The Razor

This should be no surprise to guys who treat women the way they say they wanted to be treated and then lose out to the macho guys who treat them like dirt. I’ve even heard women say there is nothing more sexy than a man cleaning a bathroom, but the guys I see cleaning toilets in the airport don’t look oversexed to me.

“Couples in which men participate more in housework typically done by women report having sex less frequently. Similarly, couples in which men participate more in traditionally masculine tasks—such as yard work, paying bills, and auto maintenance—report higher sexual frequency,” says lead author of a study Sabino Kornrich, of the Center for Advanced Studies at the Juan March Institute in Madrid.

Now I don’t see why guys can’t do both: clean their guns and their baseboards, or fix dinner as diligently as their cars, but I’ve often wondered whether the “payoff” besides clean floors and well-cooked meals was there. This study proves it’s evidently not.

Free to good home: 16 year old boy. Requires high speed Internet, unlimited video games, designer clothes, food made to his exact specifications on demand, latest generation of iPod, no fixed bedtime, no chores around the house,  unlimited canned soda. Demands respect without providing any in return, drivers license without practicing driving because he knows everything at his age including how to drive. Unfortunately this knowledge does not translate to his grades which include a “D” in Spanish. Madre de Dios... Also unable to follow commands such as “Do your homework,” “Clean your room,” or “Hurry up, you’ll be late for school.” Excels at making his mother cry. Housebroken.

After introducing a plan to ban 150 different types of guns and high capacity magazines, Sen Diane Feinstein tweeted, “The bill will NOT affect hunting or sporting firearms. Instead, the bill protects hunters and sportsmen.” Congressman Rick Nolan (D-MN) , speaking on Face the Nation, defended the legislation, saying he didn’t need an assault rifle to shoot a duck. Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) also supports the legislation saying hunters don’t require assault rifles to kill game.

I’m always somewhat bemused when gun control advocates talk about hunting, as if the 2nd amendment is the right to eat meat, while the word “hunt” or “hunting” does not appear anywhere in the Bill of Rights. In fact by that logic one doesn’t need any type of gun to hunt; a bow and arrow or a flint-tipped spear can take down a deer just as effectively. The 2nd Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with hunting; it is much more powerful than that.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Never has a single sentence caused so much controversy. The late SCOTUS Chief Justice Warren Burger once criticized the amendment on the MacNeil-Lehrer news hour, claiming it was poorly written and a disaster for the country. Like many liberals he believed the amendment applied to organized state militias such as the National Guard. The original Bill of Rights lays out the rights granted to the People of the United States by the Creator, it does not give rights to government, whether state, local or federal. As for the definition of militia, Buckhorn provides reference to Title 10 United States Code section 311:

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. (b) The classes of the militia are – (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

So if you are a male American between the ages of 17 and 45, guess what? You’re part of the militia, and while Title 10 USC Sec 311 defines the National Guard and Naval Militia as “organized,” the 2nd Amendment does not begin “A well organized Militia.” Besides the “unorganized militia” is just a class of militia according to Title 10 USC Sec 311 so we don’t have a situation where one group of people bears arms and another does not. And better yet, like all the Bill of Rights the “right of the people” derives not from government or any sovereign, but from God – just as the rights to assembly, free speech and freedom of religion do. That undermines the idea put forward by gun control advocates that the term “well regulated” grants power to the government to control arms. The word “regulated” today isn’t the same as it was in 1789, and replacing the Framer’s word with  modern usage would make the amendment nonsensical. How could a right granted by God be controlled by a government of man?  A better modern word would be “trained” or “provisioned”, but it’s unfair to blame the Founders for failing to anticipate the evolution of English after they have succeeded in creating a document that has withstood the test of time so well.

