Author: Papa Giorgio

Katherine Kersten’s First Things Article (Dennis Prager)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Dennis Prager read from a FIRST THINGS article entitled “Transgender Conformity,” by Katherine Kersten. The article discusses Nova Classical Academy, “a K–12 charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota, is the sort of school that most parents seeking a first-rate education for their children can only dream about. Founded in 2003, the school teaches the classical curriculum of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Students read the Aeneid, the Iliad, and Dante’s Inferno.”

First Things continued:

Nova’s website proclaims, “Parents are the primary educators of their children.” The school’s mission statement calls students to “a virtuous life of duty and ideals.” In 2016, U.S. News and World Report named Nova’s high school No. 1 in Minnesota, and the No. 4 charter high school in the nation.

But on October 14, 2015, parents of K–5 students at Nova received an email from lower school principal Brooke Tousignant that was destined to change the school forever.

Tousignant informed parents that, in the coming year, Nova would be “support[ing] a student who is gender non-conforming.” This term, she explained,

describes children whose identities, appearances, behaviors, or interests do not fit traditional societal expectations associated with their sex assigned at birth. It is important to note that this expression of gender is ever-changing as students are constantly exploring many different aspects of their identity.

To support the gender-nonconforming child, Nova would be teaching K–5 students “about the beauty of being themselves.” All K–5 students would read a book called My Princess Boy, “which tells the story of a boy who expresses his true self by dressing up and enjoying traditional girl things.” Thus was Nova Classical Academy plunged into the Twilight Zone of transgender politics.

[….]

….School board meetings at Nova, once sleepy affairs, quickly became scenes of conflict. LGBT activist groups such as Transforming Families (a support group for transgender families) and Gender Justice (a nonprofit law firm) “mobbed the meetings, brought their lawyers, protested, and compelled their sobbing transgender kids to talk about bullying and suicide attempts,” according to Emily Zinos, a longtime Nova parent.

Parents who questioned the proposed policy changes were branded as bigots. “We were ridiculed, mocked, and accused of hatefulness and ignorance, despite our doctoral degrees,” said Tom Lynn, parent of four Nova students. Parents’ free speech rights were also frequently challenged. At one school board meeting, Nova’s attorney asked the school board chair to end public comment, warning that a parent’s reference to the First Amendment could be interpreted as creating an impermissible “hostile environment.”

[…..]

…Individuals who suffer from a psychological condition known as “gender dysphoria” experience a marked incongruence between their biological sex and their “gender identity”—defined as the subjective, internal sense of being a man or woman. Gender dysphoria is listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). It is part of the family of psychological disorders that includes anorexia, body dysmorphic disorder, and body integrity identity disorder (BIID). Anorexic individuals wrongly believe they are obese, while those with body dysmorphic disorder are consumed by the notion that they are ugly. Individuals who suffer from BIID identify as disabled and sometimes seek amputation of healthy limbs or the surgical severing of their spinal cord.

In adult males, gender dysphoria is generally rooted in erotic attractions, according to McHugh. Children are different. They “come to their ideas about their sex” through “a variety of youthful psychosocial conflicts and concerns,” he says. These include “conflicts over the prospects, expectations, and roles that they sense are attached to their given sex—and presume that sex-reassignment will ease or resolve them.”

Gender dysphoria is often associated with pre-existing psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, autism spectrum disorders, and a history of sexual abuse or physical or mental trauma. Other “predisposing and perpetuating factors” include troubled peer dynamics, parental psychopathology, and parental reinforcement of cross-gender behavior during the sensitive period of gender-identity formation, according to Dr. Kenneth Zucker, longtime director of the Child Youth and Family Gender Identity Clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. A child’s ability to resolve gender dysphoria tends to correlate with parental attitudes, with success much more likely if parents minimize the problem, which is exactly the opposite of what transgender ideologues such as the Edwards are doing.

Fortunately, the great majority of young people who struggle with gender dysphoria “identify” with their own sex by late adolescence or adulthood, according to the DSM-5. Estimates range from 70 to 95 percent. For those afflicted, McHugh says, the best treatment is counseling and family therapy….

(MUST read)

Extended Sentences for Chilean Cult Members

Published by Papa Giorgio

“Dignity Colony” – was a German commune founded by German-born cult leader Paul Schaefer in 1961. The heavily guarded, 15,000-hectare colony was used as a secret detention and torture centre for political prisoners during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. At its height, about 300 people lived at Colonia Dignidad under draconian conditions, sealed off from the rest of the world and subject to abuse that included the systematic sexual molestation of children.

