Category: Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms

‘Equity’ Can be Deadly

Words of 'woke' from Oceangate CEO. Surely qualifications and experience can't matter much.  Surely. Might there be some hubris in naming  a submersible Titan? 

I dilate further at Substack.

In other news, armed IRS agents seize gun purchase records from Montana gun shop. Some say we are now living in a police state. I recommend that you read Stephen P. Holbrook, Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and Other Enemies of the State.  Three brief reviews here.

A New Budweiser Joke

One of the old ones goes like this. "Ah had me a coupla Buds, but ahm none the wiser."  I suggest as part of the punch back against the Anheuser-Busch Dylan Mulvaney wokery, the following:

I had me a couple of Buds and my schlong's no longer a riser.

But I am sure you can do better than that; combox open.

The logically prior question, of course, is why anyone of taste and discernment would drink the swill served up by Anheuser-Busch when you can drink some such fine German brew as St. Pauli Girl the poster 'boy' of which is a buxom wench (in sense 1) who is not only unambiguously female but also stacked and packed to the nines and hence in violation of all  canons of wokery known to man.

If your head is screwed on Right, you will enjoy DeSantis' take on this brew-haha (I'm punning on brouhaha, as I'm sure you've noticed.)

Time to man up and bone up on your political ponerology the better to punch back against the 'woke' kakistocracy and all its works. Not much is at stake, of course, except the survival of civilization.

St Pauli Girl

 

 

Three Senses of ‘Peace’

There is the divine peace that "surpasseth all understanding." (Philippians 4:7) It is the most difficult to achieve.

There is peace among people who love, or at least tolerate, one another. It is moderately difficult to achieve.

There is finally the peace most easily achieved, that based on deterrence and mutual fear. (Our enemies do not respect us, but they can be made to fear us, and for most practical purposes fear suffices.) This is the peace guaranteed by the strength of a Reagan or a Trump but undermined by the weakness of a Carter, an Obama, or (worst of all) a Biden.  This is the peace about which it is wisely said, "If you want peace, prepare for war."  Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Credible deterrence assures peace between nations. Never forget: Nations are in the state of nature vis-à-vis one another, and nature is "red in tooth and claw."  This is not pessimism; it is realism.

A well-armed and well-trained populace assures peace  between it and the state apparatus which is ever lusting to increase its power. The will to power wills not merely its preservation but its continuous increase.

The peace purchased by credible deterrence is the foundation of the other, loftier, two. You will not be able to achieve the peace that "surpasseth all understanding,' or even peace with your brothers if your monastery is being bombed to smithereens.  This is why the Luftmensch must know how to fight, why the bookman must needs also be a rifleman. This is especially so at a time when those in control of the state apparatus have forgotten, or rather willfully ignore, the purposes that justify government in the first place, namely the tasks of securing the life, liberty and property of those governed. But the Orwellian wokesters now in charge invert these values in the Orwellian manner and aid and abet those who aim at the opposite. I trust my meaning is clear.

By the way, now you know why the 9mm pistol round is sometimes referred as the parabellum round. Also, and coincidentally, Pb is the designation on the Periodic Table for the element, lead, which I might add, nowadays counts as a 'precious metal.' A wise man in these trying times stocks up on such 'precious metals' as Au and Pb. 

Why Would Anyone Need an AR-15?

In this hyperkinetic age of 'twitterized' attention spans, the culture warrior has to be quick on the trigger with pithy punch-back against our political enemies.  So if anyone asks the above question, shoot back with three words:

Ask the Ukrainians!

For open-minded people interested in a serious conversation, however, you must have at the ready calm, detailed, logically sound, fact-based, invective-free arguments. You will find some in my Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms category together with a certain amount of invective, mockery, and contumely.  The caress of sweet reason works with some, but others respond only to the hard fist of unreason. Different strokes for different folks. Tailor your discourse to your audience. And your actions too.  And now I must quit you for a time and mount the mountain bike.

The Musket Canard, its F-15 Counterpart, the Need Canard, and 2A

Tony Flood commenting on my Substack entry ARs and Cattle Cars:

Excellent all around, Bill. Pithy opener and rises from there, especially the fixed meaning/variable application distinction. (Good biblical hermeneutics, too.) Will propagate. 

Besides the musket canard, there's its F-15 counterpart, which recently came out of Biden's mouth (I wonder who put it there): to take on the US government, you'd need fighter jets and maybe some nukes, not measly AR-15s. This invites patriots to rhetorically ask Brandon whether they should put such items on their wish list, if that's what it would take to neutralize a tyranny's threat (2A's raison d'être). Does might, after all, make right? Given a nuclear-armed George III, should Washington have thrown in the towel? I'm sure you could make the point I'm cornering more convincingly.
Thank you, Tony. Your comment raises a number of issues. I'll mention two here. I solicit your response.
 
1) I agree that the Second Amendment's raison d'être is to keep tyranny at bay.  Historically, that was why it came to be.  (If there is an historian in the house, I am open to correction.) Tactically, however, it might not be wise to harp on this point lest you provoke a Biden-type response.  There are other reasons for 2A.  One has to do with defense of self and of certain others (spouse, children, et al.)
 
I argue as follows. If I have the right to life, then I have the right to defend my life, and you (plural) have the correlative duty not to take my life. But if I have the right to life, then I have the right to acquire, keep, and bear instruments appropriate for the defense of my life.  What count as appropriate instruments will depend on circumstances, and circumstances change.  If the criminal element is armed with semi-automatic 9-mm pistols with 13-round magazines, then surely the law-abiding citizen must be allowed  to own such firearms. A fortiori given that the government, which is charged with the protection of life, liberty, and property, is in many (not all) places refusing to do its job and is instead empowering criminals by defunding the police, eliminating cash bail, emptying the prisons, opening the borders, and similar 'reforms.' (Note the woke-left's Orwellian use of 'reform.')
 
Besides keeping the government and the criminal element in check, there are two further reasons why the citizen's "right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." One is that guns are needed by some in pursuit of their legitimate occupations. Ranchers use AR-15s to thin out the predatory coyote population. (By 'coyote' I mean a species of canine.) A fourth reason is that firearms have legitimate sporting applications such as marksmanship competitions.
 
2) This brings me to the Need Canard. 

You can have a right to a thing whether or not you now have or will ever have a need for it. So the best response to the leftist who asks, "Why do you need a semi-automatic firearm?" is wrong question! Stop the pointless conversation right there. "The question is not whether I need one; the question is whether I have a right to one." Then explain that the right to appropriate means of self-defense follows from the right to self-defense which in turn follows from the right to life.

Depending on the sort of leftist you are dealing with you could then go on to explain why you do need a gun. But the wisest policy is not to debate leftists. Generally speaking and admitting exceptions, leftists need to be defeated, not debated. Debate is worthwhile only with open-minded truth seekers. Truth, however, is not a leftist value. At the apex of the leftist's value hierarchy stands POWER. That is not to say that a leftist will never speak the truth; he will sometimes, but only if it serves his agenda. 

Related: Floridians do not welcome home invaders.