Tag Archives: freedom

Feinstein’s Weapons Distortion

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Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, CA) isn’t only dissembling in the course of her Progressive-Democratic Party’s shambles-making of the Judge Kavanaugh Supreme Court Justice confirmation process.  She’s dissembling regarding our right to keep and bear Arms, also.  Using the hoo-raw the Party created during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings (she’s the Ranking Democrat on that committee), she had this comment in the lead up to a question she had for Kavanaugh:

I’m talking about your statement on “common use.”  Assault weapons are not in common use.

There are two cynical distortions in that claim.  One is her “assault weapons” nonsense.  There are no assault weapons available to civilians in the United States.  Assault weapons are weapons capable of fully automatic fire (some of which can be possessed, but not borne, by collectors under very narrow circumstances) and heavy weapons—antitank weapons, crew-served fully automatic weapons, and the like.  Feinstein is carefully conflating the term “assault weapons” with semi-automatic rifles, which most assuredly are in common use in our nation, as she tries to emotionalize a completely rational matter with her scary term.

The other is her business about common use.  Here’s the 2nd Amendment in its entirety:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

There’s nothing in there about common use.  The Supreme Court has ruled on the need for common use, but this flies in the face of that Amendment on two grounds: one is the Court’s manufactured standard—it’s law-making from its bench—of commonness of use.  The other flies in the face of history and of the environment in which We the People ratified our Amendment: a significant fraction of the cannons used by our side during our Revolutionary War were privately owned.  Plainly, given their expense in obtaining, maintaining, and operating, they were possessed only by the wealthy—they were not in “common use.”  The Court’s ruling simply wants reversal so as to bring the matter back in line with our Constitution.

That second point might be a bit obscure, but the first is blindingly obvious.  Even to a Progressive-Democrat.

Promise

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The People’s Republic of China has been rolling out its system for spying on surveilling its citizens for a while now.  This is the system that develops social scores for every PRC citizen, and the system has bennies for achieving high scores:

…waived deposits on hotels and rental cars, VIP treatment at airports, discounted loans, priority job applications, and fast-tracking to the most prestigious universities.

Things that can detract from those high scores include

[j]aywalking, late payments on bills or taxes, buying too much alcohol, or speaking out against the government….
Other mooted punishable offences include spending too long playing video games, wasting money on frivolous purchases, and posting on social media….

Get too low a score, and citizens will be punished:

…los[e] the right to travel by plane or train, social media account suspensions, and being barred from government jobs.

The system isn’t all bad, though, assuming private citizens can learn their scores.  Those with low scores are showing themselves to be trustworthy—at least by their fellow citizens—and high scorers expose themselves as puppets of the government.

Whose Side?

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On whose side is the current Pope?  What is his purpose, his goal?

First, the Pope condones covering up—even delaying a “conference” for chit-chat about the abuse for as long as possible—massive child abuse by Catholicism’s priests and bishops.

Now we have the Pope saying the Catholic Church—the Vatican—doesn’t even need to be the authority that selects the Church’s bishops.

…Catholic concession in a far-reaching deal between Rome and the Vatican announced Friday. The Vatican has agreed to recognize as legitimate seven Chinese priests who had been excommunicated by Rome for accepting their bishop hats without Vatican approval. Two bishops who had remained faithful to Rome will retire to make room for bishops more to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s liking.

What’s going on in the Catholic Church?

Government Diktat

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California style.  That state has passed a law.

The law requires a company to appoint one woman to its board of directors by the end of 2019. By the end of 2021 a five-member board would need to have two women, while boards with six or more directors would need three. The Legislature, always alert to possible micro-aggressions, defines female as “an individual who self-identifies her gender as a woman, without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth.”

(One wonders whether the law would be satisfied by a male Board member self-identifying as a woman for the purpose of Board-related activities.  [/snark])

The number of women selected for Board membership has much to do with the lack of women with actual qualifications for those positions.  Forcing quotas onto private enterprises won’t produce qualified women out of thin air.

The lack stems from two major sources (among others).  One is the way we teach our girls and young women throughout K-16.  Our “educators” generally don’t push them as hard or in the same direction as they push our boys and young men.  This is an example of the bigotry of low expectations.

The other major source is in our various corporate cultures.  Women don’t get the same support, encouragement, or kicks in the fannies to do better that men do, so they don’t develop, over the course of their careers, the qualifications needed for Board seats.

Along these lines, women employees don’t spend the same continuous time on their careers as do men: many women take significant time off from their careers to have and raise children.  As a nation, we still haven’t worked out a way around this difference in time commitment.  Paid parental leave might be a step in that direction, but even were it, it’s wholly inadequate.

This law does not address any of these.

Timidity

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Sadanand Dhume had an opinion piece in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal decrying Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ decision to cancel a contest through which ” participants were invited to lampoon the prophet Muhammad.”  Wilders pleaded “security concerns” because of some protests in Pakistan.

On the whole, I agree with Dhume.  However, I’m less concerned with Pakistani whinings than I am with the cowardice displayed by Wilders and his cronies in canceling their contest.

A few short years ago, a similar “Draw Muhammad” contest was held in Dallas. The terrorists who tried to disrupt that contest were stopped in their tracks by ordinary American citizens.  The Dutch are not Danes, but I wouldn’t have thought them this timid.