Crows

Documentary on money and the Federal Reserve

2007-01-30T09:02:00.000-08:00

This is a video documentary on how money works, why inflation exists, and how the federal reserve system and fiat currency act like a massive hidden tax:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-466210540567002553

The success of victim disarmament in the UK

2007-01-25T13:20:00.000-08:00

The UK has some of the toughest gun control legislation in the world: civilian ownership of handguns is prohibited, and ownership of long guns is tightly controlled. Of course, this has no effect on criminals, who don't obey gun laws and have thus figured out how to take advantage of victim disarmament, according to the Guardian:

Labour has been accused of losing control of gun crime as new figures show a sharp rise in armed robberies.

Guns were used in 4,120 robberies last year - a 10% jump - including a 9% rise to 1,439 in the number of street robberies where guns were used.

There was also a rapid and unexplained increase in the number of times householders were confronted in their own homes by armed criminals. Residential firearms robberies show a 46% leap, a record 645 cases in England and Wales - up 204 on the previous year and four times the level recorded in 2000-01.

The proof is before your eyes

2007-01-22T11:20:00.000-08:00

Another post to northeastshooters:

Quote:

In a Constitutional Republic such as ours, the pure majority does not rule. Even legsilators are constrained by the Constitution. The fact that the Constitution is nowadays ignored often does not condemn the idea of our founding fathers.

Lots of people have great ideas. Sometimes those ideas are implemented well. Sometimes they are good ideas that are implemented poorly. And sometimes those ideas are unworkable. It is commonly accepted that communism is an unworkable idea. But I assert that constitutional republicanism is another unworkable idea... and my proof is the situation we now find ourselves in.

What good are protections that no one can enforce? It certainly isn't in the best interests of government to enforce our rights: they naturally want as much control over us as they can acquire, because it benefits the elite who run it. It is up to we, the People, to do that... but today most people just don't care, so the few freedom lovers out there are forced to live under the same rules as the soccer mom who thinks "guns are just awful" and "we need to do *something* about the poor!"

I certainly judge the founders on the efficacy of their work. And the bottom line is that constitutional republicanism, i.e., classical liberalism, has been shown over the course of the past 150 years to be an abject failure in terms of protecting the liberties of the people, the most important of which are enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The Incumbent Protection Act and the AWB are but two examples of the many instances of even our most basic rights being stripped from us.

Quote:

If anarchy is what you want, you best find some other place to look for it. There are some, including me, who will fight all the way to restore our Constitutional Republic and keep it from becoming a socialist hellhole or its opposite, an anarchist's wet dream.

You are fighting for a system. I am fighting for an ideal: liberty. The system you advocate is demonstrably incompatible with liberty. The proof is right in front of your eyes.

I've said it before and I will say it again: I would be perfectly willing to live in the system the founders created. You know the one: where the Union is voluntary, where property rights are respected (i.e., a man/woman's home really is his/her castle), where the feds stick to the explicitly enumerated powers in Article I, where I can give any amount of money to anyone for any reason, where that money is backed by something of real value, where an obscene percentage of that money is not stolen from me under the threat of force... and where I can build/buy/possess any weapon of any magnitude up to and beyond owning my own private Air Force in order to enforce those rights. But I contend that such a system is unsustainable: somehow, some way... we will again lose those rights gradually until we end up right back at the point we are now. I'd rather not give up my natural rights in the first place. That's the only way to really protect them.

Kyle

Don't get the gub'mint to do your dirty work

2007-01-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

I just spotted this story linked by Drudge about some gamblers who cheated to win at several casinos in London.

A CHEF who turned high-tech poker cheat with an array of James Bond-style spy equipment to pocket an estimated £250,000 was jailed for nine months today.
Yau Yiv Lam, 45, and two other partners in crime, repeatedly preyed on casinos throughout London using miniature “up-the-sleeve” cameras and virtually invisible earpieces to reverse the odds and chalk up a string of spectacular wins.

Regardless of whether you think there is any such notion as "cheating" in a casino or where exactly that line should be drawn (I've never understood why using your brain to count cards, for instance, is considered cheating), why is it the job of the government to investigate, to prosecute, and to support the incarceration of those who arguably defraud casinos? Specifically, why isn't it the job of the casino itself to investigate and then pursue action against the cheater at its own expense?

