As I may have mentioned before, I hail from the far away land of Romania, a country with a history of communism which basically wrecked the country and without a particularly strong tradition of limited government, where most peasants were still serfs almost up to the 19th century. I was asked before on various positions on limited government Romanians hold, and thought I’d write a quick post on it, mainly an anecdote, really.
Are notions of limited government increasing? Not really. You would think after a history of bad government and massive abuses of power, many would think to give the other side a shot. But sadly, this does not happen. We just need the right top men, you see. One problem is that people want things and rarely thing of the implications, the ramifications, and both the expected and unexpected consequences. They have the view of government which does everything they want and nothing they do not. And I am talking here about the upper echelon in terms of intelligence, education, and professional success. As such, I have little hope of clear improvements in the future.
As an anecdote, I will talk of someone I know who is, let’s say, someone I had high hopes of when I thought of a move towards freedom in Romania. He grew up in communism, finished Polytechnic university in Bucharest, got his PhD in France, and was a very successful semiconductor engineer. Of course, for most of his life, he was the kind that didn’t pay much interest to things outside his field, and only recently did he read some books on economics and political philosophy. But this makes him more knowledgeable than most in my company who did not read anything on these topics, although they have really strong opinions on politics and economics. He is what, for Europe, would be vaguely classical liberal / libertarian on economic issues, although quite vaguely. When he reads a libertarian book, he often agrees with what it says, but he simply cannot get past his many years of thinking that government must do way too many things in society. So this generally causes a few days of thinking a bit differently, followed by a comeback to the old ways. So he would not be a reliable voter for strictly limited government, and if he is not, I have little hope for most other Romanians.
As a Romanian, he hates guns. He thinks they are dangerous and wants them banned. The government’s job is to disarm the population, he states. In this he is joined by his brother, also an engineer by trade in semiconductors, who immigrated to the States and now lives in a leafy and quite lefty suburb of Boston. His brother also hates guns and republicans in general, and thinks America is too right wing.
The man I speak of trusts his brother’s judgment, and I had several debates with him on US politics which ended because his brother is his ultimate argument and tells me he is more informed than me because of what the brother tells him. I, frankly, find this rather annoying because his knowledge of US culture, economy and its politics is probably 10% of mine. And his brother’s does not seem much better, as he forwarded to me some emails that could have been taken directly out of the New York Times. I remember speaking about certificate of need legislation in US and he outright said that is not true, such things do not exist; it is not possible in a capitalist country like America for the government to prevent a hospital from expanding, let’s say. He did not really care to read about it because he had his sources. This is his answer. It is obviously impossible to argue with someone whose main argument is “my brother told me this so it must be true.” I have asked countless times for data for his claims, but he literally said, “I do not have data but it is true. I have my sources,” – his main source being his brother. This is quite dispiriting. Someone who is more politically knowledgeable than most people I know, one of the few to have actually read some economics. If he can’t argue properly and form a more informed opinion, who can? Most Romanians still tell me that the US is the land of no government and unrestrained free market capitalism, and they believe that. Especially when it comes to the completely private and completely unregulated healthcare systems you Americans seem to have.
Recently I hear the complaint – coming from the brother originally, of course – that the problem with US in that the constitution is too difficult to change as to disarm the population. A smart, accomplished engineer with some knowledge of economics does not give a jot of thought to the ramifications of what he claims if it will lead to his preferred outcome. He would be so willing to see all guns banned for civilians, that he would tear the constitution apart for this. Of course, he does not claim that. He says only the second amendment, not others. But if you give the power to easily change the second, how would you prevent that power being used to change the others? How can you create a system where just one article of the constitution is easily changed? The ridiculous view of government doing everything I like and nothing I don’t.
What is the point of the constitution is it is easily changed? Majorities are fickle. One may have the 51% now, the others the next time. Laws change with majorities. The whole point of the constitution is that it is not as easily changed and it needs broad consensus. And if you look at US history, many bad things came exactly when the constitution was not respected. How can we get a more libertarian view in Romania when people lose their reason when it comes to topics they feel strongly about? How can we argue when people say, ‘I don’t have any data but my brother told me”? I do not know, but I do not have my hopes up, lest I be too often disappointed.
Comments
369 responses to “Constitutions, guns and limited government: a constant uphill battle”
Those brothers need to learn how to argue like the Wright brothers. I spend five to ten hours a week talking with one of my brothers on the phone. He was a SoCon, but after taking the time to hash out the arguments, he’s a bigger libertarian than I am. TBH, I feel kind of bad about exposing him to the hypocrisy of his previous belief system because he’s all pissed now.
Would you say there was one argument in particular that swayed him, or was his conversion just the result of you slowly beating him down over time?
And if the latter, was it a true change of principles, or just a trained response of telling you what you want to hear so as to avoid yet another long rehash of the topic?
Shh. You might disprove every “and now of course they 100% agree with me” story ever posted in these here comments.
*Sniff* *Sniff*
Are you getting notes of griefer?
Basically, he just got tired of me pointing out that the areas where he advocated more government control, like the war on drugs and defense spending, also were subject to the same arguments he was making for lack of market interference in things like healthcare. Public choice theory was a big help in getting him to see that concentrated benefits and diffused costs apply equally across the political spectrum.
I am going to try this with someone I know. So far he has been impervious to empirical evidence, so maybe a call back to first principles would have better success.
Recently read this. Great First Principles text. Why government doesn’t work point by point. For economics, I always like the island analogy.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1482564858/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_Y5OSAbJ01GT6Q
I think that is the general path for most conservative->libertarian transition. The War on Drugs was the last one for me, I wouldn’t call myself a libertarian for a few years in the early 90s because I knew my position on drugs was not libertarian. Then I said, fuck it, lets be consistent.
