Terrible Politicians Birth Terrible Bills.

A bill was recently proposed in New York that is so stupid, that even people well aware with how stupid New York’s government officials are might do a double take. This is the very same state that just elected a woman to the House of Representatives who literally doesn’t know what the 3 branches of government are or how unemployment rates work. I give it about 3 more decades before New York actually turns into a John Carpenter movie.

The dumb bill in question (because there are many) proposes that anyone looking to buy a new gun, or renew their current permit, must legally allow the government to snoop through three years (I’m sure we can trust them to stop at just three) of their personal online data. This includes things like social media accounts and online histories. Holy absolutely unconstitutional authoritarian overreach, Batman.

What are our benevolent overlords in the government going to be looking for? Threats to the safety of others, intentions to commit terrorism, profane slurs, or biased language pertaining to race, color, origin, gender, religion, age, disabilities, or sexual orientation.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

Jokingly call your friend a retard on facebook? The New York Gestapo might see this as “biased language” disparaging the handy-capable. No guns for you.

What about if you threatened to kill another person on twitter in jest. You know, like Kathy Griffin and countless other blue checkmarks have done to President Trump and members of his family. Sorry folks, but no gun rights for you any more.

How about if you voice sentiments critical of Israel on your myspace page? Well that could be (and quite often is) misconstrued as antisemitic speech. Congratulations! You’re possibly guilty of biased language pertaining to matters of race, origin, and religion. That’s a three-hit wrong-think combo. The second Amendment no longer exists for you.

The fact that there are actually people who think a proposal like this is a good idea is beyond depressing. This is ironically similar to the stop-and-frisk policies (also a New York staple) that liberals absolutely hate and conservatives foolishly justify by saying “well, if you don’t do anything wrong you have nothing to worry about”. Except now it’ll be the conservatives complaining about government overreach, and liberals taking the brilliant “don’t say something wrong, you have nothing to worry about” stance.

It’s also quite ironic that the people so vehemently outspoken against George W Bush’s NSA overreach (though most remain pro-Obama, even though he was a far worse violator of privacy rights(irony²)) seem to be the ones backing this gross violation, because what even is moral consistency?

The bill currently violates the first (freedom of speech), second (right to bear arms), fourth (unreasonable search and seizure), fifth (due process), and fourteenth (forbids states from passing unconstitutional laws) amendments. That has to be some sort of new record for legislative incompetence. Good job, Kevin Parker, you simple human being.

This bill is a problem for the same reason no-fly lists being a factor in firearm eligibility is a problem. It would be great if we lived in a utopian world full of rainbows and unicorns, wherein some magic list existed that provides the easily-digestible answers to every issue. This is far from the reality we live in though. In reality, the U.S. government tends to be far from efficient, and not very capable of balancing a budget, let alone maintaining any kind of valid list.

As it turns out, people have ended up on no-fly lists before, with no way of knowing why they were on said list, or how to get off of it. It’s like some twisted Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment mixed with a dash of complete bureaucratic incompetency.

People have ended up on no-fly lists due to name mix-ups, random human errors, mere speculation, and outright political discrimination. When you combine this with a complete lack of due process, you end up with people being unfairly screwed over, and prevented from flying due to no fault of their own. To further start stripping these people of their constitutional rights on top of that is a recipe for disaster. The ACLU, for all their numerous faults, have actually rightly protested these no-fly lists.

Allowing the government to root through people’s personal data takes the terrible idea inherent in no-fly lists to the next level. Who exactly is going to be the final arbiter of what’s intended as a joke, and what’s serious? Is the government going to ask you whether you said something in jest, or do they simply get to assume the context behind a statement regardless of the intent? This opens the door for rampant abuse of power.

Keep in mind, a man (Mark Meechan) was prosecuted in Scotland for uploading a video in which he taught his pug to do a Nazi salute. At the beginning of the video, he mentions that he is doing so as a joke, and that he was going to “turn [the dog] into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi.”

Yet somehow, the fact that the video was intended as a joke was outright disregarded, as the government decided that they, and not Mr. Meechan, would get to be the ones to determine the intent of the video. The government ultimately decided that he intended the video to be pro-Nazi propaganda, and not the joke it was in fact created to be.

The person who made the joke didn’t get to decide his intent, the government did. That is dystopian, and that is what an absolutely idiotic bill like S9191 would be ushering in within the U.S. judicial system.

A bill like this is just another shiny object created by the government to distract everyone from that fact that most high profile shootings could be prevented if our government was simply less incompetent. Law enforcement and the FBI fail time and time again to enforce laws that exist, and properly conduct investigations pertaining to those laws. Look into practically any mass shooting, from Nikolas Cruz, to San Bernardino, to The Pulse Night Club, and you’ll see that just about every one of them could have been prevented if the local police or FBI had done their jobs correctly.

Either the authorities were notified about the individual numerous times and never followed the proper course of action, or the FBI investigated, but never took the necessary steps to prevent the shooter from making a legal gun purchase. All three of the above shootings involved people the FBI had already been investigating, but for whatever reason never followed through on, ultimately allowing 80 deaths to occur.