Reams of paper have been produced supporting or disparaging this or that about the 2nd Amendment, and brighter men than me have argued both for and against it, but my view is that the Founders of the Republic had a nation like Switzerland in mind. While gun control advocates are keen on comparing the US to the UK, Canada and Australia, nations that ban guns in most cases, they tend to ignore Switzerland. Switzerland does not have a professional army and instead relies upon civilians to participate and train in a militia. The Swiss are issued an assault rifle, currently the SIG SG 550, a fully automatic weapons that even US gun nuts can’t easily get their hands on*. The Swiss also have a very weak central government, something I believe the Founders preferred but became an idea that got lost after the North won the Civil War.

So the purpose of the militia isn’t to hunt, it’s not target-shooting, or even self-protection: it’s to level the playing field between the People and a tyrannical regime. This is something I hadn’t even realized myself until recently. In the past I’ve argued in support of gun ownership on the basis that self defense is a human right. I even have a bumper sticker on my car to that effect. But the 2nd Amendment is much more sublime. The amendment does not specify what kind of threat requires an armed population. It doesn’t say it’s necessary to protect against a foreign power, Indians, or the forces of mad King George V. It simply states that a militia is necessary for the security of a free state, and freedom is thread that is consistent throughout the documents of the period from the Declaration of Independence through the Articles of Confederation and finally, the Bill of Rights. That free state is so important that is requires a well trained and provisioned militia to secure it.

Could that threat be the tyranny of our own government? Why do you think the Founders placed it so high up in the Bill of Rights? They weren’t fools. They knew that tyrants often take power through democratic means. They recognized that power corrupts and over time any government can be corrupted from within, presenting a danger just as great as invasion from without. The 2nd Amendment therefore provides Americans with a “reset button,” allowing its citizens to resort to force of arms to remove any tyrannical government that comes to power. Such a government would possess the means of the state – billions of dollars, tanks, warplanes, and other tools of war to subjugate the citizenry, but as the American Revolution proved, and as shown by every counter-insurgency the US has participated in from the Philippine Rebellion of the 1920’s to Vietnam of the 1960’s and Afghanistan of today, superior men, arms and material do not in themselves guarantee victory.

The reality of this statement means that Americans would be fighting Americans. It wouldn’t be the first time; the greatest calamity ever to befall our nation was the Civil War, killing 620,000, the equivalent of 5.2 million Americans today, and setting the development of our nation back decades. The idea of Americans killing Americans repulses me in a way that is hard to describe. The extremes of Right and Left both celebrate the idea for the advancement of their own particular causes, and yet the very thought just makes me want to puke.

The best thing about having a “reset button” such as the 2nd Amendment is that it makes such scenarios unlikely. As my good Watcher’s colleague Joshupundit pointed out in a personal communication, extremists like Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam demand gun control because it makes it easier for them to impose their will on the majority of Americans once Americans are disarmed. “He (Farrakhan)  likes the idea of gun control because the [Nation of Islam] has it’s own channels to obtain firearms if they need them.” Ditto the American Communist Party. The masses will be disarmed but the extremists, whether inside the government or at society’s fringes, won’t be and their path to power will be unobstructed.

This reset button comes at a price. Every year Americans die by guns who would otherwise not, and it would be a grievous insult to comfort a parent who has lost a child to gunfire by saying that his or her life is the price we pay to guarantee freedom. But if we are to consider those lost by gun violence today, we also must consider those who would die under dictatorship. The 2nd Amendment minimizes the losses and insures our government’s, and by extension our society’s stability by making any serious attempt at destroying our democracy impossible due to the hundreds of millions of guns in the hands of 80 million Americans who bear them responsibly and vigilantly.
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*
Most people who aren’t familiar with guns don’t understand the difference between automatic and semi-automatic weapons; at least I didn’t until I started educating myself about guns and owning them. An automatic weapon is one that continuously fires until the magazine is empty after the trigger is pulled once. A semi-automatic fires one bullet each time the trigger is pulled. Assault rifles can be semi-auto or full auto, but those under consideration for banning are semi-auto because full auto versions are highly restricted.