I find it almost impossible to talk to most people about the WOD. How to you overcome that much propaganda. It’s like telling people in the middle ages that the earth is round. They just look at you like a crazy Nutter. The crazy thing is that we have the abject failure of alcohol prohibition as an example and they still don’t get it. The addiction is the punishment, you don’t need to lock people in cages and destroy any future opportunity for them to ever get a decent job. Is that helping them? Not to mention that prohibition has had zero success. People just like to see other people punished when they “break the rules”.
Just as long as brothers argue more like the Smothers than the Menendez.
Then the worse they’ll need is a handful of Smith–or, at most, a few visits to Dr. Joyce.
But not like the Davies or the Gallaghers (either set of them).
Sadly proper arguing is not a goal for most people. They are so sure they are right they don’t need it …
My siblings are idiots. Luckily most of them are also apathetic regarding politics.
Mine are idiots and tend to fall for the woke shit – mostly out of peer pressure I have concluded – until I engage them and force them to think..
Mine is 62-year-old card-carrying member of the British Labour Party, and somewhat supportive of Jeremy Corbyn, and is therefore beyond redemption.
We haven’t had a reason to speak in the last 5 years.
Apathy is severely underrated for the stupid or uninformed. And I don’t say this with condescension–we all start out uninformed about any given issue. It should be virtuous to know what the fuck you’re talking about first, to have the humility to say, “I’m not ‘getting involved,’ because I don’t know what the fuck I am talking about.” Unfortunately, we seem to be suffusing ourselves more and more intensely with exactly the contrary sentiment.
Sadly he is not apathetic just can’t get past certain mental blocks. He argues passionatly about no involvment by government in say manufacturing but cannot extend that to healthcare
“How do you feel about letting the government decide when you’re no longer worth healing because you’re too old, even if you have the means to pay some of the costs yourself?”
oh that is not going to happen with the right people in charge. Healthcare is to important top be left to the private sector.
with the right people in charge
And people think the myth of the rightful ruler is for primitive societies.
Socialism is a primitive society. It cannot work in anything but a tiny band.
Have you suggested Glibertarians to him? 😉
I really cannot stand people who refuse to think for themselves. An ex once told me, “I’m not sure what to think about some things until I talk to you about it.” Like, I guess it’s sort of flattering, but, dude, you have to have opinions and thoughts of your own at some point. You can’t live your whole life operating on second-hand knowledge.
Most people feel thinking things out for themselves isn’t just problematic and painful work, but might get them in trouble with the in crowd. That is why we have so many sheeple, Raven.
Sigh. It’s true. “What if I think this through and come to the wrong conclusion?! Better to just not think. Pass the graham crackers and kool-aid, plskthx.”
Exactly. And horribly sad because it is people like this that make the really bad shit that can happen possible Raven.
Riven/Raven, meh.
Potato/Banana
When in Rome!
Make friends with Caligula?
Seek the counsel of a horse!
The essence of the True Believer is that so MANY people don’t want to think or lead, they simply want to follow. That way, when things go wrong, they can blame someone other than themselves.
Being wrong is terrifying for most people. Now with social media, you’ve got people that have their beliefs spewed forth for everyone in the world to see. Before, you’d make a lousy argument with your buddy or brother, think about it and then you could say, “You’re still a fag, but you were right.” Not anymore. You gotta double and triple down because everybody saw you acting like an ass.
Politics and religion are much the same in that way.
I hate ‘group think’ more than anything else (which is ironic, because we sometimes behave as an echo chamber here). By definition I’m always skeptical of popular attitudes.
I fully agree with you. As always.
Wait, wut?
If you disagree, then I’ll agree with you, too.
Echo
*Makes Loon call across nearest lake.*
The majority is always wrong.
– Mark Twain
Too common.
Thinking has always been outsourced.
A person is only able to expend so much cognitive effort, and mulling over every bit of data that comes their way on topic esoteric takes up a lot of that. Most of that data and those topics hold little interest, so they invariably select some outside person or group whose opinion they trust on the matter and simply accept whatever conclusion that source draws, thereby freeing up their own cognition for tasks of greater interest to themselves.
I’m not sure what to think about some things until I talk to you about it.
10 years later: You know, Rush was talking about this the other day…
#triggering
My dad sent me a message yesterday saying he wished I had the opportunity to listen to Rush because he was “on fire.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I would only listen to Rush if he was literally on fire.
I normally had enough opportunity to catch Rush simply by walking through the VA parking lot. It’s not a problem I have anymore.
I use to have to make a two hour drive on Fridays and right before I’d get to my destination Sean Hannity’s show would start. No conservative talk show host is more insufferable than Hannity. My God, that man is ear cancer. I can tolerate Mark Levin, but Hannity is an insufferable douche
Levin is too irritating. He interrupts otherwise viable rational discussion for pointless, mean-spirited barbs about irrelevent things like name or appearance.
I said I can tolerate him. I never said I enjoyed listening to him. Hannity is worse than them all. No doubt about it
Levins books are good, but I can’t stand his show. He’s enough of a fellow traveler that I don’t feel like I have to hate read his stuff.
Ha! At first I thought you meant the band and I was all, “hell yeah!”
To me, a lot of those talk radio guys sound like the screams of someone on fire. Is that close enough?
The thinks, not stupid, but does not really spend enough time to gather the info and bases his thinking on the flawed one he gets from his bro
I find it interesting, that given the recent history of Romania, any Romanian would be for gun control.
They’ve learned that guns are fine, as long as you are the only ones that have them. *See Gilmore’s post below.
We are unique in our gun love
Might be true, but not all calibers are created equal.
So not all calibers are of the same caliber?
Some are pin-point accurate and others are scatter-shot.
After three or four beers, I can’t tell if I have one in the chamber.
Do you then slur out a variation of Harry’s “Do you feel lucky” speech?