But hey, lets just strip people of their constitutional rights, instead of holding people whose salaries we pay to any kind of standard as far as actually doing their jobs. That’s the far better alternative, obviously.

 

Wall Street Journal article on bureaucratic incompetency:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fbis-parkland-fail-1519255068

The Rise Of A Violent, Fascist Left.

I’ve hesitated on posting this numerous times, because every time I’m about to hit that publish button, some new, idiotic bit of info pops up in my news feed pertaining to the topic at hand. I then feel the need to amend and add to what I’ve already written here on the subject. I’ve come to the realization however, that things are only going to get more ridiculous, so I might as well commit and move on to other things.

The fact of the matter is that there’s a disturbing trend happening as of late that I’m none to thrilled with, and quite frankly, you shouldn’t be either. It seems a portion of the population that likes to fancy themselves as “tolerant” and “accepting” are displaying quite the opposite attributes. In fact, they’re turning out to be the most violent and destructive force in our society today. By all accounts, what is being displayed is nothing short of fascism, and at its most extreme, domestic terrorism.

To bring you up to speed, in case you’ve been living under a rock, waves of young kids (and emotionally stunted adults) claiming to be liberals are displaying violent, fascist behavior under the guise of fighting the good fight. Ironically, they’re engaging in dangerous, fascist behavior, in the name of “fighting fascism”. Let that sink in for a bit. Good job, U.S. education system.

I’ve probably written about this a few times to some degree, but I don’t see this trend slowing down, and thus still view it as a problem worth writing about.

In the last few years, it’s become normalized, via the preaching of left-learning media, pandering celebrities, and the education system, to engage in violence as a means to push one’s agenda while stifling someone else’s freedoms.

This is the effect of indoctrination. When impressionable people are taught that it’s ok to violently attack people with differing views, they feel completely justified in doing so. It’s unfortunately also the result of individuals having a complete lack of education in basic history. You can’t look at yourself in the mirror and realize that you are the very fascist you claim to be against, if you don’t actually know what fascism is.To paraphrase George Santayana: “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”

fascism (noun) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice

Historically, fascism has been marked by one side trying to silence another side via censorship, violence, and the use of government force. This is far removed from a democratic debate of ideas, with both sides being allowed to express their ideas while remaining free from harm and prosecution.

Throughout history, from Stalin’s Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to Hitler’s National Socialist Party, to Mao’s Communist Party of China, government force has been used to control the narrative through authoritarianism.

authoritarianism (noun) the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom

When a group of people disagree with another group and make the decision to “win” the war of ideas by using violence to silence, they are engaging in fascism. Yet the folks we see engaging in these activities today, don’t seems to want to accept that they are the very enemy they claim to be fighting. I’ve come to the realization that the reasons these fascists don’t realize they are fascists, is because they are twisting definitions to conveniently omit themselves from the equation.

Their minds reason this out in the following way: Fascism is a “right wing” ideology according to the definition. They fancy themselves liberals/Democrats, therefore they can’t possibly be fascists. The problem with this logic, is that merely calling oneself liberal doesn’t make one a liberal.

liberal (adjective) open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values

Liberals, by definition, are open to differing ideas and opinions. People who try to shut down differing ideas and opinions, are by definition, not liberals. Given all the above definitions, people like Antifa, are (ironically) not liberal, or anti-fascist, but in fact anti-liberal, and the very definition of fascist. A surprising portion of the modern leftist movement shares very little in common with classical liberal values at this point. They’ve almost become the far-right of old.

Antifa represent the absolute worst of regressivism in modern society. These people are completely delusional about the way they look in the grand scheme of things. They view themselves as freedom fighters, saving the world like some sort of superhero collective. The problem is that they’re viewing themselves through a funhouse mirror. That funhouse mirror, being a lack of historical context, combined with positive reinforcement from a dishonest, delusional establishment.

A big part of this issue is that the rampant civil disobedience has been normalized as of late. Intellectual discussion and civilized debate are a thing of the past. If something doesn’t turn out in your favor, you now get to destroy stuff. If you don’t get your way, you are allowed to lash out like a child throwing a temper tantrum. Unfortunately the outgoing administration took a stance of never holding anyone accountable for their actions, so now we have bedlam every time an entitled group of people don’t get their way. What used to be an exception, is now becoming the norm.

Teachers at prestigious (citation needed) educational institutions are glamorizing, even outright encouraging this type of destructive behavior, passing down the indoctrination that was passed down to them. Instructors who were failed by their own educations, romanticizing tyrants and murderers like Castro and Guevara, continue this cycle, failing the next generation under them. It’s the educational equivalent of the child who was beaten by his father, going on to abuse his own kids.

This is all an unfortunate repeat of history. In fascist regimes, the youth were indoctrinated to fight the good fight by violently suppressing the opposition. In communist countries, this was done via smashing up evil capitalist businesses and ratting out everyone who dared dissent, to big daddy government. Anyone who showed any indication of opposing the regime was systematically destroyed. Tall poppy syndrome was in full effect.  Don’t stand out at all, lest you become the target of the violent hive mind.