Schaefer, an ex-Nazi corporal who convinced 250 German followers to emigrate with him to Chile after authorities began investigating him, was sentenced to 33 years for child sexual abuse and other crimes and died in prison in 2010.

(SBS)

Conservatism Doesn’t Need a Qualifier Like, “Compassionate”

Published by Papa Giorgio

Dennis Prager asks Arthur Brooks a question regarding “‘Compassionate’ Conservatism.” Arthur Brooks responds that we do not need a qualifier to explain something so obvious.

Dennis talks Arthur Brooks, professor of public administration at Syracuse University, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism. (Originally broadcast December 28, 2006) One should see my main page for economic issues for more on these matters:

Losing One’s Sexuality at College

Published by Papa Giorgio

Dennis talks to Anna Montrose, a Canadian student who wrote an article in her college newspaper describing her sexual transformation from rigid heterosexual to bi-sexual. (Originally broadcast March 17, 2005)

Higher education teaches them a hate-filled Feminist dogma that heterosexuality is a “social construct,” males are violent predators, and sex with a man is rape. Millions of gullible girls are falling into a diabolical trap intended to make them pursue careers instead of families. As I have said, the purpose is to depopulate and destabilize society by destroying its fundamental building block, the family.

Miss Montrose says in her article:

✦ “It’s hard to go through four years of a Humanities B.A. reading Foucault and Butler and watching ‘The L Word’ and keep your rigid heterosexuality intact. I don’t know when it happened exactly, but it seems I no longer have the easy certainty of pinning my sexual desire to one gender and never the other.”

(BTW: Michel Foucault is a major French “post-modern” philosopher; Judith Butler is a prominent “gender theorist” at UC Berkeley; and “The L-Word” is a popular TV drama about “glamorous” lesbians.)

More from Prager, HERE.

Obama Despises Israel Because He Despises the West

Published by Papa Giorgio

In this audio from late in December 2016, Ben Shapiro on the “Morning Answer” discusses the United States abstention in the vote against Israel in the United Nations. He notes Obama’s history — along with the rest of the crew — of disliking the Judeo-Christian freedoms in this country. A good clip to remember by Ben.

Here are a couple articles by Ben:

➤ A Complete Timeline of Obama’s Anti-Israel Hatred || March 2015;
➤ Happy Chanukah, From Obama: Obama-Backed UN Resolution Says Temple Mount Isn’t Jewish || December 2016;
➤ Obama Despises Israel Because He Despises the West || December 2016.

Islamification of Germany – 2016 Edition

Published by Papa Giorgio

What a great chronological ordering of some of the main immigration woes Germany is facing in their voluntary death, via GATESTONE! (I suggest reading the entire article of which I excerpt from) — Follow Gatestone on TWITTER and Soeren Kern on TWITTER as well:

✦ Mass migration from the Muslim world is fast-tracking the Islamization of Germany, as evidenced by the proliferation of no-go zones, Sharia courts, polygamy and child marriages. Mass migration has also been responsible for a host of social disruptions, including jihadist attacks, a migrant rape epidemic, a public health crisis, rising crime and a rush by German citizens to purchase weapons for self-defense — and even to abandon Germany altogether.

✦ Development Minister Gerd Müller warned that the biggest refugee movements to Europe are still to come. He said that only 10% of the migrants from the chaos in Iraq and Syria have reached Europe so far: “Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way.”

✦ “There are written instructions … today we are not allowed to say anything negative about the refugees. This is government journalism, and this leads to a situation in which the public loses their trust in us. This is scandalous.” — Wolfgang Herles, Deutschlandfunk public radio.

✦ The Turkish government has sent 970 clerics — most of whom do not speak German — to lead 900 mosques in Germany that are controlled by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), a branch of the Turkish government’s Directorate for Religious Affairs, known in Turkish as Diyanet. Critics accuse Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of using DITIB mosques to prevent Turkish migrants from integrating into German society.

✦ A Cologne police superintendent revealed that he was ordered to remove the term “rape” from an internal police report about the mass sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. He said that an official at the North-Rhine Westphalia Interior Ministry told him in an angry tone: “This is not rape. Remove this term from your report. Submit a new report.”

