Death to Liberty!

“Professionalizing” pr0n

Posted on February 22, 2020February 22, 2020 by Mike

Is there NOTHING they won’t try to meddle with, micromanage, and regulate unto ruination?

In a very California story, inter-union drama appears to be marring the introduction of a bill that would require porn stars to get business licenses.

On Tuesday, Assemblymembers Lorena Gonzalez (D–San Diego) and Christina Garcia (D–Bell Gardens) introduced Assembly Bill (A.B.) 2389. The bill would require adult entertainers and video performers, including webcam performers, to obtain a business license and complete a state-mandated training course before being allowed to ply their trade.

Requirements for that training would be developed by the state’s Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), which would, in turn, be advised by a new 10-member, governor-appointed board composed of two adult film actors, three dancers, two medical doctors, a therapist, and a money manager.

This training will be a minimum of two hours and will provide information on reporting workplace injuries, sexual harassment, and sex trafficking. Adult performers would be required to cover the cost of this training. The bill would also require that they be finger-printed.

The creation of licensure requirements gives state regulators the authority to police the behavior of participants in what is often a pretty informal industry. Reason recently covered how police in Florida have conducted sting operations on handymen as part of their enforcement of that state’s contractor licensing laws.

As Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown has covered extensively, sex workers have plenty of reasons to be apprehensive about the expansion of the regulatory state.

It’s true also that regulatory seeds, once planted, tend to grow. It’s conceivable that the bill’s current two-hour training requirement could be expanded to become more onerous over time.

“Conceivable”? You must be joking; it’s INEVITABLE. The “training requirement” will grow exponentially…as will the licensing fees, the regulations and restrictions, the taxes, the paperwork, the headaches and hassles, and of course the bureaucracy required to administer and oversee it all. It will ALL “expand”—until the point at which no one wants to be in the industry anymore because it just isn’t worth the bother is reached.

At which point a grim milestone of sorts will have been achieved in the Land of the (gag) “Free”: against all odds, Almighty Government will have effectively destroyed the porn and titty-bar industry. Whodathunkit?

Update! Anybody seeing a pattern here?

The same San Diego area assemblywoman who brought you the job-killing AB 5, which kills freelance jobs, is back to finish off the “adult” freelance industry.

The adult workers are gobsmacked that the state has involved itself in their business— and presumes to train them in order to get a license for a job they’re already doing, while being forced to pay for it all.

Then, once the goobermint has “fixed” all the problems, they can get busy “fixing” all the problems their previous “fixing” caused. Lather, rinse, repeat, forever and ever amen. Y’know, like with Obamacare.

Nature, taking its course

Posted on February 15, 2020February 16, 2020 by Mike

UNEXPECTED!™

John Alpert is an American photojournalist whose work is featured in the Netflix documentary Cuba and the Cameraman. He first went to the island nation in 1972, a little more than a decade after the Cuban Revolution. Over the next 45 years, Alpert returned to Cuba, each time taking pictures of its towns and cities and people. The images he took are a timeline that chronicle how Castro’s socialist revolution played out for the Cuban people in the years that lay ahead.

SPOILER ALERT: it played out exactly the way it always does, in every place it’s tried. Shocking, I know.

To a young photojournalist who was idealistic and somewhat naïve at the time, socialism seemed to portend a bright future for Cuba. With its people happy and well taken care of by a paternalistic government, things were going well. But as time moved one, Cuba’s house-of-cards communist system fell apart. The free goods and services given to the Cuban people were funded not by the country’s top-down collectivist economy, but by a massive infusion of hard cash, gasoline, food, and other provisions from the Soviet Union. When the Soviets eventually pulled the plug as their own socialist economy was crumbling, the day-to-day lives of the Cuban people fell on hard times, a rude reminder of Margaret Thatcher’s observation the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.

The once vibrant island nation of Cuba is but another place where socialism added to its unbroken trail of failure. The country’s capital, Havana, was once an international tourist destination. Known as the “Jewel of the Caribbean,” Havana was a glamorous city with beautiful homes and modern vehicles. After six decades of socialism, only the communist rulers and their cronies live in upscale homes, and the country’s poorly maintained roads are traveled by junker cars built in the middle of the last century.

Easy prediction: the longer they cling to socialism, the more all of these things will worsen. In some quarters, this strange phenomenon of escalating decay, collapse, and chaos is known as “bad luck.” In others, it is sometimes referred to as “getting the government you deserve—good and hard.” Not to worry, though; it’ll be diff’runt here in the US.

I find this next bit of puffed-up, self-dramatizing sanctimony hilarious:

Among the greatest heroes of the Cuban Revolution were two foreigners whose battlefield exploits were so legendary that they became the only non-Cubans to be awarded the rank of Comandante in Castro’s army. One was an idealistic 29-year-old American named William Alexander Morgan, the other a ruthless Marxist revolutionary from Argentina named Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

Hailed by Castro for acts of valor that earned him the affectionate nickname “the Americano,” Morgan said he joined the Cuban Revolution because “the most important thing for free men to do is protect the freedom of others.”

Uh huh. And then—as also always, always, ALWAYS happens under Marxism/communism/socialism/Progressivism/WTFever—EVERYBODY’S freedom was taken away—along with their hope, their health, their wealth, their dignity, and their future. One just imagine the eager naif Morgan’s surprise at yet another thing that always happens:

A fervent anti-communist, Morgan was personally assured by Castro that communism would play no part in the future of the new Cuba. But once Castro had consolidated an iron-fisted grip on power, he revealed his true stripes.

NO! That just can’t be right. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it.

I don’t quite grasp how any halfway intelligent person can honestly claim to be both a socialist revolutionary and a “fervent anti-communist” without suffering severe neck, spine, and brain injury from the whiplash effect of extreme cognitive dissonance. But that’s what the man says, so maybe I missed something somewhere along the line. Anyhoo, at the end of this article is a link to another worthy compendium on socialism’s inevitable failure from the same author.

Virginia is just the beginning

Posted on February 13, 2020February 13, 2020 by Mike

None of this is random. The enemy thinks long, and is working a plan.

They’re coming for you next: Much has been made of the onerousness gun control laws passed by the Democrats in the Virginia state legislature this past week.

When it became clear that the Democrats were going to pass such laws, having gained control of both the legislature and the governorship, 95 counties and cities in the state made it publicly clear they would not enforce these laws, announcing that they were now second amendment sanctuary counties. Then, more than 22,000 Virginians gathered in protest at the statehouse, peacefully but forcefully declaring their opposition to these proposed laws.

None of that mattered to the modern Democrats now in charge in Virginia. They passed the laws, one of which gives the state “the authority to confiscate certain types of magazines that are considered ‘high capacity.’” I don’t know how they think they will enforce that confiscation right, but since they think it appropriate and just, don’t be surprised if they impose new laws to strengthen their ability to do so, including the right to do house-to-house searches.