Automatic weapons are for all intents and purposes banned from private ownership in the US. While it is possible to get a license for one, the guns are expensive and highly regulated. Most of those I have seen in action are rented at gun ranges by guys with more testosterone than sense. Want to blow $30 in 5 seconds? You can by firing an AK-47 at full auto. In the process you’ll pretty much hit everything BUT the target you are aiming for which is why I don’t see a need for a fully auto weapon. A gun on full auto will pull up and controlling it becomes like wrestling a python, but some guys like to show off at the ranges by making noise. It makes a lot of money for the ranges and ammo manufacturers, but honestly I prefer the maxim “One shot one kill,” myself. As a result I don’t believe a ban on them tilts the playing field towards tyranny the way a ban on assault rifles would.

Congratulations to this week’s winners.

Council: Bookworm Room –To win the future, conservatives need to give voters a positive image of a can-do America and a can-do Republican Party

Noncouncil: Caroline Glick-Bye Bye London

Full voting here.

I once had an angel in my life, and 33 years ago today that angel departed me. She was born in May 1975 to my sister and her husband, their first child of eight. It was immediately apparent she was special, and within hours we knew that she had been born with Down’s Syndrome. Worse was to come when her difficulty “pinking up” or oxygenating her tissues lead to a diagnosis of a congenital heart defect. I was only a child myself, and didn’t understand her condition. All I knew was that she was special to me. I guess I connected to her in an obvious way, and my sister granted me the honor of being named her godfather. I remember standing at the baptismal font in church as she was baptized, oil and ashes rubbed on her tiny little forehead by the pastor’s meaty paw, feeling the gravity of the responsibility on my slim shoulders through the incomprehensible Latin and haze of incense.

For four years I grew up with her, and while her development lagged behind children without the condition, she excelled in providing everyone she touched with unconditional love. I almost hesitate to use that phrase here because it has been so debased over the years, but those of us who were touched by her or those like her, no other words will do. I was her uncle but also her playmate, protector and care giver. For four years she shared this world with me and taught me lessons that I’m still struggling to master decades later. She was “retarded” yet understood Life in ways that I can only glimpse in dreams. She lived in the moment as if each was precious and timeless.

Those moments ceased on January 22, 1980, on the operating table in an attempt to mend the heart that she had been born with, the outcome shredding all the hearts of those of us who had been blessed with them. My mother still cries remembering her, and the tears flow whenever I allow myself to remember the beauty of her smile and the tinkling of her voice, something that I allow myself to do more as I get older, Time proving just how special those moments spent with her were. My sister changed, and her view of me changed and things have never been the same since. She went on to have other children and a full life of her own.

At least I had those 4 years. Sure I wasn’t old enough to truly appreciate them, or perhaps I was because at that age I had yet to be corrupted by Cynicism, Failure, and Knowledge that inevitably came. But they are still within me, and the man I have become, the values I hold today were influenced by a little girl with long brown hair who I swung through the air long ago, filling it with her laughter that I can almost hear now.

Congratulations to this week’s winners.

Council: The Right Planet –Disunity in the Republic

Noncouncil: BeliefNet-She survived Hitler and wants to warn America

Full voting here.

Sunday former Joint Chief of Staff and Secretary of State Colin Powell speaking on Meet the Press said there is a “dark vein of intolerance in the Republican Party,” and that many Republicans “look down on minorities.”

Bullsh*t.

Whenever the mainstream media wants to attack the GOP they trot out Colin Powell, a man whose failures as Joint Chief of Staff and Secretary of State are conveniently forgotten whenever he says anything critical of “his party.”  The usual response by the GOP is to deny such charges by trotting out former RNC Chairman Michael Steel, former Congressman Allen West, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice – but that’ s just playing defense since all of these men have been attacked as being “Uncle Toms” or “House N****rs by the Left. So I’m responding the way Republicans should respond.

Bullsh*t.

Challenge Powell to answer any of the following questions:

2. Racism is a serious charge and one that is difficult to defend against. What proof do you have to support your statements?
   
