Why I went Green (and sort of silent on Guns)

“There was once a big atomic bomb
That wanted to be a bullet.
His friends all asked why, when he was such a big atomic bomb, he would want to be a tiny bullet.
"I miss", he sighed, "the personal touch.”
-- Tuli Kupferberg

I've kind of gone silent on the topic of guns since, like the above passage, climate change is something which affects us all. Sure, guns are bad, but the coming crisis makes the gun debate in the US look tame.

Climate change is happening. It's undeniable (if you are not totally out of touch with reality). And it will require cultural as well as political changes.

It's also long overdue that people start addressing it. We shouldn't have needed Greta Thurnberg.

The United Nations has estimated that we need to reduce carbon emissions by half within a decade to have a 50% chance of avoiding global catastrophe. Of course, this is likely to be an underestimation as recent science shows permafrost melting 90 years earlier than forecast and Himalayan glaciers melting twice as fast as expected. Feedbacks and locked in heating will take us over 2C even before we factor in additional temperature rises from human caused emissions over the next ten years.

In short, we're fucked


George Monbiot says:

A paper published in Nature shows that we have little chance of preventing more than 1.5C of global heating unless existing fossil fuel infrastructure is retired. Instead the industry intends to accelerate production, spending nearly $5tn in the next 10 years on developing new reserves. It is committed to ecocide.
But the biggest and most successful lie it tells is this: that the first great extermination is a matter of consumer choice. In response to the Guardian’s questions, some of the oil companies argued that they are not responsible for our decisions to use their products. But we are embedded in a system of their creation – a political, economic and physical infrastructure that creates an illusion of choice while, in reality, closing it down.

Sure, people can try to say that this is "liberal nonsense", but climate change has been on the radars since physicist Edward Teller told the American Petroleum Institute (API) back in 1959 that a 10% increase in CO2 will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge New York. “I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe.”

Lyndon Johnson’s President’s Science Advisory Committee states that “pollutants have altered on a global scale the carbon dioxide content of the air”, with effects that “could be deleterious from the point of view of human beings”. Summarising the findings, the head of the API warned the industry: “Time is running out.”

A confidential report prepared for Shell’s environmental conservation committee in 1988 found that CO2 could raise temperatures by 1C to 2C over the next 40 years with changes that may be “the greatest in recorded history”. It urged rapid action by the energy industry, “By the time the global warming becomes detectable it could be too late to take effective countermeasures to reduce the effects or even stabilise the situation.” 

Instead of addressing the issue in the past sixty years, people have been heading full tilt on the road to disaster. It would have been far easier to have addressed this issue early on than to wait until the house has almost burned down.

Anyway, I am more interested in addressing climate change than in wasting time on trying to impeach Trump. This issue requires cultural and political change. I've made as many of those changes as I can, but others need to catch on.

The ecological and climate crisis is not be owned by any political ideology, culture, age or gender.  We ALL need to take action on this pressing issue.

MELT THE GUNS!

OK, the real problem facing any solution to the US gun problem is getting the guns off the streets. Yes, there will have to be a buyback which will be fun given that it will have to be on the same level as the Aussie one. There will probably be later gun amnesties, but without the monetary incentive.

So, cash in early.

There is a solution for those who can't wait to get your guns off the streets but aren't altruistic enough to just give them to someone without some kind of benefit.

The National Center for Unwanted Firearms

They say they are willing to buy or allow for donation of the firearms. That is a pretty good deal if one can realise the fair market value of your firearm: even if it's only as a tax deduction.

Gun control won't work in the US as long as there are guns in circulation which is why getting them off the streets is the most important aspect for dealing with this problem.

Can't stop thinking about reparations

Let's start with:

A 2016 Marist poll found 58% of black Americans were in favour of reparations, while 81% of white Americans opposed the idea. A 2018 Data for Progress survey also found reparations to be unpopular among the general public, and especially so among white Americans.

Being opposed to a cash payout reparations tends to push the number up even higher.