Ah, that’s the secret. I only carry blanks.
Fun Fact – at close enough range, a blank is still lethal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon-Erik_Hexum
Jon-Erik Hexum (November 5, 1957 – October 18, 1984) was an American model and actor. He died as a result of an accidental self-inflicted blank cartridge gunshot to the head on the set of the CBS television series Cover Up, in which he played the male lead.
“accidental” is misleading. As I recall, he thought he was being funny when he put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
I hate to say it Pie but your friend/acquaintance doesn’t sound that smart. Most of the smartest people I’ve ever met seem to make up for that hyper intelligence in one area with fairly severe deficiencies in others and taking someone’s word at face on any issue in the face of contradictory facts is just plain stupid.
I have found that a lot of people I have been told are smart often are anything but. Oh sure, they might have a lot of book knowledge and credentials to their name, but they are also the ones with the least common sense or prone to accepting intrinsic value in some of the laziest and dumbest tropes peddled to humanity. The worst are the ones that we are told that by the virtue of some credentialing in one field their view should be taken as gospel in others where they have nothing of value to add. I admit that I immediately assume a lazy mind or mediocrity in anyone defending socialism – marxism or otherwise, but doubly so when based on emotional drivel – of any kind outside of the family unit.
He is. ANd there are no contradictory facts in this case he does not research much of them himself and chooses to belie his family over me
I don’t know if it’s intelligence so much as basic psychology. Confirmation bias is a real thing, and a very smart person can use their intelligence to look at the other side of something, or use their intelligence to twist the facts to fit their existing world view.
My doctor friend is extremely well read and travelled. Yet he commits every possibly logical fallacy. Extremely hard to argue with and always finds his way into he ‘just knows.’
My siblings….lets see my brother is a dyed in the wool Trump guy. One sister waffles on a lot of things but ultimately is your typical catholic woman, the other marched out of school for gun control…in AZ.
On Thanksgiving we talk about football.
My mom is convinced we can remove every last gun from private hands.
She can come and try and take mine if she doesn’t mind rolling around in the mud with a guy.
Wink wink
Well we can, we just need to kill a massive, and I do mean massive, number of people.
Totally doable.
I reminded her of the numbers of people who have guns and asked how many dead swat teams are we prepared to have to save these kids.
She didn’t believe that violent crime is down. She told me she was terrified of sending me to school.
Chortle. Was this in Vermont? Even in the most bum-infested section of Burlington, I couldn’t imagining possessing such a level of irrational terror.
Yep. Rural VT.
There are eleventy thousand gun-wielding serial killers roaming out there in them Green Mountains.
To be fair, I was sekeeved out the whole time I was in Vermont, and did not feel normal again until I’d gotten West of the Hudson again. There’s something just not right about that place.
How did you manage not having a nervous breakdown in Canada, UCS?
I’ve never been to Canada. The closest I’ve come was the Niagara river.
Tell you something, Canadian A&W restaurants are great.
I did go during the 90’s, when crime was high
Your mom is a monster for wanting to send those noble upholders of the law out to take all us criminals’ guns.
Incidentally, while legal gun owners are typically a very law-abiding lot, I have to reluctantly acknowledge that in a time of widespread confiscation, there’s a very real chance that LEOs could be targeted while in civvies by some of the more hotheaded firearm owners out there.
She didn’t believe that violent crime is down
And no statistical evidence, even from the DoJ, is going to change her mind about that, right?
Of course not.
Is she an adamant believer in other things too?
A true house to house confiscation scheme would mean a true civil war.
There doesn’t have to be door to door confiscations. It’s even better if people don’t comply. Then whenever they get a brush with the law, there’s another felony to tack on.
Supposing all semi automatic firearms were outlawed. What could you do with that now illegal firearm? You can’t take to a range. You can’t use it to defend yourself or your family lawfully. If it’s discovered, you’re going to pound me in the ass prison. You can’t teach your children with it (and judging from Other Kevin’s post yesterday, there’s a further danger of them ratting you out). And when you die, the non firearms owning kids (or grandkids) will call the cops to take that icky gun they found. The only use for an illegal gun is illegal acts. How many average gun owners are doing that?
If there was a near total ban, gun culture would die out in a couple generations as it has in Europe and elsewhere.
G-d damn. Look at Mr. Sunshine here.
But, you are 100% correct. It’s depressing.
Disagree.
I screwed up the link, but you get the idea. Also, I think the song as some point about autonomous cars is stupid.
Sounds like a good place to bring back this article.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/08/rant-second-amendment-repeal/
Hat tip to whoever first posted it on here.
The hands on work is too dangerous. Better delegate the messy confiscation out to a professional.
Hei it worked in Australia
Nice work, Mr InTheSky.
I have a similar problem with my wife. We have serious differences of politic, and our views of how society could be managed better are based on fundamentally different premises.
Her problem is that she has grown up deep in the progressive bubble, and has only ever been a school teacher and a lifelong member of some kind of school teachers union. She doesn’t watch or read media from outside of the left, has very little understanding of philosophy or first principles, and argues many things from emotion. When I present her with facts and principles, especially those which upend her worldview, she gets mad and says “You’ve taken more time in life to read, and you come from a different background than me, and your positions are based on facts that you have a good memory for. I can’t argue with you because I don’t have that kind of memory recall or depth of experiences that you have in dealing with the government.”
In other words, you’re experience at the shitty end of the stick doesn’t count, and you’re lifetime of reading up on why our society is the way it is gives you an unfair advantage.
Can’t you find some common ground and shoe horn a principle or two in that supports her position? I see nothing wrong with being a bit sneaky.
We agree on the things where libertarians and the left have some crossover – reigning in the military, ending the war on drugs, the NSA and related nonsense.