✦ The German branch of Open Doors, a non-governmental organization supporting persecuted Christians, reported that thousands of Christians in German refugee shelters are being persecuted by Muslims, sometimes even by their security guards.

✦ A 23-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker wearing a T-shirt with the words “I’m Muslim Don’t Panic” was assaulted by fellow refugees for offending Islam. He was beaten so badly that he was hospitalized.

✦ Half of the three million ethnic Turks living in Germany believe it is more important to follow Islamic Sharia law than German law if the two are in conflict, according to a survey.

✦ A document leaked to Der Spiegel revealed that more than 33,000 migrants who are supposed to be deported are still in Germany, being cared for by German taxpayers. Many of the migrants destroyed their passports and are believed to have lied about their countries of origin to make it impossible for them to be deported.

✦ Migrants committed 142,500 crimes during the first six months of 2016, according to a report by the Federal Criminal Police Office. This is equivalent to 780 crimes committed by migrants every day, or 32.5 crimes each hour, an increase of nearly 40% over 2015. The data includes only those crimes in which a migrant suspect has been caught.

✦ Bild, the largest-circulation newspaper in Germany, warned that the country was “capitulating to Islamic law.”

Germany’s Muslim population surpassed six million in 2016 for the first time ever. Germany now vies with France for the highest Muslim population in Western Europe.

The increase in Germany’s Muslim population is being fueled by mass migration. An estimated 300,000 migrants arrived in Germany in 2016, in addition to the more than one million who arrived in 2015. At least 80% (or 800,000 in 2015 and 240,000 in 2016) of the newcomers were Muslim, according to the Central Council of Muslims in Germany.

In addition to the newcomers, the rate of population increase of the Muslim community already living in Germany is around 1.6% per year (or 77,000), according to data extrapolated from a Pew Research Center study on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe.

Based on Pew projections, which were proffered before the current migration crisis, the Muslim population of Germany was to have reached an estimated 5,145,000 by the end of 2015.

Adding the 800,000 Muslim migrants who arrived in Germany in 2015, and the 240,000 who arrived in 2016, combined with the 77,000 natural increase, the Muslim population of Germany jumped by 1,117,000, to reach an estimated 6,262,000 by the end of 2016. This amounts to approximately 7.5% of Germany’s overall population of 82 million.

Mass migration from the Muslim world is fast-tracking the Islamization of Germany, as evidenced by the proliferation of no-go zones, Sharia courts, polygamy and child marriages. Mass migration has also been responsible for a host of social disruptions, including jihadist attacks, a migrant rape epidemic, a public health crisis, rising crime and a rush by German citizens to purchase weapons for self-defense — and even to abandon Germany altogether.

What follows is a chronological round-up of some of the key stories about the Islamization of Germany during 2016.

JANUARY 2016

January 1. Mobs of Muslim men of “Arab or North African” origin sexually assaulted hundreds of women in Cologne and other German cities. Cologne Police Chief Wolfgang Albers called it “a completely new dimension of crime.” The government and mainstream media were accused of trying to cover up the crimes to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiment.

January 1. The Minister President of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, rejected public concerns about the “alleged Islamization” of Germany. “How should Muslims, who represent a minority, Islamize our society?” he asked. Germans feel insecure, he said, because “people are afraid of strangers they do not know.”

January 3. Bremen Police Union Chairman Jochen Kopelke said that migrants were attacking city police with increasing frequency: “The tone has become extremely aggressive; sometimes the police must apply massive force to get a situation under control.” Bremen Senator Ulrich Mäurer added: “The excesses of violence against police officers show that these people have no respect for our constitutional order and its representatives.”

January 4. A leaked police report revealed chaos “beyond description” in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. Women were forced to “run a gauntlet” of drunken men of a “migrant background” to enter and exit the central train station. Police officers were unable to re-establish order. One migrant reprimanded a police officer: “I am Syrian; you have to treat me kindly! Mrs. Merkel invited me.”

[….]

FEBRUARY 2016

February 2. A total of 91,671 migrants — an average of around 3,000 migrants each day — entered Germany during the month of January 2016.

February 4. German police arrested four members of a cell allegedly planning jihadist attacks in Berlin. The ringleader — a 35-year-old Algerian who was staying at a refugee shelter in Attendorn with his wife and two children — arrived in Germany posing as an asylum seeker from Syria. He reportedly received military training from the Islamic State.