Bayard Rustin, who organised the March on Washington and was a friend of Martin Luther King Jr, called reparations a "ridiculous idea".Mr Rustin told the New York Times in 1969, "If my great-grandfather picked cotton for 50 years, then he may deserve some money, but he's dead and gone and nobody owes me anything".He later expanded on the views, writing that a payout would demean "the integrity of blacks" and exploit white guilt.

The issue here being time at least five generations of US blacks have been free (i.e. were slaves). Sure we can talk about the discrimination in the South, but what do you do with a Kay Coles James or a Madam C.J. Walker? The name Pat McGrath came up during this search.

You don't need a white person to debate this issue since I know that blacks have opinions on the topics, but Ta-Nehisi Coates found a great topic to grab some attention. Unfortunately most of the talk is divided by race. It would be nice if some conservative blacks weighed in on the topic.

Coates mentioned debt, which is one thing which started me thinking about this topic. The Western Countries wrote off Africa's debt back in 2005, but the countries are now worse than they were BEFORE the write offs. While the reasons are different, the bottom line is the same:

Unless something is changed the debt will return worse than before. 

In other words, people can throw as much money as they want at a problem, but fuck all will happen unless the underlying causes are addressed.

On problem with the US is the myth of abundance, in particular and abundance of land so that rich people can move out of the cities. That means the cities are left to decay (I blame most of Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw's problems on the industry the built those cities: the automobile).

Mr. Coates needs to integrate himself since there are poor whites living in those places. Of familiarise himself with Fred Hampton who understood the issue 50 years ago.

I wouldn't say that whites are better off economically by looking at a graph. I am no where near a Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or other 1% than Ta-Nehisi Coates is to Pat McGrath. And Pat McGrath still doesn't raise the income of poor blacks. On the other hand, those people skew the numbers when you look at averages. The average white person in Appalachia is in no way affluent.


There's a lesson in here somewhere, but I think that reparations will fail when it comes down to it.  it's something that sounds intriguing, but is doomed to failure if anyone tries to implement it.

There wouldn't have been a problem had the Dems run Bernie.

Kyiv Post has an article on how the Ukrainians see the latest attempt by the "Democrats" to try to harm Donald Trump. Another one that will backfire bigly.

What are Giuliani and Trump alleging?
Specifically, Giuliani alleges that: 1) Biden pressured Ukraine to fire its prosecutor general in order to hamper an investigation into Burisma Holdings, the oil and gas company where his son Hunter worked, and 2) that Ukrainian officials conspired to help Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.

The problem with the impeachment nonsense is that the Democrats need to come up with something that won't backfire on them. This one will as the last one did since the underlying claims relate to Democratic corruption.

As the dude said, "let the person without sin cast the first stone".

But this shit beats having to address the US's problems.

Read the article here: https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/trump-whistleblower-scandal-explained-from-ukraine.html

A guess on why Slavery, Indentured Servitude, and Transportation aren't properly discussed in the US

It makes people uncomfortable to think that someone's ancestors didn't come to the US willingly. Slavery, indentured servitude, and transportation run against the narrative of people coming here for the "American Dream". Unless you mean the American Dream of someone else who receives cheap labour.

The US is far too in love with its national myth of opportunity and unlimited resources. The narrative runs that people come to the United States because they can work hard and enjoy the benefits. The reality has been that people work hard and someone else gets the benefits.

Tell someone who wants to know your ancestors immigration story that they came over in chains as a slave and they get all uncomfortable.

And Transportation is something no one is willing to talk about, but I would scream out my convict heritage like an Aussie boasts about being an ancestor of the first fleet if I found out one was in my family tree. But people also get really uncomfortable when they find out that a lot of pre-Independence immigrants were felons.

Bottom line is that unwilling immigrants aren't what people want to hear about.

I'll admit I am a confused white guy when it comes to reparations.

Another big issue with this topic is that there is also no consensus on the Black (?) or African American (?) side. Case in point, Kay Coles James is President of The Heritage Foundation. She is also a black woman, and a Republican, which can cause some people's head to explode if they wish to believe that gender or race influences their opinion.