3. The Democratic Party, lest we forget, was on the losing side of the Civil War and fought the Civil Rights movement a century later. Has the party been completely purged of these racists in the 40 years since  or is it possible there could be a “dark vein of intolerance” and many Democrats who “look down on minorities” ? When you said this were you thinking of anti-Semite and homophobe Chuck Hagel?
   
4. If Republicans are racist, describe how another party could oppose the Democrats without being racist in your view? Similarly, is it possible to oppose the policies of an African-American president and not be racist? If so, how?
   
5. Are the Democrats who fought the re-election of Congressman Allen West racist, or is it only racist if you oppose an African-American Democratic candidate?
   
6. Is it possible that what you are seeing is not an artifact of a particular party but the overall condition of humans in general? Racism isn’t just skin color thing as evidence by tribalism in Africa, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and the “Troubles” in Ireland. It also doesn’t explain attacks by African-Americans on African immigrants in Philadelphia, New York and Detroit.
   
7. Am I a racist for disagreeing with you? If so, what if I was black? If my skin color changed, would that make it okay? Should whites only criticize whites and blacks only blacks, you know, separate but equal disagreements? Isn’t that in itself racist, and doesn’t that make you, former Joint Chief of Staff and Secretary of State, a racist?
   

Congratulations to this week’s winners.

Council: Joshuapundit –The Hagel And Brennan Nominations And What They Tell Us about Obama

Noncouncil: Commentary/Alana Goodman-Hagel: “Let the Jews Pay for it”

Full voting here.

The Buddha taught everything changes, and that the root of human suffering was our resistance to the acceptance of this reality. Congress could use a few Buddhists right now because the way both parties are acting one would think that we’ve achieved some sort of permanent status in Washington DC.

The Republican Party lost its mojo last election after drinking tea to victory in 2010, and is acting like it will never be in power again. Likewise the Democrats are acting as if they will be the majority party in perpetuity and Obama won with a landslide last November even though he won fewer votes in ‘12 than he did in ‘08. Both statements would be true if time stopped today and never flowed again, but that isn’t its nature. The former prince of a tiny kingdom in India 2,500 years ago understood that and did so without polls, political consultants or reading op-ed pieces in the Washington Post.

Republicans today should be proposing legislation that benefits the majority party. Why? Because things change. It will find its groove again will likely retake the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016. In order to prepare for that day, they should be agreeing to the legislation being put forth by the Democrats. End the filibuster? Absolutely. Expand Executive orders? Yes. Give the president the power to raise the debt ceiling? We’re on board. Today the President talks of using an executive order to restrict gun rights. That will set a precedent for a Republican president in four years time to use an executive order to restrict abortion rights, so the GOP should cheer and the Dems should reconsider their support of such an expansion of executive power.

Similarly the Democrats should be proposing legislation that protects the minority power because it is likely they will become that in two years time and it takes time for laws to be legislated and put into place. They also should be putting into place laws that build strengthen the legislative branch over the executive because it is likely they will return to Congress under a Republican president.

Of course neither party is willing to do this because it would appear they are giving in to the other, but back in the day party leaders like Tip O’Neil and James Baker would have had the foresight to see an election or two down the road and recognize the rhythm of American politics, the pendulum that swings from the left to the right and back again, marking the passage of time in the Republic. For Republicans today it’s hard not to despair, but to quote from another great man a few thousand miles to the west of the Buddha (although only a few hundred years before Him), King Solomon who pondered the eternal truth of the statement, “This too shall pass.” And the Democrats who are exultant and ready to remake history as Progressive ideals conquer all, a reminder: “This too shall pass.”

It would behoove both Democrats and Republicans to prepare for today’s passing because as the Buddha taught, whether or not we like it, it will.

It seems 2013 is starting out to be The Year of the Sucker as CurrentTV staffers learn that their old boss, Al Gore wasn’t that different after all from their new boss the emir of Qatar.

“Of course Al didn’t show up,” said one high placed Current staffer. “He has no credibility.

