shirt designs". Trying to make money really triggers some people. I think there's a word for people who hate the market... He said I should be able to find a real job now that half a million people have died of... I mean with... The Corona, leaving jobs vacant. (I wonder how many of those who are said to have died with Covid actually had jobs.) 

Anyway, I got busy with life and wasn't able to check back in for several hours to see what his next point was going to be, but when I was able to check in, he had faded off into the woodwork without another word. I was content to let him go.

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Craft Holster IWB for a Sig P365-- review

The guys at Craft Holsters were nice enough to send me another holster to try out and review. This one is their IWB holster (again) for a Sig Sauer P365. 

This time, it shipped FedEx. It arrived in just a few days and in perfect condition. That's always nice.

The box, opened.

Finally, to the good stuff! 

The holster looked smaller than I expected, compared to the holsters I have for the other, larger, guns. Obviously, that makes sense! The Sig Sauer P365 is surprisingly small, and may be the perfect concealed carry gun. 

Here's the gun resting in the holster for the first time. Doesn't it look comfy?

As I have come to expect, this holster is very nice looking and well made. At first, the fit was very tight. That has been the case with the others as well, with the one for the S&W revolver being tighter than the one for the 1911. It took a bit of work to get it in the holster and get the strap snapped the first time, but it loosened a bit overnight (I used their break-in kit), and continued to get easier to get in and out over the first week. It has now settled in to a good snug fit.

I would recommend giving this a week or so before using it for your defensive carry, so it could be drawn from without difficulty.

Did I mention this thing is small? And that's what I was looking for, but size means compromises.

As a consequence of its size (the gun/holster unit), the center of gravity is very low. At first, the gun felt like it wanted to flip upside down, out of my waistband. The steel clip that holds the holster to your pants isn't going to let go unless you want it to, though. Experience gives me confidence about that.

But, over the course of a couple of hours of being worn, the holster cants so that the clip is diagonal on my pants. Usually, it tips so the grip is pointing nearly straight up, even though that seems to go against gravity. That may be due to unconscious adjusting on my part, or due to my clothing pushing it. But, whatever is going on, the muzzle doesn't want to be pointed down.

I balanced the other guns in their Craft Holsters and found they were only a little better balanced, but maybe the amount of holster inside my pants was enough to keep them in place better. The size of the gun dictates some things, and the placement of the clip is one of them. Any higher (making the gun lower) and the grip of the gun would be partly below the edge of your pants and harder to acquire when you need to. That could be a problem, but I think it would be worth it to try.

Because of the way I wear my belt-- not in belt loops but slung lower on my hips-- the belt presses the muzzle end of the holster into my skin sometimes. Or, it bothers me sometimes. Not all the time, but when it happens it can suddenly sting and I'll need to readjust things.

I realize both of these issues may be unique to me. It seems I may be the first person to mention them. You might not have the same issues if no one else is experiencing them.

Anyway, I have 2 suggestions for future improvements to this holster: raise the clip a half an inch (which might require widening the leather above it) and-- at least for me-- adding a little length on the skin side below the muzzle. I've crudely tried to illustrate these suggested alterations:

I passed along the suggestions to the guys at Craft Holsters. I think if they would make these adjustments, this would be the perfect P365 holster for me-- maybe for everyone. As it stands, it's completely acceptable, but not quite perfect.

As always, I truly appreciate the opportunity to test and review these holsters. I learn something new every time. Thank you to Craft Holsters!

Addendum:

I decided to modify my own holster to the specifications I outlined above. I also redyed it to cover the spot where the clip used to be, but my dye was darker.

Here is the result.

It is no longer top-heavy, no longer tips on my waistband, and no longer digs into my skin. So far, it works just as well as I had hoped. It's now perfect, as far as I can tell.

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Poking Chinese dragons

Twitter gives insignificant people like me the opportunity to poke at the Chinese government. That's actually more fun than you might imagine.

The guy above posted this and I responded:

This guy...

... jumped in to boost his social credit score.

Oooh! Cultural appropriation! How horrible! You should never "pirate" anything you appreciate from other cultures. I'm sure he uses nothing "pirated" from European cultures.

(How much do you want to bet he's also Chinese government-- I mean, he has access to Twitter while the common people in China are banned from using it.)

