The Bottom Line: It’s Not Dark Yet, But It’s Getting There

[Published at Strike-the-Root.com on January 24, 2013]

The way that America’s political situation is playing out right now has me perplexed. At my own “side” most of all. Not that the president and his ruling party would slam us with more intrusive laws, gun control, financial restrictions, domestic spying, illegal wars, and increased taxes as soon as his election was won that is. No, that was no surprise to me. Who the hell among us didn't see this anti-liberty agenda coming as soon as he was safely re-elected? Bottom line: If you honestly didn’t see this coming then you need to develop a better sense of situational awareness.

So what do I make of Obama’s Great Repression agenda? This short list is what I see happening and what to do about it. Take it for what it’s worth to you.

As things stand today I'd rather have an old, heavily used bolt action rifle and a half box of crusty ammo for it stashed away that the feds/local cops/private data bases have no record of than a brand new M1A and cases of ammo for it stacked to the ceiling if it came via an FFL licensee who has all my information on an ATF Form 4473 in his files. A dinged and scratched “store brand” pump action 12 gauge under the bed that was bought at a garage sale years ago for cash might not impress the guys at the range club with their fancy Benelli trap guns but it is still quite serviceable and well-worth having these days though isn’t it? I sure think so. A clunky old four-inch wheel gun is seen as obsolete by some but it'll still put a hunk of [lead] anywhere you want it with a little practice. And bonus points if you bought it from some friend of a friend for cash. Bottom line: Stop looking at firearms as precious collectables or recreational adult toys and look at them as tools for survival and liberty maintenance which is what they truly are. An old, ugly, banged up, but still serviceable rifle, handgun, or shotgun that came without any “imperial entanglements” attached to it is worth a closet full of newer and better stuff that does in my humble opinion.

All the boasting, bragging, and strutting many of us did on social media websites about our cool new AR-15 or tricked-out Glock seems kind of ill advised now in hindsight doesn’t it? Especially when we knew or should have known all along that the feds routinely monitor social media websites for just such information about us. An anti-gun newspaper in New York recently published the names and addresses of all state licensed handgun owners in their readership area. And unsurprisingly the people named were incensed at this invasion of their privacy. I know I would be myself. But I wonder how many of us gun owners that are now outraged on their behalf have ourselves gone on social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others and posted blog entries, pictures, and videos that in effect “outed” ourselves to the whole world? Bottom line: See the irony here?

Guns aren’t the only things to consider for bolstering your home security. Instead of un-assing $1000+ for a new Sig or Ruger consider obtaining some bags of mixed silver coins instead. It will be vastly simpler to buy food, medicine, new tires, or whatever else you may need in the future with silver coins from someone willing to trade but who isn’t interested in taking piles of worthless government issued paper or in doing e-commerce that can be traced. Value-for-value voluntary transactions build trust between people and can lead to further mutually beneficial transactions down the road. Bottom line: Start thinking about this situation that we’re in as a serious issue of long term personal/family survival and not as a temporary condition to be put up with until it blows over. I have a strong suspicion that this time it isn’t blowing over.

History it has been said doesn’t repeat, but sometimes it rhymes. I believe this is true. For example the first armed rebellion that occurred in America post independence was the so-called Shay’s Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1787. What would cause George Washington’s ex-soldiers and small landowners to take up arms and fight their own state government so soon after securing independence? Hint: It was their inability to pay their property taxes and so having their homes and farms seized for non-payment. This bit of history is something we should all take note of. If things get really bad, and which I have every expectation that they will I’d rather be living in a junky old motor home or a tumbledown shack than in a suburban McMansion even if I owned it free and clear but that I can’t pay the taxes on and so is always on the cusp of a tax foreclosure. I recommend that everyone look up Shay’s Rebellion and read about it. Bottom line: “Home security” takes many forms.