February 5. Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency, revealed that more than 100 Islamic State fighters may be living in Germany as refugees, some of whom are known to have entered the country with fake or stolen passports.

[….]

MARCH 2016

March 1. The Schleswig-Holstein branch of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU announced plans to ensure that pork continues to be available at public canteens, child daycare centers and schools across the north German state. CDU politician Daniel Günther complained that canteens, nurseries and schools are removing pork from their menu in order not to offend Muslims. “The consumption of pork belongs to our culture,” he said. “No one should be obliged to do so. But we also don’t want the majority having to refrain from pork.”

March 3. The Arriba water park in Norderstedt, one of the largest such parks in Germany, announced that males and females would be segregated after two Afghan migrants raped a 14-year-old girl at the facility.

March 4. A court in Düsseldorf sentenced Nils Donath, a 25-year-old German national, to four-and-a-half years in prison for joining the Islamic State. The court heard how Donath, a convert to Islam, received weapons training and learned how to build bombs — and how he volunteered to carry out jihadist attacks in Europe.

[….]

APRIL 2016

April 3. Two migrants from Afghanistan were arrested for forcing a 14-year-old boy to perform sex acts on them at a public swimming pool in Delbrück.

April 10. A 26-year-old Syrian migrant admitted to setting fire to a migrant shelter in Bingen. He also admitted to painting swastikas outside the building in order to make it look as though the fire was set by anti-immigration protesters.

April 11. Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency, expressed alarm at the growing number of radical mosques in Germany. “Many mosques are dominated by fundamentalists and are being monitored because of their Salafist orientation,” Maassen said. Many of the mosques are being financed by Saudi Arabia.

[….]

MAY 2016

May 1. The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) adopted a manifesto calling for curbs to migration and restrictions on Islam. The document called for a ban on minarets, Muslim calls to prayer and full-face veils.

May 2. Hans-Georg Maassen, the German spy chief, revealed that around 90 “predominately Arabic-speaking” mosques in Germany are under surveillance. He said they involve mostly “backyard mosques” where “self-proclaimed imams and self-proclaimed emirs” are “inciting their followers to jihad.”

May 2. A Cologne police superintendent revealed that he was ordered to remove the term “rape” from an internal police report about the mass sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. He said that an official at the North-Rhine Westphalia Interior Ministry told him: “This is not rape. Remove this term from your report. Submit a new report.” The revelation added to suspicions of a political cover-up to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.

May 3. A 20-year-old Afghan migrant sexually assaulted a six-year-old boy in the changing room of a sports hall in Munich. Police said the same migrant had sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl at a public swimming pool in 2013.

May 5. An INSA poll found that 60% of the Germans surveyed believe that Islam does not belong to Germany. Nearly half (46%) of those surveyed said they are worried about the “Islamization” of Germany.

[….]

JUNE 2016

June 2. A new statistical survey of Germany showed that ethnic Turks are economically and educationally less successful than other immigrant groups. The report, produced by Destatis, Germany’s official statistics agency, showed that more than one-third (36%) of ethnic Turks live below the poverty line. Only 60% complete secondary school (Hauptschulabschluss), while less than 10% of ethnic Turks between the ages of 17 and 45 earn a Bachelor’s degree. Education is a determinative factor for successful integration, the report said.

June 2. Three Syrian jihadists were arrested for plotting a jihadist attack in Düsseldorf. A fourth individual was arrested in France. The plan involved two suicide bombers who would blow themselves up along the Heinrich-Heine-Allee, a busy street in the city center. Subsequently, other assassins would kill as many passers-by as possible with guns and bombs.

June 3. The head of the German police union, Rainer Wendt, said that budget cuts in the public sector made it impossible to vet all of the migrants coming into Germany. He was responding to demands that all migrants undergo immediate security checks.

[….]

JULY 2016

July 1. A court in Bavaria ruled that a law that prohibits Muslim legal trainees from wearing headscarves is illegal.

July 3. A 24-year-old woman, raped by three migrants in Mannheim in January, admitted to lying about the identity of her attackers. Selin Gören, a Turkish-German woman, initially said that her attackers were German nationals, when in fact they were Muslim migrants. Gören said she lied because she was afraid of fueling racism against migrants.

July 4. The 30 biggest German companies have employed only 54 refugees, including 50 who have been hired as couriers by Deutsche Post, the logistics provider. The data cast doubt on Angela Merkel’s promise to integrate asylum seekers into the German labor market as quickly as possible. Company executives say the main problem is that migrants lack professional qualifications and German language skills.

