Just One

I don’t want anyone to read something sinister in what follows;  it’s simply a thought exercise.

A couple of days ago I read this article:

Two FBI special agents were fatally shot Tuesday morning while serving a warrant in Sunrise, the agency confirmed, calling it “a very dark day for the FBI.”

The agents, it turns out, were serving said warrant on some scrote who is a child molester and who did the right thing by offing himself after whacking the two feds, thus saving us all the hassle of a trial.  He’s not important to the story, so forget all about him.

The article’s headline is what caught my attention, because what it showed was just how easy it is to ambush law enforcement officers;  and what it reminded me of is a story of a WWII British fighter pilot who, during the dark days of 1940 when the Nazis had overrun Western Europe and were seemingly poised to invade Britain as well, went home for a brief bit of leave/furlough.  Sitting chatting with his father about the state of the world, he was surprised when his father asked him if he could get him a pistol or revolver.  When the pilot asked why, his father simply said:

“So I can get my one.”
“One what?”
“German.”

The old man, who’d fought in WWI, explained that he was too old to join a military unit, but he was determined to “do his bit” for the war effort, and had decided that if he and thousands of others could all just kill a single German each, the task of occupying Britain would be impossible.  The fact that he would almost certainly be killed in return didn’t bother him at all, because his death would be part of a greater good.  “After all,” he concluded, “if Britain is going to ask its young men like you to sacrifice themselves in this war, why shouldn’t we all be prepared to make the same sacrifice?  We’re all in this together, after all.”

What makes this subject so current is all the threats being oh-so cavalierly thrown our way by the Left, whether by loony Leftist politicians or by their equally-loony acolytes in the Press and academe, with talk of “deprogramming”, “universal gun confiscation” and the like — in other words, compelling those who disagree with their politics (the “seditionists” or “Trumpists”) to change their philosophy and/or behavior and be forced to show support for and comply with their ghastly policies and governance.

There sure is a lot of compulsion being talked about, isn’t there?  But none of that is possible in the face of a mass of people who, like the pilot’s father, are prepared to “get their one”.  That’s what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was lamenting when he wrote these words:

What would things been like [in Russia] if during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there, paling with terror at every bang on the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people?

Nowadays, of course, there’s a problem with Solzhenitsyn’s proposition in that the modern State knows so much about people that a concerted effort at resistance — even by half a dozen people — might well be anticipated and probably doomed to failure.  Efforts to create a “militia” or any kind of ur-Maquis French Resistance are going to be compromised by infiltration by law enforcement and subsequent destruction.

But if the above stories from Florida and WWII Britain tell us anything, it’s that properly-motivated individuals acting alone are quite capable of deadly resistance, even when facing the nigh-certain consequence of death for themselves.

It’s an interesting hypothesis, isn’t it?

Law-Abiding

From Chris Muir, an excerpt:

So, because I’m a law-abiding type, I won’t use the term “China virus” — I’ll just carry on referring to it as the Chink virus, as I always have.

And when they ban that, I’ll ignore them.  My respect for the law only goes so far, i.e. when the law runs afoul of the Constitution.  As it has, here.

Just for the record:  regardless of any executive order, law or regulation which says otherwise, I’ll call the Chinese-originated Covid-19 “Wuhan” virus whatever the fuck I want.

Not Quite True

Here’s an interesting situation:

Former congressional candidate Laura Loomer revealed that she was banned from owning a firearm.  Loomer has gained notoriety for being subject to some of the most brazen forms of Big Tech censorship over the past two years.
Her firm nationalist views have made her an easy target for Silicon Valley censors.  She has been banned from social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  In addition, her ability to do business has been greatly stymied after she was banned from GoFundMe, PayPal, and Venmo.  Chase shut down her ability to do online banking.  To make matters worse, Comcast prevented her campaign from sending texts and emails to voters, while the company donated to her opponent, Lois Frankel in Florida’s 21st congressional district.
This is only the tip of the iceberg as far as the private sector crusade against Loomer goes.  The conservative activist was kicked off Uber and Lyft, on top of being prohibited from using UberEats.

But here’s the fun part:

Despite having no felony or domestic violence convictions and never been declared to be mentally unfit by a judge, Loomer’s name has allegedly been placed in a secret Federal “no buy” list that the FBI keeps. This list is part of the federal government’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

Of course, that doesn’t mean she can’t own a gun — just that she can’t buy a gun through “regular” channels that require the NICS check before she can take possession.

Here in Texas, by the way, any Concealed Handgun License (CHL) holder can buy a gun through said channels without going through the NICS check, because the state of Texas has already run all the background checks necessary and as far as they’re concerned, that’s that.  If the feds have a beef with the individual that isn’t part of the standard background check, it’s up to them to inform the state.  I don’t know if Floriduh has a similar setup — they should — but my FL Readers will no doubt tell me.

It’s one of the main reasons I got my CHL when I moved to Texas.  I know all the arguments against having a “permit” to enjoy one of my principal Constitutional freedoms, but the way I saw it back then, if it kept the fucking Feddle Gummint out of the process, it was worth it.  And subsequent events have proved me right.

In any event, Miss Loomer doesn’t seem to be a criminal;  her greatest “crime” seems to have been uncovering malfeasance through Project Veritas, and as there’s no actual legal reason not to possess a gun — criminal record, mental incapacitation, etc. — there’s no reason why some friendly citizen of Florida can’t sell or give her a gun for her own protection.

Just sayin’.