Where this comes in is in terms of conservative black people, which sounds like a contradiction in terms (sort of like Very religious Jews siding with conservative Christians in the US).

It is also the exception which proves the rule ("prove" meaning "tests") in that she is a black woman with a highly impressive CV going by the write up here: https://www.heritage.org/staff/kay-coles-james.

I'll mention Candace Owen, but that's it.

OK, Black Conservatives are definitely NOT on the same page as Ta-Nehisi Coates, or even me. But they do raise the question is it racism or is the issue something else which reparations aren't really going to address.

Part of the reason I mention Kay Coles James is that she is a black woman from a southern, former slave state who has done well in society.  Perhaps that is due to when she grew up.

On the other hand, this white guy, who was born in Detroit has had his own share of eating 50 cent burritos and being leveraged to the hilt with debt during periods of unemployment.

Is that my white privilege at work?

Anyway, the black conservative opinion on this topic runs like this:

Perhaps we should remember the legacy of a former slave who rose up from slavery to advise presidents – Booker T. Washington – who never asked for reparations. Washington preached dignity through work – to become so skilled that you earned respect. “Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work,” he said. That’s what pulled Washington up from slavery. It doesn’t have to work for just one man.

My point isn't that I don't think that slavery was bad or that there is no discrimination, but there is more than one opinion. Likewise, the past 160 odd years have changed the playing field to make this a very complex issue to address.

The bottom line is that any reparations may not be monetary: they may be more symbolic.  Something to make people feel good about historic events which we must acknowledge, but cannot change.

Slavery, Indentured Servitude, Transportation, and reparations

There is a reason why the topics of slavery, indentured servitude, and transportation are neglected: because one of the United States' many myths is the myth of the immigrant coming because of the American promise. People arriving against their will goes against that myth. Someone boasts how their ancestors came for the opportunities found in the US has to deal with the fact that segments of the population arrived against their will.

Slave ships and auctions are the antithesis of Ellis Island, which is probably another myth as well.

But slavery, or people as commercial objects, is an integral part of US immigration law. The US has jus soli because of slavery and Dred Scott. The Fourteenth Amendment was a result of slavery. It haunts immigration policy because anyone born in the US is automatically a citizen: no matter whether their parents were lawfully present in the country.

There is the indignation by some people about children being placed in "cages", yet those are the holding cells used by the police in the US.  Now, how would those people feel about people who arrived in this country chained together?

I am not going to get into a debate about people who are lawfully present or not, but treating migrant workers as property for the benefit of others leads to terrible consequences. Sure, there should be a process to allow workers into the country if there happens to be a lack of workers: but is there no unemployment in the US?

Bottom line, the US has a love of exploiting workers, which is a big part of the discussion. And that fact is highly uncomfortable.

See also:

• Why Schools Fail To Teach Slavery's 'Hard History'
• Indentured Servants: Stafford Hall
• Mary Sarah Bilder, Struggle over Immigration: Indentured Servants, Slaves, and Articles of Commerce, The, 61 Mo. L. Rev. (1996) Available at: http://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol61/iss4/1 
• America Cannot Bear to Bring Back Indentured Servitude

Are Capitalism and property rights the enemies of the Second Amendment?

United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875), doesn't really address the Second Amendment, but it does say this:

The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, in The City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police," "not surrendered or restrained" by the Constitution of the United States.

Short, but pithy.

The right is one of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose" and it only limits congress. Yet another example of how Heller and McDonald area break from the legal precedents set by the Court itself. McDonald truly being the outlier since it takes something which is specifically tied to Congress's power under Article I, Section 8, Clause 16 and "expands" it ultra vires to the States. Additionally, the rights mentioned in the various "Bills of Rights" out there only apply to governmental action.

Which is the reason I point to this case because the New York Times has a piece about how business leaders are calling on the government to regulate firearms. This comes on the heel of announcements by businesses that they will no longer tolerate open carry.

The movement has gained momentum since last month, when a shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso killed 22 people. A day later, nine people were shot and killed in Dayton, Ohio.

