Comment on Ukraine and Joe Biden.

Somewhere else I made a comment about Russia's troop buildup on the Ukrainian border. I'm definitely not the family member most qualified to comment since I am literally related to experts in the field,  but I know enough about the country to say this:

Ukraine has been a political football between the West and Russia since the end of WWII. The problem is that there are ethnic Ukrainians in the West and ethnic Russians in the East. Ethnic Russians are the largest minority in Ukraine. 8,334,100 People identified themselves  ethnic Russians (17.3% of the population of Ukraine) in the 2001 Ukrainian census. We can get into how the ethnic Ukrainians feel about how they were treated under soviet rule, but look up Holomodor and Chernobyl.

Ukraine wants to be part of the European Union, but it has way too much baggage for that to happen. Although, I would be open to Ukrainian citizenship post-Brexit, but my last name isn't Biden. Toss in that Ukraine has a reputation for being corrupt.  In 2012 Ernst & Young put Ukraine among the three most-corrupt nations of the world - alongside Colombia and Brazil. In 2015 The Guardian called Ukraine "the most corrupt nation in Europe". Did I mention Biden already? Yeah, I might be able to get Ukrainian citizenship no problem if my last name was Biden. That and a big cash payoff.

I know enough about Ukraine to say that the first Trump impeachment was looking at the wrong person for corruption. From this comment you can understand why, as someone who is not a Trump supporter but has close connections to Ukraine (sadly somebody else instead of Joe Biden) I would say that. US MSM did a big disservice to the American people in not getting into that one.

Bottom line, Ukraine will be Joe Biden's downfall one way or the other.

Maybe I'm wrong, but...

This is coloured by the fact that I have practised criminal law for over 30 years now.

Most of the riots, er "peaceful protests", have related to people resisting arrest. Maybe excessive force was involved, but I see active resistance happening.

I don't care who you are or where you are, but the cops do not take that lightly. A little "blackplanin'" here:

The example that comes to mind was when I was a student at University of Exeter in England. Exeter is a nice little town in the Southwest of England. The place I was at, Gandy Street, is supposedly the inspiration for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter books.

But one night in that lillywhite setting, a drunken white guy decided to resist arrest. Literally about six cops were fighting with him to try and subdue him. And he was a skinny little guy.

What people miss is that one person who is fighting arrest can create a lot of disruption.

Yeah, the amount of force used needs to be the minimum to stop the threat, but when exactly does the threat stop. Anyway, whether the force was reasonable is a question for the jury: not the general public.

Especially not a general public which is highly polarised to the extent they can't see straight.

You can't go around saying you support "first responders" and "essential workers" and then try to second guess them when they do their job. You either want them to run into that building with an active shooter, or live with the fact that they don't want the liability.

Which gets to my next point. Daunte Wright had an open warrant for a firearms offence where he threatened a woman.

Should the people who want to regulate guns and get them out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them support someone like that? Isn't there a serious amount of hypocrisy going on here? Or is this a case of blinders being so blinding that the people who blindly support Daunte Wright neglect that he is someone they should hate more than Donald Trump?

OK, maybe we should say he is alleged to have done these things. Likewise, Derek Chauvin is alleged to have killed George Floyd until he is found guilty if we are going down that road.

The bottom line is that if you run around saying no one is above the law, maybe you shouldn't be giving support to people who are videotaped resisting arrest and have long criminal records.

Especially if the result of that silliness is that you end up supporting someone who is what you claim to want to see ended: a man who beats women and carries guns which are used in crimes.

Bottom line, there is a legal system, which is where the question of whether the arrest was legal, especially if there was resistance, should be decided. I know that the outcomes would have been vastly different if the legal system had been where this was decided instead of the street.

"Gun Control" isn't a crazy liberal plot. But maybe "gun rights" might be an insane idea.

I'm not going to get into the current state of "Second Amendment" jurisprudence to say anything other than it is quite friendly to what is called "reasonable regulation". I already went through that in pretty clear detail in the Cutting the Baby in Half post. People should have been questioning why both sides of the argument thought it was an acceptable decision.

That said Richard Nixon would have banned guns and is on record thus:

"I don't know why any individual should have a right to have a revolver in his house," Nixon said in a taped conversation with aides. "The kids usually kill themselves with it and so forth." He asked why "can't we go after handguns, period?"

Nixon went on: "I know the rifle association will be against it, the gun makers will be against it." But "people should not have handguns." He laced his comments with obscenities, as was typical.
 
Nixon made his remarks in the Oval Office on May 16, 1972, the day after a would-be assassin shot and paralyzed segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace. As president, Nixon never publicly called for a ban on all handguns. Instead, he urged Congress to pass more modest legislation banning Saturday night specials, which were cheaply made, easily concealed and often used by criminals.

Nixon didn't take any action in regard to handguns because he saw it as a political loser. On the other hand, Ronald Reagan signed into law the Mulford Act, which sounds like it came from another universe compared to the current situation of "gun rights":

Both Republicans and Democrats in California supported increased gun control, as did the National Rifle Association of America. Governor Ronald Reagan, who was coincidentally present on the capitol lawn when the protesters arrived, later commented that he saw "no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons" and that guns were a "ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will." In a later press conference, Reagan added that the Mulford Act "would work no hardship on the honest citizen."

Oddly enough, this wasn't an aberration:

If anything demonstrates just how much the GOP has changed from its once-held belief in good governance to its radical anti-government stance, it’s the issue of gun control. For decades, Republicans had a reputation for supporting moderate gun control laws. (Some even entertained more drastic measures, such as Richard Nixon’s private deliberation over whether to ban all handguns in 1972.) The Republican philosophy of limited government still allowed most Republicans to believe they had an obligation to limit guns.

While many commenters point out the switch in the NRA posture to the 1977 Cincinnati Revolt. That was when the NRA changed from what would be considered a sporting organisation to its current "gun rights" stance.

Intervening is the attempted assassination of Ronald Regan, which didn't really do much for gun laws. It did result in something called "the Brady Campaign", which is named for James "Jim" Brady who was wounded in that attack. 

I would go on to point out that the previous attempt to regulate "assault weapons" started with an executive order by George H.W. Bush, which is something most commenters leave out of the discussion. The 1994 law only codified something what was already weak.

But like the Second Amendment revisionism, I have been pointing out that this issue is not one of right or left, liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, but of public safety. There have been people on the "right", "Republicans"if you will who have pointed out that the "Second Amendment Right" "is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."

There are many issues related to this, but the bottom line is that this is an issue of public safety. As such it deserves an honest discussion with proper facts.

And start questioning why YOUR side may be taking the stance it is since it may not be in YOUR best interest.

See also:

• When Republicans Believed in Gun Control
• The Republican Surrender to Gun Violence 
• The NRA Wasn’t Always A Front For Gun Makers
  

Hey, Beth Nguyen, was it America that ruined your name, or was it the English language?

I just read a New Yorker article by Beth Nguyen called America Ruined my Name for Me. It seems her name is Bich Minh Nguyen. You can guess what Anglophones do with that. Or as Beth says:

I cannot detach the name Bich from people laughing at me, calling me a bitch, letting me know that I’m the punch line of my own joke.

Of course, like everyone else, the answer for why this happens is simple: racism!

I would suggest another reason: Linguistic.

"Bich" you see means "Jade" in Vietnamese and is pronounced "Bic". She could have changed it to "Vic"or "Vicki" since as she points out Asian children often have second names, which is helpful if your name is "Phuc" or "Phouc".