“He’s supposed to be the face of clean energy and just sold [the channel] to very big oil, the emir of Qatar! Current never even took big oil advertising—and Al Gore, that bulls***ter sells to the emir?”...

“Al was always lecturing us about green. He kept his word about green all right—as in cold, hard cash!”

The new channel promises to “Inform! Inspire! Entertain!” and an old buddy of mine in the State Department forwarded me a copy of proposed programming that will start airing in the US in April.

The Big Bang Theory – a sitcom about a Ali, a wanna-be suicide bomber and his overbearing wife Fatima, played by Rosanne Barr. For some reason known only to Allah, Ali’s bombs never go off, a fact that his wife never stops criticizing him about, “You can’t blow up a balloon let alone a zionist bus stop.”

The Cave – a reality show starring 15 male jihadis competing for a chance to win 72 virgins in paradise. Each week contestants are kicked out of the cave for homosexual or bestial acts with a herd of unusually attractive goats kept nearby to tempt the contestants. The last surviving member gets a pair of explosive sneakers and a one way plane ticket to New York.

The Jews - A prime time drama about the Goldberg’s, an uber-rich family that along with other Jewish families runs the world. Pilot focuses on the patriarch Bernie whose wife nags him for spending too much time at the office helping to run the banking system. Bernie’s son Johah, who works in the weather control divison, schemes with his brother Jacob, who helps control the media, to take over the father’s empire by creating Hurricane Sandy. The scheme fails when Jacob’s employees fail to make much of the disaster for fear of hurting President Obama, who like all the world’s politicians is owned by the Old Man.

Arabia’s Top Model – Which one of these burka clad beauties will take home the prize – a day pass to drive the streets of Riyadh without a male relative? Watch the titillating show that everyone in the mosque is sure to be talking about to find out.

All in the Umma – A rapid-fire comedy about the struggles of a small-time cleric, Abdallah, in New York City whose wife can’t cook and his daughter can’t shut up. Pilot episode has the daughter marrying his brother’s son Fadi who then moves in to torment with crazy western ideas like women’s equality and religious tolerance.

Congratulations to this week’s winners.

Council:  The Mellow Jihadi –Corporals of the United States Marine Corps

Noncouncil:  Bob Owens-What You’ll See In The Rebellion

Full voting here.

If you thought the 98% was safe from tax hikes, that the leviathan we call the Federal Government would be sated with the blood and treasure of the top 2%, think again.

Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households

More than 80 percent of households with incomes between $50,000 and $200,000 would pay higher taxes. Among the households facing higher taxes, the average increase would be $1,635, the policy center said. A 2 percent payroll tax cut, enacted during the economic slowdown, is being allowed to expire as of yesterday.

Ah, but that 2% cut is to keep Social Security solvent for your future, so it’s not that bad, right? Well, yes it is that bad. Remember all that talk a decade back about keeping Social Security in a lockbox? Well it was just that: talk. Social Security funds are not saved and spent only on retirees. Instead that money is added to the general fund and replaced by an IOU. So that $1,635 extra you pay this year could easily go to Hollywood movie studios or rum producers in Puerto Rico. It does not add to the solvency of the fund; it’s just extra cash for the federal government, which is not unlike an extra gram to a meth head.

Some Democrats are now noticing the damage to their paychecks.

“What happened that my Social Security withholding’s in my paycheck just went up?” a poster wrote on the liberal site DemocraticUnderground.com. “My paycheck just went down by an amount that I don’t feel comfortable with. I guarantee this decrease is gonna’ hurt me more than the increase in income taxes will hurt those making over 400 grand. What happened?”

It’s interesting to see the assumption made by the poster between comfort and taxes, especially when he’s taking the hit and not some faceless Two Percenter. ““Obama is the biggest f***ing liar in the world. Why the f*** did I vote for him”?” Because sir, you are a sucker.

So pass this news along to your smug liberal friends who screamed about the wealthy paying “their fair share” and voted for Hope and Change in 2008 and 2012, and ask them where their going to find the extra $136.25 to send the people who own the President and his party.