July 7. The German parliament approved changes to the criminal code to expand the definition of rape. Also known as the “No Means No” (“Nein heißt Nein”) law, any form of non-consensual sex will now be punishable as a crime. Previously, only cases in which victims could show that they physically resisted their attackers were punishable under German law. The changes, which were prompted by the sex attacks in Cologne, were hailed as a “paradigm shift” in German jurisprudence.

[….]

AUGUST 2016

August 2. Amid fears of Islamic terrorism, German officials raised the possibility of deploying the military within German borders for the first time since World War II.

August 11. Muslim patrols enforcing Sharia law were seen operating in the Wandsbek and Dammtor district of Hamburg.

August 16. Asylum seekers in Lower Saxony refused to accept job offers because they were “guests of Angela Merkel.”

[….]

SEPTEMBER 2016

September 3. Only 2,500 people attended a mass rally in Berlin to protest the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The organizers of the rally, including members of the Green Party, and the Left Party, had expected around 10,000 demonstrators to show up.

September 3. The Vice Chairman of the DPolG German Police Union in Hamburg, Freddi Lohse, said that many migrant offenders view the leniency of the German justice system as a green light to continue delinquent behavior. “They are used to tougher consequences in their home countries,” he said. “They have no respect for us.”

September 4. Angela Merkel suffered a major blow when the Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged ahead of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in elections in her home state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. With 20.8% of the vote, the AfD came in second place behind the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) (30.6%). Merkel’s CDU came in third place, with 19% of the vote, the worst result it has ever had in Meck-Pomm, as the state is called for short. The election in Meck-Pomm was widely seen as a referendum on Merkel’s open-door migration policy.

September 6. Migrants committed 142,500 crimes during the first six months of 2016, according to a report by the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA). This is equivalent to 780 crimes committed by migrants every day, or 32.5 crimes each hour, an increase of nearly 40% over 2015. The data includes only those crimes in which a migrant suspect has been caught.

[….]

OCTOBER 2016

October 1. Two migrants raped a 23-year-old woman in Lüneburg as she was walking in a park with her young child. The men, who remain at large, forced the child to watch while they took turns assaulting the woman.

October 2. A 19-year-old migrant raped a 90-year-old woman as she was leaving a church in downtown Düsseldorf. Police initially described the suspect as “a Southern European with North African roots.” It later emerged that the man is a Moroccan with a Spanish passport.

October 2. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble called for the development of a “German Islam” to help integrate Muslims in the country.

October 4. The 2016 Munich Oktoberfest recorded its lowest turnout since 2001. Visitors reportedly stayed away due to concerns about terrorism and migrant-related sexual assaults.

[….]

NOVEMBER 2016

November 3. Five Somali migrants went on a rampage after the owner of a pub in Wabern asked them to pay for the alcohol they had consumed. “We are Somalis, we don’t pay,” the men said before smashing up the establishment.

November 11. The Military Intelligence Service (Militärische Abschirmdienst, MAD) reported that more than 20 Islamists are serving in the German armed forces, and another 60 service members are suspected of being Islamists. Some 30 veterans are known to have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq. The report raised concerns that Islamists are joining the German armed forces in order to obtain combat training.

[….]

DECEMBER 2016

December 3. A 17-year-old Afghan migrant was arrested for raping and murdering a 19-year-old medical student in Freiburg. Police said she may have met her killer at the asylum shelter where she was a volunteer. Freiburg Mayor Dieter Salomon warned against making generalizations about migrants because this crime was an “isolated case.”

 

December 6. Eyeing reelection, Angela Merkel called for a burka ban: “The full veil is not appropriate here and it should be forbidden wherever that is legally possible.” In September, Merkel said she was opposed to a burka ban because it would violate “religious freedom.”

December 8. The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, Germany’s highest court, ruled that Muslim girls must take part in mixed swimming classes at school, finding against an 11-year-old pupil who had argued that even wearing a burkini, or full-body swimsuit, breached Islamic dress codes. The court rejected an appeal by the girl’s parents that she should be excused from the classes because a burkini did not conform to the Islamic standard of decency.

[….]

(READ IT ALL)

No Certain Doom – Climate Model Failure

Published by Papa Giorgio

(H-T WUWT) Scott Adams, author of the famous Dilbert Cartoon, has challenged readers to find a qualified scientist who thinks climate models do a good job of predicting the future.