Most of the the discussion about this story has been focused on the opposition to the laws themselves. I want to focus on what it tells us about the modern Democratic Party. You see, these fascist actions — which do nothing to reduce violence or crime while making law-abiding citizens criminals — are being planned by practically every local Democratic Party operation across the nation. All they require to make them law is to obtain power, as they have in Virginia.

My proof?

He has plenty, all of which you should read. But it all boils down to the simple fact stated in the headline: “Democrats in VA and AZ issue a warning: “We will oppress you if you elect us!” They most certainly will, just like every other Marxist dictatorship throughout history has; as the scorpion told the frog, it’s what they are, it’s what they do. No Democrat-Socialist candidate, for ANY office, should be able to garner even a single damned vote from anyone not already a dyed-in-the-wool fellow traveler living in one of America’s Democrat Urban Blight zones.

And yet.

(Via Sefton)

Everything not forbidden is mandatory

Posted on January 29, 2020January 29, 2020 by Mike

Okay, I couldn’t keep myself from laughing out loud at this one.

Here is a story that shows progressive policies to be not only destructive, but also depressingly stupid. New York State recently passed a law requiring citizens to obtain a permit if they wish to gaze at the stars in public parks. No, really. You read that right. In New York, you must pay for a license to look at the freaking stars.

The Free Thought Project first reported on the story, explaining that “If citizens of the state wish to look up at the sky and view the stars at one of New York’s public parks, they will first have to obtain a ‘Stargazing permit.’” The site pointed out that pollution in the sky makes it more difficult for New Yorkers in “highly populated areas” to see the sky at night, so they travel to remote areas, many of which are located in state parks.

The state is charging residents $35 to become a fully-licensed stargazer allowed to view the stars between January and December of the year. If you are not lucky enough to be a New York resident and you are just visiting, you will have to fork over $60 for the privilege of admiring your favorite constellation in the night sky.

“Lucky”? For certain values of the word lucky, I suppose. The more ironic ones.

The other problem is that there does not seem to be any real rationale behind the policy. Stargazing isn’t exactly known to be a dangerous pastime. Moreover, it does not cause any discernible inconvenience for anyone else. So why would they enact such a measure? The answer is simple: It is nothing more than a brazen money grab designed to separate New York residents from more of their hard-earned cash.

In other words, New York’s government is needlessly restricting the liberty of its citizens to make a quick buck. The same folks who claim capitalists are evil are willing to use cynical political means to amass funds. Of course, requiring silly permits for activities that do not warrant them is the progressives’ bread and butter. It’s become an ingenious way for local and state governments run by far leftists to raise money while asserting their dominance over the populace.

That last is the one that really matters. Granted, the Left does love itself some money-grabbin’. But even their blatant thievery is in service to an all-encompassing desire to control absolutely everything. Which, in turn, makes it necessary to constantly remind the serfs of just who is in charge around here, lest they begin to get…ideas about certain things.

Know what, though? I can’t really find it in me to get too exercised about this. Such demeaning, grubby nonsense is precisely the sort of thing one must expect from absolute Democrat-Socialist rule, which liberal New Yorkers have endorsed with their votes a bazillion times over, for decades. So now let those “lucky” New Yorkers enjoy the inevitable, predictable fruits of their own stubborn idiocy. Let them crawl on their knees to their masters to beg official permission to raise their heads and look up, ferchrissakes. Let them waste their hard-earned money to purchase this extravagantly generous boon from the Noble Ones upon whom they themselves foolishly bestowed such excessive power.

Maybe someday they’ll learn.

History, repeating itself

Posted on January 29, 2020January 29, 2020 by Mike

Who they are, what they do.

How the current impeachment “trial” turns out is anybody’s guess but hardly the only unknown in theongoing coup against President Trump. As many believe, if nobody in the FBI or DOJ winds up doing prison time, the Deep State wins and future presidents will face similar coup attempts. Some clues on what might or might not happen to FBI bosses emerged Sunday in “Government on Trial,” a Fox News documentary on the FBI siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992.

That operation targeted the family of Randy Weaver, whom the establishment media relentlessly smeared as a “white separatist” and “white supremacist” with possible links to the Aryan Nations. As the FBI knew, Weaver was not a member of the group, and as Weaver testified to the Senate in 1995, “I don’t hate people because of being a different race. I don’t hate anybody. I believe there are good and bad in every race, and I have always taught that.”

On the other hand, Weaver could be accurately described as a biblical survivalist. He moved his family from Iowa to northern Idaho to prepare for bad times and the possible breakdown of society. Such survivalism had been on the rise since the latter days of the Carter administration, when the end did seem to be at hand.

Like many in rural Idaho, Weaver and his family were fully armed. On the other hand, they lived peacefully and perpetrated no attacks against neighbors. The ATF tried to entrap Weaver on a gun charge and an exchange of fire claimed the lives of a U.S. Marshall and Weaver’s 14-year-old son, Samuel. That brought in the FBI, which deployed 400 heavily armed agents, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and trained snipers all against a single family.

The FBI’s rules of engagement allowed agents to shoot on sight. The agency believed that Randy’s wife Vicki was the “brains of the outfit” and FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot the unarmed woman in the head as she held her infant daughter. Snipers are trained to “acquire” their targets, so not likely the killing was accidental.

Weaver and his friend Kevin Harris were also wounded, and Harris was near death when the siege ended. In the ensuing trial, Randy Weaver was acquitted on everything but failing to appear in court, and his original tangle with the ATF was ruled as entrapment. The family received a settlement of more than $3 million but questions remained.

As the Fox documentary showed, it remains unknown to this day which FBI boss ordered the shoot-on-sight rules, and the mystery could be part of a cover-up. Michael Kahoe of the FBI’s violent crime division destroyed a key report on Ruby Ridge to prevent the U.S. attorney from turning it over to Weaver’s attorneys. Kahoe would up serving 18 months in prison, for actions in a case that rendered three people dead.

The campaign against candidate Trump, and the coup attempt against President Trump, has yet to claim any lives, but it has certainly ruined a few. As the Federalist reveals, James Comey and Andrew McCabe signed off on FISA warrants that were false, which is a federal crime. These were part of more than a dozen cases in which the FBI violated FISA laws.

FBI lawyer Kevin Klinesmith altered a key document on Carter Page and the phones of FBI players Strzok and Page were wiped clean of incriminating texts. U.S. attorney John Durham is running a criminal investigation, but so far no FBI or DOJ player has been officially charged, tried and sent to prison. A low-level fall guy the style of Kahoe would hardly match the magnitude of the crimes and essentially authorize future coup attempts by the deep state. That’s the lesson of Ruby Ridge.

Billingsley goes on to weave Waco, the Nation Of Islam, and the Black Panthers into a larger tapestry of corruption and extremely dubious, politically-motivated FBI/Senate/DoJ investigations. The FBI’s blatant stab at criminal interference in the 2016 election and the subsequent all-thumbs attempt to frame Trump shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody the least bit familiar with their coal-black history.