I simply fail to see why the government---and, by extension, the taxpayers who are being systematically robbed in the name of this mercantilism---should do the dirty work of a business that simply doesn't want to foot the full cost of its business. This logic certainly doesn't apply only to casinos, but this is a particularly obvious example of an industry that can and should accept all the consequences of its business model.

The importance of diction to liberty

2007-01-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

Posted on northeastshooters:

Originally Posted by squarooticus

Don't give in to statist kool-aid/newspeak. There is no such thing as a privately-owned "public establishment". All such "public establishments" are actually private property and should be off-limits to government do-gooders.

Kyle
If you're a libertarian, yes. If you're in the real world, no.

By even submitting to the term "public establishment," you are providing ammunition to advocates of government control over private property. You call it the "real world"; I call it acceding a battle in the war of rhetoric.

You don't refer to your (perhaps hypothetical) AR-15 as an "assault weapon", do you? By virtue of the existence of that phrase as a term of law for the past 12 years, it certainly has meaning, and it applies to any pre-ban AR-15. But for an advocate of liberty to use that term is to admit that there's something unique about "assault weapons" that may call for restrictions.

The same is true of "public establishment": by replacing "private" with "public," you immediately give credence to the notion that the "public" should have some say about how business is run inside those four walls, when in fact the only people who should have a say are the owners and the paying customers who can choose to patronize it or not.

Be precise. Say what you mean, not what the whack job, nanny state, anti-freedom nutsos want you to say. All principled freedom lovers are libertarians, whether they want to believe it or not. Everyone else is just a statist with different colored stripes.

Kyle

John Edwards' Real Problem

2007-01-05T15:03:00.000-08:00

Reason's Hit-and-Run blog had a story yesterday about John Edwards' hypocrisy with respect to his "Two Americas" rhetoric and his desire to cut the line for a PS3. The second of the two comments below is incredibly incisive and really illustrates the core of the problem with politics in general and with democracy in particular. (Emphasis mine in the below comments.)

Will Allen | January 5, 2007, 4:34pm | #
Joe, as I have understood him, Edwards says he has a problem with what he views as extreme wealth disparity, but perhaps I'm wrong. If he only has a problem with some people being poor, why the reference to the "two Americas"? Why not simply note that there are people who are poor?

Gilbert Martin | January 5, 2007, 5:12pm | #
What Edwards actually has a problem with is that he isn't the president.

He wants to remedy that problem and needs to come up with some rationalization to pawn off on the public as to why he should be president.

Hence, the "two Americas" routine.

In short, his expression of concern for "poor people" is a lie.

But, he's hardly unique in that regard. All the other liberal Democrat politicians in the entire history of the country from FDR to Nancy Pelosi who claim their reason for initiating some government power grab or redistribution scheme was concern for the poor, the children, the middle class or whatever have all been liars.

Military weapons

2007-01-03T08:27:00.000-08:00

A few friends and I spent several hours on the afternoon of New Year's Eve at the Lloyd Rod and Gun Club shooting a variety of rifles and carbines. We took a bunch of pictures of our firing one of the guns I brought, a Romanian-made WASR-10, which is essentially a post-AWB, semi-automatic version of the Avtomat Kalashnikova (AK-47), the rifle most often associated with the mujahadeen by Americans.

The videos and photos we took at the range that day were an endless source of entertainment for us and our families and friends: everyone got a kick out of Adam's "cover fire" simulation and the resulting smoking barrel, as well as Walter's scream of triumph upon emptying a 30-round magazine into the 1/4" metal plate swinging from the rig we'd set up.

I did hear the same comment several times from different people, however: "I can't believe they let you have those guns!" Even though most of you who know me understand exactly what I think of the "protections" provided by the US Constitution, when talking with lay people who do actually think the Constitution means something it is helpful to remind them of exactly what the 2nd amendment is there for.

Just as the real purpose of the 1st amendment's protection of speech and the press is to protect political speech---even though it also happens to protect pr0nography, satire, and fair use---the real purpose of the 2nd amendment is to ensure that the government does not have a monopoly on force---even though it also provides for personal defense, hunting, and shooting sports.

There is another unfortunate analogy as well: just as the 1st amendment's primary purpose has been attacked by the incumbent protection act (a.k.a. campaign finance reform), the 2nd amendment's primary purpose has been emasculated by laws like the AWB and the restriction on civilian ownership of machine guns and other forms of military ordnance. The fact that Hustler and a .308 Winchester have better protection in court precedent than an attack ad and an automatic M16 or AK-47 turn on their heads the precise reasons for those two amendments.