Here is Scott’s Tweet:

The following video presentation is by Patrick Frank, a Ph.D. chemist with more than 50 peer-reviewed articles. He has previously published in Skeptic on the noble savage myth, as well as in Theology and Science on the designer universe myth and in Free Inquiry, with Thomas H. Ray, on the science is philosophy myth. He works [worked?] at Stanford as a Life Science Research Assistant for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. His article the video is based on  is this:

“He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.” — John McCarthy

Larry Elder Interviews Thomas Sowell (12-28-2016)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Larry Elder interviews Thomas Sowell and they discuss many issues, some current some biographical. Doc Sowell sounds great (healthy as a horse), and while he has laid his pen for his columns… he says he is still in the mix via his other avenues of scholarship.

I hope he updates a book or two, and publishes a few more. That man is a giant and needs to continue on his his career for the benefit of conservatism.

The 2nd Amendment Was Only For Muskets (Puckle Update)

Published by Papa Giorgio

The First “Assault” Weapon – 1718

(Via FIREARM BLOG) The Puckle Gun is one of those firearms of which only a couple of expamples exist in the world, but which is covered in a great deal of introductory firearms books, usually in their section on the history of machine guns. This has led many to assume the Puckle Gun was some kind of proto-machine gun, which isn’t exactly the case, although it is a very important historical step on the road to modern rapid-fire weaponry. Some discussion will follow below, but first, Forgotten Weapons released an installment on the partial original Puckle Gun located at Reed Knight’s Institute of Military Technology…

[ the video below is here in the Firearm Blog post ]

What makes the Puckle significant to the development of rapid fire guns? Its features. It is one of the earliest, if not the earliest breechloading guns to my knowledge that incorporates all of the following features necessary for a modern rapid-fire gun:

  • A method of sealing the chamber to prevent gas escape
  • A quick-changeable feeding device for rapid reloading
  • Pre-set, integrated priming to elminate the priming stage of loading and protect the priming compound from the environment

Previous breechloaders did incorporate one or two of these features, but Puckle’s gun combined all three to produce a true rapid-fire weapon….

InPuckle Gun 1718 the “Puckle gun” [above], the first machine gun, appeared. (One could argue that the so-called “assault rifle pre-dated the Second Amendment.) The Colt revolver followed not long after and in the late 1800s the Gatling gun, which fired 200 rounds per minute, appeared on the market. The evolution of firearms was observable during the time that the Constitution was drafted; to argue that the Founding Fathers were unaware of, or not living through, the ever-evolving capabilities of firearms is blatant ignorance of both common sense and fact. Jefferson himself was a noted collector and in letters explained what technological capabilities he favored in pieces over others in his collection. ~ The Dana Show

A transcript of the above CBS 46 presentation can be found HERE.

RED STATE continues on with this thinking:

…Prior to the Civil War, the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal government and that first Congress dropped references to “as allowed by Law” that had been in the English Bill of Rights. The Founders intended that Congress was to make no law curtailing the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms.

The 2nd Amendment, contrary to much of today’s conversation, has just as much to do with the people protecting themselves from tyranny as it does burglars. That is why there is so little common ground about assault rifles — even charitably ignoring the fact that there really is no such thing. If the 2nd Amendment is to protect the citizenry from even their own government, then the citizenry should be able to be armed.

There are plenty of arguments and bodies to suggest that we might, as a nation, need to rethink this. The Founders gave us that option. We can amend the Constitution.

In doing so, we should keep in mind that in the past 100 years Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan, China, and other governments have turned on their people at various times and, in doing so, restricted freedoms starting often with gun ownership. You may think a 30 round magazine is too big. Under the real purpose of the second amendment, a 30 round magazine might be too small.

Regardless, as the President announces how he will curtail the freedoms of the second amendment, we should remember Justice Robert Jackson’s opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943):

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.

And the Examiner notes “Pepperbox” and “Volley Guns”

…Put whoever tries to get away with such an unsupportable wild claim on the spot by asking them to explain pepperbox revolvers, multiple barrel handheld firearms based on a concept introduced in the 15th Century, albeit they were initially fired using a match. At the time the Constitution was adopted, pepperboxes had upgraded their technology to flintlock versions, with up to seven barrels rotated by hand.

