Phil Elmore's Blog, page 29

Techncracy: How Twitter Turned a “Wife”-Beater Into a Victim

My WND Technocracy column this week is about the Chris Brown/Rihanna saga.

And who wouldn’t be proud of a violent, childish thug who beat his girlfriend until her face was swollen?

There’s a lot to be disturbed about here: That Chris Brown is such a violent, explosive child that he continues to have physical tantrums even while on probation; that he beat Rihanna bloody but she took him back; that the mindless fans of Twitter’s “#TeamBreezy” think Brown just “needed help” and that he’s on top of the world now.

I think the worst aspect of it all is the calculated way the couple used social media to inoculate the public to the idea of their reconciliation. There is now ay this wasn’t deliberate.  It was a brilliant bit of public relations that speaks worlds of how little we really care about the young men and women we’re raising to take our places.

(Granted, “wife-beater” takes liberties with the legal nature of the Chris Brown/Rihanna relationship, but the concept is no different.)

Read the full column here in WND News.

Technocracy: Skeet-Shooting Propaganda

My WND Technocracy column this week is about the Obama administration’s arrogant and absurd assertion that Obama is a skeet shooter.

In other words, when it comes to the subject of guns, liberals always lie.

Much more significantly, however, the column also touches on the common thread connecting this “skeet shooting” narrative with the drone strikes that are now a running joke in popular culture.

Read the full column here in WND News.

Don’t You Dare Photoshop This

After the ridiculous lie that Obama is an avid skeet shooter (who has never mentioned his hobby before, nor ever been seen to be doing it) and the embarrassing publication of a faked photo of Obama with a shotgun, the White House has arranged a photo opportunity in which President Mom Jeans appears to be shooting an actual death machine — excuse me, shotgun.

NOT the actual photo in question.

It’s clear from his posture that he’s never held a shotgun in his life, was carefully but inexpertly coached, and is so rail stiff that the stock of the weapon appears to be sort of hovering over his shoulder by its very tip. This is the most ridiculous and insulting nonsense the White House and Obama have tried to foist on us in a while, and that’s really saying something.

Additionally, the photo is supposed to have been taken on Saturday, August 4, 2012. This would seem to contradict news accounts that had Obama spending the day playing golf.  I don’t know about you, but when I think of playing 18 holes, I think of something that takes up most of the day.  Yet Obama supposedly had time to spend the day playing golf, then go back to Camp David and do his skeet shooting, none of it in the waning light of afternoon.  Sorry, but I’m calling shenanigans on this timeline.

The White House even tried to claim some sort of executive privilege for their new photo of Rambo (sorry, Obama), saying that you serfs are forbidden to Photoshop it — as if parody and fair use do not apply to The Maximum Leader.  I’ve been pleased to see many hilarious photo-manipulations posted subsequently, as American citizens defy Obama’s arrogant and illegal demands.  The brittle, defensive, and haughty nature of Obama and his ilk never cease to amaze me.  The thought that they would actually release a contrived photo and then claim no one was allowed, legally, to Photoshop it is just mind-boggling.

Here in New York the gun situation is worse than ever.  Gander Mountain, one of the few commercial chains left that hasn’t knuckled under to the anti-gun hysteria here (the way Dick’s Sporting Goods did by suspending sales of Modern Sporting Rifles and AR15s) is rationing ammunition.  You’re limited to two boxes — IF they have what you want, which they probably don’t.

I stopped recently to listen at the counter as people shopped.  One guy wanted 9mm and was told they had only a few boxes of premium self-defense ammo.  There was not a round of .22 Long Rifle in the store, nor any .223 or 7.62 x 39.  Most of the ammo, except for shotgun shells, was behind the counter, with a sign posted about the rationing.  I tried to take a photograph of the sign and they yelled at me — their new “store policy for security” forbids taking photographs inside the store.

More news has come in about the disabled veteran, Haddad, who was arrested in Northern New York on felony charges for possessing what he thought were pre-ban AR15 magazines.  Apparently he consented to a search of his vehicle and the police officer who stopped him then found the magazines.  This is bad.  It’s very, very bad… and going to get worse.

When I Grow Up I Want To Be Secretary of Something

The news just keeps getting worse at a governmental level.  John Kerry, one of the worst traitors the armed forces have ever known — a contrived combat veteran with a history of lying about the troops in the most vicious manner possible — is now Secretary of State.  Worse, he faced almost no opposition to confirmation, because the Republicans in our federal government are a bunch of gutless wonders who have made caving in to Democrats their national sport.