Anyway, he had a couple of responses to me:

And also this:

Some "freedom"... He can join RuAdolf Giuliani in misdefining "freedom" to be something government-supremacists prefer. 

I finished off with this (which I sort of copied from L. Neil Smith's takedown of Abe Lincoln):

Now, I don't give a flying hump about the evil government of Taiwan, however I wasn't replying to that government's tools, but to a tool of the Chinese government. And I do approve of secession. Always.

It's fun to aggravate governments. If something happens to me in the near future, the China government (or maybe their buddy in the White House) probably did it. 

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The rarest of events

There has been a shooting in a gun store. This is a rare event. Yet, there's no real reason it would be.

Even gun stores usually have policies against loaded guns in the store. 

It makes sense in a way. In a gun store people are going to be handling firearms in all sorts of ways-- checking to see how they fit in their hands, how the sight picture looks, how the slide or cylinder feels, and things like that. Some may even attempt to dry fire. So, for the guns that are going to be handled to be loaded would be a recipe for disaster.

But for holstered guns... 

Yes, the employees of gun stores are often (if not usually) armed. This just means any bad guy knows who to shoot first without having to scope out the situation too much. It wouldn't surprise me to learn store employees were the ones initially killed. (Reports are still fragmentary as I write this, with no real word on what actually happened.)

As always, it's better if the bad guys either know everyone is armed, or don't know who is. Because, once again, a policy will never stop a bad guy intent on killing people from ignoring a sign on a door and just going through with what he wants to do. 

I'm glad there were other armed people inside the store who prevented more deaths by engaging (keeping him busy) and killing the bad guy. Sometimes the bad guy is just going to do what he's going to do and the best anyone can hope for is to drop him before he makes things worse.

Seriously, if a bad guy is going to start shooting (or stabbing, etc.) near me, I'd rather be in a gun store than just about anywhere else.

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Government needs your compliance

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for January 20, 2021)

No matter how you feel about them, U.S. presidents are both too powerful and figureheads without any real power. It seems contradictory, but it's true.

A president has the power to sign unconstitutional legislation and impose unconstitutional executive orders-- such as Trump's ban on bump stocks-- but unless he does what those with the real power want him to do, he loses the power to do anything.

This defeats the point of gaining the office. So presidents usually play the game.

A president who can do anything to us has too much power over our lives, but everything he does is dictated by others. By who? In spite of what you might believe, it's not the voters. Voters have little power to control the president. That power lies with other people and institutions.

First, there are entrenched federal operatives-- what some refer to as "The Deep State". Yes, it's real. These are the people embedded in government throughout decades of changing administrations. They know how to play the system to get what they want. What they want is more power for themselves and their agencies. They are behind the Pentagon and the security and "intelligence" agencies, but some are ordinary government functionaries with connections.

The legacy political parties-- Democratic and Republican-- are part of this, too. The party bosses are able to help or harm a president of their own party, depending on how well he serves their agenda.

Then, the national mainstream media also has power to influence most presidents. This was never more obvious than when it didn't work quite the way they were used to during the Trump presidency. It's why they had to pull out all the stops to take him down.

It's probably too late to scale back the power of the presidency, or the power various unaccountable agents hold over the presidency. I'd like to see someone try, though.

You can still choose how much power over your life presidents and those who pull the presidents' strings have. They need your compliance. Without it, they are mostly powerless. Sure, they can throw dangerous political tantrums, but that's more a sign of their weakness-- physical and ethical-- than anything. Do your best to stay out of their way as they thrash around in frustration and you'll still be standing after they've self-destructed.

The real power can be yours if you choose to use it.

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Statists (unconsciously) admit statism is a failure

Statism "works" for a lot of people. They do well under it and may even like it. They don't care about their liberty or the liberty of others. Just as long as nothing changes too much and they have someone else to abdicate their responsibility to and blame when that doesn't work.

They are scared to try anything better because they fear they might lose what they already have. Humans generally fear loss more than they fear missing out on something better... sad, but true.

Statism doesn't work well for me. I don't thrive under it. I don't like it. I'm perfectly willing to try something that I think could be better-- even at the risk of it not being better, or ending up back at square-one. I understand the risks and I'm willing to take them.

Maybe I'm being selfish, and that's why I dislike statism so much. Maybe it has nothing to do with the ethics of it. like I imagine it does.