Then ask them to explain volley guns, first used in 1339.

The Founders experienced first-hand a major technological innovation that yielded a range and accuracy advantage: long guns with rifled barrels, like Kentucky and Pennsylvania rifles, had it all over British standard-issue Brown Bess smooth bore muskets…

The Wild-Wild West:

…How many murders do you suppose these old western towns saw a year? Let’s say the bloodiest, gun-slingingest of the famous cattle towns with the cowboys doing quick-draws at high noon every other day. A hundred? More?

How about five? That was the most murders any old-west town saw in any one year. Ever. Most towns averaged about 1.5 murders a year, and not all of those were shooting. You were way more likely to be murdered in Baltimore in 2008 than you were in Tombstone in 1881, the year of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral (body count: three) and the town’s most violent year ever.

As for the traditional Western gunfight as depicted in movies, the inaccuracy of handguns at the time would have made quick-drawing skill irrelevant: It was simply so unlikely you’d hit a guy on the first, second or third shot that it didn’t really matter which guy got out his gun first. The closest history got to high-noon show downs was dueling, where people just stood across from one another with their guns out, aimed and fired until someone got lucky, and someone else was dead. Forget about “fanning,” rapidly cocking a single-action revolver between rounds like Clint Eastwood does in A Fistful of Dollars. You’d be lucky to hit a henchman if the duel took place in a closet.

Why Do We Believe It?

Because famous gunfighters like Billy the Kid wanted you to believe it. If you’ve seen Young Guns on cable, you probably know the guy was gunning somebody down every ten minutes!

Well according to sources who aren’t Billy The Kid, his lifetime kill count was four. Criminals inflated their murder stats for the same reason guys today inflate their sexual experience: It made them look cool. Towns like Deadwood talked up their violent, lawless natures in order to attract adventurous settlers. Books were written about them and movies were made as soon as cameras were invented, and nobody who’d been out west was rushing to correct the misconceptions because, why the hell would they. A century and a half later, we still love that lie…

(6 Ridiculous History Myths ~ You Probably Think Are True)

Miss Malcolm’s Book has some startling examples of a society gone mad!

Malcolm’s book has shown me that I radically underestimated the danger of gun control. Her detailed study of British legislation on the topic shows the real aim of the disarmers. They wish to abolish the right to armed self-defense entirely. The point is not only to block armed resistance to the state, as I had previously thought; in addition, everyone is to be made totally dependent on the state for protection.

Some of Malcolm’s examples are shocking. In England “[m]erely threatening to defend oneself can also prove illegal, as an elderly lady discovered. She succeeded in frightening off a gang of thugs by firing a blank from a toy gun, only to be arrested for the crime of putting someone in fear with an imitation firearm” (p. 184).

Not even if one’s life is in danger can one legally use a weapon. In another case, two men assaulted Eric Butler in a subway, smashing his head and choking him. “In desperation he unsheathed a sword blade in his walking stick and slashed at one of them. . . . The assailants were charged with unlawful wounding but Butler was also tried, and convicted of carrying an offensive weapon” (p. 185).

You can imagine the legal position if someone goes so far as to use a real gun to defend himself. As British law now stands, you cannot even use a gun in your own home to defend yourself against burglars. In a 1999 incident, Tony Martin surprised a professional burglar and his accomplice while they robbed his home. He fired, killing one of them.

Did the government commend Martin for his bravery in confronting the burglars? Quite the contrary, they tried and convicted him for murder. “Thus an English farmer, living alone, has been sentenced to life in prison for killing one professional burglar and ten years for wounding another when the two broke into his home at night” (p. 216). Fortunately, our story has a “happy” ending: the court of appeals reduced his sentence to five years, on grounds of “diminished capacity.”

[….]

Gun control advocates, faced with these facts, will at once begin to yammer uncontrollably, “a correlation is not a cause.” Indeed it is not; but in this instance, a strong correlation holds in two ways: when guns increase in number, violent crimes decrease, and when guns decrease, violent crimes increase. Further, a plausible causal story explains the correlation: the prospect of armed resistance deters criminals. This is about as good as an inductive argument gets. But I do not anticipate that those who wish to take away the right to self-defense will alter their position. They aim to make everyone totally dependent on the all-powerful state….