Imagine that.  A man who lied and claimed that US troops in Vietnam were torturing civilians with regularity, a man who then subsequently lied about throwing his medals over the White House fence in disgust and hatred for America’s government, is now Secretary of State. More remarkable than this is the fact that Obama managed to find someone worse than Hillary Clinton for the job.

Hillary Clinton will, of course, go down in history as one of the worst Secretaries of State ever to have served.  Under her time in the position, American influence has diminished across the world.  We’ve lost all of our allies in the Middle East while actively alienating Israel with Obama’s hostility for that nation.  And Obama has attempted to drive a final nail into the coffin that is our alliance with Israel by nominating RINO Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense.  Hagel hates Israel and has spoken out against it many times, while indicating that he has no real problem with a nuclear Iran.

We’re in big trouble.  It’s going to get worse when Obama starts packing the Supreme Court with people like this.

Technocracy — The Mob: World’s Oldest ‘Assault Weapon

My WND Technocracy column today was inspired by a recent news story concerning a 16-year-old boy who was chased down and stabbed to death by a London mob.

How is it feasible to forbid someone a thing they can craft themselves? It isn’t.

London has long had a violence problem that far exceeds any here in the States.  England’s rates of violent crime are higher than those in America, and have been for a decade.  This is true despite strict gun and knife bans in the UK.

Read the full column here in WND News.

The Magazine Raids Are Starting

I saw an interesting article courtesy of author Matt Bracken today.  (Matt is the author of the Enemies series, which chronicles the events of a future dystopia in which guns are banned and innocent Americans are persecuted by socialists and racists.  Sound familiar?)  The article recounts the arrest of a man in LeRay, New York (a town of which I haven’t heard before) for possession of high-capacity magazines.

Two things are disturbing about the news piece.  One is that I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of anyone actually being charged with possession of high-capacity magazines when they weren’t already committing some other crime with a firearm.  The article doesn’t say what preceded the discovery of these magazines, but consider this:  The crime, on paper, is simply that this man had in his car several metal boxes containing springs.  That’s it.  They weren’t firearms.  He didn’t do anything violent (that we know of according to this article).  He just… had magazines.

The second thing I find alarming about the article is the casual way the discovery is described.  The magazines were found “during a vehicle check.”  Was this some kind of checkpoint? A roadblock? An intoxication check?  Did Haddad, the fellow arrested, have magazines in plain view in his vehicle? Did he consent to a search?  We just don’t know.

I don’t like the landscape this paints. I don’t like the world we’re all going to end up living, where those fellow citizens who haven’t (as I did) sold their guns to preempt this problem are now considered criminals for doing nothing more than possessing property they previously owned quite legally.

“The Beginning of the End”

I received a text message from a friend this morning who told me a friend of his had gone to Wal-Mart to buy ammunition. I’ve no idea what the current state of ammunition inventory is; I know that as of a couple of weeks ago, the shelves were pretty much bare and you couldn’t find so much as a box of .22 Long Rifle available.  Only some of the less demanded calibers, like .38 Special and .45 Colt, were still in stock.  All .223, 7.62×39, 9mm, and .45 ACP was pretty much cleared out, but it was the absence of .22 Long Rifle that really surprised me.  The twenty-two is the staple of plinking and target shooting.  The idea that I would need to pass a background check any time I want to buy a box of it really bothers me.

Well, according to my friend, his buddy was told he was limited to three boxes of ammunition.  He assumed that meant three bricks of .22 — you know, those 500-round packs that contain ten 50-round boxes each.

Nope.  They told him he could buy no more than three boxes of fifty rounds each.

It’s possible that this is just a response to overwhelming demand, but given that Wal-Mart has already made noises about not selling more ammunition in the future, I think we’re seeing yet another retailer knuckle under to pressure from the state where guns and ammunition are concerned.  The real triumph of today’s political climate is not the laws passed to regulate firearms.  It’s the successful marginalization of guns and gun owners, equating firearms with vice and making the carry and sale of firearms and ammo something stores won’t touch because they don’t want to be branded “unclean” by popular culture.

This is, indeed, the beginning of the end of the gun culture in New York.  I expect other states will fall at lesser or greater rates of decay.

The Walls Are Ever Closing In

I was listening to the radio this morning on the way to work, where I earn a small fraction of my actual pay.  The rest of what I work to produce is taken by my government to give to other people. I am given very little say in the matter.  Recently, when the rate of “social security” confiscations was increased, my take home pay decreased by two hundred dollars per month.  That is not an insignificant amount.