The thing is, I've always been willing to let the statists keep their statism, but just keep it off my life, liberty, and property. Live and let live. You do your thing and stop trying to force your thing on me (sounds rapish, doesn't it).

But statism can't permit that. The very idea scares statists too much. I say I would respect their right to defend themselves from any violations, even with police they hire, but that's not good enough. To them, if everyone isn't equally enslaved by their "system", they seem to know their "system" wouldn't work. If that's not an admission that they already know it's a failure, I don't know what it is.

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You can dislike something without being a monster about it

There's a certain number of people who just don't like guns. Whatever. That's their choice. I've known some of them and gotten along with them pretty well.

But then there are also a certain number of those people who don't simply dislike guns, they are anti-gun bigots. These people don't like guns and then demand that no one else be allowed to have them, either. They want the State-- the worst mass-murderer the planet has ever seen-- to make up rules against gun owners and to take their guns away. 

These people are barbaric.

Their barbarism is based on fear, ignorance, and, yes, bigotry. Even a bit of brainwashing and Stockholm syndrome.

To illustrate the difference, I'll use a personal example:
I don't like pitbulls. It would never occur to me to have the state forbid anyone from having one, or demand licensing, background checks, registration, or any other form of regulation. It's none of the State's business. I may not like pitbulls, but I am not an anti-pitbull bigot. See the difference?

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"Black" history

When I was in seventh grade, even I would say I was racist. I had moved from a place where there were few "black" people (and where I liked the ones I knew and never gave it a second thought) to a place far away, where there were lots of them. And at school, they ganged up on me and treated me really badly. For the first time in my life, this made me actually notice them and their apparent differences, and categorize them based on that.

When they would surround me, I was told that since I was "white", I owed them. Usually, they meant I owed them my lunch money. I didn't pay because I felt no guilt or obligation. My non-cooperation got me physically assaulted and robbed a few times.

I was told my imaginary debt was because of "slavery" even though no one in my family (of outhouse using, cistern dependent, leaky dirt floor shack-dwelling farmers in the Dust Bowl panhandle of Texas) had ever "owned" a slave, and had probably never encountered anyone who had. Things other people did long before even my grandparents were born aren't my fault.

I had never encountered this notion before and was taken completely off-guard. Who thought of such nonsense?

But a few months of this treatment from them and I was definitely a racist.

Yet, in seventh grade, one of my best friends at school was "black". We were in homeroom together and we had a blast every day. 

I'm sure we made the teacher uncomfortable because we "identified" as the other's "race" to make each other laugh. I would copy the local "black" accent and he copied the local "white" accent. He, for one, did an excellent job.

He also loudly called me a "nigger", and I loudly called him a "honkey", constantly-- again copying what other kids were calling those of the opposite "race". We laughed until we couldn't breathe over all our juvenile jokes. Yeah, we probably offended a lot of people, but I had nothing but good feelings about this guy. I believe he felt the same comradery toward me.

He made me realize that the individual kids I didn't like were the problem, not the color of their skin. I wouldn't say I stopped being racist (that faded over time), but I got a lot more discerning because of him. It might not have been automatic, but it didn't take much to make me decide I liked someone. The blanket hostility I had felt, before I met him, toward those with similar skin color to his, was gone and never returned.

I feel bad for the young people now living under the institutionalized bullying that is so similar to the freelance bullying I lived with. Imagine being told-- by supposed adult experts-- that you owe a debt to a collective "them" because of your skin color and things done centuries ago, by (and to) people who are long dead. That your skin color makes you guilty automatically, with no way to prove your innocence. That you need to hate yourself to try (and fail) to make up for things you aren't guilty of. That's abusive. The "media" should be ashamed for promoting this abusive brainwashing. Individuals who go along with it should be just as ashamed.

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"Science!"

Every human is a scientist; we all "do science". We are born doing science.

The thing is, we aren't all good at doing science. That includes those who call themselves "scientists" or science "experts". They are no better at doing science than anyone else, they just get more unearned credibility when they speak on the subject (even when their topic has nothing to do with their narrow field of "expertise").

Science (including medical science) doesn't require government funding, a billion-dollar laboratory, or a Ph.D. Yes, some humans who do science have those things, but they aren't essential. Nor do those things guarantee good science is being done. It still depends more on the human doing the science, and their ability to do science right.

