Scum & Villains

Given the state concerned, one has to wonder what John and Sam Adams (not to mention John Hancock) would have thought of this piece of theft and anti-Constitutional skulduggery (brought to my attention by Reader Mike L., who is inexplicably resident* in said state):

A Beacon Hill committee met on Monday to discuss a proposed excise tax on firearms and ammunition, aimed at enhancing public safety in Massachusetts.

The proposed bill, introduced by western Massachusetts Representative Mindy Domb, seeks to increase the excise tax on firearms and ammunition, with the revenue directed to a Public Health and Safety Fund. This fund would support community-based research, public health interventions, and services for gun violence survivors and victims’ families.

“Tragic gun deaths and catastrophic gun injuries cost the great state of Massachusetts an astounding 3.5 billion dollars each year, of which 85.4 million dollars is paid by taxpayers,” said a testifier, Matthew Nugent, during the hearing.

The proposed excise tax is set at 4.75% of the wholesale value of each firearm and individual round of ammunition. If implemented, Massachusetts would join states like California and Colorado in using gun tax revenue for violence prevention and support services.

Now I’m not proposing — what does the Left call it?  oh yeah — direct action (a.k.a. violence) should be brought to bear against the people who are supporting this un-Constitutional and illegal theft.

All I’m saying is that Sam Adams (he — and  brother  cousin John both — of Sons of Liberty fame) would by now be firing up the tar barrels and plucking a few geese, and yea even preparing a few firebrands to be tossed into some houses.  Because if they were prepared to go all fire, tar & feathers on people over a tax on paper, imagine how they’d feel about a tax on guns.

But this is modern-day Massachusetts, not the pre-Revolutionary state where the whole thing started over taxes.

More’s the pity.


*Mike, my longtime Friend & Reader:  GTFO, willya?

Heroism As Cause For Expulsion

If this one doesn’t make your blood boil, we can’t be friends.

An 11-year-old boy in Michigan did something most adults would hesitate to do. He saw a classmate pull out a loaded gun in a school bathroom, and instead of freezing in fear, he lunged, disarmed the student, and prevented what could have been another tragic headline.

Nazzo fast, Guido.

The Lansing School District announced that the child will face “disciplinary action” for his bravery. Why? Because the district’s beloved “zero tolerance” policy doesn’t distinguish between a kid wielding a gun and a kid taking it away to save lives. Bureaucrats love to tell us they’re “keeping schools safe.” But in reality, they’ve created a system where blind adherence to rules matters more than actual safety.

And the philosophy behind this bastardy is quite simple:

The message to this boy, and to every other student paying attention, is clear: Don’t be brave, don’t take risks, don’t step in to help. Just sit down, stay quiet, and hope someone else will save you. That’s the lesson public schools are drilling into kids: obedience over courage, paperwork over principle.

My personal opinion is that the school administration — every single member who voted for this expulsion — should be stripped naked and flogged in the school gym, in front of the entire school.

I don’t just want pain, I want humiliation for these bastards as punishment for trying to turn our kids into quivering cowards — into Europeans, if you will — and even worse, punishing heroism instead of rewarding it.

Feel free to suggest your own ideas in Comments.  Be as creative as you want.

Control Freaks

What is it with Germans and their fixation on control?  Here’s the latest from their foremost corporate branch of Control Freaks International:

The 2026 Mercedes-Benz CLA and the 2027 Mercedes-Benz GLC are the automaker’s first truly software-defined vehicles, meaning they have the brains and chips for virtually everything on the car that’s controlled by software to be updated over-the-air. They have the new Mercedes-Benz operating system, known as MBOS, as well as fourth-generation MBUX infotainment systems with fancy touchscreens, all developed in-house.  The new MBOS represents a paradigm shift, says Ola Källenius, chairman and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Group. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, with 100 percent of the car reachable via over-the-air updates. Now, cars come in with an empty electronic control unit (ECU) and then Mercedes loads [the software] into it as part of the production process, he adds. In the past, the ECU came from a supplier with the software already pre-loaded. Not anymore. Mercedes wanted an end-to-end software package it created itself.