On the other hand, you can guess that Anglophones pronounce "Bich" as "Bitch" which Ms. Nguyen attributes not to linguistic differences, but to the fact that people in the US are anti-Asian. One the other hand, I would be pretty certain if she had landed in Australia or New Zealand, or any other anglophone nation, that the same problem would have occurred.

Maybe not so much in Canada, and definitely not in France. She probably wouldn't have written this article had her family emigrated to a Francophone nation, which was a definite option for them. That's because "Bich" would be associated with a different animal than what it is in English.

"Biche" in French means "doe": a sweet and gentile animal. Alas, Beth is the only "Bich" I have ever met. So, I really can't get into this. And for all I know she may have gone to France. Anyway, she should be happy she wasn't named "Phuc" or "Phouc" since that one is pretty universal.

On the other and, I can understand a desire to fit in which "Bich" doesn't in an anglophone country, but on the whole I'm not sure if that rises to the level of racism. After all, her family came to the United States and didn't try to move on to Quebec or France. France would have been another option since Indochina was once a French Colony. And obviously, the "racism" wasn't bad enough that the family decided to move back to Viet Nam. They remained in the US.

Anyway, Beth admits she has always given fake names in restaurants, which has moved on to writing the article I am responding to with the name "Beth Nguyen". So maybe the "racism" isn't that vicious that it can't be escaped from. I'm pretty sure her Western friends didn't mind if she was "Bich", "Beth", or whatever. 

Since I am bilingual, I see "Bich" and think of "Biche", a doe, a sweet animal. My pronunciation of her name would probably also be wrong since it would be more in line with the French. That's my problem with her article. It's dangerous to make blanket statements about people.

Prior to Brexit, I identified as British, but post-Brexit I am European. While I can pretty much pick and choose amongst a few of the European nationalities, it is the Frencophone nations which I identify with most these days. That means both my US and French "homelands" have been at war with Vietnam. France was probably the worst.

But, I didn't see "Bitch" when I read your name "Beth": I saw "Biche". That would have been the way I pronounced it.

Should victims of domestic violence receive the protection of the US Government?

 The founders would appear to have thought so if we look at US Constitution Article IV, Section 4, which says:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

The point I am trying to make is that people cannot read the US Constitution through modern eyes. The originalists have a point there because we would have a drastically different outcome if we read this using the modern definition of "domestic violence".

Would the constitution require regulation of firearms since firearms can be used in cases of "domestic violence"?

On the other hand, what we have here is yet of another example of why the argument that the Second Amendment guarantees firearms to fight the government is wrong. The "domestic violence" the founders were intending was not spousal abuse, but cases of domestic unrest, such as riots and insurrections.

Saying that there is a right to own firearms because one should be able to fight the government is just plain off WRONG Constitutionally.

Likewise, this passage demonstrates why it is wrong to try and interpret the US Constitution through a modern perspective.

Cutting the baby in half

There are a lot of reasons for calling this what I am, but the main one is that the true mother showed herself when Solomon suggested cutting the baby in half. The true mother would rather have the baby go to someone else and live than her baby killed.

The Heller and McDonald decisions ripped the baby from it mother for no other purpose than political ends.

The source from which the Supreme Court derives its power, Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 1 Cranch 137, 2 L. Ed. 60, 1803 U.S. LEXIS 352 [1803], specifically addressed the issue of clauses in the constitution with the opposite result. Marbury stated that " The subsequent part of the section is mere surplusage -- is entirely without meaning -- if such is to be the construction". And "It cannot be presumed that any clause in the Constitution is intended to be without effect, and therefore such construction is inadmissible unless the words require it."

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 [2008], was in no way a case of first impression for the Second Amendment. There were at least two other cases , US v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 [1939] and Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886), that came to the opposite conclusion in regard to how the Second Amendment is to be interpreted. While not the holding, Miller stated that:

The Constitution as originally adopted granted to the Congress power—'To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.' U.S.C.A.Const. art. 1, § 8. With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view.

This is the exact opposite of what DC v. Heller stated in its reasoning.

Justice William O. Douglas, who was on the court when Miller was decided, did a gloss of this Second Amendment jurisprudence:

The leading case is United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, upholding a federal law making criminal the shipment in interstate commerce of a sawed-off shotgun. The law was upheld, there being no evidence that a sawed-off shotgun had “some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” Id., at 178. The Second Amendment, it was held, “must be interpreted and applied” with the view of maintaining a “militia.”
“The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep without the consent of Congress. The sentiment of the time strongly disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the Militia – civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.” Id., at 178-179.

And since Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 gives Congress the power to arm the militia, McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), is completely ultra vires because it judicially amends the US Constitution to place powers where they were specifically not intended to be placed. One of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence was that lawfully made legislation was overturned by unelected parties. Not to mention the judicial review isn't in the US Constitution.

Historian Joseph Ellis and Yale law professor Reva Siegel noted the irony that Scalia's Heller decision only makes sense in light of a living Constitution, a principle that Scalia rejected.

But that is a digression because I am sure that the learned justices are aware of this. Justice Stevens later called the decision "unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench" and called for a Constitutional amendment overruling it. Definite baby cutting from Scalia!

Where we get into cutting the baby in half is that these decisions really did nothing significant to change firearms laws. Other than to make the incorrect assertion that the Second Amendment is unrelated to the militia despite that jumping out in your face if you read the amendment.

Neither the Heller or the McDonald really changed much in regard to firearms laws. The only real change was that handguns were allowed to be owned in the home. The reality is that more baby cutting is found in the actual holding:

"In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights{1}, the District must permit him to register his handgun{2} and must issue him a license to carry it in the home [3}."

Further baby splitting, I am pointing out three measures which this holding finds Constitutionally permissible:

1. Background check
2. registration 
3. Licensing 

These are what "gun grabbers" are talking about when they mention reasonable restrictions. 

And they are enshrined in both holdings Heller and McDonald. 

I will keep pointing out these passages from Heller and McDonald:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Heller at 54-5

Which has as a footnote (26):

We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.

Better yet:

But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Heller at 64

From McDonald:

It is important to keep in mind that Heller, while striking down a law that prohibited the possession of handguns in the home, recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is not “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” 554 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 54). We made it clear in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures as “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” Id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 54–55). We repeat those assurances here. Despite municipal respondents’ doomsday proclamations, incorporation does not imperil every law regulating firearms. McDonald at 39-40

The only thing off the table is anything that purports to be a ban. Which leads to my question: had Chicago theoretically allowed for registrations (as does New York City) since that is not an “absolute prohibition”– would the law have passed constitutional muster? After all, NYC’s law has been around for 112 years: doesn’t that count as a longstanding regulatory measure?

Likewise, Candidates cannot say that gun laws violate the Second Amendment if they do not infringe upon the rights to truly “law abiding citizens” to own firearms. As the Court said (twice) “the right to keep and bear arms is ‘not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.’”

The US Supreme Court has churned out some terrible decisions, with Heller and McDonald being two of them. 

The ultimate upshot is that these decisions have churned up what was once pretty settled case law: that the Second Amendment related to what is now the National Guard. I would take the opinion of someone who was on the court when US v Miller was decided as to its meaning. I'm not sure why that is left out of the "jurisprudence".

I can go into even more depth as to why the "individual rights" interpretation is ripping the baby in half. One doesn't need to go outside the text of the Constitution to come to that conclusion: the constitutional text is fairly clear. I am surprised that people who claim to be constitutional scholars would give it air it's that silly.

Once again, "Gun rights" is trotted out to justify a shit interpretation of the US Constitution

I have to admit that I am not sure how the misinterpretation of the Second Amendment received any traction: especially from "legal scholars". Then again, I don't have a high opinion of "scholarship" in the United States. That said, here is the short form, which pretty much blows any long tome most "Second Amendment Scholars" produce.

