Another Perspective on Violence and Guns






One of These Things Is Not Like the Others










Two from Brandywine Books

Lars Walker tells the story of being robbed at gunpoint as a young man.

Phil provides a link to an interesting disquisition on the order of the intellectual life. It occurs to me that you can replace 'intellectual life' with 'military life' or almost any other sort of life and find that the same four points hold.
1. Recognize the Intellectual Life as a Calling.
2. Submit Your Intellectual Pursuits to Truth.
3. Understand the Intellectual Life Requires Considerable Discipline.
4. Remember the Goal of the Intellectual Life is Virtuous Character.
Something to consider!

Why Southern Democrats Are So Few

"...and long before I was born, my grandfather used this little Smith & Wesson here..."

Used it to do what, you may wonder? The ad strangely omits that part.
”…to help stop a lynching.”
Around here, those five additional words make a big difference.
Not just around here, I hope. This is a major part of the reason why something like our Second Amendment is so important to a just society.

Congressman Barrow was targeted because, as a Democrat, he was thought to be vulnerable. "Shame on you," the ad ends, though it seems to me the shame belongs to someone else. Here is a man who comes from an honorable tradition, who values his ancestors and the arms they bore in the defense of the innocent. The shame belongs to those who do not understand the value of such things. I don't know what they are, but I know that whoever made this ad is not fit to speak the language of honor.

So, Just To Get This Straight...

...It's plainly wrong for local law enforcement to try to help enforce Federal immigration law...

...but it is obviously mandatory for local law enforcement to try to help enforce Federal gun control law.

That makes sense, right?

Slavery and Guns





This Should Be An Interesting 'Clarification'

Apparently an important component of today's gun control efforts is going to be getting doctors to quiz you about guns.
Funny thing about that 'clarification' -- it appears to mean denying that the law says what it very plainly says. Here's the text.
and health promotion activity implemented under subsection
information relating to—
firearm or ammunition in the residence or on the property
of an individual; or
or ammunition by an individual.
authorities provided to the Secretary under the Patient Protection
and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that
Act shall be construed to authorize or may be used for the
collection of any information relating to—
or ammunition;
the authorities provided to the Secretary under the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made
by that Act shall be construed to authorize or may be used
to maintain records of individual ownership or possession of
a firearm or ammunition.
be increased, health insurance coverage may not be denied,
and a discount, rebate, or reward offered for participation in
a wellness program may not be reduced or withheld under
any health benefit plan issued pursuant to or in accordance
with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an
or ammunition; or
‘‘(B) the lawful use or storage of a firearm or ammunition.
INDIVIDUALS.—No individual shall be required to disclose any
information under any data collection activity authorized under
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment
made by that Act relating to—
or ammunition; or
or ammunition.’’.
I suppose that leaves some room to ask if you have unlawfully possessed guns, or stored them in an unlawful manner.

The mental health provisions are the ones that concern me, though. The fact is that there is no lab test for any mental illness -- you can't do a biopsy and prove that someone has a personality disorder the way you can prove they have cancer. By the same token, you can't prove that you don't have a mental disorder.

Subjecting any civil right to a limitation based on an untestable condition is a very dangerous idea. It's not for no reason that psychology was so often misused by Communist governments as a means of marginalizing (or imprisoning, or lobotomizing) regime opponents -- once you are painted as mentally ill, you can never prove your innocence.

Our normal standard is that you shouldn't have to prove your innocence, of course, but rather that the state should have to prove your guilt. Well, it cannot do that here. If restrictions are to be based on mental health, then, they must not depend on proof of guilt. They can only depend on allegations of guilt. Having to prove your innocence is too high a standard even in criminal matters, when it may sometimes be possible. It is far worse here, where such proof of innocence is actually impossible.

Speaking of the South & Politics...

...the Georgia General Assembly is back in session. This looks like an interesting term, because the legislature can only meet for forty days a year, but they may not know what they need to know about the Federal budget within those forty days. Thus, there's a chance they may take a recess of as much as three weeks while waiting on Congress to decide what it is going to do about Sequestration.

In the meanwhile, here's a brief on what the session is likely to include:
State Representative Ed Rynders (R-Albany) says some of the biggest issues that are up for discussion are ethics reform and a right to bear arms.

“I believe in a right to bear arms,” said Ed Rynders, State Representative.

Although gun control is expected to come up during the legislative session, Rynders says the biggest topic is the state's budget.

“Everyone here is committed to not raising the taxes, which of course means that we have to live within our means. The governor has asked for a three percent across the board cut in programs and departments everywhere except for education. Public education will not be cut,” said Ed Rynders.
That's the kind of prioritization that the Federal government is refusing to consider. You can keep taxes low and still have one priority that you won't cut, or a few priorities that get cut less. It is possible to do this through the democratic process. States do it, but then again, states can't print their own money. Maybe the most important priority for the Federal government is a balanced budget amendment, to keep them from doing what states aren't permitted to do.

The South in the Last Days of the Republic

There's been a lot of ink spilled just lately on the South in the Obama era. I'm disinclined to respond to it, mostly, because I think the frame is wrong.