10 myths about atheism

2006-12-25T08:28:00.000-08:00

Merry Xmas to all! Today seems like a fitting day to help dispel myths about us infidels:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-harris24dec24,0,3994298.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

Some happy thoughts for your solstice celebration

2006-12-24T12:49:00.000-08:00

Found on drmss.com:

The US is insolvent. There is simply no way for our national bills to be paid under current levels of taxation and promised benefits. Our combined federal deficits now total more than 400% of GDP.

How's this as some added year-end education:

Of course, it is impossible to print our way out of this particular pickle because printing money is inflationary and therefore a ‘hidden tax’ on everyone. Consider, what’s the difference between having half of your money directly taken (taxed) by the government and having half of its value disappear due to inflation? Nothing. Except that the former is political suicide while the latter is conveniently never discussed by the US financial mainstream press (for some reason) and therefore goes undetected by a majority of people as the thoroughly predictable outcome of deficit spending. All printing can realistically accomplish is the preservation of some DC jobs and the decimation of the middle and lower classes.

(Emphasis mine.)

Or this glowingly positive gem:

And how about the fact that boomers begin retiring in 2008…that always seemed to be waaaay out in the future. However, beginning January 1st we can start referring to 2008 as ‘next year’ instead of ‘some point in the future too distant to get concerned about now’. Our economic problems need to be classified as growing, imminent, and unsustainable.
And let me clarify something. The $53 trillion shortfall is expressed as a ‘net present value’. That means that in order to make the shortfall disappear we’d have to have that amount of cash in the bank – today - earning interest (the GAO uses 5.7% & 5.8% as the assumed long-term rate of return). I’ll say it again - $53 trillion, in the bank, today. Heck, I don’t even know how much a trillion is let alone fifty-three of ‘em.

And next year we’d have to put even more into this mythical interest bearing account simply because we didn’t collect any interest on money we didn’t put in the bank account this year. For the record, 5.7% on $53 trillion is a bit more than $3 trillion dollars so you can see how the math is working against us here. This means the deficit will swell by at least another $3 trillion plus whatever other shortfalls the government can rack up in the meantime. So call it another $4 trillion as an early guess for next year.

Given how studiously our nation is avoiding this topic both in the major media outlets and during our last election cycle, I sometimes feel as if I live in a small mountain town that has decided to ignore an avalanche that has already let loose above in favor of holding the annual kindergarten ski sale.

So when you hear that the government has stopped publishing the M3 number and don't immediately ask what that is and why it's bad, you are also ignoring the impending avalanche.

I was asked today by a friend whether I had any solutions to the problems I point out. I certainly don't have a global solution because we're all tiny pebbles riding in the back of a 4000lbs. pickup. But I know enough to jump off the truck when it's about to tumble into the gorge.

Am I all doom and gloom?

Of course not. Happy solstice. :-D

HOWTO: Convert gun-grabber to gun owner

2006-12-24T07:33:00.000-08:00

I found this while reading northeastshooters this morning. Enjoy, and Merry Xmas!

My wife and I were talking to our younger son’s ex-schoolteacher, who is, unsurprisingly for our Lakeview neighborhood, a part-time social worker and a full-time lesbian. The conversation turned to guns and the Second Amendment. I announced with pride that Son #1 had just completed his NRA training course and had received his Boy Scout Rifle badge.
"Why would you let your son do that?" asked Ex-Teacher, her features wrinkled with distaste.
"Because every boy should learn how to handle a gun," I said, thinking that this was self-evident. (I mean, hasn’t everyone seen "Red Dawn"?)
"Well," said Ex-Teacher, "I don’t want to bring up my son in a culture of macho self-defense."
Whereupon my wife (bless her heart) said sweetly, "I’d rather teach my son macho self-defense, than encourage him to be a quivering victim."

Capitalism is the natural order

2006-12-16T11:22:00.000-08:00

I wrote this on PM:Pub in response to a message lamenting what amounts to the rat race:

If people didn't have to satisfy needs---food, water, shelter, clothing, health---then they might be able to survive in a primitive barter economy, and even be happier (though that is debatable). Unfortunately, people do have these needs, and therefore they need to satisfy them some way.

Who is going to produce food, or clothing, or drugs---or whatever---for you without expecting to be compensated for it? And how are you supposed to compensate them? You could trade something you have for whatever you need, but what if you don't have something they want?

