Tag: Stupid people

Acceptable Risk

Disaster, Gummint, Nannies

The inimitable Heather Mac Donald takes the Nannies to task, in her inimitable way.  This paragraph in particular struck home for me:

We set highway speeding limits to maximize convenience at what we consider an acceptable risk to human life. It is statistically certain that every year, there will be tens of thousands of driving deaths. A considerable portion of those deaths could be averted by “following the science” of force and velocity and enforcing a speed limit of, say, 15 miles an hour. But we tolerate motor-vehicle deaths because we value driving 75 miles an hour on the highway, and up to 55 miles an hour in cities, more than we do saving those thousands of lives. When those deaths come—nearly 100 a day in 2019—we do not cancel the policy. Nor would it be logical to cancel a liberal highway speed because a legislator who voted for it died in a car accident.

Bill Whittle once said more or less the same thing about accidental gun deaths:  while even one such death was tragic, the plain fact of the matter is that some freedoms come with risk, sometimes deadly risk;  and the overall benefit to our society is far, far greater than the danger that may (or may not) ensue.   Using statistics of “gun deaths” (even correct ones) to bolster calls for gun control / -confiscation is likewise irrelevant.

It’s called the price of freedom, and We The People have been balancing those freedoms against the collateral harm to individuals ever since our Republic was formed and the Constitution and Bill of Rights promulgated.  All individual rights are potentially harmful, whether it’s freedom of speech, assembly, religion, gun ownership, privacy or any of the others.

And to Heather’s point above:  driving isn’t even a right protected by the Bill of Rights.  How much more, then, should our First- and Second Amendment rights (and all the other rights for that matter) be protected, even when we know that some tragedy is bound to follow thereby?

“If it saves just one life” sounds great on a bumper sticker, but as a basis for public policy, it’s not only foolish but in many cases more harmful in the long run.  Heather again:

We could reduce coronavirus transmission to zero by locking everyone in a separate cell until a vaccine was developed. There are some public-health experts who from the start appeared ready to implement such radical social distancing. The extent to which we veer from that maximal coronavirus protection policy depends on how we value its costs and the competing goods: forgone life-saving medical care and deaths of despair from unemployment and social isolation, on the one hand, and the ability to support one’s family through work and to build prosperity through entrepreneurship, on the other. The advocates of maximal lockdowns have rarely conceded such trade-offs, but they are ever-present.

The current wave of totalitarianism and loss of freedoms caused by State overreaction to the Chinkvirus needs to be rolled back, and fast.  It just sucks that we have to rely on judges — many of whom, to judge from their records, are not especially friends of freedom — to hold back the mini-Mussolinis in their totalitarian quest for absolute power over the governed.

And just so we know what kind of “acceptable risk” we’re talking about, comes this from Fox News:

Fantasies

Marxists, Media Assholes

From the former CEO of Twatter:

Ummm I’m just going to make a hypothetical situation here, but I would think that another kind of revolution (with different initiators, if you get my drift) could easily see media shitstains like this guy being among the first to be led to the helicopter pad.

Everyone’s all excited about curtailing something called “eliminationist rhetoric” from the public discourse, but I disagree.  Let these twerps show their asses enough, for identification purposes, and we’ll see how the biscuit breaks.

Even arch-eliminationist Che Guevara eventually found his own wall to be stood up against:

Just sayin’…

That’s The Spirit

Bad News, Gratuitous Chick Pics

In all the frenzy of Chinkvirus panic and the resulting pandemic theater (i.e wearing face condoms which, from all accounts, do little or nothing to actually prevent the spread of the virus, but like the TSA at airports, at least give the appearance of Doing Something ), we have this wonderful example of I-don’t-give-a-fuckitude from someone named Lana Del Rey:

Heheheh… if you’re going to show absolute contempt, then this is the way to do it.

Of course, the uproar has been intense:

Taking to Twitter to share their anger, one person said: ‘I cant belive lana is actually wearing this mask to…..socially interact with people..this is so irresponsible.’
A different fan put: ‘Why is she at an event with a bunch of people wearing a mesh mask??? I love Lana but this is incredibly irresponsible.’
Another follower commented: ‘LANA WEARING A MESH MASK TO AN EVENT FOR HER POETRY WTF So irresponsible.’

…etc. etc. etc.

Me, I’m just chuckling, because you know what’s coming up next, don’t you?

Wait for it…

Government regulations mandating a minimum thread count per inch for cloth face masks!

You heard it here first.

Hoarders

SHTF

I always laugh at the reaction from the general public to people who as children read the fable of “The Ant And The Grasshopper” and took its lesson to heart.

Most  visitors to this back porch, I suspect, keep a reasonable quantity of supplies (food, water, ammo, whatever) handy, especially after the Great Chinkvirus Lockdown and its concomitant emptying of the store shelves by Stupid People who don’t.

What’s worse is that these ignorant assholes persist in excoriating people like us with labels of “selfish”, “hoarders” and worse, even after our recent experience.  Here’s one example (I know, it’s formerly-Great Britain, but I know there are people just like that Over Here too):

A MUM-of-two has been slammed as ‘selfish’ after revealing she’s stockpiled enough food to last her and her family until January.
Emma Tarry, 26, appeared on This Morning surrounded by her mountains of groceries, as she revealed her fridge, freezer and cupboards were full of food.
Emma, a mum-of-two from Lancaster, was branded ‘selfish and stupid’ by viewers, as Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield grilled her over her shopping.
The mum revealed she’s hoarded around 400 tins and 700 nappies, and stocked up on essentials like flour to make bread.
She defended her decision, saying: “I think it’s best we go to shops and supermarkets as little as possible. I think stockpiling done properly and don’t go too excessive is ok… if you prepare months in advance or buy it off Amazon.”