They hate us! They really, really hate us!

Posted on January 22, 2020January 22, 2020 by Mike

That’s okay, we hate them right back.

A significant new book by Andrew Marantz, a staff writer at the New Yorker, has reinvigorated the gatekeepers’ efforts to censor the internet. Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation is an account of our ongoing democratic revolution, a historical moment that brings into relief two realizations for Marantz: (1) conservative influencers are now able to out-compete legacy media outlets, and (2) it was this that lead to the election of Donald J. Trump. “[T]hey helped propel their man to the presidency,” he writes.

For Marantz, these two realizations justify all-out censorship of the internet. But his extremism comes as little surprise when you recognize that, from start to finish, Marantz’s argument is grounded in his contempt for the intellectual and moral capacities of ordinary Americans.

At one point in the book, Marantz recalls an encounter with a friend who saw little problem with politically compromising clickbait: “Look, we happen to live in a free country. People can click on terrible links if that’s how they want to spend their time.”

“I made counterarguments,” Marantz writes. “Those terrible links influence what people think, how people behave, who people vote for.” He means, of course, that we can’t trust citizens to choose their own sources of information. So it’s not enough for Marantz to lay the blame for Trumpism on an intellectual deficit; he also blames the “techno-utopians” who fed their terrible information consumption habits.

According to Marantz, a techno-utopian believes that the American people are wise and moral enough to make those distinctions for themselves. They can thus be trusted with an open internet. They have faith that truth and virtue will eventually win out in the open marketplace of ideas. They think that “getting rid of informational gatekeepers” is a victory for democracy. Recall that Reddit’s motto was once “freedom from the press.” Techno-Utopians want to use technology to “democratize [and] give the power to the people.” They might even believe that “the freedom to share opinions online was akin to a human right.” Note the implicit assumption here: that the popularity of some political content is some indication of its moral or intellectual value.

Marantz’s book is a frontal attack on all these beliefs.

Of course it is. He’s a weedy, wormy little twerp whose bloated ego isn’t strong enough to tote the load of his crushing inadequacy. His bilious contempt for the bovine lackwits who refuse to duly acknowledge his self-proclaimed superiority is based mainly on pure envy, as is so often the case. The whole mess of soggy neurosis drives him to reject the very idea of human freedom itself, along with the existence of any “rights” a godlike being such as himself is bound to respect. The stupid, blundering sheep must be herded, for their own good; who better than an enlightened über-shepherd like himself to lead them along the proper path?

This miserable worm is nothing less than the living embodiment of Progressivist ideology and attitudes, on both the micro- and macro-levels. The obnoxiousness; the shameless, completely unjustifiable arrogance; the narcissism; the grandiose self-dramatization; the unshakable belief in the neccessity of a wiser, more capable “elite” class to supervise and manage the affairs of a hapless sub-order dependent on their guidance—this is a pretty good summary of the original mission statement of early-20th-Century Progressivism. Latter-day Progressivists have trimmed these roots only slightly by dropping their progenitors’ open embrace of eugenics as a means of culling the undesirables from the flock, deciding it might be best for all concerned if nobody brings that embarrassing little chapter up anymore, thanks.

The title of Marantz’s book is where the sad irony really lives and breathes. It isn’t any “hijacking of the American conversation” that so frustrates and enrages him; it’s having the ignorant serfs speaking up without permission he finds so damned galling. Unapproved views are now being freely expressed, rather than all and sundry listening in enraptured silence to his exalted pontification, as he so much prefers. Oh, there’s a conversation going on all right, but he’s not invited. Nothing has been “hijacked,” but a few things have been left behind. People like Marantz have nothing new to say, nothing to contribute but more of the same-old same-old. Is it any wonder that fewer and fewer of us seem interested in hearing their tired, century-old lecture recited all over again, only louder and more spitefully this time?

Down to the nut-cuttin’

Posted on January 19, 2020January 20, 2020 by Mike

Another post that could have been appended to the last one as updates, but there’s just too much out there not to break out a new one instead. First up, David’s cynicism and despair pretty precisely mirror my own.

I had hoped to never write a post like this. It appears that federal agencies are “scouring” the Internet to prevent attacks in Richmond, VA tomorrow. The real question is how did we get here?

I will not dance around the issue of whether or not we are in a Civil War. The only question to be answered is when it will go hot. There are many triggers in place besides Richmond. Most people do not know that if Abraham Lincoln had not won the 1860 election (with less than 40% of the popular vote), the North had planned to secede. The nation had devolved to a point where there could be no reconciliation: Henry Clay’s great compromise had failed. And yet history is about to repeat itself. No matter who wins the 2020 election, the country will lose as it did in 1860. In fact, too much of the country is already lost: look at the Democrat controlled cities and states to see the dystopian future that they have planned for the entire nation.

And that is the optimistic time line. So here we are on the precipice of a hot civil war courtesy of the Communist Democrat Party and the media financed by George Soros. I pray that evil is defeated, justice is meted out fairly and that the consequences of insurrection for power are not soon forgotten. The two-tiered justice system and all of its conspirators must be held accountable and given the maximum penalty they deserve for their crimes.

If we lose, we lose all.

Don’t look now, Dave, but when we’ve reached the stage where Americans dare not peaceably petition the government for redress of grievances—thereby forfeiting their former 1A rights along with the 2A ones—because of the risk of being murdered in a slaughter-pen dreamed up and constructed by one of our own state governments, for the purpose of weaponizing those false-flag deaths for later use against the surviving victims as propaganda, the only rational conclusion is that we already DID. Elsewhere, JC Dodge makes a few depressing points on the day before the former Republic dies the final death:

Cages are for animals, detainees, and convicted felons, not Citizens. Herding Citizens into a big cage while they exercise one inherent and enumerated Right, while advocating for another inherent AND ENUMERATED Right (that has been temporarily taken away), is the act of a tyrant. Anyone who says it is not, is an apologist for the tyrant, a “closet” tyrant themselves or an imbecile.

When it comes to the Richmond Rally on January 20th, don’t be a domesticated, herd animal. They generally end up on the “dinner table” in one form or another.

Be a “Thinking” MAN, not a “following” SLAVE. Make decisions based on common sense and you own good judgement/gut feeling. I’d advise to not go with the musings of some social media “Tacticool” wannabees or YouTube “Tabletop Experts” who want to finally get the opportunity to “Get it on!”, or think they will be in the “Command Structure” of the resistance, based on their YT presence. As I said in this post, both are lacking in any expertise, background and common sense.

He’s right. While I wish it were still remotely possible to influence the decisions made by our rulers on how we are to be ruled, or at least intimidate them into doing the right thing and governing according to the will of the people (often the only recourse when dealing with megalomaniacal professional politicians), the sad fact is that it isn’t. Honestly, if I were in Virginia there’s no way on earth I would be caught dead within 250 miles of Richmond tomorrow—at least. Because of, y’know, the likelihood of being caught dead there for reals, in accordance with Gov Coonman and his fellow fascists’ plans for exactly that.