“Gun violence in America is not inevitable; it’s preventable,” the business leaders wrote. “We need our lawmakers to support common-sense gun laws that could prevent tragedies like these.”

Property owners have the right to control who enters their property and how they are supposed to do it. Additionally, they have a duty to make sure that people on their property are safe.

Mass shootings aren't safe.

Even more importantly, the nonsense about how armed individuals stop these shootings is being shown to be just that.

Cruikshank may seem cryptic at first blush, but it is highly important to understanding the Second Amendment. The right is similar to that given in the English Bill of Rights, to carry arms for a lawful purpose. Presser made it clear that the right was tied the active militia, what is now the National Guard.

Heller and McDonald were both ultra vires because they both went beyond the scope of Constitutional interpretation, but they have the advantage in that they were extremely limited in scope and subject to strict regulation.

One doesn't need to choose between two different schools of interpretation of the Second Amendment: one just has to admit that the right is "well-regulated".

Why Presser v Illinois is important to Second Amendment Jurisprudence

Ignoring this from the "Second Amendment Jurisprudence" is totally wrong.  The basic gist of the case:

In Presser v. Illinois, the Court sustained an Illinois state statute prohibiting parading with arms by groups other than the organized militia. Herman Presser, who had been convicted of leading armed members of a fraternal organization in a parade, challenged the statute on the grounds that it violated the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.

If that doesn't set off bells in your head that this is important to "Second Amendment Scholarship", then you need to stop pretending to be a "Second Amendment Scholar".

"The plaintiff in error insists that the act of congress requires absolutely all able-bodied citizens of the state, between certain ages, to be enrolled in the militia; that the act of Illinois makes the enrollment dependent on the necessity for the use of troops to execute the laws and suppress insurrections, and then leaves it discretionary with the governor by proclamation to require such enrollment; that the act of congress requires the entire enrolled militia of the state, with a few exemptions made by it and which may be made by state laws,"

Herman Presser was using the "unorganized militia" argument. Presser argues that Illinois law regarding people associating "themselves together as a military company, or to drill or parade with arms without the license of the governor, and declares that no military company shall leave the state with arms and equipments without his consent" violated his Second Amendment right. Unfortunately, the Court said that argument had no legal bearing.

So, while this didn't go to whether there was "an individual right": the fact that Presser was barred from exercising his "Second Amendment right" outside the context of being a member of the active, organized militia pretty much sits square in the arguments made by "Second Amendment Scholars" that this right is related to the militia duty, not personal purposes. The Presser Court made statements such as:

We think it clear that the sections under consideration, which only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

The right voluntarily to associate together as a military company or organization, or to drill or parade with arms, without, and independent of, an act of congress or law of the state authorizing the same, is not an attribute of national citizenship. Military organization and military drill and parade under arms are subjects especially under the control of the government of every country. They cannot be claimed as a right independent of law. Under our political system they are subject to the regulation and control of the state and federal governments, acting in due regard to their respective prerogatives and powers. The constitution and laws of the United States will be searched in vain for any support to the view that these rights are privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States independent of some specific legislation on the subject.

It cannot be successfully questioned that the state governments, unless restrained by their own constitutions, have the power to regulate or prohibit associations and meetings of the people, except in the case of peaceable assemblies to perform the duties or exercise the privileges of citizens of the United States, and have also the power to control and regulate the organization, drilling, and parading of military bodies and associations, except when such bodies or associations, are authorized by the militia laws of the United States. The exercise of this power by the states is necessary to the public peace, safety, and good order. To deny the power would be to deny the right of the state to disperse assemblages organized for sedition and treason, and the right to suppress armed mobs bent on riot and rapine.

So,like the Heller and McDonald cases, there is "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." And both decisions made it clear that this list was not exhaustive.

New York's Sullivan Act was enacted in 1911. So, there is nothing in the current canon of US gun laws, including Heller and McDonald, which would preclude strong gun laws. In fact, the Heller and McDonald decisions were so narrow that only an "absolute prohibition" on handguns in the home are prohibited under current law. But looking at how strong some states' prohibition on carrying concealed, that means that Heller and McDonald can be safely ignored.