This problem was solved by the introduction of "money": an agreed-upon medium of exchange that, under ideal circumstances, provides a universal unit in which to measure the subjective value of everything. Instead of trading a cow for 20 bottles of Zanax, you trade your cow for some money, and then trade some of that money for the Zanax you need now, and keep the rest of the money under a mattress until you need to trade it for something else.

The rest of your complaint is pretty much related to how you dislike the notion of accumulating wealth in the form of money in order to get the things you need or want. You can be a luddite and head to the hills or join a commune, which could work out great... until you need something that the commune doesn't produce (e.g., a cancer drug), and then what will you do? What wealth will you own personally to trade for that thing you need?

The fact is that capitalism doesn't exist because someone in the past decreed, "This is the way it shall be." On the contrary, capitalism exists and ultimately governs our transactions despite all the despots, philosophers, politicians, and foolish idealists who fought against it for thousands of years. Capitalism isn't a constructed system: capitalism is how an economy will naturally order itself when people are left free to make their own choices about what things they value.

You can try to fight against it, but you will simply lose. Capitalism is a natural law like quantum mechanics, and to deny its correctness is to deny reality. The right way to deal with it is to figure out how you can most happily exist within its boundaries. If you're unhappy, then you haven't done this yet, so maybe you should try a different approach to life. :)

Followup to "The Gun in the Room"

2006-12-09T06:59:00.000-08:00

I certainly understand that the simple reality of universal state violence makes many people very uncomfortable – and they are quite right to feel uncomfortable! Once you really get this idea under your skin, your life will change irrevocably. You will no longer be tempted to base your arguments on tedious and complicated abstractions. When talking to people about freedom, you will cut to the core of the issues very rapidly. This will have enormous effects on every single relationship in your life. You will very quickly discover the true moral natures of those around you – and this can be quite shocking. So I certainly understand why people are hesitant to accept this idea, and why they prefer to label me as an "extremist" rather than to begin exploring the reality of state violence in their own hearts and with the people around them.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/molyneux/molyneux30.html

The inevitability of anarchy

2006-11-26T16:42:00.000-08:00

In response to a posting on northeastshooters:

Quote:

The problem is that no one has come up with a better system than democracy.

I posit that the problem is that society hasn't become sufficiently fragmented yet that people demand anarchy on a more granular scale than what we currently have. Remember that we already live in an anarchy of states: each nation operates in an anarchic nature with its neighbors, and with few exceptions (generally involving mercantilistic war) things are pretty peaceful.

I think the US will eventually rend itself apart as many small- to medium-sized groups with mutually-exclusive standards of behavior wrestle for control of the apparatus of government in order to make life more pleasant for themselves, but at the same time force those behavioral standards on the other groups. I think anarchy is an inevitable result, because as force proliferates and individuals, small groups, and defense contractors are able to wield state-like force, minorities will start thinking, "Why do I have to put up with these rules I don't like? I and my chosen community have the power to defend our property from X group that is trying to control our behavior."

What contradicts your supposition (and what Murphy was trying to get at) is that since you're not starting from chaos, but rather from a well-ordered society, anarchy will result in a strict step-up in peaceful relations as the need to force one's views on others in order to increase the perception of personal safety disappears. The only reason I even have to sit at a table and debate with religious-right whackos, leftist loonies, and tree-huggers is that we are all forced to live under the same set of rules; eliminate that problem, and any desire to force my views on them goes away.

Slave Labor

2006-11-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/19/AR2006111900376_pf.html

Unfortunately, most people will look at this as a pro-war/anti-war issue, when that's only secondary.

The real problem with the draft is that it's slave labor.

Let's see: the government presses you into a form of work you don't want, at a wage they determine (typically a pittance), for a period of time they determine. You have two choices: accept it, or go to prison. How is this different from slavery?

It's even more obviously slavery than taxation, which is also a form of slavery but less odious because you actually retain a basically unlimited range of choice in how you exercise your labor.

You can't even pretend a government that presses its subjects into service is capable of protecting our liberty.

Solving the force monopoly problem with security contractors

2006-11-17T16:11:00.000-08:00

I posted this in response to a message on PM:Pub this evening:

Does that ever muddy up the waters on the idea of "the gun in the room" of state power? In other words, in any violent action which starts as police action, when does the violence cease to be state action and instead become the officer's right to defend oneself? It seems like it makes either argument, defense vs. state action more difficult in terms of open armed conflict. Of course, the argument is not nearly as jumbled for executions where the citizen is not armed or threatening.
Well, the situation you described in your OP is a little different than what you're saying here: I'd say that when someone is acting as an arm of the state and does not initiate violence, violence in return is not warranted.