There’s a problem when you go around saying someone supports or doesn’t support the Second Amendment: How much do you understand what it really means?

This is a model that George Mason pushed relating to what would become the Second Amendment.  It pretty much summarises the issues surrounding its adoption. It was adopted by Virginia:

“That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the Community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the Civil power”

When the American Revolutionary War began in April 1775, the colonial revolutionaries did not have an army. Previously, each colony had relied upon the militia, made up of part-time civilian-soldiers. The initial orders from Congress authorized ten companies of riflemen. The first full regiment of Regular Army infantry, the 3rd Infantry Regiment, was not formed until June 1784. After the war, the Continental Army was quickly disbanded because of the American distrust of standing armies, and irregular state militias became the new nation’s sole ground army, with the exception of a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Point’s arsenal.

The States had their militias and the Federal Government had an Army and the Naval forces. The problem is that the US Constitution gave congress the power to arm the militia, among other things (article I, Section 8, Clause 16). If you actually spent time reading the primary sources instead of quotes taken out of context, you would find that was the issue. Not private arms.

The US Constitution makes it clear in the preamble. You know the bit people usually truncate as “we the people” that one of the purposes of the US Constitution was to provide for the “Common defence”. There are other goals which the seem to contradict the “gun rights” position, like “insure domestic Tranquility” and “promote the general Welfare”. A close read of the document shows that rebellion runs contrary to its principles (Hint: try Article III section iii).

There is a concept in the law that if a legal document is silent on a topic. That is it fails to mention something, That topic is not covered by the law.

So, show me EXACTLY where the US Constitution mentions “self-defence” or “tyranny” and we can have a discussion.

Otherwise, you need to have a serious rethink of what exactly the Second Amendment means.

Oh yeah, and historically the concept of self-defence required that only the minimum of force reasonably necessary to stop that threat should be used. Reasonableness was left to the finder of fact, not the defendant. That meant that deadly force was usually the LAST resort. not the first.

You can do the research for yourself (start with Blackstone's commentaries).

The Common law position on self-defence also contradicts any interpretation of the Second Amendment other than it was meant to address Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 of the US Constitution.

The reality is that the Second Amendment was intended on preserving a system which would be like the one Switzerland HAD. I say "had" because it hasn't had a universal military service requirement for a while. What I am talking about is a system where the professional, full time military is small and mostly made of administrators and trainers. The bulk of the forces would be part-time soldiers.

Switzerland doesn't have this system and the US hasn't for quite some time. 

The US has a large, standing military, which was exactly what the founders were hoping to prevent. That said, the Second Amendment is a relic which has no purpose in modern society. Reinterpreting that Amendment to guarantee a personal right to weaponry is wrong for a multitude of reasons. First off, it goes against the principles of “insure domestic Tranquility” and “promote the general Welfare”.

Had Scalia been honest in his opinion, he would have had to admit that it was indeed his job to declare the Amendment no longer relevant to modern society: not to reinterpret it to fit a political agenda.

So, don't talk to me about supporting the Second Amendment unless you are doing so in regard to drastically reorganising the US military.

Tucker Carlson calls for Breaking Up Google!

 No wonder he's under attack by the "left".

 

I started watching him because of the covid thing. I don't agree with him a lot of the time, but he does give an alternative take on the stories in the news. Greg Gutfeld is fun to watch as well.

Sky News Australia is also an interesting view.

Why would I like these sources? It was because the US Main Stream Media was too sycophantic to the Biden-Harris ticket and uncritical of the Covid thing.

Anyway, it's amusing to watch Tucker mention breaking up Google. It would get really interesting if they went all the way. I mean breaking up Bezos' monopoly, which included WAPO. And how exactly did Facebook make all that money?

By selling your information.

That's what makes these companies really frightening by trashing our rights: especially the right of privacy. They are the basis of something called surveillance capitalism.

He could also talk about how weak US Data Protection laws happen to be, which is why those trashy background check sites exist. But even more importantly, failure to have strong data protection laws are what allowed for surveillance capitalism to make billions off of our data without our consent.

Or the ability to correct mistakes in that data.

Socialism isn't making money off of the work of others, that's capitalism. And surveillance capitalism is making money off of people's data. And it's making some people very rich.

The problems with an assault weapons ban

Or the many reasons that Biden will fall flat on that promise. 

First off, been there done that with the original AWB which was a failure. It was intentionally a failure in that it was poorly written. Fixing that would require that the firearms that are banned would be simply defined as "any semi-automatic firearm capable of accepting, or has, a magazine capacity of over 10 rounds". The problem there is that the political will doesn't exist. It never has in the US. Making New York's gun laws the laws of the land might have worked when the NFA was first passed in the 1930s, but good luck getting them through now.

The Second Amendment isn't really a barrier to adopting strict gun laws. It never really has been. The Second Amendment is an obscure clause in the US Constitution which few people really understand, has been openly misinterpreted, and will be a barrier to action as long as it is considered a part of the Constitution. Heller and McDonald didn't change the landscape. Point it out once again: the Heller-McDonald language showing regulation is acceptable:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Heller at 54-5

Which has as a footnote (26):

We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.

Better yet:

But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Heller at 64

From McDonald:

It is important to keep in mind that Heller, while striking down a law that prohibited the possession of handguns in the home, recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is not “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” 554 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 54). We made it clear in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures as “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” Id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 54–55). We repeat those assurances here. Despite municipal respondents’ doomsday proclamations, incorporation does not imperil every law regulating firearms. McDonald at 39-40

The only thing off the table is anything that purports to be a ban. Which leads to my question: had Chicago theoretically allowed for registrations (as does New York City) since that is not an “absolute prohibition”– would the law have passed constitutional muster? After all, NYC’s law has been around for 99 years: doesn’t that count as a longstanding regulatory measure?

If that isn't good enough for you: show me the words "self-defence" or "Tyranny"  in the US Constitution and we can have a discussion.

Next we come to the people who are running around talking about defunding the police. That goes to one of the talking points that the pro-gun crowd have working for them. Who is going to protect you if the cops can't? Like it or not, one of the objects to having a government is to keep order. No order=no society.

Or to paraphrase the 60s bumper sticker: "Don't like the police? call antfa!"

And Antifa are a set of bozos I can live without. They did fuck all to stop the rise of fascism the first go round. If anything, they helped it get powerful.

Anyway, we've had toddlers shot and a horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas. Nothing has happened yet.

If anything, the divide between the two sides has widened and become more entrenched. I see the animosity getting stronger.

So, if anything, the situation will get far worse.

Barely do I do a post about Bitcoin when...

 The BBC does a piece on whether the blockchain is unsustainable.

It seems that the price of Bitcoin cannot stop increasing, but how sustainable is Bitcoin itself? With such huge energy demands to keep Bitcoin mined, are some countries risking the stability of their electricity supplies to take advantage of the Bitcoin boom? Financial economist and founder of the blog “Digiconomist”, Alex de Vries is on the show to answer these questions. He says, in his paper published in the journal Joule, that the entire Bitcoin blockchain network consumes as much energy per year as all data centres across the world.

If you don't like Fiat Currency, you should avoid Bitcoin like a shitcovered plague

 One of my hobbies is collecting hyperinflated currencies, I have old German Marks, Yugoslavian Dinars, and Zimbabwe dollars. I bought some "fake" bitcoins. Those things that get pictured when people talk about the Bitcoin since Bitcoins have no real physical form. I tossed in mention of the Euro as well since it had no real physical form until 2002, but there's a difference between the Euro and bitcoin.