If you "listen to the science" without doing it yourself, you have to decide whether you trust that the person you're listening to did science well. Then you need to decide if they are trustworthy and credible. If they are also involved in politics, the answer is "No, they aren't".

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The "Capitol assault" is a lie

People who have their money confiscated to pay for a government building have every right to enter that building without explicit permission. Including armed-- since they should always be armed. 

Those who try to prevent them from entering are the ones committing the crime, no matter what legislation says. Going in anyway is not an "assault".

Yes, government will try to protect itself with bogus "trespassing" claims, but their problem is they don't own the building. Government employees who are not abiding by the wishes of their bosses are the only ones subject to trespassing charges; not those who actually own the building.

If they don't like it they can always quit and get an honest job.

If the congressvermin were legitimately renting the Capitol building from me, then maybe-- as long as they were current on the rent and not violating any other parts of the rental agreement-- they would have a good case for keeping the landlords out. But they aren't paid up and they are violating the agreement. They are squatters, smearing feces on the walls (they call it "legislation") while thumbing their noses at the landlords.

Drive them off the property and into the swamp. Then let the leeches and mosquitoes deal with the trespassers.

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Judged by the other countries

Recently I've seen some guy on Twitter bemoaning how embarrassed he is because of American gun ownership. He feels humiliated and judged by people in other countries because those other countries don't have as many guns (at least, not in the right hands) as America. He wants to jump on their bandwagon, and wants to drag the rest of us along for the ride.

What a pathetic excuse for a human.

If you are embarrassed in front of the other countries because America doesn't completely violate the natural human right to own and to carry weapons (yet), you may be a government-supremacist. Or an idiot... Same thing. You're definitely an anti-gun bigot who doesn't understand rights, human nature, or the nature of political government.

Yes, he has a reason for embarrassment, but it's not the one he hallucinates.

He'd be more comfortable in so many other anti-liberty Utopias around the world; maybe he should consider moving to one of them so he won't have to feel embarrassed anymore. I'll help him pack.

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Let Jan. 6 events be wakeup call

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for January 13, 2021)

Are you prepared enough? No, you aren't. Neither am I. It's a trick question. There is no such thing as being prepared enough. Recent events in Washington DC-- the "District of Criminals"-- should have motivated you to be ready for whatever happens next. Politics is a virus more dangerous than Covid-19 ever was.

I don't agree with or support any of the sides in the January 6th Expedition to Congress. All sides seem to be in a cult-- they only fight over which Dear Leader deserves their loyalty.

Anyone who considers the U.S. Capitol "sacred" or "hallowed" has backward values. Even if it were once true, Congressvermin desecrated it long before our grandparents were born. No one else can defile it worse than they do on a daily basis.

One side of the false political spectrum has been justifying violent riots all year. They seem surprised that the other side may have finally gotten the message. I say "may have" because I'm skeptical of the official story. I expect some rioters were "agent provocateurs" and activists from another political side. I'm not a trusting person where known liars are concerned.

At least this protest targeted the actual source of the problem rather than innocent business owners. That's an improvement. Plus, I admit I enjoyed the photographs of congresspeople cowering in fear. When people fear the government, there is tyranny; when government fears the people, there is liberty. Until the fearful legislators retaliate, anyway.

Would I join such a protest or participate in a riot? No.

I don't care enough about what government does to join a protest or a riot. All sides are off-base; none understand liberty. They simply advocate government-supremacism from opposing angles. They are not my people.

I live by author Robert A. Heinlein's immortal words: "I am free no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

Let this, like the Great Toilet Paper Apocalypse of 2020, be a wake-up call. The supply chain is more fragile than you know. Disruptions can come from many directions, maybe from multiple directions at the same time. Disease, politics, and nature can all affect your food, household supplies, and security.

Get ready. It's about to get interesting.

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Joss could have learned from his better characters

I don't know if the allegations against Joss Whedon are true, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

I've loved Firefly since before I was able to watch it, but I was always somewhat less impressed by Whedon as a person.

For all his great characters, dialog, and guns he has expressed the views of a "Left-statist" with anti-gun bigotry. I've never seen an anti-gun bigot who was truly a great person. There's a reason someone doesn't want others able to defend themselves from violators, and I don't buy the canned excuses they use.

He may be completely innocent, and if so, I hope the truth comes out. I hope the truth comes out either way. I'm not going to stop being a Browncoat no matter what happens with Joss. Many of the characters he created may well be better people than he is. (But that's probably the case with all fiction writers.)