Both via WRSA. Lots, lots more over there, and more coming here too.

Update! Sorry, but this is just pathetic.

Dismissing rhetoric from Democrats that armed Second Amendment supporters are threatening to stir up a Monday rally at the Virginia Capitol, activists ordered to disarm to get close to the protest site are asking armed friends and family to “watch over us.”

Under rules set in place by Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam and endorsed by state courts, guns will be banned inside a large fenced-in area around the Capitol, even for those with carry permits.

“If you can commit to being one of our needed 10,000 unarmed members inside the fence, please help us by asking several of your family and friends to be your designated armed escort to the gates and to stand outside the fenced area to watch over us,” said an alert from the Virginia Citizens Defense League.

“Stand with us, legally armed if you so choose, just outside the fence and watch over your brothers and sisters inside the fence,” said the group. Tens of thousands of pro- and anti-gun protesters are expected for the Monday morning event.

So let’s recap, shall we? A chain-link kill house—one entrance, three exits covering only two sides of the square, all of them closely co-located rather than at opposite ends, which unpropitious layout is very damned suggestive of certain nefarious probabilities—those exits very likely surrounded by a horde of violent Leftist thugs waiting to attack the fleeing sheep, overseen by ranks of cops obeying stand-down orders…just like in C-ville. So explain one thing to me, guys: why the fucking FUCK would you EVER willingly agree to be herded into such a kill house in the first fucking place?

Think I’m being too paranoid when I say that Coonman & Co have big plans for those foolish enough to march right through the slaughterhouse gate, baah-ing and bleating the whole time for their friends to protect them from harm? Might wanna take a hint from Coonman’s own lies before leaping headlong to that conclusion:

Northam and other gun-control politicians have been suggesting that far right pro-gun groups plan to disrupt the event. The state has said it wants to prevent “another Charlottesville,” where white supremacists clashed with counterprotesters over Civil War monuments.

And there you have it. Coonman has laid the propaganda groundwork carefully; it was the state that created the false Charlottesville narrative that eventually carried the day in the first place. Now the Charlottesville lie has become a handy propaganda club for Leftists like Coonman to wield upside the vacant skulls of their gullible opponents in all sorts of contexts…and wield it they most certainly will. With the repeated mischaracterization of law-abiding gun owners as dangerous “white supremacists” alone, Coonman & Co have given their game away.

And now this blatanly dishonest tyrant wants to lead you people into a fenced, gated “Gun Free Zone” ostensibly to prevent you from committing Charlottesville-style “violence” against the politicians guilty of revoking your Constitutional rights, or their official AntiFa enforcers. Once corraled, you will be surrounded by a jeering, hate-maddened mob whose penchant for violent assault is already well-established. All this will be overseen by armed cops whose loyalties and orders are uncertain at best. In order to prevent pictures or video which could contradict the official narrative, the airspace around Richmond has been declared a no-fly zone, to include civilian drones.

Virginia’s government officials; bused-in AntiFa wrecking crews, further emboldened by official sanction; the Democrat-Socialist Party, both state and national; the libmedia apparatus entire—TV, radio, print, cable; ALL of this, with Virginia LEO’s coming in as at best unknown, is stacked up against you. So I say again: WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU PEOPLE AGREE TO COOPERATE WITH THIS CHARADE?

Oh, and lest anybody out there think the Virginia State Police might refuse to enforce Gov Coonman’s blatantly unlawful orders in obediance to their own oaths: might wanna think again.

VA State Police drive over 100 miles to intimidate law abiding citizens ahead of Lobby Day, a planned rally in support of the 2nd amendment in Virginia. pic.twitter.com/kokx3w9isB

— Michael Coudrey (@MichaelCoudrey) January 19, 2020

Sorry, but I have to say it again: the only chance of liberty-minded Virginians plucking any worthwhile result out of this stinking pile is to walk in with guns ablaze right from jump, taking out every goddamned politician they can get into range. Otherwise, you’re all just pulling your puds. Right or wrong, you can’t polish a turd. And a fat, squishy, reeking turd is exactly what you’ve been handed here.

That’s telling ’em update! More on the Virginia man mentioned in the above Tweet. His response to being set upon by the Va State Po-po is just filled with rich buttery goodness, as is the backstory to all this.

A YouTube video shows George Wagner, a disabled Navy veteran and son of a state police captain, being interrogated by Virginia state police officers for taking photos at the Virginia State Capitol.

Wagner is told that a “credible tip” reached the state police desk about Wagner possibly engaging in “pre-operational planing” at the Capitol.

“I’m sure you’re well aware of all the events occurring on Monday,” an officer who gave his name as Adam Culpa tells Wagner.

“Correct, I am a citizen of the United States and I understand that we have an unconstitutional Second Amendment a**hole governor, who is taking away our rights,” Wagner replies.

Wagner is told there is “video footage” of him at the Capitol walking around, “checking into structures,” and “knocking on pillars, most likely to check densities.”

The other officer tells Wagner that police at the state house saw him engaging in the aforementioned “pre-operational planning.”

“What they saw was an intelligent American who is situationally aware of the piss-poor job y’all will do with my security,” Wagner says. “You are disarming me, you are putting me behind a gate, and still, as a free man, I’m gonna come here and stand.”

“We’re trying to understand if you intend to do harm,” the unnamed officer on the left says.

“I don’t intend to do anything, and you might want to tell [State Police Superintendent] Colonel Settle, that the reason I knew what I was doing is [because] my father was Captain Bill Wagner, W.R. Wagner, Virginia State Police. So I’m very aware. I was raised aware.”

Good as all that is, Wagner wasn’t done yet, ordering one cop off his property, then blasting away when the other lamely resorts to the Mark-1 Mod-0 rationalization that he’s “just doing his job”: “The son of a bitches that loaded the Jews into the gas chambers were just doing their job, too.” May God watch over this brave man tomorrow, come what may.

Oh, and on the slight chance that anybody was somehow deceived by the sudden tossing of AntiFa scum into the boiling cauldron as fellow 2A supporters: Don’t be a dumbass, fool.

A Virginia Antifa chapter has released a hit list of several conservative figures and journalists who will make an appearance at the 2nd Amendment rally in Richmond, Virginia, on Monday.

The chapter, called Antifa Seven Hills, created a list of what they call “known fascists and sympathizers,” which includes conservatives affiliated with Infowars like Owen Shroyer, journalists Mike Adams and Jacob Engels, veteran Joe Biggs, and even Trump insider Roger Stone.

Additionally, American Policy Center president Tom DeWeese reported that Antifa is planning to disguise themselves as Trump supporters so they can commit violence to portray all conservatives at the even as violent extremists.