Doggone has been asking me to write something about Bitcoins and why they are dangerous. I have been procrastinating about this in my usual style until the Wire article "Bitcoin’s Greatest Feature Is Also Its Existential Threat" popped up on my radar. There are three types of currency: one is currency backed up by a commodity which is usually gold or silver, Fiat currency which is where a government prints money and gives it value, and now cryptocurrency which isn't issued by a government. Cryptocurrencies are probably closer to commodity based currencies in that they get their value from the market. 

Yet Cryptocurrencies' market value isn't based upon a commodity. It's based upon something called a block chain, which makes it somewhat similar to Fiat currency in that there isn't some form of actual value to either one. Fiat currency at least has a government backing it up. The blockchain is far more fragile and dangerous.

"See footnote for Hitchhiker's Guide Quote"

But let's get down to a really basic history of what "hard cash" money is. Basically, an economy is based upon trade. I have grain and you have bricks, or some such. Maybe bricks aren't available where I live and I can't trade directly with you. So, a commodity was chosen to make trade easier. The commodity was made into coins. Currency came about when banks wrote promissory notes to pay the value of the note.

Cryptocurrency gets its value from something called a blackchain and isn't really backed up by anything other than that. Blockchains are fairly complex topics. I'm not going to get into what exactly the blockchain is, but it is actually quite fragile. It's based upon a key, and woe upon you if you lose that key. I was trying to find the story about the person who died taking his bitcoin key with him. A story titled "$66,500,000,000 in Bitcoin Is Lost and Will Never Be Recovered, Says Crypto Intelligence Firm Chainalysis" was one of many that showed up.

That gets me back to the Wired story which led to this being written:

It’s best to avoid explaining the mathematics of Bitcoin's blockchain, but to understand the colossal implications here, you need to understand one concept. Blockchains are a type of “distributed ledger”: a record of all transactions since the beginning, and everyone using the blockchain needs to have access to—and reference—a copy of it. What if someone puts illegal material in the blockchain? Either everyone has a copy of it, or the blockchain’s security fails.

In other words, anything which can corrupt the blockchain will result in bitcoin literally being nothing. Those fake bitcoins I have will be worth more than a "real" one. Toss in that cryptocurrencies require a lot of computer power, or eat up a lot of electricity, to store those blockchains. This comes from a very cryptocurrency friendly article:

Cryptocurrency mining, by its very nature, requires a lot of electricity and sophisticated computers. In a paper published this week in the journal Joule, data scientist Alex de Vries — correctly — argues bitcoin mining is likely to exceed an annual consumption of 101 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity as the price fluctuates.

The Wired Article is much better about the fragility of cryptocurrencies. The best way to remind someone of the danger of bitcoin is to point to things like Tulip mania. In other words, commodities, whether physical or not, can be subject to DRASTIC fluctuations in price. People who advocate for commodity based currency based upon their stability are ignorant of economic history. There were severe depressions when commodity based currencies existed. 

Bitcoin isn't even commodity based. it is based upon the integrity of the blockchain. And if you don't trust a government, You really shouldn't trust a blockchain. Bitcoin’s self-positioning in opposition to fiat monetary systems is misguided, because the established system relies less on fiat than Bitcoin itself.

See also:

• The Fragility of Bitcoin.
• Beat Weber: Bitcoin and the legitimacy crisis of money
  

 Footnote:

"The Triganic Pu is a unit of galactic currency, with an exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu. This is simple enough, but, since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency, because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change."

Quelle surprise! (What surprise?)

Once again, Trump is not impeached.

No surprise since the process is 100% political. Maybe one could attempt to get a grand jury to issue an indictment, but I wouldn't put money on it.

On the other hand, the people who have been pushing to impeach Trump have engaged in willful ignorance of Hillary Clinton's, and even worse, Joe Biden's corruption issues. The link below isn't to a right wing rag, but is from a op-ed by Zephyr Teachout published in the UK guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/20/joe-biden-corruption-donald-trump

Biden's (and Harris') campaign was considered dead until their "Super Thursday" miracle.

Quite frankly, I think now that the distractor in chief is well out of office that the "Democrats" need to do some housecleaning.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

Ranked Choice Voting--Be careful what you wish for.

I have no illusions about Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). Europe has had run off elections for a while now, which is a longer version of what is called ranked choice voting. The person with the most votes wins. It's pointless if you have a single party, or two undistinguishable parties. Some places in the US only have one candidate running. Case in point, I voted in an election in DC where my choices were the "Democrat", Marion Berry, or the Socialist Workers Party.

I voted Socialist Workers Party.

The point is that Marion Berry won, but I was able to vote against him. Likewise I have said that I would have voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 if RCV had been in place. Sure, I would have voted (1) Jill Stein, (2) Gary Johnson, (3) write in for my dog, and (4) Hillary Clinton. Not sure how I would have done it in 2020, but Biden would NOT have gotten my vote even with RCV.

The point is that RCV makes it easier for alternative parties to get into the game, which is why people like me and other reformers are interested in it. The mass of people who DON'T vote because they feel that their votes don't count. Or that they are voting for parties which don't represent them. I shouldn't have to vote AGAINST a candidate, but FOR a candidate I believe represents me.

On the other hand, some seriously conservative candidates can still end up winning. I remember sitting in an Antwerp Coffee shop after the Vlaams Blok won the election! Emmanuel Macron topped the ballot in the first round of voting, and was elected President of France on 7 May 2017 with 66.1% of the vote in the second round, defeating Marine Le Pen making him the youngest president in the country's history.

For the Americans out there who don't know who Marine Le Pen is, She was involved with the Front National, a French, far right party (like really far right, a party like that would really push US politics to the right).  She is the youngest daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the former leader of the Front National, and the aunt of former FN MP Marion Maréchal. Marine Le Pen joined the FN in 1986. The FN has changed its name and toned down a little, but most people on the left would go apeshit if a party like this had national prominence in the US.

FN and Vlaams Blok aren't neo: they ARE Nazi! Well, maybe they are the political descendants of the Nazis: Vlaams Nationaal Verbond and Action française

Get the point?

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green ain't got nothing on these people, or might seem like what the FN has become. But having dealt with FN members when I was living in Belgium, the US would be in for some REAL fun if a party this far to the right joined the political fray. People would be nostalgic for Trump.

The point is that the latest incarnation of the FN was up against Emmanuel Macron. That's a bit like Bernie Sanders running against David Duke.

While it might result in a left wing candidate winning a seat: that isn't totally a possibility. I supported Lisa Savage's run in the Maine Senate election which was run under RCV. The upshot of that was Susan Collins was reelected. This was despite a lot of outstate support for her Democratic Opponent, Sara Gideon.

In other words, it may be helpful to conservative candidates. I mean Marine Le Pen and the Vlaams Blok do well with this type of election. Which is why I say be careful what you wish for, you might get it. 

AOC could lose a future election to someone so far to the right she would move to Cuba.

Impeachment...or REAL reconciliation?

Time magazine has published an article, The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election, as we wait for the beginning of yet another pointless impeachment. I am even more sure that the result will be yet another acquittal by the Senate 

One can get their own take depending on how you read the Time Magazine article, but the ultimate bottom line is that the US election process needs to be examined. I'm with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) who believes that it would be much more constructive to look into changing the system. I differ with him in that the process should be an intensive look into system.

Robin Hood revolution

I've not really paid that much attention to The GameStop thing, but it points out something I have been pointing out about how the current "market capitalism" works: Or Las Vegas on Wall Street.