Nothing this woman said strikes me as particularly incorrect or, gawd forbid, offensive.  And the quantity of food she’s stored for a family of (at least) three people doesn’t seem that excessive.  (Break it down:  400 tins for six months for three people is just over one tin per day, per person.  She probably needs another 200, just to be on the safe side.)

Emma said one of her children has special needs, and she wants the peace of mind knowing she has access to food and medicine. She said: “If my child needs Calpol… that way at least I’m organised — I just want to make sure myself and my kid is organised.”
And she also pointed out she’s been able to help out family and friends with her food stash, and hasn’t kept it all for herself.

Predictably, the Stupid & Envious Set chimed in:

But viewers were outraged by Emma’s overflowing kitchen, claiming stockpilers like her are the reason behind national shortages.
Taking to Twitter, one person wrote: “This makes me so angry, many people can’t afford that much shopping let alone hoard it. I hope this woman has given some to the food bank. We all need to get on with life, hiding away in doors & hoarding is not the answer.”

So because not everyone can afford to do it means that nobody should do it.  Socialism in a nutshell:  make everybody equally miserable.

Another tweeted: “That stupid… stockpiling food is all that’s wrong with this greedy selfish world we live in…”
A third wrote: “Not sure why #ThisMorning have got this girl on today. Worried food is going to be rationed, only putting more fear into others and potentially making the panic buying issue worse! People should have learnt from the last lockdown and stop being so selfish.”
While this person said: “Absolutely ridiculous. She just can’t see that she’s part of the problem. Her actions end up having a knock on effect. How many others are behaving the same as her though? This is why our local shops have no loo roll again now!”

Yeah;  looking after yourself and your infant children is “selfish”.  Someone needs a good ball-kicking, and it ain’t our Emma.

What made me decide to talk about this women, though, is the extra step she’s taken:

Emma previously revealed she’d bought a BB gun to protect her stash, in case anyone tried to steal her mountains of food. She said: “I researched how to legally buy a BB gun or air rifle and bought one from a local gun shop. I’ve previously had shooting lessons on a local gun range, it’s legal and stored correctly and it gives me peace of mind.
“Three weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night and heard someone trying to break into my garden shed. “I stayed upstairs and pointed the BB gun out the window and told the man to ‘eat the dirt’.”

Of course, to the rest of us, what she did is not only laudable, but just plain common sense.  (The fact that she’s limited to a damn BB gun instead of a proper 12-gauge… see “formerly-Great Britain”, above.)  And this post is useless with at least one pic:

Clearly, her shooting lessons didn’t include a section on trigger discipline, but under the circumstances, I think we can excuse her.

Well done, Emma.  Ignore those assholes (arseholes) who are carping at your excellent state of preparedness.  And if any of them come sniffing around your house in times of great shortage… all I can say is:  have a goodly supply of BBs, and practice fast reloading.

Not one person at this website thinks you’re selfish, or any of that jive.  You’re prudent and taking care of yourself, not relying on “the government” to do so.  Only in a socialist country could this be a cause for anger.

Black Lists Matter

Business, Marketing / Advertising

Boycotting things and businesses has traditionally been a tool of the Left — flood a TV show’s advertiser with calls, threatening to boycott the company’s products unless they stop supporting [Tucker Carlson], etc.

We on the conservative side have had a few ourselves — anyone remember the anger when gun writer Dave Petzal  Jim Zumbo (sorry, Dave)  said that nobody needed an AR-15?  or the boycott of Smith & Wesson when the hapless gunmaker made a deal with the Clinton junta?  We will not even speak of Dick’s Sporting Goods, etc.

I myself have a list of businesses and brands that I will never consider, mostly because of their anti-gun positions:

  • Levi Strauss
  • Leatherman
  • REI
  • Patagonia
  • Starbucks
  • California Pizza Kitchen
  • AARP
  • Dick’s
  • Ben & Jerry
  • Doordash
  • GrubHub
  • Hallmark
  • Jack In The Box
  • Domino’s, Pizza Hut and Walgreens (they fire employees who protect themselves with guns)
  • Sara Lee
  • Costco
  • Panera
  • Waffle House
  • Target
  • Whole Foods

There are some companies that I “semi-boycott”, e.g.:

  • CitiBank:  I have a Citi Visa because I get airline miles from using it — but I only use it to make firearms-related purchases.  And if they stop accepting custom from the places which sell me those products, I’ll pay it off and cut it up.  I sent their marketing department a letter to that effect a couple years back.
  • Target:  I buy two products (and only two) from Target, simply because it’s the only place in Plano that carries them.
  • Waffle House:  I used to go to Waffle House weekly.  Now I only go there when I’m on the road, absolutely starving and there’s nowhere else to go.  (Maybe twice in the past three years.)

Some of the companies are easy to boycott, because I dislike their products, period (e.g. Starbucks, whom I treat like a public toilet facility, but never buy anything from), or I prefer the alternative anyway (Swiss Army knives over Leatherman, etc.).

Also, while a number of companies have official “don’t bring your gun in here” policies, the local branches (especially in Texas) adopt a “you must be kidding” attitude instead.  (Our local Kroger hadn’t even heard about Kroger’s policy when I asked the manager about it, and he just said, “Don’t worry about it.  I’m not about to risk losing half my business because of Corporate.”)

Anyway, that’s my blacklist.  Feel free to add your own, in Comments.

Translation

Politics

From one of the Socialist Party’s prime gun-confiscators:

Translation:  we can’t dig up any dirt on this chick, so there’s no point trying to hold up her nomination.  Therefore, I’m just going to hold my breath till my face turns blue.