The text from DeWeese’s Fakebook post:

I’m in Richmond and have just received information from a very reliable source concerning Monday’s rally against the legislature’s gun grabs. Antifa have rented seven buses to bring in their thugs to cause trouble. The report says they will be wearing MAGA hats and wearing NRA garb. They will pretend to be pro gun people. Meanwhile others posing as democrats holding anti gun signs will stand on the side. The Antifa thugs, pretending to be pro gun , will attack the sign holders. Making it look like the pro gun people have started violence. This is the plan. If you are attending the rally be aware. Be very careful.

Any bets on whether Coonman himself suggested this to ’em? But there’s an even bigger problem with DeWeese’s advice, and it’s this: “Be aware”? Be “very careful”? How, and for what? Will any amount of “awareness” avail you when your skull is being caved in by a platoon of pipe-swinging AntiFa goons, all of whom will be allowed to walk away without so much as a disapproving scowl from the authorities? How “careful” can one be while locked into a fenced free-fire zone whose only way out is through a gauntlet of officially-licensed enforcers with weapons-free approval granted by the State? What will turning the other cheek be likely to earn anybody from the proven-violent AntiFa hoodlums?

CAN violence be avoided tomorrow? Worse, and more depressing: SHOULD it be? It’s crystal-clear that this struggle will never be resolved without bloodshed; has the time come to settle it, if only temporarily?

Whatever tomorrow brings, I salute Wagner’s defiant determination; his bravery, his patriotism, his honor are simply not open to question from the likes of me. But a losing hand has been fobbed off on him by a dirty-dealing state government just the same, and I don’t see any good way for him to play the thing out.

Road trip update! The Spectator’s George Parry says he’s going in.

So, what have we got here? Thanks to the Democrat-controlled legislature’s arrogant determination to jam gun control down the gagging throats of rebellious law-abiding Virginians, the Democrat governor is claiming that there is probable cause to believe that on Monday the peasants may well re-enact Bastille Day by storming the Capitol as well as engage in violence, rioting, and armed insurrection. Hopefully, in addition to the governor’s dire predictions, there will also be trembling, sweating Democrat legislators hiding under their desks wondering how in the hell they got themselves into this mess and praying to Gaia that these howling crazies don’t one day lay siege to their homes and district offices.

Frankly, this is an irresistible prospect. That is why your correspondent will be standing tall in Richmond’s Capitol Square Monday morning to record for posterity what promises to be one of this century’s Mother of All Political Wake Up Calls behind only Donald Trump’s election victory and Brexit.

Virginia’s state seal depicts a slain dictator over the motto “Sic Semper Tyrannis,” which translates to “Thus Always to Tyrants.” But an appropriate variation of this sanguinary motto for Monday’s rally could appropriately be “Semperque Insulsi Superborum” or, in English, “Thus Always to Arrogant Morons.”

So, stand by and watch this space. My post on Monday’s festivities should be fun.

George doesn’t specify whether he’ll be entering the infamous Coonman’s Cage or not, but best of luck to him regardless.

DOG BITES MAN!!!

Posted on January 19, 2020January 19, 2020 by Mike

Ho hum.

Media and the Left Trying to Turn Law Abiding Gun Owners into Frothing, Racist, White Supremacists

Ummm…and? Seriously, dude, you find this shocking?

Northam and other gun rights opponents think that having 100,000 people rallying for gun rights — with many of them armed — will lead to violence. Northam declared a “state of emergency” — as if the very presence of several thousand armed citizens is a threat.

Gov Coonman hopes it will lead to violence; he intends for it to lead to violence, if only he can rig things the right way. After which he will very loudly and passionately denounce all private ownership of firearms; demand that “something must be done to stop the bloodshed!”; hold a jam-packed Enemedia press conference where he will falsely declare that he is in no way anti-2A, that he is himself a “life-long hunter”; then call for yet more “reasonable, common-sense” gun-grabbing measures in response to the “emergency” he and his Commie co-conspirators manufactured.

In the end, this is the Republicans’ own fault. In November, 2018, more Democrats in Virginia showed up to vote than Republicans. This resulted in a sweep for the Democrats, taking control of both houses of the legislature and the governorship.

And now Virginians have a governor who declares a “state of emergency” when citizens show up at a peaceful rally legally armed and lawmakers look to harass, annoy, and violate the rights of its citizens.

They look to end those rights, to rescind them forever, actually.

And to add insult to injury, those same politicians seek to lump law-abiding, responsible gun owners in with white supremacists.

Again with the surprise and horror? Tell me, Rick, when have they NOT done exactly that—and more, and worse—over the past forty years or so? Don’t kid yourself that it’s only “law-abiding, responsible gun owners” they’re abusing via that and similar canards, either. It’s every last American who isn’t fully on board with living under their tyrannical sway—who does not embrace their collectivist fanaticism, their lunatic policies, their ever-metastasizing Superstate, their intolerance for dissent, and so many other things.

Grok: If they can successfully paint even as milquetoast, mild-mannered a squish as Mittens Romneycare as some kind of extremist, Right-wing monster—and they could, they did—why on earth would you think they’d draw the line at “law-abiding, responsible gun owners”?

Oh, and while we’re at it, allow me to reiterate: IT’S A TRAP.

A Virginia state senator has sounded a warning bell three days before a massive rally is set to coalesce in the commonwealth’s capital.

Conservative Sen. Amanda Chase of District 11 took to Facebook on Friday with a warning for every patriot who plans to attend the pro-Second Amendment rally Monday in Richmond.

Her warning came the same week that Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam issued an executive order temporarily banning firearms in the Capitol Square.

“Sadly, I am posting this, knowing that the Governor of Virginia has declared a State of Emergency in our state,” Chase wrote. “I want you to be aware of how we are being set up.”

More via Hoft:

If anyone steps out of line, all it takes is one person, it may even be a government plant….if that plant does anything to disrupt the rally, you could/will be arrested as a domestic terrorist.

The Governor, using the media has already set the stage for this to happen.

He has already laid the groundwork to make the entire movement look like insurrection.

It will be used to put the rest of the nation on notice of what will happen to you, if you resist.

More still from Sundance, who makes a point I’m not entirely comfortable with:

Just as the national media did with the “far-right” -vs- “Antifa” for the Charlottesville example, there is a much larger national narrative overlay being deployed.

Also as noted in 2017, getting President Trump involved in the controversy is a way to keep the story on a national scale and politicize the crisis. This is a presidential election year, and Democrats are attempting to converge a multitude of social issues for maximum electoral benefit.

President Trump is being drawn into the engineering.

Something is going to take place.

What that ‘something’ might be is yet unknown.

However, whatever it is, President Trump is unfortunately now attached to it.

Now, Sundance is probably right about an Alinsky-style strategy being worked here. Furthermore, he’s almost certainly correct in his “national narrative” suspicion, and that Trump has been “drawn into” it.