She refuses to throw the baby out with the bath water, and doesn’t see how a freer and more voluntary society could work.
I’ve been eating around the edge of the identity politics shit, though. She got hauled in front of her principal a few weeks ago, for making an offhand comment about the ridgidty of another teachers approach, and was told that she had to be mindful of race and culture differences.
This where I hope to sneak in some more radical individualism and have her rethink the groupthink.
“She refuses to throw the baby out with the bath water, and doesn’t see how a freer and more voluntary society could work.”
That’s why the left is authoritarian…
I always like to point out that the Left is not actually very good on these things at all. Obama did nothing to reign in our constant wars in the Middle East. And as Snowden revealed, the Obama administration let the NSA run wild, then he told us that it’s only a “modest encroachment that you should feel comfortable about” when it all got leaked. Obama did pardon a lot of people who were serving time for nonviolent drug offenses, and I can’t criticize him for that, but it seems like he could have done a lot more. He did have the power to deschedule MJ whenever he wanted, after all.
He also pardoned a literal terrorist
YES! The Left has never been anti-war or anti-NSA, except when it has suited them politically at the moment. There has always been an anti-war contingency loosely affiliated with the Right in the United States. The only problem is that that anti-war contingency also believes in stuff that makes us roll our eyes (example: Pat Buchanan).
The argument between the CATO and Mises people has really been whether you engage that contingency on the Right (like the Mises people always do) or you just ignore them, because their ideas on tariffs and immigration are so statist.
The bulk of the left is convinced the bad consequences will never happen to them.
Most of the leftists I know don’t consider Obama or the Democrats as being on the left.
I had an interesting date the other night. I’ve hung out with this girl long enough to let the mask slip, as it were, and pretty much laid out my case for volunteerism/minarchy. She was amenable but balked where most ‘right-thinking’ people do. I was ranting about minimum sentencing for drug offenders and the fact that the feds have to double down on their idiocy regarding weed because, in the words of Ricky from trailer park boys “I’ve been in and out of jail for weed since grade 7. What are you going to do, unarrest me?”
Her counter argument was;
“Well those people who knew they were breaking the law deserved it because the government said it was illegal at the time”
Me: “So would you have a problem if I put a shotgun to a [non-violent] drug dealers head and marched him into my basement to serve a 20 year sentence?”
Her: “No that would be illegal”
Me: “But would it be wrong?”
Her: “Yes”
Me: “Why?”
Her: “It would be a violation of his rights and it’s morally wrong”
Me: “Bingo. They how is it different when government does it?”
Her: stammer, stammer….”Can we talk about something else?”
This ladies and gentlemen is why most libertarians are solitary, cranky old men.
She engaged you in the conversation, which is good enough. When I talk about these things with my wife she entertains my ranting, but deep down I think she thinks I’m slightly mad, but in a non-dangerous sort of way. I appreciate her humoring me. Look for a woman who humors you
Oh she actually takes it really well. She’s finishing up med-school and waking up to the idea that lots of people think she’s not entitled to all the money she’s going to make post-residency. I told her; “you’re 75% of the way there, I just need to drag you the other 25%”
That should read “want to take most of the money she’ll make post-residency”
My wife claims to be a proggie. But every time she rants about a political issue, she sounds like she sounds like Rand Paul. I tease her about being a secret libertarian and she blows a gasket.
Poor woman. Her mom is a die-hard Clinton supporter who ruthlessly cuts off family members who commit the crime of insufficiently supporting herself.
This reminds me of what Bill James wrote about the California Angels during the mid-80s:
“And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?”
I thought of including that but forgot
This sounds so similar to any political argument I have with my dad. I can point him to all kinds of information to prove my side, but he refuses to budge, and also refuses to tell me where he gets his information. I’m certain it’s a combination of CNN, MSNBC, and AARP. He’s lived his entire life in Democrat-controlled northwest Indiana, and to this day he sees Democrats as the party of the little guy, and Republicans as the party of the rich. Never mind that his house is as least twice as big as mine.
San Francisco is full of hard scrabble pipe fitters. The amazing thing is how Democrats can simultaneously say they’re the party of the working man (despite electoral outcomes proving otherwise) while saying that only ignorant poor hicks vote Republican. It makes no sense
I see your problem. You want that political chicanery to make sense.
I just laugh every time the 0.1% democrat membership (see that panel with 2 millionaire politicians and that fat guy that made a killing peddling socialism in a most capitalistic way possible) go all hot and bothered and social justiy about income inequality, or why we need more government controlled by evil corprorashuns to fight the control of evil corporashuns, because I know the idiots just will gobble it up like hookers do cock.
There is nothing consistent at all about the two major parties. Long ago I realized the leaders of both parties must have had a secret meeting where they built their party platforms by randomly selecting important issues out of a hat.
Would love to know he thoughts about how Gary turned into a shithole.
“who did not read anything on these topics, although they have really strong opinions on politics and economics”
Basically describes most derptards. When they do read something it is from within their ideological bubble with no depth or nuance. Pure bumper sticker sanctimony. You see that a lot in protest interviews where the protesters know zip about the issue they’re protesting.
One thing I notice about some Romanians is they think living under communism made them immune to propaganda and what they believe is in fact the truth cause they can’t be tricked
They need 200 hours of Peterson lectures and some heavy doses of dimethyltryptamine.
Will the psycho-drug counteract the narcolepsy-inducing voice?
So, just like all other humans with their hubris.
Incidentally, that gun up there that you can’t have? I can’t have it either.
Well that does make me fell better
But ironically they have mental blocks that prevent them for truly imagining life without big government. And when you talk to them they understand and even agree on many things. But guns healthcare etc they just cant get passed the notion of complete government control or chaos
Wait…is it OK to comment on your own article?
😉
Another great article, Pie!
Excellent read.