Am I the only one who is getting chills from this little exercise as described?  Here’s why I’m both apprehensive and white-hot angry.

“It’s the gift that keeps on giving, with 100 percent of the car reachable via over-the-air updates.”

And those “updates” would include “shut-downs”, all at the behest of MBOS — and if you don’t believe they would, you haven’t been paying attention to the recent history of Germany.

Also, remember that “the gift that keeps on giving” refers to the gift to Mercedes, and not to its customer.

Finally, if you think that these “updates” will remain free forevermore, you really haven’t been paying attention to the history of technology companies — and Mercedes is increasingly becoming more about technology than about engineering.  Which means that at some point, the design of the updates will be left to A.I.

How nice.

Funny, that:  the GLA 250 was always on my list of potential future car purchases.  Not anymore.  I wouldn’t accept one as a gift, because of what I’d be giving up to Mercedes:  my freedom and indepence.

Not The Same

From SOTI:

“A recent report from a United Nations Fact-Finding Mission paints a grim picture of Maduro’s Venezuela, especially after stealing the election in 2024, asserting violence, torture, arbitrary detentions, deaths in custody, deaths of protesters, sexual violence, forced disappearances, foreigners as hostages, etc.”

Ummmm lemme see:  an actual Communist dictator is doing all these terrible things, right?

Our own Commies just wish that Trump, who to them typifies all the above Bad Things, actually behaved like Maduro so they’d have something to really complain about.  But of course he doesn’t do any of that, despite the many calls from people like myself to start the one-way helicopter service already.

A “forced disappearances” thing sounds pretty damn good from where I’m standing — but no doubt someone’s going to have a problem with this.

All I can say is that if I owned a chopper and had a pilot’s license…

Sorry, Love

I see that Charlie Kirk’s young widow Erika has (unsurprisingly) gone all Christian and forgiven the loathsome little shit who murdered her husband.

I can’t find it in myself to do that, and it’s not because I’m not a Christian.

You see, “forgiveness” has gotten a bad reputation of late, and that’s because we see it all over the place.  Judges “forgive” career criminals and release them back into society;  prosecutors of the Soros persuasion refuse to prosecute crime as they want to “forgive” the criminals because of their race or ethnic background (or political leanings), and even parents want to “forgive” the criminals who raped their daughters or sons.

Erika Kirk has even asked not to go after the death penalty for her husband’s murderer:

“I’ve had so many people ask, ‘Do you feel anger toward this man? Like, do you want to seek the death penalty?’ I’ll be honest. I told our lawyer, I want the government to decide this,” Erika shared.

“I do not want that man’s blood on my ledger. Because when I get to heaven, and Jesus is like: ‘Uh, eye for an eye? Is that how we do it?’ And that keeps me from being in heaven, from being with Charlie?”

Yeah, well this is why our society has delegated the business of revenge to a third party — in this case, the state of Utah — because it eliminates the personal from the process and hands it over to the People.  And the people of Utah have voted for the death penalty for murder.  It has nothing to do with the survivors.

And yes, forgiveness can make you feel your “ledger” is clean and your conscience made pure;  but your personal inclinations are not as important as the interests of society as a whole.

Society as a whole needs to be protected from animals like Kirk’s assassin — and I’m not just talking about his own activities.  I’m talking about others like him, who may decide to follow his path because there’s no chance that they’ll lose their own life as a consequence.  Life imprisonment, in other words, may work to protect people from an individual’s future activities — but it is definitely less of a deterrent for others than a death sentence.

I’m not going to argue the point with people who are against the death penalty per se.  I’m also not going to the trouble of looking up what happened to the capital murder rate in states like New York which abolished execution, or in states like (I think) Ohio which reinstated the death penalty.  The plain fact of the matter is that the death penalty is a deterrent against murder — the stats pretty much all show that — but even past that, I believe strongly in the concept of vengeance against those animals who have stepped so far outside the bounds of a lawful society that their continued existence is a smack in the face of the victims and their survivors, whether the latter want to acknowledge that, or not (as in the case of Erika Kirk).

Give Charlie’s murderer a fair trial, then hang him.  And hang all those who do the same.

Enough of this forgiveness bullshit:  it’s time for retribution.