(Guns and Violence: The English Experience, Joyce Lee Malcolm)

John & Ken Discuss CalPERS Ponzi Scheme (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

California Boondoggles

The pension crisis in California is the worst in the country, and it will continue to get worse as Jerry Brown and the environmentalists strap this state with regulations that choke businesses to death — see:

✦ California Regression – Eco Craziness
✦ Cow-Farts in London – Jerry Brown

IBD has this article on the issue:

Pensions: California, which is known for its earthquakes, just had a major one. Didn’t feel it? You will. This quake isn’t the earthshaking kind, but rather the state’s decision to recognize reality when it comes to its insolvent public-employee pension fund.

Last week, the 85-year-old California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, slashed its official investment forecast going forward, meaning that state and local governments, police and sheriffs departments, and even school districts will have to spend billions of dollars more to CalPERS to support their future retirees. And, no doubt, it will mean higher taxes for all.

Sadly, this move won’t be enough. For years, the state has projected steady investment returns of 7.5% for CalPERS, the largest pension fund in the nation. But returns have been below that. So now CalPERS is trimming its return to 7% per year. But, given the pension fund’s mismanagement and poor performance, even that may be too high. Today the fund is a little over 60% fully funded, meaning it will have to raise billions of dollars more to be solvent. That means higher contributions for government workers, and higher taxes for average citizens.

It’s no accident. “CalPERS has … steered billions of dollars into politically connected firms,” wrote Steve Malanga in City Journal, back in 2013. “And it has ventured into ‘socially responsible’ investment strategies, making bad bets that have lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Such dubious practices have piled up a crushing amount of pension debt, which California residents — and their children — will somehow have to repay.”

That’s happening now. California’s famous Highway Patrol, for instance, has grossly underfunded its pensions. So it got the state to agree to a $10 hike in car registration fees to help make up the shortfall. No doubt, it will be asking for more soon.

It’s not just California. Across the country, pension funds have been underfunded, mismanaged and in some cases looted by managers. Today, according to the Fed, pension funds across the country are $2 trillion in the red — after being overfunded as recently as the year 2000. That means tax hikes are coming, like it or not…..

Professor Wants “White Genocide” For Christmas (UPDATE by SARGON)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Remember, Sargon is an atheist (just a memo):

The bottom line seems to be that white-people are not welcomed at Drexel University — OR — not have white alumni donate money:

THE DAILY CALLER discusses the above Tweet by George Ciccariello-Maher, an associate professor of politics and global studies at Drexel University in Philadelphia,

Drexel University associate professor of political science George Ciccariello-Maher has a long history of espousing racist views towards white people on Twitter and has at times supported genocide.

Cicariello-Maher, a white man who specializes in race and racism among other topics, has been the subject of criticism from media outlets and social media users after he tweeted on Saturday, “All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide.” He subsequently deleted the tweet and brushed it off as a joke, saying that “White isn’t a race.” (RELATED: University Professor: I Want ‘White Genocide’ For Christmas)

However, Cicariello-Maher’s view that “white isn’t a race” doesn’t match up with his past tweets. On Sunday, Ciccariello-Maher said that the massacre of whites during the Haitian Revolution was a “good thing.” During the Haitian massacre in 1804 as many as 4,000 whites were killed.

Ciccariello-Maher’s anti-white tweets, however, did not start this weekend. On Feb 3, 2013, the Drexel professor said that “Yacub made a lot of white folks.” According to Nation of Islam theology, Yacub is a black scientist who created the white race to be a “race of devils.”

Then on June 8, 2015, Ciccariello-Maher said, “Abolish the White Race.” A little over a week later, the Drexel professor said that Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof “simply put into practice what many white Americans already think.”

Ciccariello-Maher also tweeted in Sept. 2016 a purported exchange between him and his son: “Son: If I was a slave, I’d bake a cake & put a potion in it & the white people would steal it Me: What would the potion do? Him: Kill them,” the Drexel University professor wrote.

Just this past week, in response to a viral video claiming to show two men kicked off a plane for speaking Arabic, Ciccariello-Maher wrote, “#Gulag these Racist Crackers.”

Ciccariello-Maher, who describes himself as a communist, joined Drexel University in 2010. Drexel University said in a statement Sunday afternoon: “While the University recognizes the right of its faculty to freely express their thoughts and opinions in public debate, Professor Ciccariello-Maher’s comments are utterly reprehensible, deeply disturbing, and do not in any way reflect the values of the University.”….

Speaking of “Class Warfare,” e.g., cultural Marxism…