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Be well-rounded

I do my best to not be one-dimensional. That's because being around one-dimensional people bores me and makes me look for an escape. I don't want to have that effect on anyone.

I want to be more well-rounded than that. I'll talk to anyone about almost anything, and I don't try to shift the conversation back to something I like talking about.

Not usually...

Now, if someone is singing the praises of the Blue Line Gang I will probably say I don't support aggressive criminal gangs, but if I can simply not respond at all to a throw-away comment praising them, I may take that path. I certainly won't encourage them to stay on that topic and may try to nudge them back to something less crazy that they'll like talking about. This works with some of my family members and has worked with people around town who want to tell me what's on their mind.

Unless someone specifically asks, I won't usually talk about liberty. I wouldn't want to be around someone who can't talk about anything but liberty, either.

I hope you get a little more variety than that even from this blog which focuses on liberty. And in person, I can discuss an even wider variety of topics, and if I don't know anything about it at all (which happens), I'll let someone educate me. I've learned a lot about things I never knew anything about this way. More knowledge is a good thing, and has served me well on occasion.

Sometimes, I feel I'm cheating the other person; getting something without giving them anything in return, but then I remember that sometimes, all a person wants is to be heard.  I can do that.

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Avoid this Idiot Trap

If you believe "anyone who does anything illegal needs to be punished", you're a moron, at least on that particular topic. 

"Illegal" doesn't mean "wrong". Not even close. It never did, but the chasm between the two is getting deeper and wider. 

Legislation is not related to ethics.

Do you even know how many things are ridiculously "illegal"? Too many to keep track of. That you do something "illegal" doesn't usually mean you're a bad person; it means there are too many arbitrary "laws" being imposed by a criminal gang-- usually so there is justification to punish you.

Punishment is revenge. It has nothing to do with justice. Punishment isn't "needed"-- restitution is needed... if there's an individual victim.

Only a government-supremacist idiot would say that anyone who does anything illegal needs to be punished. Don't fall into that idiot trap.

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What America needs most

You know what America needs? More insurrection. 

You know what didn't happen in Washington, District of Cowards on January 6, 2021? An insurrection. And that's a shame.

At least some insurrection would be healthy.

From Dictionary.com:

insurrection--
    noun
an act or instance of rising in revolt, rebellion, or resistance against civil authority or an established government.

Yes, emotional people showed up at the capitol. They didn't revolt. They didn't rebel. They didn't resist. At least not in any meaningful way. They just wanted to preserve the statist status quo. And then they left when told to do so, without accomplishing anything. 

This was a protest by government-supremacists who passionately supported the established political government, protesting against what they saw as a fraudulent attempt to change the political figurehead*.

There's no such thing as "civil authority" since that's just another manifestation of the superstitious belief in political "authority".

For the Criminal Cowards of congress to yammer on and on about an "insurrection" is for them to lie-- probably intentionally and knowingly. For their nasty little co-conspirators in the national mainstream media to keep using that incorrect word for what happened is an attempt to mislead people in a poorly veiled attempt to legitimize a pointless impeachment.

I'm not falling for the lies.

Impeach me, next. What does it matter? I think (and have said so before) that impeachment should be automatic upon every new president taking office. Start it before sundown on the first day, every time without exception.

Why am I stirred up over this?

I had the misfortune of going into a store where the proprietor was watching Impeachment Theater. It was the first I'd seen of it and it was even more stupid than I had imagined. The melodrama! I got out of there as fast as I could, but I had already been subjected to too much.

Now, maybe some of those congressvermin were scared for their lives. Good. It's about time they felt a hint of what their victims feel every time they threaten us with more legislation. When they get together it is a mortal threat against you and me. What they experienced was nothing by comparison. I have exactly zero sympathy and think they deserve more of the same on a weekly basis.

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*I never supported Trump, but I hate Biden much more, for specific reasons.  And Harris will probably even be worse when she takes over for the old zombie.

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Share what you think is important

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for February 10, 2021)

When something is important to you, you want to share it. If other people don’t understand it, you want to explain it to them.

You usually want others to like and understand it as much as you do, whether it’s a skill, a hobby, a religion, knowledge, or an idea.

It’s why — besides the remote possibility of making money — people write books and make movies.