The short form is that a group on reddit decided to invest on GameStop since the Hedge Funds were looking at it. Their purchases were aided by a broker called Robinhood Investing, which offers no fee trades. I have some idea of how hedge funds work and it sounds as if the reddit crowd were doing something which the "big players" have been doing for a while.

The big problem is that it was a group of small investors making money instead of the few, wealthy getting rich(er).

That goes against the rules. The powers that be are upset that people outside their circles are using their methods to make money.

It also highlights that the people in power are the ones who caused the problems with the economy of a while back. And they were the ones who got bailed out: not the little guy. 

The current US political situation is also run by pretty much the usual suspects, which is one of the many reasons why I demexited in 2016. I see the power people circling their wagons to put down the revolution.

Unfortunately, the dam has broken.

The powers that be had their opportunity to make a clean transfer of power, but their bets were on the status quo. Unfortunately the best way to handle a revolution once one gets started is to try and control it. Try to keep the forces of change in control.

The problem is that is an option which is being applied FAR too late in the game. The time for real change was 2016, but the powers that be opted for the status quo.

Now it's going to be hard to blame any of the mess ups on anybody else than the people running the show.

Gun rights isn't a sign of freedom: it's a sign of a failed state!

The concept of Gun rights equalling freedom seems as close to propaganda as one can get: especially if one sits down to look at it objectively. Totalitarian regimes wave around firearms in the same way that people who proclaim this to be a sign of freedom do in the US.

Let's also get down to the reality of the German Reich under Hitler, which liberalised its gun laws. That is the opposite of what the Gun rights crowd want to believe, but it is the truth. The best known case of dissension in Nazi Germany, the White Rose Group, had a firearm with 150 rounds of ammunition. And Operation Valkerie, the largest plot to kill Hitler, was run by military officers.

Wouldn't those people have been armed? Oh, yeah, my fav refutation of the "poor victim" argument for gun rights here.

This is what I call the Cold-Dead-Hands Test. If the only way to get someone's gun is to pry it from their cold, dead hands (literally or figuratively), that's not gun control. When Grant disarmed the Confederates at Appomattox, that wasn't gun control; that was taking prisoners. When the Soviets disarmed the remnants of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, that wasn't gun control either. Mao didn't come to power in China by tricking the populace into surrendering their arms. He pummeled his well-armed opponents in a stand-up fight. There's a big difference between unable to fight back, and fighting back but losing...

Frankly, this list is a pitifully weak argument against gun control, simply because most of the victims listed here did fight back. In fact, if there's a real lesson to be learned from this roster of oppressions, it's that sometimes a heavily armed and determined opposition is just swept up and crushed -- guns or no guns.

There is another aspect to the relationship of gun rights, propaganda, and totalitarianism which is why do people tolerate authoritarian regimes, which I am not going to get into.

My real interest is in the concept being pushed of "gun rights" which is not that common despite its adherents wishing it were. This blurb from Wikipedia:

Inclusion of this right in a written constitution is uncommon. In 1875, 17 percent of constitutions included a right to bear arms. Since the early twentieth century, "the proportion has been less than 9 percent and falling". In an article titled "U.S. Gun Rights Truly Are American Exceptionalism," a historical survey and comparative analysis of constitutions dating back to 1789, Tom Ginsburg and colleagues "identified only 15 constitutions (in nine countries) that had ever included an explicit right to bear arms. Almost all of these constitutions have been in Latin America, and most were from the 19th century"

Wikipedia lists the following as recognising the concept of gun rights: Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Czech Republic, Switzerland, The United Kingdom, Sharia law, and Yemen. Amusingly, the Ginsburg article says, "We code only Mexico, Guatemala and the U.S. as having a right to bear arms." While the constitutions of Haiti and Iran do mention guns, "the provision was too ambiguous for us to consider it a true right to bear arms."

Indeed, looking at the list, we see the person trying to make this argument that these nations have "gun rights" is making a stretch. Let's start with The United Kingdom, which anyone vaguely familiar with the UK and its legal offspring knows doesn't really have "gun rights". Australia and New Zealand are the best examples of how common law offspring have handled "gun rights".

Let's go to Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. Anyone who has had an argument with someone who supports "gun rights" knows that these are brought up when discussing the United States' gun problem. Maybe the advocates for regulation need to point out that the countries with the high rates of gun violence also enshrine "gun rights" in their constitutions!

The European Countries are a bit more problematic since while the Czech Republic and Switzerland may believe in "gun rights", they also don't hand out guns willy nilly. And Switzerland does have mass shootings, but the Swiss are so law abiding that they obey the gun laws, which they do have. The Zug Parliament mass shooter didn't use his service rifle, but used a civilian version instead! I would toss in that the Swiss have been working on legislation that would require military members to store their weapons in armouries. And military service is not "universal" and hasn't been for a while.

And the money shot on Switzerland from Politifact (that whole article is useful to the argument about gun rights and failed states):

Switzerland does not have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, Kopel said.

But even the wikipedia article admits that the nine country list is a stretch.

Which including Sharia Law and Yemen highlights. I was under the impression that Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan also believe in gun rights. And I have heard that Iraqis also kept guns. Having to mention any of this highlights the failed state nature of the concept of gun rights. I really shouldn't have to mention that Yemen and Afghanistan have been war zones for a while now.

And they have shitloads of guns...

Toss in that the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan is gun maker heaven. Look up Darra Adam Khel. I'm not sure if this place is history yet, but there is a long tradition of gun making in that region.

In fact choosing most of those countries for trying to push the concept of gun rights highlights the point I am making: places with gun rights don't really have effective governments. And places with effective governments don't really believe in gun rights.

I've already mentioned the characteristics of a failed state in a previous post, but will do so again since part of the "gun rights" belief hinges on this.

A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly (see also fragile state and state collapse). A state can also fail if the government loses its legitimacy even if it is performing its functions properly. For a stable state it is necessary for the government to enjoy both effectiveness and legitimacy. Likewise, when a nation weakens and its standard of living declines, it introduces the possibility of total governmental collapse. The Fund for Peace characterizes a failed state as having the following characteristics:

• Loss of control of its territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein
• Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions
• Inability to provide public services
• Inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community

Common characteristics of a failing state include a central government so weak or ineffective that it has an inability to raise taxes or other support, and has little practical control over much of its territory and hence there is a non-provision of public services. When this happens, widespread corruption and criminality, the intervention of state and non-state actors, the appearance of refugees and the involuntary movement of populations, sharp economic decline, and foreign military intervention can occur.

One thing I have noticed with people who believe in gun rights is the tendency to talk about government having an inability to protect people. Also the failure of government to enforce laws. In fact gun rights people basically talk as if we already live in a failed state.

A major part of the rush on firearms is based on the fear of lawlessness, which was somewhat fatuous in regard to covid. On the other hand, the riots did provide an apparent slide toward being a failed state. Especially when people were running around talking about dismantling the body which provides security and order.

I'm sure that someone can take this argument and run with it since there is more than enough evidence that the concept of gun rights really has no constitutional basis (something else I have gone into in depth). Any true "originalist" can rip that argument to shreds even without having to go beyond the text of the US Constitution and decisions interpreting it.

On the other hand, I haven't seen too many people pointing out how bankrupt the concept of "gun rights" happens to be when one examines it. But even the Heller and McDonald decisions pointed out how limited in scope this concept should be if it is to be considered a reality (again, something I have gone into detail about).

Think about it "pro-gun" types: your beliefs rest upon the US being a failed state. The government is ineffective and cannot protect you. That defines a failed state.