Consider, though: why, exactly, is Trump’s involvement in one of the most important, Constitutionally-relevant conflicts in our history to be considered a BAD thing? Should a President recuse himself to sit on the sidelines when a war against our most fundamental rights is being waged by nefarious, conniving Enemies, Domestic who seek nothing less than to upend the very foundations of this nation? Would it not rather be more laudable for a President to vigorously defend those foundations, those rights, and let the “election-year” political chips fall where they may?

Must we always and forever yield up the right to defend ourselves against Leftist depredation, while they’re perfectly free to make war on us, our liberty, and our beliefs without the slightest restraint? Must we always and forever be resigned to defeat and subjugation? Must we always and forever cling to the delusion that the only way to win is by refusing to fight back?

I dunno, I’m beginning to wonder if the most optimal result from this whole contretemps might be achieved only if the VCDL people just opened fire immediately upon their arrival at the Capitol, and didn’t stop blasting away until every last dimestore dictator in the vicinity had assumed ambient temperature for good.

Rights? What rights?

Posted on January 18, 2020January 18, 2020 by Mike

Yeah, yeah, keep on telling yourself how “free” you are, whydon’tcha.

A grim reminder about those Second Amendment Constitutional “rights”: they don’t exist. They haven’t in decades. Because any “right” that requires a permit or license to be exercised is by definition NOT a right at all—it’s a privilege.

(Image swiped from WRSA)

It’s a trap!

Posted on January 18, 2020January 18, 2020 by Mike

The problem here can be inferred from the headline: “Tyranny at the Door in Virginia.” Sorry, but tyranny came right in the door, raided the fridge, sat itself on the couch, and made itself right at home already.

It began when Ralph “Blackface” Northam became the governor of Virginia in 2017, then advanced another step when the Democratic Party took control of the Virginia General Assembly last year. In part, these events transpired because of the efforts by Michael Bloomberg and George Soros to put Virginia in their crosshairs by dumping millions of dollars into state and local elections.

And when the collaborationist GOPe failed to even bother running candidates in multiple races across Virginia, lest we forget.

Earlier this week, the state senate judiciary committee, voting along straight party lines, passed bills that would require background checks on all private transfers of firearms, let owners keep their banned firearms only if they register with the Virginia State Police, and ban suppressors and any magazines over 10 rounds. The committee also passed red-flag legislation.

The good news is that Virginians are not taking the Democrats’ efforts lying down. Across the state, the grassroots have come alive. To date, 124 counties, cities, and localities have declared themselves sanctuaries for the Second Amendment (consider there are 95 counties and 41 independent cities total in the entire state). These jurisdictions have made it clear they will refuse to enforce any anti-Second Amendment legislation coming from Richmond.

The response of Northam and Attorney General Mark “I’m also into blackface” Herring is to insist that any laws passed regarding gun control will be enforced. Really? By whom? The sheriffs? Not likely. County police? Probably not. State troopers and the national guard? Not likely, either.

Besides, do you really think many Virginians are just going to hand over their guns? The only thing they will be handing over is rounds fired in the direction of anyone seeking to confiscate their rifles and pistols.

Well, maybe. But then again, maybe not.

As far as I can tell, the VCDL is trying very hard to tread lightly and responsibly with their upcoming rally, going way out of their way to emphasize that they’re a mainstream group of law-abiding citizens intent only on peaceably assembling to petition their government for redress of grievances, as is their good right, on a day specifically provided in Virginia each year for that very purpose.

Unfortunately, the more I see of this, the greater the likelihood of a bloody disaster intentionally created by the very malefactors responsible for this confrontation in the first place seems. The sorry fact is that the time for peaceful protest is far, far behind us. The war to preserve the US Constitution, the rights enumerated therein, and for liberty itself was lost many decades ago. The America of our Founders is no more.

The Virginia Democrat-Socialists certainly seem to think so, anyway; they’re marching boldly on without the slightest apparent concern over the possibility of igniting a powderkeg underneath their own worthless asses. They seem quite confident that ultimately, Virginia 2A supporters will sit complacently back and let their rights be stripped from them just like they have so many times before, not just in Va but all across the nation. They’re placing all their chips on this bet.

Honestly, I’m not at all sure I’d be willing to bet against them.

As I’ve said so many times: the most important thing the Left learned from their ill-fated stab at Prohibition was the proper way to boil a frog. Ever since, they’ve been devouring American liberty not in huge gulps, but in bite-size morsels—slowly, patiently, one piece at a time. Whatever a massive public protest in Va may or may not have achieved in the distant past, it will accomplish nothing now. Virginia gun-grabbers see the end-game, the culmination of all their fondest dreams of unchecked rule, within their grasp at last. No mere public show of opposition is going to dissuade them now.

And that really is too bad. One likes to imagine that, as American citizens, our rulers might be responsive to the wishes of those they rule, mindful not to flex their muscle too assertively, too aggressively. But as they get elected and re-elected over and over again, perpetrating the most stunningly brazen acts of corruption and abuse of power imaginable with near-total impunity, they’ve lost all fear of the voters’ wrath. Hell, the very existence of a professional, career-politician class itself—in direct contravention of the most dire warnings of the Founders—is but one of a long list of unsavory developments that have emboldened them.

No sane, decent person wants to have to shoot a neighbor, a cop, a friend or relative to safeguard his own freedom. Ironically, though, it would seem that an altogether human abhorrence for violence is the very thing ensuring that someday, those decent folks will be forced to hoist the black flag and start slitting throats. Many Virginians will probably get busy burying guns in the backyard in response to the passage of these abominable laws. But as Bracken says: if you think it’s time to start burying your guns, it’s actually time to start digging them up. Aesop submits:

If this is a war, fight it like a war. Holding a parade on your enemy’s quarterdeck isn’t going to get you anything you want, but it’ll get you a lot of what you don’t want. Oh, and in about 97 ways, you’re not ready for a war yet. So maybe start working on that first.

And if it’s not quite a war yet, you’ve damned sure got better things to do than grabbing your crotch and waving your shortcomings in the enemy’s face. So maybe start working on doing operations-other-than-war a helluva lot better too.

Which leaves no time for childish tantrums. Stop playing in the street, pull your heads out of your asses, and start doing serious things in a serious way, like this was serious business, and not a grade school food fight.

The tree of liberty may indeed be due for another good watering; I dunno, it’s not for me to say. But we all better be very damned sure about that first.

Update! The shitshow just got shittier.

I guess we now know why Virginia Governor Ralph Northam outlawed all weapons at a pro-gun rally organized by the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), the state’s best known pro-Second Amendment group. Antifa’s showing up.

Vice News and other media outlets breathlessly reported Friday that Antifa and the right-leaning Second Amendment supporters have much in common and so will stand shoulder-to-shoulder on Monday to battle against the state.

“I think it’s been pretty important for us to focus on the fact that gun control in America has a legacy of racist enforcement,” said Antifa Seven Hills spokesperson James (who asked that his name be withheld to avoid getting doxxed online). “Like taking guns away from black people, because black people were perceived as a threat to property and the sanctity of the state.