An acre or three out in the woods somewhere with your own water and fuel supply (i.e., trees) can still be had relatively cheap and you can pay the taxes on it by selling off some timber or firewood you harvested, selling fruit, vegetables, or hay that you’ve grown, or even by picking up deposit soda and beer cans on the side of the road if need be. No matter how bad things get for us in the near term local governments are still going to demand property tax payments and for the foreseeable future they’ll have the means to get them too. (At least until we hang abolish them all, but I digress.) Bottom line: Your home should be more than just the dwelling you live inside. It should provide for you as well.

Learn what an actual education is and what it can do for you. As things are going now I’d rather have my kids know how to weld, learn basic carpentry, learn how to type, do nails/hair styling, speak/write Spanish or Chinese, or gain other practical skills or knowledge by whatever means are available than I would have them go to an Ivy League college for four years. Seriously. Being able to scan a balance sheet and understand it, or knowing how to can fruit, or grow hay seems way more useful these days than anything they would likely learn listening to university professors lecture at them all day. Bottom line: Knowing how to do things is preferable to just knowing facts and theories.

 “The first time someone shows you who they [really] are,”  an American poet once said, “believe them.” Obama and his ilk have stopped being ciphers and have shown us all who they are and what they intend to do and we should all believe them. It has been pretty apparent for a while now how astonishingly fast our liberty and well-being can be taken away. The burner under this pot of boiling frogs we call America has now been moved from “simmer” to “hot”, so be advised. Bottom line: Don’t depend on government or corporate mass media for anything but basic information or data. (And be skeptical of that too.) Learn to figure things out for yourself.

 

 Maybe we can halt or even roll back this onslaught against our liberties and well-being or maybe we can’t. But either way let’s not kid ourselves any more, eh? For those of you inclined toward religious belief remember that Bible verse warning against “putting your faith in princes”? That is still very good advice. The Republican Party, the NRA, Oath Keepers, Alex Jones, Anonymous, Judge Napolitano, Ron Paul and all the rest of the marginalized and despised mineshaft canaries still left couldn’t rouse us and they can’t save us either. And sad to say as goofy and weird as some of the above-mentioned are they all turned out to be right. (I have a sick feeling that one after another they’re all going to go silent, be intimidated into towing the party line, or just disappear.) Bottom line: What’s over is over. Don’t wallow in your own despair. Instead organize and prepare.

We all need to get cracking if we want to survive what’s coming our way and the chances for success will be much higher if we all have a plan. Good fortune it is said favors the prepared. A word to the wise: Don’t wait until you’re standing on the edge of a trench waiting your turn for a DHS supplied .40 caliber pistol shot to the back of the head.

Ken Kraska is a guy who lives in Michigan.

 

Aurora, Colorado police chief Dan Oates used to be chief of police in Ann Arbor. He was a dick then too.

"Aurora, Colorado Police Chief – and four star 'general' – Dan Oates [...] describing the trampling of 40 innocent people’s civil liberties in pursuit of his Greater Good as a reasonable exercise of what he called 'investigative detention' for a 'reasonable' period of time.' " [Eric Peters]

White Working Class: Angry, Cynical and Losing Faith [Fiscal Times]

Asian Grass Carp found in Lenawee county lake by fisherman [Michigan Radio]

How to shave with a straight razor [Art of Manliness]

Chicago's latest "gun buy-back" event unlikely to accomplish much [reason.com/]

"Understanding law as an autopoietic signaling system frees us to discard the idea of authority."
The Empty Idea of Authority by Laurence Claus, University of San Diego School of Law, August 4, 2008 [SSRN]

Brilliant people are much more likely to fail under pressure than average people [Business Insider, Amazon.com]

Romney mistreating a dog or Obama eating a dog: Which is worse? [CNET]

Security vs. liberty. Is more security worth less liberty in every case? [Bruce Schneier @ TED Talk]

Constitutionalism: Another god that failed [Butler Shaeffer @ Lewrockwell.com]

The blast chiller. It does exactly what it sounds like: cool things down quickly, using fast-moving cold air. [Popular Science]

Lyrics to the Samurai Jack theme song. [Movie Catcher]

Sen. Rand Paul: "I think we have too many armed federal agencies"

Amen. Why in the world does the US Food and Drug Administration need armed agents for? To bust Amish natural milk sellers? The fewer armed feds there are, the better.