More Partisan BS

It has long been my position that the more productive course of action after the 2016 elections would have been election reform instead of blaming the Russians (and pretty much everything and everyone other than the Democratic Party).

The Democrats did protest the 2016 Election. Maybe not as violently as current events, but they still protested.

 https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/864522009048494080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Let's not forget that the Democrats have been doing everything in their power to harass Trump.

US elections are not free and fair and held on a secret ballot. The two parties have a lock on the process which needs to be broken.

The problem is that the Duopoly will lose its power if real election reforms are enacted. Toss in that there would be a shift in power from the wealthy to the people.

See also.

• Election Integrity Project: Why US elections are flawed.
• America's flawed democracy: the five key areas where it is failing
• Why American Elections are Flawed (and how to Fix them) 
  

The United States is a De Facto Parliamentary political system.

 I've been wanting to write this for a long time, but haven't. Current events are pushing me to point out the reality of the US political system.

Despite the founders intent of three separate branches and checks and balances: The real power is in the legislature

De facto describes practices that exist in reality, even though they are not officially recognized by laws. De jure is according to the law. 

Law does not always reflect the reality. 

The reasons I say that the US is a de facto parliamentary system should be obvious, but most people are distracted by the president that they miss the body with any real power is the legislature. The legislature holds the power of the purse, among many others that make it the strongest and most powerful branch.. 

The failure to pass a budget in any true parliamentary democracy would lead to automatic dissolution of the government. This is due to the concept of "loss of supply":

A defeat on a budgetary vote is one way by which supply can be denied. Loss of supply is typically interpreted as indicating a loss of confidence in the government. Not all "money bills" are necessarily supply bills. For instance, in Australia, supply bills are defined as "bills which are required by the Government to carry on its day-to-day business".

When a loss of supply occurs, a prime minister is generally required either by constitutional convention or by explicit constitutional instruction to either resign immediately or seek a parliamentary dissolution.

Some constitutions, however, do not allow the option of parliamentary dissolution but rather require the government to be dissolved or to resign. 

The US system has specified term limits, which is one way that dissolution of government resulting in new elections can be prevented. On the other hand, the US government could conceivably go into a prolonged budget crisis and government shutdown. That's one reason that US Budget crises tend to be short.

On the other hand, if one party really didn't like the other one. The budget crisis could last until the end of the legislative session.

Next reason why the US is actually parliamentary is that the legislature can remove the executive. While the criterion for doing this is "high crimes and misdemeanours": the reality is that it can be for frivolous reasons  if one political party dislikes the executive of the other party. While the criterion is "high crimes and misdemeanours", the reality is that the process is blatantly political. That is because other executives have engages in "high crimes and misdemeanours" by violation of international law (e.g., illegal war) with little or no consequences.

On the other hand, don't lie about blowjobs.

Not sure where this comes into the strength of the argument, but the legislature offers the best place for representing the people. The legislature is directly elected and proportional to the population (at least in the house of representatives). On the other hand, it is one place where alternative parties can have a voice.

The president is not a directly elected, which is another place the legislature has control over that office. In a way, the current situation is like the English Civil War where the question was which body had the power: the monarch or the legislature? 

The legislature (parliament) won the battle.

Those of us who feel the current system is not representative should put our efforts into getting alternative parties into congress: not being hopeful that either party will change. Tip O'Neill said "all politics are local". 

Realising that the real power in the US is in the legislature is the beginning of the battle to bring about a change in US politics.

More historical ignorance

People in the US really love the idealised version of themselves and their history. Problem is that the real deal is not as nice as what they want to believe.

Let's take the Presidential Election of 1800, which I mentioned in a previous post. While probably not as bad as current events, things were pretty bad. The founders didn't always get along and this was one where Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were in a rough and tumble battle.

It also demonstrated that the founders DIDN'T get it right with their concept of what the US would be. The electoral college was already proving problematic (and was the subject of an early amendment). 

The founders also didn't believe that republics would divide into factions, but there was pretty extreme partisanship in the 1800 Election.

Adams didn't attend Jefferson's inauguration.

And let's not forget that Aaron Burr came really close to being President, but became vice president instead. In case you missed that part of US history:

During his last year as vice president, Burr engaged in the duel in which he fatally shot Hamilton, his political rival. Although dueling was illegal, Burr was never tried, and all charges against him eventually were dropped. Nevertheless, Hamilton's death ended Burr's political career.

Burr traveled west to the American frontier, seeking new economic and political opportunities. His secretive activities led to his 1807 arrest in Alabama on charges of treason. He was brought to trial more than once for what became known as the Burr conspiracy, but was acquitted each time.

Alas Burr wasn't made president by the Electoral College.

But maybe that was a good thing.  Especially since Hamilton became a money making Broadway Musical.

Sorry Mitch, but you are WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! about Biden and Gun control.

I wanted to comment on your Grabbing While The Grabbing’s Good post, but my wordpress account doesn't work there. I stand by what I said in my Biden and Guns post. I'll toss in pretty much everything I said about why Trump would have won.

The money shot is Biden's campaign was:

increasingly worried about the polling in Pennsylvania and fear that his previous, slim lead could be slipping away at the eleventh hour. But this doesn’t sound like a move that would help him much, if at all, on that score. The vast majority of Biden’s support in the Keystone State is going to come from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. But the latter city is currently overrun by mobs and is going up in flames. Philly is one of the places where the demand for guns is off the charts in a Democratic stronghold and people can’t even get applications for permits, to say nothing of laying their hands on a legal firearm. Something tells me that even his base there doesn’t want to hear any gun control claptrap at the moment.

Let's toss in the ultimate opportunity for the US to do what Britain and Australia did: The Sandy Hook Shooting. They could have pulled off enough "moderate" republicans to ban "assault weapons", but weren't able to.  No matter how many toddlers get popped.

Las Vegas would have done it for enacting gun control in any sane country. Even Trump banned bump stocks after that, but that was the extent of it.

Let's face it. People in the US are really fucked up and stupid.

There will probably never be any serious firearms control in the US. Even if real domestic terrorists pull off Bataclan level mass shootings on a daily basis. people will be cringing in fear to do anything, yet pro-gun galahs will be saying how wonderful the situation is.

People like you will stick by your WRONG interpretation of the Second Amendment. Show me the words "self-defence" or anything other than its purpose related to anything other than the militia. Fact is that if you got a couple of words past "we the people" you would see how incongruous the concept of gun rights happens to be in the constitutional framework. Fortunately for the people peddling the bullshit, most people don't know what exactly the US Constitution actually says. They know a couple of phrases taken out of context.

If even that.

The idiots who wrote the constitution could have saved a lot of pain by just saying "fuck it" if the interpretation you believe is correct were what they had in mind.

The US was pretty fucked up before 1789. It is even more fucked up because people like you have no fucking idea of what you are talking about. You have a choice.

Stay the course or make some serious constitutional and legal changes.

Otherwise, enjoy living in your failed state.

"We are a REPUBLIC not a DEMOCRACY!"

It's amusing that most of the people who chant this usually side with the crowd storming the US Capitol. Let's toss in that the First French Republic pretty much contradicted what was being asserted at the same time across the Atlantic in Philadelphia. Although we have this interesting version of an 1800 attack ad on Thomas Jefferson which was created using actual contemporary criticism of Jefferson.

Actually, the founders were familiar with the French Revolution, First republic, and its excesses. The Alien and Sedition Acts from 1798 were aimed at the French.

And Jefferson's comments about frequent revolution and "watering the liberty tree" helped to make his reputation shown in the above ad.