However, to take an extreme example, I would posit that if the state sends a SWAT team to your home to confiscate your property and arrest you for growing your own marijuana, you would have the natural right to defend your freedom and your property with lethal force, no matter how foolhardy such an attempt would be.

In general, you have the natural right to defend yourself equally against state tyranny as against individual thuggery. However nice an epitaph that might make, it is probably not a good idea unless you like dying. :)

This is why we need private security/defense contractors. I would pay money to hire a group that would agree to defend me against the force of the state. Once groups that can wield state-like force (at least force sufficient to rescue individuals from state detention and transport them to some safe place) appear, the state will no longer have a monopoly on force and we will start on the road to long-lasting liberty.

The increasingly niche-oriented nature of our society makes this an inevitability as groups with mutually incompatible needs and desires struggle to control the apparatus of state in order to force their views and behavioral standards on the other groups, and is the only way we will avoid widespread violence resulting from the oppression necessary to maintain a one-size-fits-all government.

Libertarian/anarchist primer

2006-11-17T12:09:00.000-08:00

This is without a doubt the best primer on libertarianism/anarchy that I've read. The only part I'd delete is the alpha substitution of government with rape, which seems incendiary and adds little to his argument. Otherwise, it's very easy to follow.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/molyneux/molyneux29.html

Jack-booted thugs

2006-11-16T12:38:00.000-08:00

This is really incredible. It makes me sick.

http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38958

Laila Gordy, a fourth-year economics student who was present in the library during the incident, said police officers threatened to shoot her with a Taser when she asked an officer for his name and his badge number.

Police would never abuse their power like this if there were a good chance that their prey was armed. The monopoly on force held by the state is what permits things like this to happen.

Let me repeat: if the police knew everyone were armed, this situation never would have occurred in the first place! Without a monopoly on force, the police simply wouldn't taser someone who is acting non-violently, because they would know that they wouldn't just be held to account for their behavior with a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back by their buddy the Chief of Police, but potentially by every individual in that room, with deadly force.

The incentives around thuggish behavior would be completely different in a world in which everyone were armed. I buy into Robert Heinlein's quote that "an armed society is a polite society": when some group becomes impolite as a result of a monopoly on force, it is imperative for all who believe in liberty to do something to bring them back into line; this is especially true when the misbehaving group comprises the very people we supposedly trust to protect us from the thugs.

Nationwide CCW reciprocity

2006-07-06T08:26:00.000-07:00

From a practical standpoint, it seems like we in the People's Republik of Massachusetts should concentrate on more immediate problems, like the capricious LTC issuance criteria that varies from chief to chief, the AG's capricious "consumer protection" criteria as a thinly-veiled disincentive to lawful gun ownership (aside: "capricious" really does seem to apply to a lot of the gun-related policies around here, doesn't it?), etc.

Unfortunately, if we're consistently on defense, we'll never make any real progress because we'll always be working against strong anti-gun forces to keep the rights we still have.

Is there anything we can do to go on the offense? State initiatives seem to go nowhere because the MA legislature is basically single-party and profoundly anti-gun. I'm surprised we have even discretionary CCW!

The national CCW reciprocity issue seems like a logical one with at least some potential traction: after all, could you imagine a nation in which driver's licenses weren't respected universally by other states? Furthermore, given the proliferation of shall-issue CCW laws over the past ten years, this actually stands a chance of passing at the national level, which would then put states like MA, CA, RI, NY, NJ, MD, etc. on the defense... and make it difficult for them to sustain policies against shall-issue CCW given that non-residents would be entitled to carry regardless of the locals' opinions.

Thoughts?

My concerns about the proposed legislation are twofold: (a) it should contain some provision nullifying the "consumer protection" restrictions of idiots like Reilly that could effectively neuter the law; and (b) it absolutely must provide a minimum safe harbor standard for legal carry, so states like our beloved PRM can't simply make legal carry valid only in one's own home to skirt the safe harbor for states with no legal CCW.

As a brief aside...

On most issues, I'm very much in favor of federalism. E.g., as much as I find it annoying not to be able to buy beer in convenience stores, Massachusetts should in fact have the right to restrict the points of sale of alcohol within its borders if its citizens elect representatives who are in favor of that (admittedly asinine) practice.