So what is a "wage slave" anyhow?

Noam Chomsky gives his definition here. [YouTube]

I could not have put it better myself

"A bureaucrat is a bureaucrat, regardless of the bureau."

 Indeed they are. And a pox on all of them too.

(Via the Getting Your Hands Dirty blog)

I don't have to justify what I "need" to Sarah Brady

...or any of the rest of the nannies, scolds, shrews, harpies, buttinskies, kvetchers, control-freaks, and the rest that ilk. And the Scumfuck Living In Babylon blogger puts it even more bluntly than I do. To wit:

"I'm sick of pretending", says the SFLB, "that there are sporting purposes to my shit. I'm a survivalist and my weapons are for killing motherfuckers in a theoretical Mad Max future, and perhaps most importantly of all I don't have to justify shit to you, god damnit."

Indeed. Μολὼν λαβέ you bastards!

(Via the End the War on Freedom blog of Bill St. Clair)

Hell yes! No doubt in my mind at all

In re Mikhail Gorbachev's piece in The Nation (Is The World Really Safer Without The Soviet Union?) Of course it is. Now we need to dismantle the United States of America and the People's Republic of China as well. Kill off the big ones and the rest will go too, in time. The best state is no state at all.

If a police dog can sniff around your car why can't it sniff around your house?

Asks poster Orrin Kerr at the law blog Volokh Conspiracy. One thing is for sure though; once the dog appears sure as hell the cops are gonna be rifling through your stuff quite soon.

Disarm the state!

It will make the rest of us safer. Armed cops beating on your door is scary; an unarmed security guard is a mere nuisance.  Bureaucrats whose only "back-up" to their edicts, regulations, citations, pronouncements, and so on is some unarmed goof doesn't seem so scary.

Motorcycle club president put on probation, told to abide by liquor laws by judge after after conviction for selling alcohol without license

Chief Wiggum

So if the Cement City, MI chapter of the Iron Coffins MC had obtained a liquor license then that asshat who drank too much and crashed his van into some parked cars wouldn't have done so? Somehow I doubt it. But as a famous cartoon policeman once opined: "The government is powerless to help you, but not to punish you." And so it goes.

Ex-Detroit police chief Isaiah McKinnon says it's time to decrimimalize marijuana

"My position is, "says McKinnon, "let's look at this realistically and honestly. Too much law enforcement money and resources are being used on this. There are better things to spend our money on."

Okay, this represents progress. But it really begs the question: Why is it that all these ex-cops, ex-feds, ex-judges and ex-politicians only come to this conclusion after they've left office? 

District of Columbia police arresting drivers for expired license tabs. It's not just the law it's the principle of the thing

The "principle" the DC cops want to make clear being: "We can stop you, arrest you, tow your vehicle, fine you, and put you in jail for even the smallest things. So get with the program." The true nature of government is now revealed but not for the first time, eh?

The way we were

Independent libertarian columnist Kent McManigal reminds us that we Americans used to mind our own damn business, expected the same from others, and followed our own dreams regardless of what others thought and we expected the government at all levels to respect that. Good times now largely past.

Just so you peons know how it is

The basis for the state's existence defined in simple terms attributed to Gary Brecher AKA "the War Nerd".

The government makes us pay taxes and obey it's laws on the grounds that the state claims "... all the land, on the legal basis that if you objected they’d kill you.”

So there you are. Bet they didn't teach you that in high school civics class or in American Government 100 in college did they? For that insight you'd have to take a 400 level political philosophy class or maybe even go to graduate school.

Being a "manly man" for real

Never put your full trust in a man who has never been in a fist-fight and isn't prepared to be in one again too if need be. Last time I was in a fist-fight was back in 1995. Guess I'm due. If you fancy yourself a "stand-up" kinda guy then you have to be willing and able to "stand up" (i.e., throw a punch) when required or else you're just a fraud or you are deluding yourself but either way you're likely to eventually  be a victim.