The current hive mind, much like the hive minds of yore, largely consists of useful idiots, who expedite the erosion of basic liberties. Complaining to the authorities to block anyone’s dissenting opinion, effectively takes away everybody’s freedom of speech in the long run. These people are essentially fighting to limit free speech and “wrong think”, opening the doors for government to step in and limit our first amendment. After all, it’s the government that ultimately has the power to remove your freedoms,and not Nazis, the Taliban, or any other scary scapegoat.

As a matter of fact, most dystopian science fiction literature revolves around societies that were ruined by overreaching progressivism and emphasis on collectivism.  From Nineteen Eighty-Four, to Fahrenheit 451, to Brave New World, the futuristic societies portrayed were often destroyed by governments stepping in to “protect” the collective at the expense of individual rights. If your feeling get hurt by somebody else exercising their freedom of speech, the government will “fix” things by removing everybody’s freedom of speech. I’ll probably write an article about this topic another time, because it’s simultaneously interesting, and alarming.

it’s not just the uneducated educators who are guilty of pushing this dystopian future forward however. That bastion of out-of-touch arrogance know as Hollywood has been throwing it’s hat into the ring as of late. Every time there is an award show to hand out validation to these over-paid, attention-starved, professional pretenders, you can be sure somebody will take the opportunity to grandstand. Don’t expect any nuance however. People in gated, guarded communities tend to be a little out of touch with the realities us common-folk face.

Hence those glorious acts of millionaires pandering to the lowly peons who pay their salaries, by doing their best impersonations of a Braveheart speech. The problem here, is that it isn’t these clowns’ communities that are destroyed every time the irrational and lowly get whipped up into a frenzy and “protest”. It’s always the poor communities that suffer when people take out their anger with bedlam rather than words. These empty orations always garner the Hollywood elite ample media coverage the next day though, and if anything is evident, it’s that actors are desperate for any attention they can get.

It doesn’t necessarily matter if the actors, journalists, and those in the academics aren’t the ones throwing bricks and assaulting people themselves though. Those who might stoke the fire are no doubt guilty of the fire that may ensue. Inciting a riot is a felony after all.

It’s dangerous that people with this mindset are increasingly ending up in positions of power. They’ve already started to infest the media in places like BuzzFeed, i.e. the special olympics of journalism. Once these people start making it into politics, we’re going to be in for a bumpy ride. It’s already started to happen in Canada, where a guy set to go down as the least productive leader in western history is currently the Prime Minister. A ski instructor/drama teacher somehow bamboozled his way into the highest position in a country by pandering and having good hair. Of course, in the U.S. we ended up with a reality star, so I probably shouldn’t throw rocks in this glass house.

Now theses pseudo-revolutionary types are engaging in this childish act of trying to normalize violence against people they consider “Nazis”. The problem is, they consider absolutely anyone they disagree with a Nazi. So essentially the long and short of it is that they are trying to normalize being irrational and violent towards anybody they disagree with. What age group of person does this remind you of. If you guessed 3-5 years-olds, you are correct.

Which brings us back to Antifa. The revolutionary cosplayers who seems to operate on a combination of lack of historical knowledge, and emotionally-driven violent tendencies. They wear masks to hide their identities, much like bank robbers, muggers, snowboarders, and other people who often engage in degenerate, anti-humanitarian deeds. They’re essentially junior terrorists whom the extreme left refuses to call out for being terrorists.

“But their name means ‘Anti-Fascist’, so how can they be fascists?” If I had a buck for every time I’ve seen this ridiculously daft question posed, I could pay my rent for a month or two.

If I go around calling myself a Korean woman, does that make me a Korean woman? I can call myself whatever the hell I want to, but facts and actions dictate what I actually am. If I go around engaging in intimidation and political violence, I’m a terrorist by the very definition of that word. If I then want to use force to shut down any view differing from my own, I’m a fascist by the very definition of that word. Engaging in these activities dictates what I am, and not whatever cute misleading term I choose to use to label myself.

In reality, Antifa are nothing more than kids who have been failed by the education system. They “fight” fascism by ironically acting out in the same manner as Hitler youth and children in Mao’s China, “smashing capitalism” with violence and destruction. Education has failed them, in that they are completely incapable of fighting opposing idea with their brains, and thus need to rely on their fists. They act purely on emotion, and nothing else. Unfortunately, history doesn’t look back favorably on you merely because you “felt” you were doing the right thing.

I’d be willing to give some of these Antifa kids the benefit of the doubt, but the truth is that I have yet to converse with one online that didn’t give off the impression of being anything beyond a D+ student at best. You can’t expect a D+ student to have a very solid grasp of history or politics though. Hence them largely being fueled by emotion rather than intellect.

I’ll end this here, because I have no doubt I’ll end up writing about this 40 more times in the not too distant future. It would be nice if the journalists whose responsibility it is to objectively report on things like this were actually doing their jobs, but that evidently doesn’t happen any more. Partisanship and towing the line have replaced merely reporting facts and reality. One step closer to that dystopian future.