Unfortunately the right is attracted to the more puerile aspects of the War for Independence and not its realities. My ancestors on the Pennsylvania Line at Morristown were some of the early grumblers, but the vicissitudes caused by the war led to more rebellions. Shays' Rebellion being the one which led to the drafting of the US Constitution.

The founders could have just said "fuck it" and done nothing had they wanted the America of the extreme right. The factionalism has been in the US since early on. What we are seeing at the US Capitol is nothing new in US politics. And probably much more common than most political commentators are willing to mention.

While one side of me is first generation American and much happier in Europe. The other side of me is the American Experience. Literally. The Americans thought they had the rule of law, but was it more of the factionalism we see exhibited in the US, and state capitols?

I don't think that the people who built this nation would be too keen on keeping a dysfunctional system. Would they go to the Jeffersonian extreme? Or would they take the route of the people who wrote the Constitution? My bet is on retooling the workings of the political system since that was the choice made in 1789.

On the other hand, it seems more like people are going with the "fuck it" option. But that is the option of defeat. That's the one where people admit that the efforts of the people who built the nation were all in vain. That's the one that says to the soldiers of the Pennsylvania Line at Morristown (and Valley Forge): "You are a bunch of chumps sitting there in the cold. The ones of you who go AWOL to tend their farms are the real patriots."

Maybe we should take solace in the fact that there actually was a peaceful transition instead of the 1800 election turning into as blood bath because there couldn't be a peaceful transition. I think there will be a peaceful transition, but what is made from it needs to be an examination of the system.

The people who will soon be in charge of the government are the ones who gave us Donald Trump. They made the situation right for the campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. I don't see any significant changes on offer from the returning regime. It's like the Bourbon Restoration, which was overturned by the Revolution of 1830.

Unfortunately the Founders were blinded by a romantic history of the ancient world. There is no difference between a republic or a democracy other than one does not have monarchs. But Republics can have dictators, oligarchs, and Tyrants. Plato's ideal republican leader was the "benevolent despot". They can be just as faction ridden (if not worse) than a Democracy.

Especially if one believes there is a right to revolt against the lawful order. Or that any violent revolt is somehow better than following the law.

Who was president on 4 January 2016?

Barack Obama if I remember correctly.

And the reason I'm asking this is because of this article from Salon which was published on that date. The right wing extremists we see in the US Capitol didn't happen over night. It was pretty much well under way long before 2016.

So, yet another thing we can't pin directly on Donald Trump.

And it's also not a phenomenon that is limited to just the United States. Cas Mudde has a really great opinion piece in the Guardian about all this:

How and why did we get here? First and foremost, through a long process of cowardice, failures, and shortsighted opportunism of the mainstream right. Already in 2012, in the wake of the deadly terrorist attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, by a longtime prominent neo-Nazi, I wrote, “the extremist rhetoric that comes from so-called law-abiding patriots should be taken more seriously”. I advised Republican leaders to “be more careful in choosing their company and insinuations”. What happened, however, was the opposite: far-right ideas and people were mainstreamed rather than ostracized.

As in so many other things, Donald Trump has been a major catalyst of this process, but not its initiator. The radicalization of the US right wing predates Trump by decades. It even predates the Tea party, which mostly helped to bring the far right into the heart of the Republican party. Obviously, racism and racist dog-whistling have been key to the party since they launched their infamous Southern Strategy in the 1970s, which brought white Southerners to the Republican party, but this goes far beyond that. The radicalization is not just ideological, it is anti-systemic.

I'm not sure if I would say that Trump was a "major catalyst", but he has definitely played and been associated with this trend. I am also not sure that I would put the blame solely on the right, since no one has called out this movement with any real force on either side. It's too easy to finger point than to address this issue.

On the other hand, it is long past time to have done anything about this issue. But what needs to be done is some serious self-examination by all sides as to WHY the situation is what it is. There are some very real issues raised by all this, but it's easier to play games than to address the flaws in the system.

A major flaw is that US elections are indeed not very democratic from a two party system that shuts out other players, to gerrymandered districts, not directly electing the president, among a long list of problems screaming for reform. These problems are internal and not caused by foreign nationals.

The writing was on the wall long before Trump and may bring someone far worse than Trump unless the problems are addressed.

And the bad news is: You can't blame Donald Trump for what is wrong in the US anymore.

Of course, the people with Trump Derangement Syndrome probably will continue to do so long after he has passed from the scene.

Seriously, I wasn't sure which would be worse: Trump winning the same way he did in 2016 by taking the electoral college, but not the popular vote. Or Joe Biden winning and then having to deal with all his shit.

It looks like option two is the one on the cards. With an addition of Horrible Harris to make the package even more fun to swallow.

The real problem is that the "Democrats" spent the past four years blaming everything and everybody, but the people responsible for making Donald Trump president in the first place.

The "Democrats" themselves.

Toss in that the system is pretty much a mess to begin with.

I walked away in 2016 with the Demexit and will not go back, but the system has to catch up with those of us who know it is broken. The electoral system is in serious need of reform and trying to pass the blame on the other guy won't help the situation.

The Duopoly is like Brexit

I would have thought that the culmination of all the past four years of Brexit negotiations would have been much more exciting than the footnote it appears to be for the past four years. It reminds me of how David Cameron's gamble on an EU referendum was like the "Democratic" party's trying to get Hillary Clinton into office. The big difference between Brexit and the past two US elections was that there was an escape clause of an election for the US.

No second referendum for Britain.

On the other hand, the 2020 US election was like the Brexit negotiations with the Trump presidency being Brexit and Biden being the escape clause. Biden's campaign was like the effects of the Brexit negotiations in that people would make assumptions about what a Biden administration would be. Biden was somehow "better" than the alternative.

The real problem was that neither Brexit nor the US campaigns offered anything of substance for the electorate to make a choice on. The only thing being voted on was the dissatisfaction of the electorate for the status quo.

Things were "wrong", but no one was really addressing them. It was easier to blame "them" whether it's the people in DC or the EU. On the other hand, the real problem isn't them, but "us". There is a drift in both US and UK politics which has led to trying to come up with differences where none really exist.

The US duopoly parties are pretty much the same. Despite certain people trying to make Hillary Clinton seem wildly radical, she was fairly conservative. And she couldn't run on the issues. Thus insane concepts such as "defund the police" can see the light of day instead of more bread and butter issues.

The past year was the best argument for a Sanders Administration with Medicare for All (M4A), Universal basic income (UBI), and general social insurance to make sure people can survive being forced to not work for the public good. No, these are not "free", but will require increased taxation. On the other hand, isn't taxing billionaires a good idea? 

Especially when those billionaires are literally making money off YOU!

The people who are afraid of government, yet are willing to give up their personal information to corporations that are making big bucks off that. There is a reason I like the EU and its data protection rules. Not to mention that the EU has been going after these monopolies for some time. the US just hasn't caught up.

But remember that the US tech companies helped get Biden and Harris where they are now if we are going down that track. 

The bottom line is that despite all this information out there, a lot of it is not really useful. There are a lot of reasons for that, but there seems to be a need for a true marketplace of ideas.

And the education to be able to use them.

Lesser evil voting results in evil, not good.

 

I am amused at the people who call themselves "progressives" being hopeful that Joe Biden will in some way show that he is sympathetic to their cause.

Dream on, progressives, you are the unwanted relative at the "family" gathering. The "Democrats" put up with you because they want your votes. But they prefer money. The more money you can cough up, the more they suck up to you. 

It doesn't matter that Bernie Sanders can run a campaign on small donations because the "Democratic" Party isn't. They prefer the large donors who are the people who propped up the formerly dead campaigns of Creepy Joe and Horrible Harris. 