It’s why I write these weekly columns and blog daily.

It’s also why I try to help people around me when they ask for my help.

I’ve answered their questions on primitive survival skills, gold and silver and Bitcoin, guns, pets, and liberty. If I don’t know an answer, or don’t have an opinion, I say so.

It’s a good idea to make sure to keep your own limitations in mind. There’s no point in trying to explain or demonstrate more than you actually know.

You also need to wait until your help is wanted, rather than forcing it on anyone. Force isn’t helpful, even if your intentions are good. This is true with physical intervention, but also with your ideas.

No matter how enthusiastic you are, it does no good to chase people down to share your excitement with them. They’ll resist.

Instead, let them come to you. When you put anything on the internet, for example, it’s there (somewhere) as long as the internet exists. This may turn out to be forever.

This could be a bad thing if you’ve made some unfortunate TikTok videos, but it does mean your shared knowledge will be there for anyone to find when they are ready.

This includes email exchanges or other online discussions.

I’ve had a few people write to me years after we had an exchange to tell me they thought I was crazy at the time, but eventually came to agree with me. Sometimes it was someone who had read a debate without participating. There are probably a few who go the opposite direction, too.

Your views may also change over time. If not, it could be a sign you have an ideology instead of a working mind.

Go ahead: share the things you know best; the things you think are important. Share them with willing individuals, when they are open to receiving what you’re sharing. It will probably make your life and the lives of others better, and if it doesn’t, maybe you need to re-examine your interests.

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Primitive guy hates consensual interactions

Is that you, Crow-magnum Man?

I recently saw some guy on Twitter who called himself "anti-civilization" and a "primitivist" who was responding to another person, telling him he hates "your government and your society".

Fair enough, but while I agree about their government, I pointed out that society-- the opposite of political government-- is a case of spontaneous organization, just like the market. 

So he said he hates the market, too. Not that I was surprised. So edgy. Don't try to trade with the guy or you might trigger him! I wonder how good his primitive survival skills actually are, as a "primitivist", or if he's all talk without any understanding of what primitive living, without any form of consensual trade, involves.

It's not surprising that he couldn't differentiate between voluntary actions and coercive actions. Between "win/win" and "win/lose". For some reason, most people can't these days.

Hating random things is popular. If you're that hungry to hate things, you might as well hate air while you're at it. 

As you probably know, there are "primitive" things I really enjoy. The market and society are pretty ancient; you could even say they are primitive.

There are also things about society I don't like; things I don't like about how the market works. So?

There are things I don't like about gravity, weather, and other facets of reality. But not liking things that happen spontaneously and don't involve anyone's rights being violated is just pointless. Maybe even a little dumb.

You can dislike those things if you want. It doesn't matter to me. You aren't being violated by them and no one is obligated to coddle your feelings about them. And you have no right to prevent others from participating in anything that's not violating someone's equal and identical rights.

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I get a lot of inspiration from Twitter. Whether I like it or not. Seeing the dumb things people say-- such as the above example-- makes me think and gives me things to write about. Even if I don't respond directly to them when I think it would be a waste of time.

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The Cult of Covid

It appears that Covid-19 has actually spawned a cult. I'll be nice and not adopt the obvious label "Covidiots" for its members. 

I'll go with "Branch Covidians", instead. It's funnier and it's completely accurate. 

Covidianism appears to be a branch of Statism, but maybe it's distinct and there's only some incidental overlap in the middle. Maybe, but probably not. The correlation seems too high to be coincidental.

Branch Covidians have their own religious canon-- handed down from the politicized Experts, put into action by the political Rulers, and preached by the priests of the Mainstream Media. It has sacred garments (face masks) and rituals (anti-social distancing). Sacrifices are required; both human sacrifice (people killed by shutdowns) and "covenants of flesh" (vaccinations), and tithes (economic ruin through shutdowns and stimulus money). And most of it is divorced from reality-- including science-- in a big way.

In spite of the craziness, the Branch Covidians have gone mainstream-- pushing their religion from the media and government buildings-- and it's bizarre.

My eyes hurt from rolling so much at what Branch Covidians believe and worry about. I can't be one of them. It appears I'm an atheist concerning that religion, too.

As with any religion, I have no problem with anyone practicing it until they start imagining that the rules they make up and apply to themselves as believers in that religion apply to the non-believers as well. Then I'm going to resist.

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