The paradox of liberty:
people who have spent generations in conditions of oppression become so cynical about their fellow man that the only way they can envision society functioning is by having “their guy” with their hands on the same oppressive tools of control.
the only people who believe in govt with a ‘light – and restrained – hand’ are those who have some degree of necessary trust in their peers, and distrust for outside authority.
its basically something that can only form when you’ve got something like (surprise) a nation of colonists who had to make up their own rules and live (or die) by their own self-organization alone, without the aid (or interference) of outside authority. Its basically ‘frontier logic’.
Freedom is tough and has risks, and relies on some trust+goodwill of your neighbors, but its better than the whole village subjecting itself to arbitrary rule and property-confiscation by carpetbagger outsiders.
Lefties always make this stupid remark: “Libertarian ideas don’t work! there’s literally nowhere on earth that they’ve been applied” seemingly unaware that the limited-govt ideas embedded in the constitution aren’t the obvious successful case-example.
I don’t trust the people around me – that why I want to restrain their ability to interfere with me.
“‘I want to restrain their ability to interfere with me””
I think you’ve missed the point how libertarian ideas accomplish this largely through mutual respect and negative rights, rather than requiring a perpetually-overshadowing enforcement authority
you say you don’t ‘trust’ people around you, but you seem to think that you can ‘restrain’ them with nothing but some nice-sounding ideas on paper. that very idea is embedded with a huge amount of trust in other people’s compliance.
I’m not a libertarian.
GET THE DISSENTER! PURGE HIM WHO HAS DEFILED OUR ECHO CHAMBER!
sort of besides the point anyway
my comment was that the conditions under which “more-libertarian than otherwise”-govt (e.g. ‘Constitutionally-limited republicanism”) is likely to develop organically is actually fairly rare
(an example of 1 – which used to be what the term, “American exceptionalism” meant; that it was not part of the historical evolution which was responsible for the nation-states of europe; that it developed according to entirely-different principles)
iow, Pie’s observation about the perpetual “Top Men”-instinct in Europe is, at least historically, par for the course and understandable;
if you’re less sanguine about the value of libertarian ideas, that’s nice, but isn’t really a rebuttal to the point that they’re largely unique to the ‘New World’.
Lefties are convinced that our system of govt doesn’t actually work which is why they need to change it. The 200+ years of history are all oppression and evil donchaknow.
Gee, it’s almost like governments don’t want to give up their power or something…
I think lefties would buy an end-of-govt narrative like this, “it can end when all wrong-thinkers have not just been beaten into submission, but have embraced good-think and can be fully compliant members of society”.
How are the Romanian AKs? I don’t own an AK. Shot one decades ago. Really liked it and was very accurate with it. Would like to buy one, not really high on the list though.
Last I heard Romanian AKs were well regarded, but it is hard to make a crappy AK
Makes sense.
Real or Semi? I’ve built a couple semis from parts kits. The parts are of good quality. I found them on par with the Bulgarian kits. Now the WASR as imported by Century Arms are good but have quality control issues with alignment of the front sight post. The early ones came in with narrow single stack magazines and then were milled out for the standard AK mags. Some of these have oversized mag wells but still function.
Thanks. Do you have something out of the box that you prefer?
Nice article Pie. I am fortunate in that my wife and best friend aside from her are both hard-core libertarians. Both my immediate family and wife’s family are all strong conservatives. Not ideal, but I’d much rather start at the goal line of why the war on drugs and terror are wrong than with the fundamental rights of of firearm ownership and concept of private property. One of my sisters is the exception who gets distraught when anyone talks politics. She did loudly proclaim she voted for Obama back in 2012, but I don’t think she even voted and that was just to piss off my mother… which succeeded admirably.
Now my other sister is marrying a liberal from a die-hard prog family. He’s open minded though and it’s been a good journey with him. My sister and I got him to go from “gunz are evil” to “can I please come shooting again?” and is now looking at his first gun purchase. To put in perspective how liberal they are, his cousins and friend introduce themselves as “Hi, I’m Ashley and identify as cis, het normative.” Or some shit like that. Despite having never voted Republican in his entire life, his father pulled the lever for Trump because the though of Hilary just disgusted him too much. Good job with that one Dems.
On average, main-line conservatives are much easier to move in the right direction than a leftist. Conservatives are already suspicious of state power and are open-minded on topics like drug-enforcement, civil rights, and limited government.
Leftists don’t want to hear any of it and seem immune to logic.
Rand crushing it. Man, do we need a few beacons of hope in this shit show between Trump and the swamp monsters.
Rand Paul is the only federal official I would vote for president and be truly proud of my vote
Massie?
Good point, I think JS is assuming Paul is the only likely liberty candidate we’ll see in the next decade
Yeah, exactly. Massie isn’t going to win the primary. It’s hard for a representative to garner much attention on a national level. Rand Paul, though, has garnered quite a few admirers even outside of libertarian circles (ironically enough, his harshest critics are also within libertarian circles, but they’re really just neoliberals who masquerade as libertarian)
Also, I might put a “Fuck Nick Sarwark” sticker on the back of my car. Mainly because “fuck Nick Sarwark” and also, because no one would get who I was talking about. And it’s a real silly and petty thing to do, which makes me chuckle
He’s a douche’s douche. My only hope is that the backlash he causes puts the LP on the right track.
Yeah, before I knew what a clown Johnson would turn out to be I almost ordered a campaign sticker…..so glad I held off……..
Paul 2020 or 2024 is the only sticker I plan on putting in my rearview window.
Not even a “Fuck You, Cut Spending” sticker?
Well sure. I differentiate between supporting concepts vs. candidates.
Or BFYTW Baby?
I never thought I’d view a vote for an LP ticket the same way I’ve viewed some of my votes for GOP tickets, but then Johnson/Weld came along…..