However, the 2nd amendment and the 14th amendment combine (pretty clearly, by my reading) into a nationwide right of the citizens of this country to keep and bear arms, which I would argue must include concealed carry, and should include open carry. (I will deal with the issue of open carry in a future post.) Thus, I don't feel I'm being a hypocrite in advocating the position of nationwide CCW reciprocity.

2006-06-26T05:58:00.000-07:00

If you've ever wondered exactly what inflation is and why it occurs, it would pay you to read Murray Rothbard's What Has Government Done to Our Money? Inflation is caused by an artificial increase in the supply of money---basically, the total number of "notes" issued by the federal reserve---because a greater supply of money chasing the same amount of wealth leads to a decrease in the value of each unit of money.

Rothbard argues quite clearly that the government monopoly of the money supply is the root cause, and that the only way to ensure that money is not devalued is to allow individuals to answer for themselves the question, "What is money?" It is likely that people will choose gold and/or silver, upon which a banking system with notes based on that standard will arise to make the transport of money easier.

Under such a system, the market would ensure that any misbehaving banks---i.e., those that create notes not backed by gold or silver---were punished through the loss of customers and faith. The federal reserve system, by contrast, has no competitors and therefore people cannot simply choose to store their money in a different, more responsible bank.

Watch the innards of a 1911 in action

2006-06-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

This is a repeating, interactive animation of a 1911 loading, cocking, firing, and ejecting. You need Flash for this, but it's really cool: you can dynamically make parts of the gun disappear or go translucent.

http://www.m1911.org/loader.swf

What we know vs. suspect with respect to climate change

2006-06-20T06:04:00.000-07:00

All other things being equal, it is certain that CO2 results in temperature increase... at least until other potential feedback kicks in.

I'm just not convinced that the earth's climate is in an unstable equilibrium: I imagine a system as complex as the earth could only have remained (relatively) stable over millions of years through the existence of feedback factors we don't yet understand. I also find it hard to believe that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has more to do with widespread, large-scale temperature changes than the energy output of the sun, which fluctuates by as much as 10% every 10,000 years.

That said, I'm no climatologist. It's possible the CO2 change caused by man has a measurable effect, and that effect may well be negative given the other factors affecting the climate right now. It's indisputable, however, that the earth undergoes much wider swings in climate than that which we could possibly cause with our own activity, and killing our economies and sacrificing personal freedom for the relatively benign short-term damage that might be caused by human activity is foolish.

More on concealed carry

2006-06-12T19:33:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to my post on the social responsibility of carrying concealed weapons, I found this site. I read a few of the pro-gun pages there and lastly followed the "A Liability" link, and was pleasantly surprised at the simplicity and candor of the arguments in favor of gun ownership, and in the quality of the presentation. I would highly recommend this site for people who are unsure about gun ownership and for those who are against private ownership of guns but can't articulate why.

The old #1 guy is dead. Yaay.

2006-06-08T05:49:00.000-07:00

Wow, al-Zarqawi is dead. What a victory! So now it'll be, what, maybe a week until some other whack-job replaces him and everything continues on as it has been going?

I still fail to see how we have any business putting our soldiers in harm's way over there after we determined three years ago that there were no WMD in the country. The right and legal thing to do at that point was to say, "So sorry. We were wrong. Have fun cleaning up." Unfortunately, no serious candidate for the presidency in 2004 took that position, so don't think this quagmire would have been any different were Bush defeated.

Gay marriage is not the issue

2006-06-05T20:55:00.000-07:00

I was listening to Jay Severin's program tonight, and as often happens, he brought up the topic of gay---er, I mean "ho-ho-homosexual"---marriage. As far as I heard, he didn't bring up one talking point that he has mentioned in the past, which is that the government should get out of the marriage business altogether.

Having a lot of gay friends makes me very sensitive to the issue of gay rights. While I see the pure logic in the position that gays are not being discriminated against because they can in fact get married just like anyone else---though only to a member of the opposite sex, just like anyone else---that is not only something of a cop-out, but more importantly it seems to miss the point.

To me, the point is that the government should not have such control over our lives that people see any significant need to petition for a privileged status from the government (in this case "marriage"). The fact that marriage confers a multitude of benefits, including those related to taxation, entitlements, and personal liberty, is to me yet another sign that government simply wields too much power. The recent issue of marriage rights for gays is merely a logical consequence of the privileges given by politicians to selected groups with whose favor they wish to curry.