For one thing it's wrongheaded to call the South "Neo-Confederate," and would be even if it were actually attempting secession over limited-governmenet principles. Nobody in the South intends to restore the Old Confederacy, especially on racial or slavery matters. The South retains most of its complaints as defiantly today as in 1875, but not those. On those points its heart has changed.

For another, conservatism has done very well at the state level -- and not just in the South. Conservatives are doing great things at the state level even in frozen Northern regions like Michigan and Wisconsin. It's only the Federal government that has turned solidly against conservatives, and really that makes a kind of sense. Conservatism is opposed to what the Federal government has come to represent: an ever-growing, all-encompassing force with the power to regulate all aspects of life via the state. Conservatives believe in institutions that shape and guide life, including the state but only in a limited form. A state that is too strong ends up interfering with other institutions that are at least as important: the family, the church, the bonds of individual friendship, and freely-chosen organizations such as professional organizations and private clubs.

The Federal game is still a game of patronage: elect me, and I'll vote to send power and wealth your way! Naturally conservatives are doing badly given that they want nothing to do with the game; naturally what remains of the allegedly-conservative party are trying to limit the influence of their actual voters. That's an old sport, and it's a blood sport, but the power and wealth are running out. When the Federal government falls, a fate rapidly being brought about by what have become its ordinary modes of operation, it will be conservative states that remain strong enough economically and politically to survive. Whatever the new order looks like, it will be built on that strength.

So I'm not inclined to respond to the frame. However, I did want to draw attention to two things from the debate that I particularly liked. The first is that the New Yorker piece did something I rarely see done: it took a moment to appreciate what benefits the nation has gotten out of having Southerners within it.

One of the Southern voices cited by that piece responded to it, and that is the second piece I wanted to cite.


In The Three Musketeers, Athos responds to a generous proposition by saying, "Thus spoke and acted the gallant knights of the time of Charlemagne, in whom every cavalier ought to seek his model." Likewise do I appreciate a noble and gentlemanly gesture, given that the author of the original piece made that rare effort to understand and not only to criticize.

Athos goes on to say, "Unfortunately, we do not live in the times of the great emperor, we live in the times of the cardinal." In a similar way we are unfortunate. Still it is good to hear noble words spoken, and to see a man carry himself like a gentleman.

No Government Believes in Democracy







Some months ago I posted skeptically about the idea of requiring schoolkids to spend 50% of their time reading bureaucratic white papers of the "Chicken production and transportation issues in Willamette County" variety.  Maggie's Farm linked to an American Thinker article today that does the idea more justice.  Although I have real doubts how the program would be carried out in actual schools, the notion started by David Coleman is to introduce students to evidence-based argument using texts like de Toqueville's Democracy in America.  As he puts it:
It is rare in a working environment that someone says, "Johnson, I need a market analysis by Friday, but before that I need a compelling account of your childhood."
Not that I'm crazy about the idea of all students aiming for jobs in which they have to churn out market analyses, but the same principle applies to a request for an analysis of any proposal or policy.  Why do you believe this is true?  And come up with something more powerful than the more-or-less grownup equivalent of "all the cool kids think it."  It's the rare corporation or government bureau -- or any other human endeavor -- that couldn't use more of that skill.

The author of the American Thinker article does have a funny approach to categorizing writing as fiction or non-fiction, though.  This is a list of what he describes as the proposed "fiction standards":
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby; William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying; Thomas Paine's Common Sense; The Declaration of Independence; Frederick Douglass's "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?"; Allen Paulo's Innumeracy:  Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences; Mark Fischetti's Working Knowledge:  Electronic Stability Control; and George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."
I'm listening to a series of lectures about Winston Churchill.  He was an indifferent student who hated Greek and classics.  In some dismay and contempt, his father sent him off to a kind of military or administrative professional school, where he was given practical works to study; he loved them and excelled.  Without being at all in the "special snowflake" school of thought, I do believe that the task of education is to develop the different strengths of different students.  Especially as they get older, students should be offered a wide variety of higher-level materials that will challenge whatever their talents happen to be.  There will be some who can be nourished by Working Knowledge:  Electronic Stability Control in a way they never could have been by War and Peace.





That's one of the most perfect satires I've ever read.


From Maggie's Farm, a link to an interview with Fred deLuca, who started the first Subway sandwich shop in 1965 with a $1,000 loan from a college professor who was also a family friend.  Almost half a century later, they still share the profits 50/50 -- no quarrels, no lawsuits.

DeLuca says he was lucky when he started to be so young that he didn't really understand the danger of failure.  His first intended franchisee had a more typically grown-up attitude:
"When we first began franchising, I knew we needed a first franchisee, and the only person I could think of was [our good friend] Brian.  So I went to him and said, 'I’ve got this opportunity for you.'  He gave a practical response, which was, 'Even though I’m not crazy about [my job], I get paid every week.'  He didn’t feel comfortable taking the risk of quitting. 
"Then one day he showed up for work and his employer had gone bankrupt.  So he called me and said, 'Hey, is that offer still available?'  That’s how we got started.