On the radio some lawyer or other connected with the state of New York was declaring the things that lawyers always declare.  No, the new mandate handed down by the state would not increase litigation. No, no, the new mandate would not be troubling or troublesome for anyone.  Yes, the new mandate was misunderstood when the edict was issued, and Lawyer Guy was here to explain it all away so that we, the little people, could rest assured that our all-powerful government is working hard to keep us safe from ourselves, safe from each other, and safe from the terrifying weight that is freedom of choice.

The mandate itself was something trivial — something to do with ordering schools not to discriminate in sports team selection against those with mental disabilities.  “Title 9,” which has shut down many a sports team in the name of equity, was brought up.  The lawyer shrugged it off.  The state can do only good, as far as he was concerned.  The concerns of the little people did not impress him.

How many thousands of pages of laws are already on the books? How many thousands more will be codified?  When, WHEN will we stop and say that we are being pressed under countless legislative stones, countless laws, countless regulations?  When is enough?  Why must every aspect of our waking and sleeping lives — before, during, and after death — be controlled by people who are nothing more than some number of… us?  What makes them so important? What gives them that power? What gives them that right, to so totally chain every portion of our reality?

We do not live in a free country. We live in a gulag — a prison in which some areas are slightly less controlled than others.

Unarmed, Not Disarmed

Recently I flew out of state for the first time in years.  I haven’t actually gotten on a commercial flight since I was a teenager.  I’ve done considerable business travel, of course, but all of that was by car. I think the farthest I’ve driven is around ten or twelve hours one way.  I’ve been fortunate that my interests have all been clustered in the Northeast.

Unsurprisingly, I did not enjoy air travel.  Security was my primary fear, and need not have been.  I pared down my accessories to the minimum and got through security checkpoints without any hassle at all. I arrived for my flights two hours early, religiously, and need not have done so, for I never spent more than a few minutes in a security screening line.

No, my biggest complaint about air travel is simply the cramped quarters.  The planes I flew on for three out of four flights were small 70-passenger puddle jumpers.  The last flight was an Airbus, and I had a three-person row all to myself to boot, which was a refreshing change. Given the restrictions on electronic devices I simply read paper books as I sat folded between my armrests like an origami swan.

With these irritations aside, the thing that bothered me about traveling out of state was being so casually unarmed.  I don’t mean disarmed.  My weapons weren’t taken away; they were simply and inconveniently not part of the process. The result, for any prepared person, is always annoying.  You go from being the sort of person who always has a Swiss Army Knife to someone who has to struggle to open a plastic package with his keys.

I spent a few days in Texas, so I took the time to mail a pocketknife and a pair of nail clippers to myself, along with a prepaid label to send both back when I got ready to leave.  Pending receipt of my return package, the process worked well — and had I wished no one to know I was armed with a blade, I could have concealed that fact easily because I neither shopped for nor paid for anything potentially lethal there.

Where self-defense is concerned I don’t feel unarmed while carrying only a knife of moderate size.  I have considerable training with knives and I’m reasonably confident in my ability to defend myself without them. I’m also not the target demographic of most muggers and ne’er-do-wells, although my status as an out-of-state tourist raises my profile on that score.

Now that New York is squeezing armed citizens out of their permits and banning, registering, and/or c0nfiscating (on a de facto basis, at this point) their long arms, making the transition to being armed-with-a-knife while formerly being armed-with-a-licensed-pistol is not a large step, nor even a terribly painful one.  It does, however, highlight those instances in which you are without even that level of protection, such as the time I spent in and out of airports or waiting for my package to arrive.

Our lawmakers will invariably turn to knives now that they’ve succeeded in making gun owners second-class citizens — law-abiding citizens who are nonetheless reviled in the media and frequently lectured by arrogant, hypocritical politicians.  When that happens, we can all look forward to that sinking feeling of nakedness that a prepared citizen feels when he cannot carry so much as a pair of nail-clippers.

It’s not a good feeling.  It’s not a good feeling at all.

 

Technocracy: Obama’s Up-Is-Down Marxist Rhetoric

“[T]hese things do not sap our initiative. They strengthen us.”

My WND Technocracy column this week is about the threats contained within Obama’s second inaugural address.

In the address, Obama essentially made plea after plea to Communist ideology… and then told us that the things he wants don’t do the things they do.  Taking from government isn’t taking. Weakening the economy is strengthening it.

The speech was positively Orwellian and very worrying. Read the full column about it here in WND News.