Wow, referencing the Brennan tweet. Talk about coming to a predetermined conclusion. It’s fucking laughable.
An Islamist, a Communist and a traitor walk into a bar….and the bartender says,”What can I get for you, Mr. Brennan?”
Most Romanians still tell me that the US is the land of no government and unrestrained free market capitalism, and they believe that.
What is really surprising to me is how people can have this misperception and yet be in favor of greater government. One would think that it would be rational to want to imitate the US, given its unparalleled success. The US ranks sixth in median income adjusted by purchasing power parity. And, in a surprise to no one here, the top 10 countries for median income are either ranked “free” on various indices of economic freedom or have oil. The average person does better with more freedom.
I haven’t found the U.S. to have easier to enter markets than the other countries I’ve lived in. Jumping through hoops is par for the course is most “capitalist” countries these days. Maybe an “Entrepreneur Party” would be the party that would best express my political beliefs.
It’s often more difficult since you have city, state, and federal hoops to jump through.
Don’t forget the goddamn twitter mobs and hashtag fucksticks that will ruin you by any means necessary just to prove a point.
Yeah, I will give Trump props for trying to cut regulation but it’s the local stuff that is more suffocating. Certaininly in large cities that trend doesn’t show any sign of reversing. If anything it’s accelerating.
The city government of Spokane sure does act as if it wants businesses to leave. I wouldn’t call it a large city.
Well the poor keep dying in the streets in the US
Mostly by shooting each other…
…
…wait.
On the day of Parkland school shooting I had the pleasure of discussing guns and politics with a university professor. She’s German but lives and works in the Netherlands. She was utterly shocked to learn that I was in favor of gun rights. Obviously all the right-thinking people should be against guns. Who needs them? They lead to violence. As for the politics in general, she was very honest about her belief that regular people don’t know what’s good for them and don’t make right decisions. That’s why the strong government is necessary. It was a heated discussion. But I think we’re a still on good terms. She has a conservative in her family: her brother was a speechwriter for Schäuble when he was the finance minister. So I would be just a right-winger with the American twist.
“regular people don’t know what’s good for them and don’t make right decisions”
But giving them money and power magically gives them the ability to know what’s right for everyone else and make correct decisions.
The only power they want to give them is the power to keep voting for people that believe like the aristocracy that the plebes are too stupid to know what’s best for them…
I have guns. Why the fuck do I need to vote??
I was listening to this lengthy British podcast on the forgotten British working class. They came to much the same conclusion. People are close-minded and will keep voting for people (Labour) who literally hate them and want to replace them with Muslim immigrants. But they cannot stop themselves from expecting every need they have to be taken care of by an all-powerful government.
It’s pretty depressing to have it confirmed that we are doomed to continue this direction until there is a complete crash or civil war.
Great job Pie, it’s always interesting if sadly predictable to hear about Europeans views on guns, liberty, etc.
I for one think your first visit to the US would be a great excuse for the first international Glibs meet-up. The opening ceremony would necessarily be a debauched ATFE party that would naturally culminate with a raid from the BATFE.
YES!
A father buys a lie detector robot that slaps people when they lie.
He decides to test it out at dinner one night.
The father asks his son what he did that afternoon.
The son says, “I did some schoolwork.”
The robot slaps the son.
The son says, “Ok, Ok. I was at a friend’s house watching movies.”
Dad asks, “What movie did you watch?”
Son says, “Toy Story.”
The robot slaps the son.
Son says, “Ok, Ok, we were watching porn.”
Dad says, “What? At your age I didn’t even know what porn was.”
The robot slaps the father.
Mom laughs and says, “Well, he certainly is your son.”
The robot slaps the mother.
Nice
I’ve seen that joke before. I forget where.
I never claimed originality.
Do you remember where I saw it before? It’s bugging me.
Ask your mom.
She wouldn’t know.
Then just check to see if she has robot slap mark on her face.
Maybe SHE was told it by my octogenarian widower sex machine buddy.
straffinrun is on fire today
Enough to be on talk radio until the embers cool?
sex machine buddy
Come again?
He’s early 80’s and was widowed about 2 years ago. Now, whenever I see him, he’s got some chick on his arm who is my age or a bit younger, who I certainly wouldn’t be embarassed to see out and about with.
It’s uncanny and aspirational.
Come again?
And again and again and again.
Unless you get emails from my octogenarian widower sex machine buddy, no, I can’t remember where you saw it before.
*beatnik snapping applause*
Wait a second. Shouldn’t Pie’s article be causing us to reevaluate the positions we hold and have a robust debate on the merits? I have never seen one scintilla of evidence that STEVE SMITH is a rapist, yet we have all just assumed that he is one.
I think we’re reasonable in our assumptions, because STEVE SMITH makes that claim himself.
I mean, it could be a kind of “Stolen Valor” for social reprobates, but absent some exculpatory evidence, I’d take him at his word.
I chalk it up to locker room talk. “Those hikers let you just walk up an grabbem’ by the Northface.”
Sounds like you have volunteered to spend some quality time with STEVE SMITH.
It’s bubble reinforcement.
Pie, we’ll save you a seat when the starship convoy sails for Freehold. Until then, I wouldn’t harbor much hope.
… and you look around the starship, and everyone else onboard is a telephone sanitizing specialist …
Book was cute but kinda naive
Typical horror story under capitalism: I ordered shoes off Ebay last week. They showed up today, exactly when the seller estimated they would, and the brand and type and size are right, and they fit well and are comfortable so far, and they’re not scuffed or showing any signs of wear, despite being only $28 plus shipping, BUT they came unlaced. I had to lace my new shoes myself. I figured that, buying directly from a Chinese firm, I’d get that quality People’s Republic craftsmanship, not like with the slave labor you get buying from American capitalists. But clearly, selling on world markets has corrupted even the great liberal dream of Chinese Communism. Five days in getting to me from across the world and *I* had to lace them myself. Typical capitalist shoddiness.