Why does government need to be involved with marriage at all? If we'd get rid of the income tax, or turn it into a flat tax, the vast majority of the reason for government stamps of approval on marriages would disappear. Contrary to the fears of many family-values and nativist conservatives, I suspect straight people would not stop marrying or having children, but they would be doing it for the right reasons and without requiring the approval of people whose first amendment rights to free association are being violated by forcing them to validate marriages with which they disagree.

The moral responsibility of able men and women

2006-06-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

My thinking on concealed carry underwent a dramatic transformation a few weeks ago when I read an article suggesting that I not only had a right to carry a concealed weapon, but a responsibility to do so in the absence of disqualifying factors. The thinking is that law-abiding citizens who are not taking whatever steps they can in the course of their daily lives to combat crime are part of the problem: they are contributing to the victim culture, a major part of which is the notion that society must be highly-regulated by a distant authority in order for people to be safe.

I'm not an extremist on this subject. For instance, I know several people with young children who simply are not comfortable with the idea of having a gun in the house: while I think this fear is misplaced especially since I know these people are responsible and would keep their (hypothetical) guns out of reach of their children, in many cases I don't believe these people are making excuses simply because they have an irrational fear of guns, although certainly some are. In any event, I'm willing to give most of them the benefit of the doubt because I can never know exactly what someone is thinking.

Furthermore, the decision to carry a concealed weapon requires the proper state of mind, a knowledge of the acceptable use of threats and lethal force, and a level of commitment to marksmanship in the unlikely event that a person should actually be called upon to fire the gun at anything. Sadly, not everyone has the time to make this kind of commitment, and certainly some people would not be able to treat the carrying of a concealed weapon with the proper amount of gravitas.

Nonetheless, when I look at the way I live my life and the relatively minor impediments I have to carrying, it is clear that I have no disqualifying factors: I take the time to practice; I am exceedingly careful about storage, transport, and concealment; and there is nothing in my personal life that I feel would conflict significantly with my ability to carry. At this point, the moral responsibility to contribute to the "polite society" becomes paramount: a higher rate of concealed carry has been consistently linked to a lower rate of crime, so simply by virtue of carrying a concealed weapon, I am helping to fight crime, even if I never draw it.

Of course, I'd rather carry in the open, but I don't think society (especially in Massachusetts!) is ready for that.

Music and guns

2006-06-04T02:20:00.000-07:00

This evening, I went to Paradise in Brighton for a live "battle of the bands"-type performance featuring one of my friends on bass in this truly spectacular Indian-themed rock band, Karyshma. (Andy is a southern white boy in a mostly Indian band. It's pretty amusing.) The rest of the bands ranged from pretty banal to excellent, but the night was entertaining on the whole. To top it off, there were lots of hot chicks at Paradise that I had fun ogling. :)

Afterwards, I headed to the range and fired several dozen rounds from my brand new S&W 1911PD. Wow! What a gun! On the very first magazine, I shot a better grouping than I ever had with the Sig. That said, much of that was probably due to my rapidly advancing grip and trigger control, as I transferred to the Sig halfway through tonight's shoot and had my best groupings yet.

My impression of the recoil of the .45 ACP is that it is definitely stronger than the 9mm, but I was better able to control the muzzle drift on the relatively thin 1911: I think the double stack design of the Sig and the resulting thicker grip makes it more difficult to control horizontal motion. I found this true when pulling the trigger, as well: I need to be much more careful to pull the trigger straight back with the tip of the finger on the Sig because otherwise the grip rolls to the right horizontally when the trigger breaks.

10 best albums of the 1990's

2003-02-21T13:45:00.000-08:00

I haven't done a blog in a while, and there's nothing that's stoking the political fires enough to make me want to write. Therefore...

I present my opinion of the best 10 albums of the 1990's. If you know anything about me, you know that I'm a hard-core metal fan, so that preference inevitably colors this list.

10. Loreena McKennitt / the mask and mirror (1994). While not her strongest album, it speaks volumes about the quality of her albums that I would still include this among my top 10 of the 1990's. Ethereal, textured, haunting: these are all adjectives that accurately describe the music. Ms. McKennitt's voice, however, is what really draws me to the music: her range is huge, and her power at the high end unmatched by any of the other non-Opera singers I've heard.

9. Pearl Jam / Vs. (1993). Their best album is also the finest example of alternative rock: plenty of anthems balanced with slower, more personal poems. With the exception of a few lyrical slaps at the vast majority of his listeners, Eddie Vedder has never sounded better, either as a lyricist or as a singer. If the Atlanta concert were a real album, I'd have put that here, but this is a close enough second still to qualify for my top 10.