"Men who have fought know how difficult it is to stand against the crowd", says Scott Locklin @ Taki's Magazine, "and that civilization is fragile and important. A man who has experienced violence knows that, at its core, civilization is an agreement between men to behave well. That agreement can be broken at any moment; it’s part of manhood to be ready when it is. Men who have been in fights know about something that is rarely spoken of without snickering these days: honor. Men who have been in fights know that, on some level, words are just words: At some point, words must be backed up by deeds."

So there you are.

Weblog

Oak Park women banned from having vegetable garden in front yard (Jon Oosting, MLive)
Sheesh. Look at the picture accompanying the article and you can see it's a nice little veggie garden. Who's fucking yard is it anyhow?

That was fast (Mark Thompson, Battleland blog)
Ex-Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been out of  the Pentagon less than a week and he's already cashing in with lucrative speaking engagements. Why a national grocery sellers association would pay him five figures to hear his views is kinda of mystery though. At least to me.

Terrorist talk of surgically-implanted body bombs is a good sign (Danger Room)
It means that current bomb detection technology is getting harder and harder to fool. It has an odor of desperation to it therefore.

"Regardless of technological capability, a bomber will avoid placing their device in their shoes, in their carry-on property, in the checked luggage, or on their body. What’s left? The only thing left to consider is to place the device internally."

Eureka, Warehouse 13 scriptwriters to ease up on soapy romance bullshit (Scott Thill, Underwire)
Good. And knock off the massive season long story arcs too while you're at it . One-offs are the best way to go IMO, although a few recurring characters are a nice touch.

Weblog

A profile of Kirkpatrick Sale (Jack Hunter, The American Conservative)
The modern heir of Ned Ludd, Pierre Proudhon, and long time anti-state activist.

Firefox 5 locks down, almost ready for release (Seth Rosenblatt, CNET)
And I was just getting comfortable with the current version too.

Chinese hackers are planting cyber bombs throughout America's power grid (Richard Clarke, Wall Street Journal)
So says former U.S. gov cyber security chief Richard Clarke.

"Treasure Hunter" Bill Warren to seek Osama bin-Laden's watery grave  (Brian Palmer, Slate.com/)
If this guy actually manages to find ObL's remains (kinda doubtful) they may not be in such good shape.
"Research on pig carcasses dropped to a depth of around 300 feet shows that marine scavengers such as lobsters, crabs, shrimp, and possibly sharks can dismember a carcass within a few days. (If the bag containing Bin Laden's body is well-sealed, it can help deter the smaller scavengers.) Once the large scavengers have started the process, a wider array of animals moves in. The pig research suggests that a dead body can be picked clean in less than a month."

Substitute meat product made from human shit (Lori Zimmer, Inhabitat.com/)
Better than Soylent Green I guess. But I'd still have to be awfully hungry to eat a shit sandwich though.

Virtual money really stolen (Keir Thomas, PC World)
"Assuming the story isn't fabricated, allinvain's story could represent the world's first heist of virtual money. It's almost certainly the biggest." Just like with government issued money you gotta secure it.

Ranking the states by how "free" they are (Mercatus Center/George Mason University)
Based on criteria like gun rights, tax rates, nanny-state interference in personal behaviors, religious and sexual liberty, drug policy, and home schooling laws just to name but a few. My own state of Michigan ranks #27.

High Gas Prices = Low Regard for Rural Culture (Edward Leap, Taki's Mag)
"For progressives to hope for higher gas prices, especially because of their orthodox belief in the highly questionable topic of climate change, is a reflection of urbanite disdain for those who actually need to drive out in remote “hick” areas where the distances are greater."

Bush Whitehouse sought dirt on University of Michigan prof and blogger Juan Cole says ex-CIA guy (James Risen, NY Times)
"Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war."