Unless the issue is an absolute prohibition on handguns in the home for self-defence.

Glasgow University and its "programme of restorative justice".

The major problem with talking about reparations, besides the time factor, is what form would they take? Glasgow Univerity found that donations to the 1866-1880 campaign to build the university's current campus at Gilmorehill incluided 23 people who gave money which had some financial links to the New World slave trade. "Some financial links" is an interesting term: especially since the period in question includes the 18th and 19th Centuries.

The Abolition of Slave Trade Act, which made it illegal to trade slaves throughout the British Empire and banned British ships from involvement in the trade, was passed by the British Parliament on 25 March 1807. Britain officially ended trading slaves on 1 March 1808 (the slave trade still went on illegally for some time). Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, with exceptions provided for the East India Company, Ceylon, and Saint Helena. Those exceptions were eliminated in 1843. Slavery was still practised in the United States until the end of the US Civil War in 1865.

While illegal, slavery is still practised in the world, which is something any serious discussion of this topic needs to include. Likewise, slavery took many different forms. Both issues are something that any realistic discussion of this topic needs to address.

Glasgow University isn't the only academic institution in United Kingdom to look into how it profited from the slave economy. Yet Glasgow University also points out that it supported abolition. So, there were two aspects of this. The University "profited" from the slave trade while condemning that trade.

On the other hand, "restorative justice" seems to be looking into the system of forced labour, which I hope includes people who went as "indentured servants" or were transported for "criminal offences".

Anyway, it sounds as if the real outcome of this will indeed be to promote discussion of the topic, which has pretty much been buried in both the US and UK. we could get into a debate about which culture has minimised the role of slavery in its development. Slavery did indeed contribute greatly to the prosperity of those countries, along with western society.

I think the bottom line is that any "reparations" or "restorative justice" is likely to come in the form of an acknowledgement of the role of slavery in Western Society, not monetary. Maybe there might be some social reforms, but I wouldn't be too hopeful about that.

 But addressing this topic in a candid and honest way might indeed be the best course of action for any 'restorative justice".

See also:

• As Glasgow University owns up to slavery wealth, others urged to follow
• Glasgow University's 'bold' move to pay back slave trade profits
• Glasgow University to pay £20m in slave trade reparations

Too much confusion about immigration laws all around.

OK, this is one of the more complex aspects of law and most people have no idea that some things are a lot more complex than they appear. People talk about the "dreamers" as if they were like the people in Britain who were "Windrushed".

I have no sympathy for the Dreamers, but I have a lot of sympathy for the victims of a "Windrush".

But any serious discussion of immigration law requires some explanation. This is highly simplistic, but it gives an idea of how all this works.

First principle is that only citizens of a nation have a right to enter and exit the nation freely under international law. Everybody else enters and exits a foreign nation does so under condition. It is not a right for someone to enter a foreign country: especially unlawfully.

There are two ways to get citizenship: by birth or naturalisation. Birth can work by jus soli or jus sanguinus.The United States uses jus soli, which means someone has citizenship merely by being born inside the US. It is in the Constitution (14th Amendment).

Like most countries, the United States also has jus sanguinus, which means that you can have citizenship through your parents registering your foreign birth. People can inherit citizenship depending on the other countries' laws (e.g, Italy, Ireland, The United Kingdom, etc.).

Most countries have combinations of both jus soli or jus sanguinus. Some do it in such a way so that simply being born in a country does not result in citizenship (Ireland now requires at least one parent is an Irish Citizen or resident alien for citizenship). The US can't do this without changing the Constitution to require some parental connection to the United States. That was something that made sense after emancipation of the slaves, but doesn't make sense now.

The US is one place where the laws are fairly static, for what that is worth. One cannot lose, or renounce, citizenship without some serious consequences. The people who usually lose citizenship are people who became citizens under fraudulent circumstances (e.g, war criminals).

Another thing to explain is that Asylum is regulated by International law.