Tear it all down and have the government run it!
Lucky bastard. My shoes always arrived laced in some wonky way that requires I unlace and relace the whole thing.
I think this is the natural next-step of Amazon’s “no-nonsense packaging” program.
A guide to how lunatics lace their shoes
This must be for the sort of people who used to make duct tape wallets in class back in high school…
This odes not make sense.
My brain hurts, and all I can think to say is “Does not compute.”
I mean, just look at the pair they’re replacing, Sketchers tennies that I bought last summer. They were falling apart in under a year, and all I did was wear them to work and around the house and digging pits and mixing concrete and hiking and all that low-impact stuff. Not even a year for a pair of thirty dollar shoes. I might as well be strapping newspaper to my feet. If it comes to that, you can be sure I’ll be wearing quality copies of the New York Times, the only paper in America that understands the importance of socialism chic.
Just got a pair of Pumas (maybe?, black tennis shoes anyway) for $15 from Costco. We’ll see how long they last.
My shoezies all come wid da velro straps.
Ah yes, the Official State Shoe of Florida
Go to any matinee during the week and all you will hear right before the movie starts is the sound of dozens of shoes being un-velcro’d
I read that as Manitee
No doubt your average Florida matinee is filled with ’em.
Here you go you small penised gun fetishists, refute this. You can’t can you?
(guns explained with cats and man it’s dumb)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxwPcUh97oc
I’d be more than happy to demonstrate to the wives of people who claim that gun owners are compensating for small genitals how wrong they are.
I saw that a few days ago. I consider it a mark of my mental stability that it didn’t make me want to suck on a Model 686 and pull the trigger.
Three likes to every dislike is depressing.
I don’t take much notice of those ratios.
I must have been about 16 when I came to the realization that the majority of humans are fucking idiots.
Back then, I had a brother telling me that the only answer was benign, omnipotent leaders who would serve the proletariat.
It’s clearly an astroturfed creation.
The high production value then capped off with pimping their bullshit march screams some lefty outfit getting funded by Bloomberg/Soros et. al.
He already does other stuff (that is notably lower quality) and was likely amenable to the position so less astroturf and more moderately popular web animator/cartoonist gets some money to advance a position he already held.
Rekt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKH0wB_eNuE
It’s not like people the US are generally any better.
The U.S. is one of the few places in the world where the idea of “less government” is even debated in major elections. That idea losses at least as much as it wins (and the people promising it are often liars), but it’s not even a concept in most places.
OT: An interesting epistemology debate for you, Q.
I was told there would be tits.
j/k: I’ll watch the whole thing when I get home.
OT: After more than two years, I’m finally getting my water heater fixed. Do you know what it’s like to take icy showers and wash the dishes in boiled water for two years??
It would depend a little on whether you lived in Anchorage, AK or Biloxi, MI.
Ugh. MS.
No. But “Working plumbing” ranks high on my list of “Must have” items that I’d forego a lot to fix a problem like that.
Obligatory. Pratchett link.
Refreshing? Invigorating?
I always read that icy showers are pretty good for you. It certainly motivates me to get in, wash up, and get out; no lingering around under the hot water. I’m going to try to stick with cold water for showers.
Having to boil water to do the dishes is a fucking pain in the ass, though, and I’m glad those days will be over.
Hopefully you mean replaced, they aren’t expensive
How did your hot water heater stay broken for 2 years?
I suspect he’s stuck in a socialist utopia…
I was supposed to get city permission back when we lived in San Diego to replace my broken water heater.
I offered them a pipe to suck on.
The offical city code says the same thing here – but graciously explicitly permits using a plunger without asking for a permit first.
I suspect people ignore them.
That’s my question. There’s nothing to changing one.
When it first broke, I was stuck in a job that didn’t pay very much, and just when I had enough money saved up, many components of my car took a big shit and I had to spend the money on that instead. I got a better job and saved it up, but by then I had gotten pretty used to living without hot water, so I took care of some other repairs around the house first.
I mean there is a reason the averege european is signidicantly wealthier that the average American. Also our healthcare is light years ahead
Is that sarc? My detector might need adjustment.
It is what people beloeve. When i tell them that i think us healthcare is more advamced than europes treatments wise they think i am mad. Also people think it ayrange when i say in my experience american software engineers are better then europeans
Just emigrate here Pie. We need more people like you.
Aint that easy. Need a greencard for that. I am not geting one and i do not immigrate somewhere where i am not guranteed to be a permanent reaident
A Green Card isn’t impossible to get, and providing you’re not planning on becoming a felon, citizenship is easy once you’re eligible if you want to get it.
Apply for the Diversity Lottery and see how things pan out.
Marrry a Glib. You will have to get gay married since there are no female libertarians. And while it may be a pain in the ass, you have a constitutionally guaranteed right to a cake.
I’m in the healthcare industry. While we have tried our best to screw it up, the stuff being developed in hopes of profit is way beyond anything socialized medicine has to offer.
Americans who visit Europe are often surprised at how shabby much of it is. There are some rich people in the cities, and lots of relatively poor people, but not much of what we would consider middle class.
People off course think the US education is universally bad. And that you are all obese although …
Well, US education is lousy with communist indoctrination bullshit, and there are too many fat people around.
::Runs off, sobbing::
::
Runsslowly waddles off, sobbing and gasping for breath::Hey, I lost 10 lb in the last 4 weeks. What I do, I now call “Running”.
Ah, that’s the common stereotype that Europeans have about Americans. But, they never seem to have a problem having us fat bastards save their asses every time any problem arises. Screw, Europe.
Jeremy Clarkson loved making fun of fat Americans until he got too fat to fit in a car.
