GUN WATCH

As regular readers of this blog will mostly have noted by now, I have recently started a fourth blog -- called GUN WATCH. I thought I should explain such a major eccentricity. I think only Randall Parker rivals me for the number of active blogs he has.

I am actually not greatly interested in guns (though I am a reasonable shot and enjoyed the weapons-training in the Army). My brother Christopher is gun enthusiast enough for both of us. But what is happening in Britain does give cause for alarm to anyone in any place where crime is common. People there have now been totally disarmed and have no effective defence against violent criminals at all. And just about all that the British police do about it -- according to one who should know -- is "take statements and fill in forms in the Police Station". And gun crime has risen greatly in Britain since the post-Dunblane restrictions on gun ownership -- exactly the opposite of what the law was supposed to achieve. And the U.S. Left is always threatening and sometimes defeats the constitutional protections on gun ownership that Americans are so fortunate to have. So I have decided to bring together in one place the various gun-related stories that come my way. My brother Christopher and his local gun-owner friends will also be sending me stuff for posting. I already have a fair bit lined up so there is no doubt that I will be posting daily on the subject.

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ELSEWHERE

Sad that the limited degree of capitalism in Vietnam today does not go with any political freedom. The Vietnamese "Communists" were from their early days Fascists rather than true Communists in that a large part of their appeal was nationalistic rather than socialist. And limited capitalism under tight political control was of course also the economic recipe for Mussolini's Italian Fascism and Hitler's Nazism. So the Fascist nature of Vietnamese "Communism" is now more evident than ever. The 20th century "big lie" that Leftist intellectuals foisted on the world -- that Fascism was Rightist -- might thus have had big consequences. Would the Leftists of the 60s have been so keen to support a Vietnam that was generally identified as Fascist rather than Communist? Given their often-proclaimed anti-Fascism, it should have embarrassed them a bit at least. But, on the other hand, they pulled out all stops to support the Fascist Saddam Hussein recently so perhaps a correct identification of the Vietnam regime would not for a moment have held up their unprincipled contrarianism. More on the definition of Fascism here.

An interesting example here of how Leftists don't let reality get in the way of their stream of abuse or their anti-Americanism. The author says that 2004 has been the worst year ever to be an American. Why? The only substantial reason he seems to give is that America has lost less than 1,000 troops in Iraq during it's presence there and some soldiers have treated terrorist prisoners mockingly. How naughty of them! And in lots of America's past wars, America lost many more than 1,000 troops in a DAY!

John Kerry's "resume" for his job application as President is a powerful argument for what a sleaze he is.

LOL: A great picture of John Kerry's truck here if you have not seen it by now.

"Does terrorism exist without the media? Does coverage of terrorist acts empower or encourage the people behind them? If terrorism is directed more at the audience than at its victims, shouldn't television journalists stop giving terrorists the forum they covet? ... broadcasters need to start considering new internal guidelines in order to remove hype from terrorism coverage. Excerpts from the execution of Nick Berg, an American entrepreneur in Iraq, were aired repeatedly. When terrorists gave the US 72 hours to comply with their demands before executing American contractor Paul Johnson, the cable networks breathlessly ticked down the time remaining. Network anchors lament global terrorism even as they become complicit partners".

Rather sad that it takes a philosopher to speak such common-sense as this: "If you want me to treat you as an individual, rather than as a mere member of some group, then you should treat yourself as an individual and forego attempts to derive social advantage from group-membership. Don't try to have it both ways. In particular, if you want me to judge you by the content of your character rather than the color of your skin, don't try to secure benefits from your possession of a certain skin-color." But it's still too complex for the simplistic minds of Leftists.

Leftist racism? "After a 30-year career at National Public Radio, Bob Edwards found himself sacked as host of its syndicated news show "Morning Edition." In an interview with Talkers Magazine, Mr. Edwards gave a surprising answer when asked what kind of people listen to NPR. "Bright people," he replied. "People of all economic strata. It's a whiter audience than we would like and we're trying to fix that." Now substitute "GOP Chairman Ed Gillespie" for Bob Edwards and "Republican Party" for National Public Radio and think what the reaction would be to a statement that could be read to imply that white people are somehow brighter." Leftists can see the obvious about average black IQ as well as anybody can but it is only occasionally that they let it slip out.

I have just put online (see here or here) the last chapter of my 1974 book on conservatism. The topic of the chapter -- an evaluation of the 1974 Australian Federal election -- must seem boring to all but the most dedicated political scientists but in fact a number of features of that election continue today. The government that won that election -- the Whitlam Labor government -- is generally remembered as the most Leftist Australian government of the last 50 years but even it did a lot to introduce free-market reforms. And in the absence of an Australian Reagan or Thatcher it has in fact been Labor governments generally who have done most to open up the Australian economy to market forces. What that all means is that there is a broadly conservative consensus in Australian politics (though a small loony Left exists as well of course) with the two major parties differing only on relatively minor details. The current Kerry/Bush contest in the USA is also characterized by very small differences in official policy but that seems to have been arrived at quite artificially -- by suppressing all that Kerry and his supporters have previously been known to stand for. By contrast, the market-oriented reforms instituted by various Australian Labor governments were not the subject of any election competition at all before they were introduced. They clearly arose out of a genuine understanding that they were good for Australia. The only postwar Australian government to use troops to crush a strike (in 1949) was also a Labor government.

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH and GUN WATCH. Mirror sites here, here and here

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Leftists acclaim "diversity" yet say "All men are equal". Figure that one out.

Perhaps the original example of Leftist "projection": Marx condemned conventional religion as the "opium of the masses". Why? Because he had an opiate to peddle.

Why can those who claim to understand the dangers of meddling with a complex ecosystem like the natural environment, not understand that government interference with a complex system like the economy is perilous too?

The conflict between conservatives and Leftists is not usually a conflict between realists and idealists. Mostly it is a conflict between realists and people who will say anything to win applause

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