Asylum is a protection granted to foreign nationals already in the United States or at the border who meet the international law definition of a “refugee.” The United Nations 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol define a refugee as a person who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country, and cannot obtain protection in that country, due to past persecution or a well-founded fear of being persecuted in the future “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Congress incorporated this definition into U.S. immigration law in the Refugee Act of 1980.

Asylum is an incredibly complex topic. I could easily do a very large book on the topic. The bottom line here is that not everyone qualifies as a refugee: no matter how sad their story may be. People escaping Central America's gang violence is a case in point: especially since most of those gangs were formed in the US!

Coming to the US to escape gangs in Central America makes as much sense as going to Sicily to escape the Mafia.

I'll add in that A valid passport is required for entry into most foreign countries. More than 80% of all countries in the world require a passport for entry. Some countries require foreign nationals to have a visa. Even if a passport is not required for entrance into a foreign country, it is required to re-enter the United States in most cases. Additionally, there are visa requirements for entry into the US for some foreign nationals. Not having the proper visa is another violation of immigration law.

Lack of the proper documentation as a foreigner means the person is in violation of immigration laws and unlawfully present in the country.

As I said, this is highly simplistic, but it explains the basics.

The real bottom line is that the law is the law. It doesn't matter whether one agrees with it or not. One must obey the law as is.

Or work to change it.

See also:

• 'I felt like dirt': disabled Canadian woman told to leave UK after 44 years 
• Windrush generation: Who are they and why are they facing problems?
• Windrush: How do you prove you've been living in the UK?

An interesting take on the origins of the United States,

I really like Professor Gerald Horne's stuff.

American English: Racist?

One thing that makes a nation is a common heritage and culture, which is often shown by a common language. After all, communicating is what language is all about. And people can't communicate if they are speaking different languages. Quite a few countries require prospective immigrants to demonstrate proficiency with their language: Canada and France come to mind.

Map of US official language status by state before 2016. Blue: English declared the official language; light-blue: 2 official languages, including English; gray: no official language specified

While English is not an actual official language, there are some who consider it the de facto national language. It is the sole, but unofficial, language of the federal government. the United States federal government has recognized no official language, even though nearly all federal, state and local government business is conducted in English

There have been attempts to make English the official language of the US with the first major one being in 1923 with a bill drafted by Congressman Washington J. McCormick. The U.S. House of Representatives passed English as the official language in 1996, but the Senate did not act on the measure before the conclusion of the 104th Congress. English is the official language of 32 states as of 2019.

Proponents of this movement include US Senator S.I. Hayakawa and Mauro E. Mujica, who is a naturalized citizen, Mujica was born in Antofagasta, Chile, and moved to the United States in 1964. Is someone who speaks multiple languages who berates someone for speaking Spanish really racist or just pointing out that it's rude to speak another language (e.g, Aaron Schlossberg).  Could he have made his point in another way.

Contrary to what is often believed, most of the world's population is bilingual or multilingual. Monolingualism is characteristic only of a minority of the world's peoples. On the other hand, it makes more sense to speak the common language instead of another language (Disclosure: I speak English, French, and German)

Would it take the US making English the official language to end this debate, especially since currently it seems that people who are "Trump supporters" are being accused of the being the crowd who support speaking English.

On the other hand, having a common language would be a factor in a national identity.

Reparation for slavery is not a simple topic.

As I said before it was the Transatlantic Slave trade, which means it goes beyond just the United States: especially if you are discussing the people who traded slaves.

You can listen to this episode here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3csynsp. The person in question is Spanish and his family was trading slaves after the trade became illegal.

And now that you are distracted by the concept or reparations...

What exactly is the status of The Voting Rights Act of 1965?

Serious question since this is something which happened recently enough to be in our lifetime. It also has a real impact on current events where as reparations are pretty nebulous.

 Wouldn't it make more sense to be discussing this since it has a very real effect on minorities and US politics?

 Which leads to the next question: WHY isn't it being discussed?

What if capitalism and free market forces worked to regulate firearms in the US?

The Constitution protects you against governmental actions. it doesn't protect you against the actions on non-governmental bodies.

