Category: Gummint

Genetic Slavery

Deep Thoughts, Gummint, Politics

From GeekWithA.45, commenting at this post:

One of my old friends, a scholar of Talmud and Kaballah, once opined that there was a really important reason $DEITY lead Moses and the Israelites around the desert for 40 years between their deliverance from slavery and arrival at the promised land, and it had little to do with petty Divine annoyance on the subject of golden calves.  It was, he explained, to give that society time to let the slave generation die off and train the new generation to conditions of self reliance, to become people fit to determine their own fate.  I think there’s a lot to that.  Slave instincts of servility are pernicious, and difficult for even the hardiest to shake off.

There’s more than a lot to that.  There is so much truth in that brief summation that I’m mortified that I’ve never put it into words.

 

“Private” Property?

Business, Rights

The concept of private property has always been a contentious one.  It shouldn’t have been, as one of the few actual duties of any government is to protect private property — but ask any landlord in, oh, California how difficult it can be to evict tenants who haven’t paid the rent.

It’s even worse in Scotland — surprise, surprise — where temporary tenant-relief laws passed during the Covidiocy are now set to become permanent:

Previously, once a landlord could prove three consecutive months of rental arrears or more, eviction would have been guaranteed.

Under these latest plans, no eviction will be guaranteed, regardless of circumstance or grounds. It will be all discretionary.

The Bill proposes that a tribunal will still be able to grant an eviction if it considers it reasonable, including where late or no-payment of rent is the reason why the landlord is seeking an eviction. But campaigners have questioned what is deemed reasonable.

Instead of making it an ironclad guarantee — if tenants haven’t paid rent for X period, you may evict them — there’s now good chance that a court may say that such eviction may be “unreasonable”, by some standard undefined.  Of course, that’s an egregious injustice which runs contrary to the concept of private property, and the landloards know it:

‘Generally, a landlord will have a reason to recover their property and once they’ve evidenced their grounds, they should be entitled to recover it.

‘It is unclear what – if any – evidence the Scottish Government are analysing to consider the removal of mandatory grounds for possession.

‘Abusing temporary provisions to satisfy a long-term policy objective appears to be an underhand tactic and the intention to permanently make all grounds for possession discretionary simply highlights the Scottish Government’s wilful and continued disregard of the value of the private rented sector.’

And here’s the weaselly response from the ScotGov:

‘It simply means a Tribunal can take into account all of the circumstances of both landlords and tenants relating to a case before making a decision.  Good landlords recognise the case for keeping tenants in their homes where possible, so adding a final check from the tribunal will support responsible management, recognise financial and other pressures that tenants can face and help prevent homelessness.’

What utter, Class A, Deluxe bullshit.

Bad Behavior

Gummint, Rights

In the light of Senile Biden’s appointment of this nutcase to run the new MiniTrue:

…we also have this:

Weibo, a Chinese microblogging platform, announced on Thursday plans to publish the IP addresses of all Weibo users both on their individual account pages and whenever they post comments, stating it was part of an effort to prevent “bad behavior” online.

Now, as someone who has blogged under my full name pretty much for most of my online life, this would seem to be no big deal.

There are some serious caveats to this, however.

In the first case, I’ve done this in the United States, where the government, at least nominally (coff coff ) is hamstrung by the First Amendment, and what Kim du Toit says on a blog shouldn’t matter to the Gummint at all, subject to the usual constraints of a polite, well-ordered society that we supposedly are (coff coff redux ).

Would I feel similarly at liberty if I were Do Toi Kim, resident of Beijing?  Hell no.

But we know — and Biden’s actions prove — that there are a number of totalitarian assholes and Democrats (some overlap) who would not only support a government action like China’s, but actually have called for it in the recent past.

Uniformed Thieves

Government Thugs, Law and Order

It’s shit like this that makes the RCOB drop faster than a Kardashian’s panties:

According to one woman, the China Grove police improperly seized several firearms belonging to her and her husband almost four years ago, and despite the fact that no charges have ever been filed against the couple, they’ve been unable to get their property returned to them.

Read the whole thing to get the full flavor of the bureaucratic bastardy involved.  (Red Curtain Of Blood Alert.)

Here’s what I think.  Either those guns are part of the China Grove PD’s inventory, or they were just taken as personal property by one or more of the cops, or they were sold off at a gun show by the police and the proceeds pocketed.

At the very least, the couple involved should get full restitution for the guns, at today’s prices.  What I would like to see is the PD or its officers being charged with theft, with prison sentences very much in play.

When cops act like thieves and hide behind the badge, they should expect no mercy from the law that they allegedly swore to uphold.

Recalibration Necessary

Crime, Gummint

Good grief.  In talking about some shady assholes who have been bribing SecServ agents, we find this laughable part:

Second, they were heavily armed:

[F]irearms and ammunition were seized. Specifically, a Glock 19 9mm handgun loaded with 17 rounds of ammunition, including one in the chamber, seven rounds of .308 caliber ammunition, and an ammunition box with over 35 rounds of handgun ammunition…
***
Law enforcement also seized firearm components typically used with long guns or assault rifles including, among other things: (1) a firearm barrel of an unknown caliber; (2) weapon stock attachments1; (3) foregrips2; (4) pistol grips; (5) a magazine cartridge; and (5) scope(s). In addition, law enforcement recovered a spotting scope, which can be used in a sniper/spotter team.
***
law enforcement seized a Sig Sauer P229 with five fully loaded magazines, containing a total of 61 rounds.

Heavily armed?

Lemme see… in my immediate reach as I sit here in my armchair, I have a 1911 with one loaded mag in the gun, one round in the pipe and another three mags next to it  (33 rounds), and a S&W 637 with a loaded cylinder and two speedloaders (15 rounds).

Five steps away in one direction will get me to a pump shotgun (5 rounds) and an AK-47 (60 rounds in three mags), as well as to a loaded Browning High Power and four spare mags (46 rounds).  Don’t ask what happens if I manage to open Safe #1.

Five steps in the other direction (I live in a small apartment) is a little less promising, with only a loaded S&W .357 Mag revolver (Ye Olde Beddesyde Gunne) with four speedloaders (30 rounds total).

And by the way:  seven whole rounds of .308 Win, and three dozen handgun rounds in an ammo can?  My God, it’s… an arsenal!

Which leads me to the contents of Ye Olde Ammoe Locquere, which are nunya, but I can assure you that it contains a little bit more than three dozen rounds.  (Even after Doc Russia and Mr. Free Market tried manfully to deplete my supplies a couple weeks back…)

Finally, I have more gun-related stuff in any one of my “Gun Junk” trunks than these mopes have.  Including spotter scopes, bipods, grips, stocks and rifle scopes.  And bayonets, too.

I don’t own any brass knuckles, because I prefer sap gloves.

Good thing I’m not working for Iran and bribing Secret Service agents, then.

Nationalized Healthcare

Gummint, Health

Here we go again:

Police probing a brutal mother-blaming hospital trust at the centre of the biggest ever maternity scandal to strike the NHS are now investigating 600 cases.
A damning five-year inquiry, published today, revealed 201 babies and nine mothers died needlessly during a two-decade spell of appalling care at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.

By the way, guess why these assholes would push [sic]  natural childbirth?  Because that’s a cheaper option than Caesarian (C-section) birth.

And with Government, it’s always about cost, not quality.