8. Dream Theater / Images and Words (1992). The archetype of 1990's progressive metal, Dream Theater produced their best work early on and slid downhill shortly thereafter. Still, that fact does not diminish the beauty, technicality, or influence of this album, nor does it take away from the (admittedly still) virtuoso playing of John Petrucci, John Myung, or Kevin Moore. As progressive metal albums go, this is the best of the best.

7. Gamma Ray / Land of the Free (1995). This album marked a sea change in the future of European power metal: before this album, the genre was locked in a self-parody of bands attempting to reproduce Helloween's Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1 but failing miserably. Gamma Ray finally managed to break out of the mold and produce this highly-influential opus of speed and happiness. Countless bands (including Gamma Ray themselves) have tried unsuccessfully to copy the formula that made this album so incredible, which may diminish its reputation among clone watchers; however, those of us who are connoisseurs of the Euro power metal genre know true quality when we see it.

6. Sarah McLachlan / Solace (1991). After the compelling but not-quite-arrived immaturity of Touch, Ms. McLachlan established herself as the "other" favorite Canadian pop singer with this collection of uniformly-strong tracks, from the high-energy "Into the Fire" through the wistful contemplation of "Home" to the cover of Donovan's "Wear Your Love Like Heaven." Her follow-up, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, receives most of the critical accolades as well as the strongest singles, but the songs on this album are simply more enjoyable overall.

5. KMFDM / Nihil (1995). While KMFDM had so many good albums in the 1990's, it was not difficult to pick Nihil as the clear winner among all of them. From the blaring guitar attack that Sascha never managed to properly incorporate into any of his later albums (including the last great KMFDM album, Symbols) to the infectious beats of "Juke Joint Jezebel" and "Disobedience," Nihil can be either a devestating aural assault or a calming, focusing drug, depending on the listener's state of mind. Despite being the only KMFDM album without the amazing Brute! artwork on the cover, it still qualifies as the best industrial metal album ever.

4. Megadeth / Rust in Peace (1990). Megadeth starts out the 90's with the last great 80's thrash album, only to find out shortly thereafter that the popular music world has forsaken them for a less pretentious style, strange as that adjective might seem when applied to these guys. This is the album that finally turned true metalheads away from the curious progression of Metallica, and toward Dave's vision of 1990's heavy metal; unfortunately, it was too late to really matter. IMO, it's simply too bad there wasn't enough room in pop culture for both metal and alternative.

3. Meshuggah / Destroy Erase Improve (1995). The album that really introduced me to metalcore also wound up giving me a taste for jazz fusion. DEI is a nearly perfect combination of aggressive and technical playing, combined with songwriting that leaves you wondering how such seemingly monotonous riffage can stick in your mind so easily.

2. Fear Factory / Demanufacture (1995). What can you say about possibly the finest example of industrial metalcore thrash ever made? Even moreso than Strapping Young Lad's City, which was certainly more full of raw emotion, this album is, if not in content, perfect at least in execution, buttressed by the aggressive yet dreamy vocals of Burton Bell and the inhuman drumming of Raymond Hererra. Although Obsolete had more hooks and was certainly more accessible, it doesn't even come close to dethroning this masterpiece.

1. Devin Townsend / Ocean Machine: Biomech (1997). This is the first album I ever heard that caused me to preemptively buy several copies to give to other people: like Vernor Vinge's Sci-Fi epic A Deepness in the Sky, this album is so good that I felt it my moral duty to introduce it to other people. Even after having listened to it over one hundred and fifty times, I still consider a run of this disc to be one of my most intense emotional experiences: the album runs from the heights of glory through the uncertainty of temporary setbacks to the depths of despair, its lyrics covering such topics as suicide, God, and death along the way.

This is not an album of singles: this is, in truth, one big song that must be listened to in its entirety from beginning to end, lest the full impact be lost or the message be divided into different parts in one's mind. It is like a Greek tragedy in structure, with the Hero starting out at the top, developing doubt through the course of the play, and in the end being defeated by some choice he made in ignorance long ago.

This is not simply my favorite album of the 90's; this is the best album ever made in any genre.

Honorable mentions: Symphony X, Twilight in Olympus; Sepultura, Chaos A.D.; Dark Tranquillity, Projector; Ministry, Psalm 69.