One of the things mentioned in this clip is a landlord's prohibition on gun ownership in the lease not being a violation of the Second Amendment.

Do property rights overrule the Second Amendment?

Let's toss in for good measure that the Heller-McDonald decisions were very limited in their scope (in addition to contradiction prior Supreme Court precedents of Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 [1886] and US v Miller, 307 US 174 [1939[).{1}

Anyway, the firearms market is pretty much saturated with companies going bankrupt.

It may not be the librul-progressives that kill this insanity as much as market forces working to limit it.


Footnote
{1} US v Miller States that "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 conclusion from that drawn by the Heller-MCDonald decisions.

Wolves in sheepdogs clothing.

Funny how this myth seems to have caught on with the gunloon population (and fans of the military system, which includes cops).

So much is wrong with it.

First off, dogs don't carry weapons.

And the people who thought it would have been funny if I took the real Laci out hunting boar really have no idea of how fearless and selfless dogs are. Which takes us back to the previous point: a dog will protect a pack member. And that is the case no matter how small the dog is.

They don't need guns. They have their teeth, agility, and strength.

Another point with how wacky this trope is comes with the fact that Dogs and Wolves aren't that different. Dogs are a lot more accustomed to being around humans. Dogs also know the human is the boss. But other than that: there isn't that much difference between Lobo and Laci the Powderpuff Chinese Crested in how they act.

Sheepdogs work using their innate characteristics for hunting (herding sheepdogs) or pack protection (pastoral sheepdogs). The pastoral sheepdog is going to hang with the herd of sheep and protect it from preditors: animal or human. You want a good example of a pastoral sheepdog and it would be the Bearnaise Mountain Dog. Nice until you provoke it.

And they are about as different from the wolf, sheepdog, and sheep trope as you can get.

On the other hand,Argus and Fiona were two Bernese mountain dogs that were shot and killed when they entered a neighbor's yard. The dude with the gun was afraid they would kill his sheep. I guess the dogs were pretty scary to someone who has a gun.

And isn't really familiar with dogs: especially Bearnaise Mountain Dogs.

The real bottom line here is that a real sheepdog doesn't need to have a gun, or force, to be effective at protecting sheep.

Also, we need to beware of the sheepdogs who want to keep us in line by using fear.

Sheep..and Sheepdogs

I was going for my shepherd's crook to use it. That brought back memories of growing up on a farm.

With Sheep.

And, sheepdogs as well. After all, I am a total dog lover: especially working dogs.

But there's an irony for me in the right wing trope of the sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves, which shouldn't surprise me it was dreamed up by a Yank. A Yank who probably never spent any time on a farm with sheep and sheepdogs.

Britain is relatively free of wolves, which is also the case with New Zealand. Both places along with the US are where I grew up raising sheep. And having sheepdogs herd the sheep.

Sheepdogs rarely every encounter a wolf, which is good since they are usually border collies, bearded collies, or Old English Sheepdogs. So, they aren't busy keeping the sheep blissfully happy in their ignorance through protecting them from wolves. Sheepdogs are keeping sheep in line through force. Not sure what would be the outcome of an actual sheepdog wolf encounter. I would bet on the wolf.

No, what sheep do is they herd sheep and take them to be sheared. or to the barn. Or slaughtered. A sheep dog makes the sheep go left, go right, stop in place, go too fast, slow down, etc.. The sheepdog says, ‘you do where my master wants you to do.”

Sheepdogs aren't a symbol of liberty: they are the symbol of oppression. Sheepdogs herd the people, telling them what they can or can’t do. They represent fascism, not liberty. They are not the protectors, they are the forces of repression. They are as authoritarian as you can get, which is probably why aggressive people latch onto this.

I have yet to see someone who uses this analogy demonstrate they have spent any time around sheep. Or Sheepdogs. I grew up going to sheepdog trials (and got my start as a lawyer defending them [that was a joke]). Actually, sheepdog trials are where you see sheepdogs in action.

I hope that gives you an idea of how fucked this analogy is.