The "Democrats" preyed on your being suckers that they were in some way "better" than the Evil Orange One. Yet they ran candidates that were just as bad, if not worse. The tame media didn't allow for any scrutiny into the chosen ones, or you would have had a harder time voting for them than you did Clinton-Kane in 2016.

If you didn't Demexit.

The "Democrats" didn't bother hiding their disdain for the progressives this go round.  "Progressives" for whatever reason voted for Biden despite his being a male Hillary Clinton with a public and private position on the issues. And his private position is that he will stay the course which resulted in Trump.

I've moved on from the "Democratic" Party because I know that they do not have the motivation to actually do anything. Actually, neither of the duopoply parties will do much of anything other than make the US a plutocracy that rewards the likes of Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, et al. There is a reason the tech companies supported Biden-Harris, and it's not because they are benevolent.

It's time for a change and one of those changes is to vote for a party that actually represents you.

Biden and Guns

OK, the main reason I didn't expect Biden to "win" the election was that he needed to win a few states which are pro-gun. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for those people to get on the Biden Bandwagon if Biden is going to tighten gun laws. Not to mention telling a UAW member to basically fuck off because "no one needs an AR-14".

Biden has a long history on the gun issue, which is contradictory to say the least. It went from being pro-gun and being involved with the Firearms Owners Protection Act (FOPA) to now saying he wants to get tight on regulating "AR-14s". Personally, I think Sanders would have been a safer bet to address this issue than Biden: especially since Bernie is from Vermont.

On the other hand, Bernie is a commie. And the Establishment Dems don't like him.

Biden's campaign was:

increasingly worried about the polling in Pennsylvania and fear that his previous, slim lead could be slipping away at the eleventh hour. But this doesn’t sound like a move that would help him much, if at all, on that score. The vast majority of Biden’s support in the Keystone State is going to come from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. But the latter city is currently overrun by mobs and is going up in flames. Philly is one of the places where the demand for guns is off the charts in a Democratic stronghold and people can’t even get applications for permits, to say nothing of laying their hands on a legal firearm. Something tells me that even his base there doesn’t want to hear any gun control claptrap at the moment.

OK, I would like to believe that Creepy Joe and Horrible Harris will turn out to be a disappointment, but he has managed to surprise me by winning an election.

Despite the odds.

On the other hand, there is a lot of red in places like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina which might hold their nose and vote for the next Trump if Creepy Joe and Horrible Harris make good on their promise to ban guns.

And I am truly surprised that combination was able to pull off a win to begin with: especially with gun control on the agenda. 

But gun control is something which is talked about but rarely acted upon: especially by opportunistic politicians.

Not sure how to title this post about the presidential election results

I guess I should have known that the wrong conclusions would be made however the election turned out. I've already pointed out that the right/centre of the "Democratic" party is blaming the left for the poor results. No one is addressing that not having any real policy set out other than "orange man bad" might not be a good way to win votes.

While Fox News and Sky News Australia may try to paint Biden and Harris as extreme lefties: they are anything but. The Green New Deal, Fracking, Medicare for All and all those "lefty" ideas probably won't see the light of day, or will be transformed into something unrecognisable. FAIR's Counterspin pointed out:

After a historic election turnout, driven by mobilizations like Black Lives Matter, that signaled the longed-for end of the Trump presidency, it's sad to see corporate Democrats leap to blame the left, including activists, for denying the party a landslide—and call for immediate, compensatory overtures to the right. Sad, but not surprising, as that's been the practice of elite Democrats and their media abettors for decades.

    When Michael Dukakis chose Sen. Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate, he turned his back not just on Jesse Jackson, but on two decades of Democratic Party thinking. He sent an unmistakable message to the activist constituencies of the Democratic Party that the days of litmus-test liberalism are over.

That's the Washington Post's David Broder in 1988.

You could say everything old is new again, but corporate media's allegiance to an ever-drifting "center" gets more dangerous by the day.

Fair.org's Counterspin

In other words, AOC and Black Lives Matter can pretend all they want that there will be a leftward shift in the party. But the Dems will throw them under the bus as soon as they get their vote in favour of the big donors. "Creepy Joe" Biden and Hillary Clinton weren't chosen as front runners well in advance because they were popular or strong candidates. They were chosen because they brought the big money.

There were a whole lot of other black women out there who would have been a much better choice than Horrible Harris. Horrible Harris was the choice of the big donors in Silicon Valley. Black Lives Matter should have burned the country down the moment they knew Harris's record as a prosecutor if they had any real power. My guess is that Black Lives Matter will be forgotten until 2022, or maybe relegated to the dust bin because of the things that were said and unsaid in the Abigail Spanberger leaked phone call.

It was Groucho, not Karl, if the BLM person was a Marxist organiser. I was pretty certain that the "peaceful protests" were going to result in a Trump win, but the only thing those really generated was a run on "assault rifles" and "ammunition". Still, "Defund the Police" was enough to get some "Democrats" into squeaker situations. But was that actually the reason that people like Spanberger and Madeline Dean found themselves in tight races?

Nevermind, the "Democrats" have a long history of being anti-progressive and no matter of polling data that some of the ideas floated by the "socialists" were popular will change that opinion of the right/centre wing. The left needs to move on since the "Democrats" talk "big tent", but the reality is that one needs to follow the party line. Whatever the fuck that happens to be.

AOC, Black Lives Matter, and the rest of the vindictive branch of the "Democratic" party need to be careful. They go against the people with the power and they find they are the ones to be purged.

If they don't realise that they should exit the party to one more favourable to their ideals.

Voting Green Party, or Third Party, is not a waste

As the "Democrats" fall apart over whether they should pay attention to the Progressive wing, I have to point out that one of the many reasons I voted Green:

It tells the duopoly that we aren't part of their party.

The "Democrats" are currently feuding over whether progressivism is where they should be heading. Not whether the "Orange Man Bad" strategy actually works. The "Democrats" holding their centrist/Republican Lite position was my big fear for this election. How they react to it remains to be seen.

But it seems that turning on the progressive wing is once again the strategy: even though that is not a wining strategy. Not to mention it meant fielding two of the weakest candidates ever. And they will continue doing that because they know that like progressives will come crawling back like whipped dogs.

Lesser evil voting still nets an evil.

Voting your beliefs doesn't.

The squad, and other deluded progressives, may wake up to reality, but I don't have too much hope. 2016 and 2020 were the two elections where lesser evil voting really had no place. There was a choice of Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber if one chose a duopoly candidate.

I'm not happy because either of them was elected president.

Antrim County Controversy

 I have to question election results when they go against what I see in reality.

Pennsylvania is one, but Antrim County, MI also had me wondering. Andtrim County is about as red as a place can get. yet the election results were showing that it had gone for Joe Biden. That had me really wondering.

But what made this seem even stranger is that a little while later, the results from Antrim County went blank on the results map.

Definitely something strange:

Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy, a Republican who ran unopposed and won a third four-year term Tuesday in the strongly GOP county, said results on electronic tapes and a computer card were accurate but it appeared that some of the results were somehow scrambled after the cards were transported in sealed bags from township precincts to county offices and downloaded onto a computer.

In 2016, Trump won Antrim County with about 62% of the vote, compared with about 33% for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump beat Clinton by about 4,000 votes.

Wednesday morning, Antrim results showed Democrat Joe Biden leading Trump by slightly more than 3,000 votes, with 98% of precincts reporting.

Officials had not checked the results before posting them, but later asked: "How could Democrats take over this county?" Guy said Wednesday.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Source: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/michigan-antrim-county-election-results-trump-biden-blue/6162541002/