New Day, Same Problem, Different Group

So let’s take a look at this new warning from the .dotgov.  Here’s the summary:

The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin due to a heightened threat environment across the United States, which DHS believes will persist in the weeks following the successful Presidential Inauguration.  Information suggests that some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence.

What interests me about this diktat  is not that it’s spurious bullshit (it is), but in terms of this language it could have been equally applicable after Trump was elected President.  Let’s parse the thing, to get the parallels to 2017.

  • “Some ideologically-motivated violent extremists”  — Antifa?  Most definitely.
  • “Objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition” — Anyone remember the Washington D.C. riots during and after Trump’s inauguration?
  • “Other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives” — that would be the completely false Russian “involvement” of 2017.

All these and more could have been good reasons for Trump to invoke this very kind of action, back in early 2017.

But he didn’t.

Yet because a couple hundred idiots invaded the Capitol, walked off with Nancy Pelosi’s lectern and sat behind her desk, now it’s Defcon-3 and BOLOs for “terrorists”?  Just a reminder:  the “insurgents” who broke into the Capitol weren’t carrying weapons, didn’t throw Molotov cocktails around in the streets or public places, didn’t burn and pillage shops and office buildings, and didn’t beat up innocent people in the streets.  Even the ones arrested were released within hours, and if any effort was made to identify and charge the instigators of said riots, I don’t remember it and nothing ever came of it if there was such an effort.

Also, I don’t recall any of the 2021 “ringleaders” actually saying things like Black Lives Matter’s co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who said in 2015 that she and her fellow organizers are “trained Marxists”.

So which group is more likely to want to violently overthrow our republican form of government:  the “Proud Boys” / Trumpist conservatives or BLM / Antifa?

Anyone who suggests the conservatives, I would suggest, is the enemy of the United States and should be the ones targeted by the National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin of January 27, 2021 — because if ever there is a “false narrative”, it’s the one contained in the bulletin’s summary at the top of this post.

It’s an age-old tactic of the Left:  accuse your opponents of doing what you’re doing, or plan to do.

Nothing New

Here’s an interesting consequence of the Chinkvirus:

Denmark is set to introduce a government-sponsored coronavirus vaccine passport in coordination with airlines early this year, a national Danish broadcaster has revealed.

Now the idea of a “vaccination passport” has a whole bunch of people tied in knots, as it’s just one step away from the old “Papieren bitte”  way to install restrictions, tracking and control on travel.

I’m not one of them.  In the first place, proof of vaccination has always been a fact of life when traveling anywhere outside your home country;  try visiting India or Africa without proof of smallpox/yellow fever/etc. etc. in your passport, and you’ll be turned away from the boarding area.  (This, by the way, is as much to ensure that not only are you immune to catching the pox whilst Over There looking at strange temples etc., but that you don’t bring said pox back with you to an un-vaccinated home population.)  The only reason one doesn’t need proof of vaccination when traveling from the U.S. to places like Britishland and Euroland is because said diseases are not only notionally extinct (except where, surprise surprise there are large numbers of illegal and un-vaccinated border-jumpers), but where children are routinely vaccinated in order to attend school and so on.

So I’m indifferent to the idea of a Chinkvirus vaccination passport as part of international travel — and for that matter, in terms of local travel and behavior as well — and especially because once inoculated, I wouldn’t have to wear a stupid and ineffective face-condom every time I wanted to go out of the house.

Of course, the conspiracy morons are going to insist that Gummint is going to use Pox Passports to track individuals’ movements and behaviors, and of course that is a valid concern.  Just remember, though, that we’re talking about Government here:  the morons who can’t find their own assholes with both hands, a map and a trail of crumbs.

I know that in movies, government agents always require just a few clicks on their (Apple — LOL) laptops to create all sorts of data reports at the drop of a hat — the risible Person Of Interest  TV series being the apotheosis thereof.  Longtime students of both government, database systems and the combination thereof know that this facility is very much part of the suspension of belief required to view any work of fiction these days.

Besides, I’m relying on the criminal marketplace to produce passable copies of said documents in sufficient numbers to make the entire thing untenable — just as fake driver’s licenses can and have been used to enable fraudulent voting.

It’s a non-issue, and we have bigger things to worry about.

Insufferable

As I’ve often warned:  because our governing elites are in thrall to things that Europeans do — just off the top of my head, socialism, government-run medical systems, Corona cops and Scandinavian-level tax rates — what happens Over There often repeats itself Over Here.

Hence my bile directed at this latest little bit of Nannyism from Britishland:

Supermarket promotions of unhealthy food will be curbed as part of the Government’s war on obesity.
‘Buy one get one free’ deals on fizzy drinks, crisps and fatty foods will be banned in medium and large stores, as well as on websites, from April 2022.
And free refills of sugary soft drinks will be prohibited in restaurants and fast food outlets.

I know that we’ve seen examples of this before — once again off the top of my head, Malignant Dwarf  I mean  Mayor “Mike” Bloomberg’s ban on Big Gulps in NYFC a few years ago — but make no mistake, there is no part of your life that Bug Gummint isn’t interested in sticking its fat, snot-dripping wart-infested nose into.


By the way, I was in the restaurant business many years ago, and the “no free refills” is easily bypassed by asking customers if they think they’ll need refills, then adding a 1-cent surcharge onto the bill, making refills no longer “free”.  The cost of trying to police such practices makes the game not worth the candle, even for Gummint.

And as a one-time supermarket guy, let me assure you that any restriction on BOGO offers (or BOGOF, as they call it elsewhere) is just as easily circumvented in the scanning system — and that’s impossible for Gummint to monitor.