This is our fight as much as anyone else’s,” James, who identifies as an anarchist, added. “It’s our state, and we are left largely out of the debate. The presence of an armed left is not discussed, it’s not understood.”

Ohhhh yeah, THIS is gonna end well.

A way out?

Posted on January 16, 2020January 16, 2020 by Mike

Might lead through West By-God Virginia.

West Virginia lawmakers are pushing a resolution inviting Virginia’s Second Amendment Sanctuary counties to become constituents of West Virginia.

The resolution–HCR 8–highlights 1863, the year Republicans broke with slave-owning Virginia Democrats and formed West Virginia.

The divide then was that the people of Western Virginia did not believe “the government at Richmond” had their best interests at heart and that such a divide exists again again today (over 118 local governments in Virginia have declared themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries for this reason).

West Virginia Delegates use the resolution to pledge that the gun rights now under assault by Virginia Democrats will be protected for those counties that choose to become part of the state of West Virginia.

Frivolous as this proposal may seem, or even actually be, I still like it. In any event, the Democrat-Socialist gun-grabbers in Richmond are deadly serious about tyranny and show no sign whatsoever of backing off, instead plowing relentlessly ahead in defiance of the US Constitution, Virginia’s own Constitution, and even the motto on the Commonwealth flag and seal.

Meanwhile, the VCDL’s planned protest next week is looking more and more like a trap, as Aesop has so vehemently warned. One of Ace’s commenters offers a modest proposal for defusing the tension there while still striking a blow at Gov Coonman:

12 The protestors should all come in black face
Posted by: It’s me donna at January 15, 2020 06:14 PM (6XlcD)

Heh. Okay, I like that one, too.

Getting what you voted for

Posted on January 16, 2020January 16, 2020 by Mike

My heart bleeds.

California has overreached in its effort to address the challenges in today’s tech platform gig-work economy.

The live music sector, the progenitor of the term “gig” work, is being swept up by this law. The irony would be comical if it were not such a serious problem.

There are some worthy arguments to be made for Assembly Bill 5 by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, San Diego Democrat.

Like hell. There really is only the one argument, explicitly made by some Cali congresswoman or other when, in a rare burst of accidental candor, she complained that the state wasn’t glomming enough in tax dough off of rideshare drivers. Despite the property tax they pay on their cars, the fees for their license plates, the tax on every set of tires or quart of oil they buy, the tax on every gallon of gasoline, and their own yearly income taxes, they weren’t paying “their fair share,” see.

Funnily enough, though that revealing statement was fairly prominent in the reportage I saw at the time, it now seems to have vanished down the ol’ memory hole for some reason. I can’t imagine why.

Anyways, the writer quoted above is a California musician who feels “there are some worthy arguments to be made” for letting goobermint’s grubby thumbs dig deeper into any and everything it wishes, as long as they just leave him alone. His evident shock over this bit says it all:

However, the law has created a tangle of red-tape and administrative expense for large portions of California’s cultural sector.

NOOOO! Why, I can’t believe it! I WON’T believe it! Fret not, though; I’m sure things can all be ironed out with even more legislation, right? Right?!?

Under AB 5, we will be required to inform all U.S.-based musicians that they must now become employees of San Jose Jazz, or incorporate themselves before they will be allowed to perform for us.

If band leaders choose to pursue incorporation, they will then need to take on the responsibility of payroll and HR administration for the rest of their band.

In many performing arts disciplines, such as jazz, musicians are constantly reconfiguring line ups, performing as sidemen in various bands, and as one-time special guests for specific performances.

We will now be obliged to devote tremendous time and resources to constantly hiring, managing and tracking of musicians through this cumbersome process.

AB 5 unnecessarily complicates other work arrangements found in community cultural programming such as small festivals, neighborhood street fairs, parades and summer music series in our local parks.

San Jose Jazz is best known for producing our large Summer Fest which brings tens of thousands of visitors and requires hundreds of temporary roles to execute.

The vast majority of previously contract work roles will now be required to be employees.

Tough noogies, pal. You voted for it, by electing nothing but Democrat-Socialists in your state for years and years. As the old saw has it, sooner or later they always get around to something you DO care about. And now they have. More SHOCKING yet:

Typical of such legislation, AB 5 comes with a hefty list of exempted categories that are a Who’s Who of the politically connected and well-funded: lawyers, doctors, accountants, brokers, builders, and others.

Actors, choreographers, dancers, directors, producers, and musicians are among numerous roles in the performing arts that exhibit a multitude of contract work arrangements. None of these are exempt from AB 5’s rules.

So? If there are indeed “worthy arguments to be made” for handing government the power to make workplace rules of all sorts, why should performing artists be exempt from them, pray tell? Why should ANYBODY be? And can you really be so impenetrably naive as to find it surprising that the wealthy, powerful, and connected exempted themselves from the wonderful benefits of the law? Y’know, just like US Congresscritters routinely exempt themselves from having to comply with any and every piece of burdensome bushwa they roll downhill onto the rest of us?

Personally, after reading this whiny, clueless twaddle it would be a-okay with me if every last theater, concert hall, arena, neighborhood dive bar, and neo-hippie coffee house featuring annoying solo-acoustic singer/songwriters on the Left Coast closed up shop for good tomorrow as a result of this law. Voting the most intrusive, power-hungry nanny-staters extant into office again and again ought to be painful—not just for Uber and Lyft drivers struggling to eke out their meager living, but for everybody, right down the damned line. The lesson will be learned only after the misery is spread around widely enough for all to suffer. Let elections have consequences at last, I say.

Not scared

Posted on January 11, 2020January 12, 2020 by Mike

Hey, remember back when they were called “public servants,” anybody?

It turns out it was Virginia State Senator Dave Marsden who called gun rights advocates “children” on a hot mic at a public meeting over the weekend. But calling them “children” was just the beginning. Things just got worse. Much worse.

Marsden is in support of Democrats’ planned rollbacks of Virginia gun laws at the behest of anti-gun PAC man Michael Bloomberg:

Democrats are calling for, among other things, a ban or curbs on AR-15s, gun rationing, limits on ammo magazines, and a red flag law – a bill that would take guns away from people on the word of a third person who labels them mentally ill.

So it was not an accident or an oopsie when Marsden said in a radio interview on Wednesday that the people who were “emotional” about losing of their Second Amendment civil rights were “mentally ill.”

“I’ve been having this experience for weeks. I’m getting calls day and night,” he said. “Obscene, vulgar, threatening phone calls. I mean, we’re not talking a couple, well over a hundred.”

