Those naughty peasants.

This is heartwarming:

Instead, Obo’s surviving villagers raised their own volunteer scout force (depicted above), armed it with homemade shotguns, and began disseminating intelligence on the LRA’s movements using the village’s sole, short-range FM radio transmitter.

But...but...don't these guys know that they need a government to protect them from...well...prospective other governments?

Check out that video, seriously.  The shooting enthusiast in me absolutely squirts sweat watching him "fit" that shell into the barrel.  No doubt he's smart enough to know that it's risky.  But it's preferable to the alternative, for him, and there he goes.

You ask me why I love human beings?  I give you that man there.

The spirit of resistance is there, despite the existing government that can't be bothered, and the usurping one in the (at least more openly honest) rape-and-kill mode.  Actually, it's more than the spirit of resistance:  these people actually get it, in full:  government feels no obligation to actually protect those it "owns", and on the other hand it will commit any conceivable atrocity to "acquire" those it does not yet "own".

They get that, so much so that they have begun to make their own arrangements, despite the risk.

Fantastic.



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Hat tip to Mike Vanderboegh.  (Thanks Mike.  I needed that today.)

I did not know this about Jon Stewart.

Let's face it:  there is too much to keep up with.  I think most everyone understands this at some level or another.  Still, I admit that this caught me by real surprise:

This morning, I saw Kurt link to this fairly amazing Daily Show clip on...Project Gunwalker:

Wow!

What's most amazing is how well he captured some of the dynamic in this.  (No, not all of it--but more on that later in this post.)  As satire, it was well-done;  the absurdity of actual events comes right through and it's funny because of it.  As he says in the middle of the segment,

You're baiting me...

So the head of the ATF didn't just know about this plan...
he was TiVo-ing it.

Even for those of us who have been following this since Mike and David broke it in January, that's just funny.  And as "The Birdcage Liner Of Record" and "Pravda on the Potomac" continue to run their hitpieces of denial in unquestioned support of the Establishment's bullshit story(ies), one can't help but grin a little bit as The Daily Show lays the gist of it right out there.

Now...please do not misunderstand.  I have not suddenly started believing that we'll solve our problems by politely and officially appealing to the mercies of those who foisted it upon us in the first place, despite Mike's and David's heroic efforts (which have gone further than I ever expected them to in the first place--those guys are nothing if not inspiring).  There is also the (significant) issue that "solving" Gunwalker will not only return us to the uninterrupted victim-disarmament-parade-in-progress, but in the end will have "shown" (just you watch) that even the most ardent ATF critics aren't really contesting the need for Federal gun laws, but rather just the competence with which they are enforced. (No, this doesn't have to be at all related to what people actually think, but you understand that already, right?)

But, and please forgive me for the simple prurience:  dang, it's sure fun to watch 'em hoisted by their own petard, innit? Seriously, this could not be happening to a nicer bunch of fellas!

___________________

It was in chasing a link in Kurt's article above, talking about how this was not the first time that Stewart had made it (favorably) into a Gun Rights Examiner piece, that I realized I had missed John Pierce's article from last September, here.  In it were two real surprises.  First, check out this segment.  Be sure to catch the whole thing to get the full effect:

Did you catch this quote?  Pierce has it as text in his article:

He said the apology was for “connecting irresponsibly the actions of two psychotics to an entire group of reasonable people expressing their Constitutional rights... the point is, I was wrong and Heston was right.”

I'm not saying we're suddenly dealing with a Rothbard libertarian here, but my respect level for Stewart has definitely just gone up.

The biggest surprise, though, was that Pierce quietly linked to this segment, without so much as a word about his own (obvious) involvement in it:

Dang!  Again, I did not know this about Jon Stewart.  That's an amazingly forthright piece, given the subject, and again, his satire works as a foil to the absurdity of moral relativism based on which rights you like and which ones you don't.

___________________

Which brings me back to Gunwalker.  (Told you I'd get back to it.  :-)

As good as the segment was, Stewart didn't even touch what may be the real zinger behind Gunwalker:  that the whole thing may have been a cynical political ploy to manufacture support for domestic gun control.  (You laugh.  "Was Watergate just a third-rate burglary?")

I'm guessing that he just may not know about that part yet.  But given all the above, I do wonder now just what he'd do with it.

Suprynowicz: Cargo Cults

Fascinating metaphor from Vin Suprynowicz:  Cargo Cults.  I hadn't heard of that one, specifically (go to Vin's article for the details), but it seems to apply well enough:

With astonishing patience they wait, nodding and smiling in expectation, for the judge to finish reading their arguments and citations, expecting him at any moment to slap himself upside the head and exclaim “My God! When it’s all laid out in proper order like this, the conclusion is inescapable! Bailiff, release the defendant and issue him a formal apology from the court. Then go shackle those scurrilous IRS agents over there; we’re arresting them on charges of fraud, treason, misapplying their own statutes, and extorting payments under color of law!”

Try to tell them today’s federal judges aren’t going to read all those stacks of documents; that’s the LAST thing they want to do; they’re curiously incurious, well-schooled but actually mildly dull-witted political appointees who understand instinctively that their job is little different from the municipal judge in traffic court, giving you a minute to get it off your chest, then slamming down his gavel and saying “Nice try. Guilty. Pay your fine or go to jail.”

“But they HAVE TO read my exhibits and my pleadings,” these noble Quixotes will insist. “It’s their JOB. And when they do, they’ll see It’s all there, tracing the legal definition of “from any sources” and every other phrase, all the way back to 1913. They’re all ‘legal terms of art,’ like the difference between ‘traveling’ on the highways, for which they can’t make you get a license, and the excisable commercial activity defined as ‘driving.’ Once they’ve read these documents they CAN’T ignore them; they won’t have any CHOICE but to rule our way.”

