“We no longer glorify heroic deeds, we glorify heroic suffering.” — Greg Cochran
Yup. To be a member of a “victimized” class (women, Blacks, LGBTOSHTFU, etc.) is the sine qua non of modern heroism. But the holder of a Medal of Honor or Victoria Cross? War criminal.
All of which reminds me: it’s Range Day at this address.
We are constantly being reminded that the United States is a representative republic (which it is) as well as being a liberal democracy (which is also true). For the longest time, I’ve had the gnawing suspicion that the two concepts may be antithetical, nay even contradictory, and recent events have proven me correct.
The standard-bearers of the modern liberal democracy have tended towards the “liberal” part of the description, and their modernism has turned liberalism away from its classical roots (the Enlightenment) towards a more baleful and statist, ergo illiberal ethos. It is small wonder, therefore, that this modern liberalism is attacking both the “representative” and even “republic” towards a full democracy, into a government created by a national popular vote instead of a democracy limited by proportional representation. (The sudden popularity of socialism — one of the more repressive governmental systems, is simply indicative of this intent, and the “democratic” prefix attached thereto is, like most of socialism, a figleaf to mask its true purpose.)
It seems clear that if we are to reverse this trend, we need to try to implement an antithetical alternative to the liberal democracy — that antithesis being a conservative democracy, as explained here by Yoram Hazony. I’m pretty sure that few if any conservative small-r republicans will take issue with this principle, for example:
Liberals regard the laws of a nation as emerging from the tension between positive law and the pronouncements of universal reason, as expressed by the courts. Conservatives reject the supposed universal reason of judges, which often amounts to little more than acceding to passing fashion. But conservatives also oppose an excessive regard for isolated written documents, which leads, for example, to the liberal mythology of America as a “creedal nation” (or a “propositional nation”), defined solely by certain abstractions found in the American Declaration of Independence or the Gettysburg Address. Important though these documents are, they cannot substitute for the Anglo-American political tradition as a whole—with its roots in Scripture and the English common law—which alone offers a complete picture of the English and American legal inheritance.
Yes. The famous expression on the Statue of Liberty “Give me your tired, your huddled masses…” etc. is a lovely sentiment, but it is not policy which allows untrammeled immigration, nor does it confer a “right to immigrate to the United States” upon the rest of the world’s populace.
Read the whole thing. It’s really long, but it has to be — overturning a liberal democracy and reverting to a conservative one does not lend itself to bumper-sticker aphorisms so beloved by the Left.
And overturn it we must, in order to return to the proud Anglo-Saxon heritage that is the foundation of our Western civilization.
Afterthought: note the emphasis placed on religion — most specifically, Christian religion — by Hazony. I should point out that I, an atheist, have absolutely no issue with it. I am a conservative first, an atheist second, and I treasure the Christian values of our heritage and their foundation of our culture. That said, the values I treasure are also the traditional aspects of Christianity and not the modern-day travesty they have become. My conservatism is all-embracing.
So let me make sure I’ve got this absolutely clear: if the Gummint passes a patently un-Constitutional law and someone refuses to comply with it, that person would be a “homegrown terrorist”?
Got it. I should also point out that it was Lenin who first equated refuseniks with being terrorists.
Here’s a tip for this asshole: you keep making shitty laws and stockpiling bodybags, and we’ll keep buying ammo. We’ll see who runs out first.
Via Insty, I saw this rubbish about something called a “Sex Bucket List”. After looking at the activities enumerated, I can safely show my own sex bucket list as follows:
Kim’s Sex Bucket List
1)
That’s the (somewhat dubious) advantage of having come of age in the early 1970s and having played in a rock band during that era: I’ve tried pretty much everything (certainly all the things listed in the article), and what’s left that I haven’t tried, I have no interest in trying because pain and / or illegal.
I’m not interested in sharing any more about myself — even the above makes me queasy — but there is a generality I can share, based on my own experience and that of most of my peers: not much beats the old Missionary Position, in a bed, with someone you love.
My favorite ex-diplomat got all shooty (which he can do with impunity since he fled Moscow West for the wilds of NC) and the results can be found here (for .45 ACP goodness and a very pretty lil’ gun), and here (for some AK vs. AR action with the DiploSon).
The results of the latter competition are completely predictable.
Also, if you’re finished with the gunny stuff, his regular (i.e. political) observations are, as always, right in the X-ring.
My RFI is for someone in the north Texas / southern Oklahoma area who can weld heavy steel. Anyone out there interested in doing a long-term project with me?
Here’s my line of thinking. When a bullet strikes a soft target, you’ll get penetration to varying degrees (as we’ve been seeing here, for example). That kind of measurement and analysis is made possible with the use of ballistic gel.
I want to measure something a little different: kinetic energy. I know that ammo manufacturers usually supply this information in ft/lbs for their products (at least, most of the centerfire rifle stuff does); but I want to try it for myself.
Here’s what I want to do. We’re all familiar with the tractor-pull thing, where trucks compete to see who can shift a specific weight the furthest (with a shifting weight which increases drag over distance). I want to apply that same principle, only using a weighted sled running on rails.
The methodology would be to have a stout piece of steel, e.g. a 1-ft x 1-ft x 2″ thick steel square — the target (solid, to avoid any thought of penetration) — welded to a weight with four wheels (like below) attached.
Ideally, the whole weighted/wheeled target would weigh about 100lbs.
Then I’d want to get two lengths of steel I-beam laid on their side, upon which the wheels would run, set on level ground. (I don’t know how long the beams would have to be; 10′? 15′? We’d have to see. Or if we needed shorter channels for ease of use, remove the wheels and replace with skids instead.)
The we could shoot the 1′-square steel target, and see how far the bullet(s) pushed the sled along the rails.
This all came about when I was talking to someone about the wisdom / folly of hunting a Cape buffalo with a .45-70 Govt vs. the Usual Suspects (.375 H&H, .458 Win Mag etc), and the guy (a seasoned hunter) said that it was all very well to use a round which penetrates a buffalo, but if it went all the way through, it was wasted energy; he’d prefer to dump all the energy into the animal, to “knock it on its ass”, as it were. A buffalo’s hide / body is tough, all right: but the old “needle vs. bowling ball” argument always rears its head.
My goal in this is not to test rifle ammo, but to test self-defense pistol cartridges. I believe that if you were to combine ballistic gel-penetration numbers with the sled’s momentum / ft.lbs data, you’d be able to add yet another dimension, and judge a cartridge better than simply relying on the Lucky Gunner formula of muzzle velocity / bullet expansion / gel penetration.
If someone (e.g an engineer) has experience doing this kind of thing and wants to scope / design the project, please let me know. Right now, I’m just blue-skying the thing out of ignorance.
Or has this, or something similar, been done elsewhere and I just missed the party?
Your thoughts in Comments.