If I can believe the dashboard, this is the 400th post since converting to the new “blog” format, and it is amazing to see what we’ve written about over the past few months.  And how quickly things are changing – and too often, for the worst.  No special posting today, just the usual news about the follies in DC, 50 state capitols, and several hundred “nation-states” in a larger than usual dose.

The “messiah” – Death of sanity in government
Obama: I’m Not the Problem; Need to ‘Reorganize the Government’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: I know this routine – the same one that Octavius (Augustus) used!  The entire idea is probably to make sure that there is a “role” for ex-presidents and of course their wives, if not to extend the terms of key, essential, critical elite persons (like a certain “messiah.”)  There IS an alternative: don’t reorganize, just end: go back to the Articles of Confederation, if necessary, or even go back to the pre-1913 Constitution but with L. Neil Smith’s ideas for Bill of Rights Enforcement.  OR just take the Heinlein idea of a voluntary compact of free peoples: voluntary cooperation at all levels, each issue addressed in whatever different way makes sense to all of those participating:  the first “rational human government” which is, indeed, no government at all.

The “messiah” – Politics 2013
Obama: Waiting in Long Lines to Vote ‘Not Acceptable’ in USA
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Wow.  One reason I like to vote absentee or early is to avoid the long lines, which I have seen all my life, from Texas to Montana and about every state in between.  Are we so lazy and pampered that we cannot take time to vote – and even visit with neighbors and other things?  Of course, up until the early 1990s you could do things like drink coffee (or anything but liquor or beer) and have a slice of pie and even have a potluck – all now illegal thanks to the government.

Mama’s Note: The “vote” is an advanced sale of stolen goods. Don’t wait in line… don’t “vote” and don’t participate in the theft.

Congress in action – Theft by government
Democrat: Raise Gas Tax To Make Up Lost Revenue From Fuel-Efficient Vehicles
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Actually is there ANY problem that the Democratic Party cannot claim that the solution is “more taxes?”  We aren’t stealing enough because people are tired of it and “evading” taxes by doing things that mean that they don’t have to pay as much in taxes.  How about commercializing (not privatizing: that just means contracting out government services to be done by “private” companies) highways, roads and streets – let them compete on how they charge for the operation and maintenance and construction of roads.  Let I-80 and I-76 compete with I-70 for truck and other traffic into Denver from the East; Let US 287 and I-25 compete for truck and other traffic into Denver from Texas, and so forth.  Even letting the states do it makes more sense than growing the federal bureaucracy more.

Russian front – Islamic wars
Russia Wants to Use Iran Nuclear Deal to Shut Down Missile Defense Shield
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Did anyone NOT see this coming?  Of course, since the United States has shown itself to be without honor and as an institution a liar and cheat, and is now a tyranny (next story).  One of the few not-stupid things that the US has done in defense matters in recent decades is missile defense systems to end MAD (Mutually-Assured Destruction), which is exactly what its acronym says: insane.

The “messiah” – stupid government
Flashback: Obama Praises 3 ‘Coequal Branches’ of Gov’t, Preventing Tyranny
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: This quote has been analyzed in the past.  This is the way it is SUPPOSED to work, but when the three branches of government are in collusion, or when ONE branch is no longer co-equal – but is superior and threatens the other branches, this does NOT work!  We HAVE tyranny today, and clearly, the Constitution has FAILED to prevent it.  Two, three, five, ten branches of government: the only thing that can keep government from turning into tyranny is to dismantle as much of government as possible.  Even then, in local pockets, you will have tyrants seeking to gain power over more and more people.  It is like dealing with brush fires: there will ALWAYS be fires that have to be put out: the challenge is to figure out the best way to prevent them and contain and control those that do break out.

Mama’s Note: And the only way to prevent them is for ordinary people to remember always that they alone have the only legitimate authority over their lives and property. If they choose to delegate SOME of that authority, temporarily, they can’t get complacent and think that others should “take care of them” without responsibility on their own part. This is exactly what has happened, and nothing will change until people retake control of their own lives.

African front – World tyranny and Tranzis
South Africa Loses Its ‘Greatest Son’: Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Barf.  Double barf.  Yes, I know some prominent people have talked about how Mandela prevented complete societal collapse and allowed an evil regime to come to a relatively peaceful end.  But what did he leave?  A government even MORE messed up than the Afrikaaners and English had, a government sliding more and more into the morass that most of the rest of the continent is sunk in, a society sliding from the first world to the third world.  All based on his philosophy of Communism, racism, terrorism, and use of force: not in self-defense but offensively as tools of terror and punishment and revenge.