Jeez, only a hundred? Shoulda been a lot more than that. Ahh, but the arrogant whackadoo was just getting warmed up.

marsden-letter-to-constituent-phone-number-out.-.jpg

That’s a letter Marsden sent out to his “constituents,” slandering a significant portion of them as “childish,” “boorish,” and afflicted by “mental health issues” after being appropriately confronted over his intention to deny Virginians their plainly-enumerated Constitutional rights. If you ask me, they damned well OUGHT to be angry, at any and every scheming politician who imagines for a moment he has a right to run roughshod over the Constitution and treat citizens as subjects, and have not only a right but a duty to express that anger clearly. “People” like Marsden damned well OUGHT to be vilified, with no room left for making any mistakes about what the consequences of all such actions will be.

This “man” is the living incarnation of absolutely everything the Founders warned of; he and his loathsome breed are the reason they wrote the Constitution in the first place. And if those farsighted men were still with us, they’d have already been shooting by now. Harsh, heated words are but a meager down payment on the bill Marsden is racking up for himself.

Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty. Striking some proper fear in the hearts of crawly things like Marsden is long overdue.

Update! They’re leaving no stone unturned.

But as Democrats voted along straight party lines on Friday to ban people from carrying concealed handguns at the state Capitol, they worry, despite all evidence to the contrary, that there is a real danger to letting people continue carrying guns. This vote foreshadows Democrats’ opposition to allowing people to defend themselves and their loved ones.

While Democrat House Speaker House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn can’t point any problems in their state Capitol, she claims that this ban is necessary “to keep everybody safe.” But it isn’t just that there hasn’t been a problem in Virginia where people have been able to carry for decades. There hasn’t been a problem in the other 22 states that allow legislators and/or civilians to carry guns on Capitol grounds.

The problem with gun-free zones, which ban law-abiding civilians from carrying, is that they don’t exactly scare off criminals. In fact, they have just the opposite effect. Disarming everyone, including legislators or staffers, on their way to and from the buildings leaves them easy targets to criminals and terrorists. The murderers have an incentive to disobey the law precisely because the law-abiding obey it.

Um, I can’t honestly say that I have much of a problem with politicians voting to increase their own risk of grievous bodily harm, maiming, and/or death. In fact, I think they ought to disarm the Capitol Police and their own private security details while they’re at it, to REALLY boost “safety.”

Five years on

Posted on January 10, 2020January 10, 2020 by Mike

Haunted by the ghosts of Charlie Hebdo.

I heard about the attack shortly before I went on that morning’s John Oakley Show in Toronto. Throughout the grim half-decade for free speech that has followed, I have thought often of Stéphane “Charb” Charbonnier, the editor of Charlie Hebdo and a great cartoonist in the French style. Two years before his death, he said:

It may seem pompous, but I’d rather die standing than live on my knees.

He did. He was an heroic figure, and he paid for it with his life. One reason for that is because, when everyone else is on their knees, the guy standing up kinda stands out. And Charb & Co had been standing out for almost ten years. As I said to Megyn Kelly at Fox News later that night:

STEYN: Yes, they were very brave. This was the only publication that was willing to publish the Muhammad — the Danish Muhammad cartoons in 2006 because they decided to stand by those Danish cartoonists. I’m proud to have written for the only Canadian magazine to publish those Muhammad cartoons. And it’s because The New York Times didn’t and because Le Monde in Paris didn’t, and the London Times didn’t and all the other great newspapers of the world didn’t – only Charlie Hebdo and my magazine in Canada and a few others did. But they were forced to bear a burden that should have been more widely dispersed…

We will be retreating into a lot more self-censorship if the pansified Western media doesn’t man up and decide to disburse the risk so they can’t kill one small, little French satirical magazine. They’ve gotta kill all of us.

Given the despicable, gutless groveling so shamelessly on display this past week, it’s clear that the five years since have brought no improvement in our sorry lot. Steyn looks back in anger:

Five years ago I quoted Andrew Stiles:

Journalists: These French journalists are so brave!

Readers: What did they do? Can I see?

Journalists: It’s our policy not to show you.

But I see Mr Stiles’ Tweet has somehow managed to disappear from the Internet. George Clooney held up a pencil and Dame Helen Mirren wore an exquisite pencil brooch pinned to her splendid embonpoint and thousands of tilty-headed wankers with sorrowful expressions marched through the streets of Paris waving pencils. But none of them was willing to do the one thing that mattered – and show what Charb et al had drawn with those pencils. By the following day I was good and sick of it:

To be honest, it makes me vomit to see people holding these Princess Dianafied candlelit vigils, and using the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie – I am Charlie -and in effect appropriating these guys’ sacrifice for this bogus solidarity. It makes me sick to see all these ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ cartoons that have appeared in newspapers all over the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Australia, everywhere, from other cartoonists, again expressing solidarity with these very brave men – but not doing what they did…

I’ve been on enough events in Europe with less famous cartoonists than these who live under death threats, live under armed guard, have had their family restaurant firebombed – it’s happened to a Norwegian comedienne I know – have come home and found their home burned, as a Swedish artist I know happened to. And all these people doing the phony hashtag solidarity, screw your phony hashtag solidarity. Let’s have some real solidarity – or if not, at least have the good taste to stay the hell out of it.

That would have been asking too much. In the days that followed almost all those who claimed to be expressing solidarity with Charb were, in fact, signaling very clearly that they preferred to live on their knees.

I’ve quoted this great Tolkien passage here before, and it bears endless repeating:

It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two, Master Warden, and those who have not swords can still die upon them.

The Charlie Hebdo victims proved their mettle with a defiant message written in their own blood. Too bad the pathetic, weepy fools who boasted “Je suis Charlie!” in between choruses of “Imagine” at all those repulsive candlelight vigils are too cowardly to do anything more than disgrace such a noble legacy.

All the marbles

Posted on January 9, 2020January 9, 2020 by Mike

Wow, looks like the gun grabbers don’t give a damn WHO knows they’re fascists anymore.

Breaking: Virginia vows to shut down all gun ranges not owned by the state

Clearly, they are NOT taking the 2A sanctuary movement at all seriously. They must be shown the error of their ways, or all will be lost.

According to House Bill 567, any indoor shooting range would be prohibited by law – UNLESS it was inside of a building owned by the state.

And any business owners who decided to defy the law could be facing up to a $100,000 fine and potential civil penalties.

According to the bill, which has not yet been voted on or approved, would prohibit” the operation of an indoor shooting range, defined in the bill, in any building not owned or leased by the Commonwealth or federal government.”

For those that would be staying open, the state wants them to act as a data collecting operation, creating a state-controlled list of who is using the range as well as their photo ID and home address.

Let’s be clear. This is a very real threat against the rights laid out in the Constitution. Americans have the right to defend themselves. And the state is literally trying to stop gun owners from training and improving their skills.

This is an attack on our liberties.

Well, duh! Of COURSE it is. The Democrat-Socialists are vehemently opposed to any and all liberties, and firmly believe that the common serf has absolutely no rights their rulers are obligated to respect. Virginians stupidly voted them into power last time around; now they get to pay the price for that most grievous mistake, by either surrendering their most basic rights…or risking life, limb, and livelihood fighting to preserve them.

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