Anyway, when we herded sheep we had shepherd's crooks and sheepdogs: not to protect them, but to herd the sheep. we had sheep shears when we sheared them. And shovels when we cleaned the pen.

We were keeping them in line. Not protecting them from wolves.

The blog "On Violence" went into this in depth. but I have yet to see another farmer say this is a shit analogy. So, I'll do it: It's a shit analogy.

See also:

A Moment of Science: Sheepdogs and Wolves

On Violence's essays:

“The Surprising History of American Sniper’s “Wolves, Sheep, and Sheepdogs” Speech”

- On V in Other Places: Slate's "The Surprising History of American Sniper’s “Wolves, Sheep, and Sheepdogs” Speech”

- Race, Evil, and Black Wolves: Answering the Critics Part 2

- The Most Insulting Part of the Sheepdog Analogy

- Now Who's Being Naive? When Sheepdogs Kill Sheep

- The Internal Inconsistency of Sheep, Sheepdogs and Wolves Analogy

- Some Closing Thoughts on Wolves, Sheep and Sheepdogs Analogy
- Wolves, Sheepdogs and the Cops I Know)

Why knowing a second language is a good thing.

In this case, the person should learn American Sign Language (ASL)

Because the gesture he is making is the one for "asshole" in American Sign Language.

We can only hope that he has realised he is an asshole, but I seriously doubt he has the intelligence.

Well, we're having a laugh at you.

Hey, Ta-Nehisi Coates: this is why your argument for reaprations is nonsense.

OK, first off, we are talking about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which goes a lot further than just the 50 US states and Territories. Slavery was international. After all, where did the slaves come from?

Why, Africa, of course. Which is your first hurdle. What was the level of those nations' complicity in the trade? Are you seriously going to ask countries such as Benin to pay its fair share of reparations? 

For over 200 years, powerful kings in what is now the country of Benin captured and sold slaves to Portuguese, French and British merchants. The slaves were usually men, women and children from rival tribes — gagged and jammed into boats bound for Brazil, Haiti and the United States.

Digging into the depths of African complicity in the trade basically rips any pan-Africanist veneer off your argument. You want to make Third World nations pay for your lifestyle? Have you been to any of these countries?

Or just France and Switzerland?

Seriously, dude, you need a reality check if that is the case.

And we don't need to leave Africa to see how this topic will devolve into a case of silly buggers given that Africans were complicit in the slave trade. The African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission called for the West to pay $777 trillion to Africa within five years back in 1999. Which was made even weirder by the United Nations sponsored World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban South Africa in September 2001. This conference resulted in  a resolution stating that the West owed reparations to Africa due to the "racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance" that the Atlantic slave trade caused.

Go figure!

Next, Slavery helped pay for the industrial revolution, which means most western societies should be footing the bill: not just the US.

As I pointed out in my previous post: the next question is who would qualify. Since Prince Harry's and Meghan Markle's son is descended from slaves: would that mean that someone from one of the richest families in Britain would get reparations? How would that play out if descendants of Caribbean slaves didn't get reparations?

So, who gets and who pays "reparations" is a seriously thorny topic: especially if we toss in the amount of time which has passed since the end of slavery.

Then there is the mechanism for reparations and what form would they take. But the problem is that poverty isn't just limited to inner city blacks, as Fred Hampton was well aware. Urban decay doesn't just effect black people.

The thing which hits me is that this subject is far more complex than the US media is capable of addressing. Toss in that the Democrats are embracing this over more pressing issues, such as the environment (which also relates to race: look into the environmental justice movement). Poor people are more likely to live near environmental degradation.

The real upshot is that many of the manifestations of "reparations" would also have to include people other than those who are descendants of slavery (or indentured servitude, or  transportation). It also needs to be more than just monetary and embrace issues such as education, urban renewal, better housing, the environment, jobs, etcetera.

On the other hand, stirring up division just might help get Trump re-elected along with a republican legislature. Nothing like people wanting a nebulous concept for something which ended 156 years ago.

Two lessons: it is with the best intentions that the worst work is done.

And be careful what you wish for: you might get it.