Stupid government tricks – Tranzis
FBI: We’ve Not Made ‘An Endorsement’ of Southern Poverty Law Center
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Nope, guess that they have not “officially” but they use the data and the claims of SPLC all the time.  This has been going on for decades, and there is no evidence that as the FBI becomes NOTHING more than a tool of tyranny (it has always had that as ONE of its purposes), that it will not lean even more on “intelligence” gathered from SPLC and other bigoted, Tranzi-driven “non-governmental organizations.”  The FBI itself needs to go away. The states are the only constitutional authority for investigating crimes;  some of its services MIGHT be legitimate (laboratories, databases, investigation of FedGov employee and politician wrongdoing) but could be spun off as private, free-enterprise, competing with other firms to provide honest services at reasonable and competitive prices without coercion.

Politics
How sequester cuts divided the winners from the losers — including Head Start children
(Washington Post) OWENSBORO, Ky. — How, exactly, did Congress manage to kick 4-year-old Carli Hopkins out of her preschool? Carli asked after it happened. Her mother didn’t try to explain. The child was still too young to learn about politicians.

Nathan: The WaPo’s latest “it’s for the children” gambit, but the comment about politicians is still great.  How did we get into this mess?  If people had taken care of their own children, and worked voluntarily with family, friends, and neighbors, instead of running to government (local, then state, and now federal) to get government to steal money to pay for what is a PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY, none of this “losing” would be taking place now.  Even as late as 20 years ago, many parents knew that raising their children was THEIR duty and did it, without government involvement, interference, or payments.  Now, the vast majority of people think it is government’s duty.  And we get this sort of thing.

Congress in action
Senate poised to pull an all-nighter as it adjusts to new rules
(Washington Post) In another sign that the U.S. Senate is racing the clock and adjusting to life under a new set of rules, senators are scheduled to hold a series of votes overnight and early Thursday morning as the chamber continues confirming a series of Obama administration nominees amid Republican objections.

Nathan: Poor, poor Congress.  Poor, poor Democrats, saddled with those awful Republicans and their tedious objections. Poor, poor stupid people for letting these clowns get away with this.  We DON’T NEED CONGRESS. (And no, that is NOT saying that we need the Presidency instead: we don’t need it either.)  Congress is a huge collection of worthless people with too much time, too much money, too much power, and too much adulation by idiots.  Like the next piece of garbage.

Congress in action – Criminals in government
Lamar Alexander’s chief of staff arrested on child pornography charges
(Washington Post) This item has been updated. The chief of staff to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) was arrested Wednesday on charges of possessing and distributing child pornography — and swiftly fired by the senator.  Jesse Ryan Loskarn, 35, of the District, was arrested at his home Wednesday afternoon by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and is expected to appear in federal court in Washington on Thursday to face charges, the Justice Department said.

Nathan: Just the kind of scum we have “working for us” in DC.  The question is, “distributing to whom?”  How many more perverts are in those huge office buildings and scuttling under the iron dome?  (Of course, this COULD be a Hitlerian-style option to damage opposition and resistance by the “messiah’s” operatives, as many people suspect the recent rash of criminal charges against senior military officers to be:  it worked against the Reichwehr and Reichstag in the 1930s, and other places and other times: why not 2110s America?

Hoplophobes and Hoploclasts
What’s your gun number? Share your gun story
(Washington Post)  Saturday marks a year since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Since the shooting, an intense political debate on guns has occurred, with about 1,500 gun bills introduced across the country. But for many Americans, the impact of guns and gun violence has also been incredibly personal, making this week a time for reflection.

Nathan: Hopefull 2AF, JPFO, and other organizations are organizing a counter-movement to this: collecting and publishing stories about people whose lives and property and health has been saved by having and using (or being ready to use) a gun themselves, or having a neighbor, friend, family-member or passerby with a gun to defend against criminals.  Every week should be a time for reflection on what other nations have to live with because guns are owned only by thugs: cops and soldiers on the one side, and officially-criminal gangs and terrorists on the other side.  Neil Smith estimates that we have 350 to 450 million modern firearms in the nation, and I pray that he is right – together with about 100 times that much ammo.  As the thugs grow more bold and more overbearing, we need more to protect ourselves, our families, our friends and neighbors, and our communities, from them.

Mama’s Note: And there is not a single shred of proof that any “law” restricting guns can make the least difference in the decision of the thug or insane to harm people. I ask all the time how taking my gun away from me makes anyone, including me, safer. I ask, since people are killed in large numbers daily with cars, knives, buckets of water… why those deaths are somehow less horrible, or why cars, knives and buckets don’t generate the same hysteria to “ban” them.

What most people simply fail to even consider is that the deaths, safety, and the intent of the criminals has nothing to do with the mania to disarm ordinary people. The bottom line for politicians, cops, all those who desire first and foremost to control other people is that they can’t do the things they want to do to us as long as we have guns to prevent it… But once we’re all disarmed, they’ll be free to do absolutely anything they want. Gun control means safety for THEM, not us.