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?  "This time for sure!"

There's a lot more there.  I've certainly got my disagreements with Suprynowicz on a few things, but he's earned far more than he's lost, and some of his metaphors are just plain inspired.

Arthur Silber on Stockholm Syndrome.

This is important, and I would urge what few people ever lay eyes on these pages (you too, monitors), to go read it all.  A short sampling:

If you live in the United States (and more broadly, if you live in any modern State), you are a victim of Stockholm Syndrome. This is necessarily true, even if you passionately protest against the overwhelming majority of the policies and actions pursued by the State in which you live. If you continue to live there, you suffer from Stockholm Syndrome due to that fact alone.

...

Most "dissenting" writers exhibit the characteristics of Stockholm Syndrome, even if to a somewhat lesser degree than reflexive supporters of the status quo. Consider the deeply awful Sam Smith article that I analyzed the other day. Smith identifies a number of reasons for his strong criticisms of Obama -- and then proceeds to offer transparently unconvincing rationalizations for voting for Obama next year (because, as Smith says, Obama will "do us the least harm," ignoring that Obama, too, is committed to your complete destruction).

Smith, like many, many others, thus adopts the captor's perspective, and "fights" on the captor's terms -- and in this sense, he is "defending" his captor, just as a sufferer of Stockholm Syndrome does. If you fight in the manner permitted by those who hold you hostage, how likely do you think it is that your captors will set you free? That's right: they won't. Your captors permit you to "fight" them in certain ways because they know you'll lose.

...

On this point, we must begin (as I always endeavor to do) with the terrible fact that Obama claims the "right" and power to murder anyone in the world, whenever he wants, for whatever reason he wishes, that is, he claims to hold absolute power. In other words: if you continue to live, it is only because the State permits you to. Gone altogether is even a nod toward the notion of unalienable rights, or that "life" is first among them. Thus, the State gives life by simply not taking it.

It's all like that.  (For those who have not read Silber before:  he's crude, verbose, almost comically self-referential, and he will challenge you.  Don't make the mistake of letting any of that get in the way of what he says.)

Silber has become one of my must-reads*, right up there with Grigg and Wolfe and Shaffer.  I first referenced/reviewed him back in January of 2010, and he has proven reliably on the money since then.  What I continue to find most fascinating about the man is that he appears to have come from just about as far away a perspective as I could imagine personally, and yet arrived at substantially the same place I have. (If ever you want to see what white-hot criticism of "progressives" looks like, just spend a little time at Silber's place.)

And the Stockholm Syndrome metaphor, just like the battered-spouse metaphor, works.

Have it at your command.


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* I distinguish "must-reads" from other important sources, and for me the distinguishing feature is the art of their writing.  McElroy and Balko, for example, are daily links, and nobody gives you the news you need in the way that you need it like those two, but where they report, inform and analyze, some writers really come alive, not just with what they say but with how they say it.

Father's Day: we are all Thomas J. Ball.

What matters most to a father?

"His only consolation, the company of his children, was sadistically withheld from him. The unfathomably arrogant and completely unaccountable functionaries who did so are people who have learned how to monetize the misery of the innocent."

Thus passes Thomas J. Ball.

Parents--fathers and mothers alike--you do understand that we are all Thomas J. Ball, right?

Great.  Not only are we all Jose Guereña, now we're all Thomas J. Ball, too.

She didn't know. Well, I'm sure she does now.

Yes, I know this event was from last fall, but it was just today that WRSA and AP clued me in to it.  The date is trivial;  the event is not, despite its frequency.  As Billy Beck so poignantly put it, "Man, it gets hard to remember them all."

The news item itself:



Actually, the only thing that's news is that it appears that Chrisman actually was fired over the event.  (It is more a matter of simple historical analysis, rather than unfounded cynicism, to observe that this case was exceptional only because Chrisman's partner could not bring himself to defend Chrisman's actions, and was the one who provided the damning testimony.  Without that, who wants to bet that we'd even have heard of this case?  It is also just a matter of historical analysis to note the absolutely stunning rarity of anyone in The Family The Brotherhood The Gang Law Imposement law enforcement "rolling over" on a brother member no matter what the circumstances;  the unnatural statistical anomaly is so well-known in our collective consciousness that we make movies about it, perhaps in an attempt to convince ourselves that it is rare, rather than common.)  And as of this writing, I don't see anything other than a firing.  Unless you count the police union's fundraising barbecue for Chrisman after he was canned.  They're making quite sure he gets his due process, when (and if: it's gotta be said) ever the "day in court" comes.

Rodriguez, of course, remains dead.  So does his dog.

This post, though, is actually about Rodriguez' poor mother.  Watching her in the above video, it's pretty obvious she did not expect the result of her call for "help" to be her son's murder.  She, like so many of us, was probably trained from birth that calling 911 brings people whose primary goal is to help, and so she probably called in perfectly good faith.

She didn't know, and I admit that makes me heartsick.

Well, I bet she knows now.

'No Knock Raid': the music video

Arctic Patriot:  "I am completely unable to Jose Guerena's murder out of my head."
Billy Beck:  "Jose Guerena. That was his name. Man, it gets hard to remember them all."

And Guereña is just the most recent.  (Hell, by this writing, we can be bloody sure he's no longer the most recent.)

Well, someone noticed:



Hat tip to Radley Balko.