100 years ago the Europeans made fun of Americans for being too skinny.
When you live in a land of plenty it’s hard to fight millions of years of biological imperative to eat more because you don’t know where your next meal will come from. One continent believes 3oz of meat is an adult portion, the other believes 6oz of meat is child sized.
Romanians sound like Canadians. Except it’s worse for the latter in my view given the proximity and access to the USA.
Europeans I get. But we Canadians have no excuse for how we sometimes view Americans all with a twist of misplaced smugness. Like Pie, I mention stuff and topics we discuss or link to Reason and it’s like I’m from the John Birch Society and asking for them to join a cult.
I truly don’t get Canadians who act as if Americans are from another planet. Part of the problem is it’s hard to get Fox and all information is funnelled though a liberal bias by way of second-hand sources. Which is ridiculous because we can easily access, for example, Patriot Radio and listen to the other. Instead, we lazily swallow whole the left-wing interpretation of people like Limbaugh and libertarianism.
I have relatives from Canada. Last time they visited one of them said that he really liked all the political freedoms afforded in the US (he’s pretty knowledgeable), but was afraid that he would get shot in the US or that he would die because of no medical attention. He insisted that the problem was that the US needed a social safety net, while allowing political freedom.
I shook my head and just said: “You really don’t get it. Like not even a little”
Abandon all hope, Canadians and seek refuge in the US. We shall make our last stand here
Ask him why Canadian politicians and proles travel to the US for medical care, Per (WARNING!!!) HUFFPO
That’s the other thing that bothers me. We actually think there’s no ‘queue jumping’. Canadians know the system is mediocre but that’s where they’re thinking stops. It’s uber-frustating. ‘Yeh it’s not great but those Americans, eh? All those dying people in the streets!’ Which is beyond retarded given how many of us regularly visit the USA. It boggles the mind.
Also hate Canadians who say, ‘Faux News’. I like to ask have you EVER watched it or listen to Limbaugh? That sorta shuts them up but they’ve been fed a bilk of nonsense so they stick with it.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-24-2017-1.4080024/canadians-too-accepting-of-mediocre-health-care-says-andré-picard-1.4080068
their thinking.
We actually think there’s no ‘queue jumping’.
And I thought that Les invasions barbares was a relatively well-known movie.
Thinking there’s no queue-jumping is just wilful obtuseness.
But they are correct in that you can’t just queue-jump by something crass and vulgar as mere money. One needs to know and be one of the right people.
It was popular….and then forgotten. But if there’s a place where maybe people are more ‘aware’ it would be Quebec and probably Alberta. Two provinces where we find the most private clinics/hospitals.
As a Romanian, he hates guns. He thinks they are dangerous and wants them banned.
Is this attitude somewhat class-related?
From my growing up, theoretically the Serbs are supposed to be warrior-people, with weapons being part of a proper household (of course, that’s myth more than reality), and on top of it, Communist defense doctrine included wide-ranging guerilla movement based on WW2 one.
In practice, however, guns were considered to be uncouth and private ownership was something that peasants up in the hills did, not properly civilized urbane people. So while gun ownership was relatively high, it was concentrated in rural areas (I mean, who’s gonna go up and check if you have a licence? your neighbor who also has couple rifles for hunting and a pistol for weddings?), or with the WW2 veterans who kept their trophy arms (and, of course, if you were in nomenclatura, you could arrange to own one).
Not class related. Romanians were never gun owners in large numbers
We need to start organizing range days and safety education.
Time to fix that. Get on a ‘plane to NY and come do some shootin’!
Why New York? Can’t we use a real state
CT is real enough. I can get him on a 100 yard outdoor range with a bunch of semi-auto and bolt-action rifles, and get him shooting revolvers and semi-auto handguns.
^ The above is all the proof anyone needs that Romania is not a Balkan country.
Anyone else going to watch CNN commentators “pounce” on the latest bomber news?
That he blew himself up rather than be captured?
Or the predictable political pablum?
“American Splodeydope”
He was white.
Therefore, he was an evil Trumpista.
QED.
/CNN
I thought it interesting that white male were the first words out of their mouths. They were so hoping it was.
But white men are all gun murderers. They carry guns to compensate for their tiny male appendages, and they favor black AR-15s out of subconscious feelings of inadequacy about black men, whom they hate want want to kill. They’re also closeted gays, and murdering black men is how they deal with their latent homosexual desires.
I learned to play spades in choir class with the black dudes. So I found this amusing when one of them shared it:
Big Joker Ruling
I mean, the obvious joke is, of course the colored one is the bigger joker…
I used to play spades. Don’t recall how it’s played though.
You hit the other player with a shovel and scoop anything from the table into a bag before running off.
It’s a team game of trumps based on number and suit, with bids. A card is played, you have to then play a card in the same suit unless you don’t have any of that in your hand. Highest card wins the set. Spades trump the other other suits. Jokers are the ultimate trump cards, with the big joker beating the little joker. All kinds of other house rules and slight tweaks, but that’s the gist.
It’s euchre with slightly different Trump rules.
Themselves all vastly inferior to Bridge.
Ok. All of that sounds familiar. I don’t think I’ve ever played Bridge.
Anybody who restricts themselves to a single card game are missing out.
Q gets it.
It’s bridge for dummies.
That’s another way to put it, yes.
I’m just disappointed I haven’t gotten a single ‘Lacist!’ for my joke
Matching or Shedding games > Trick-taking games.
Goodles article Pie.
We need to ban any immigration from Romania.
OH YEAH well we don’t want to come to your stinky country
*sniffs armpits*
*shrugs*
Get your ass on an airplane Pie. This country was made for people like you. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Romania but you cant save them. They are lost. Get over here.
well get Lachowsky to let me in
Ten bucks says Lachowski would take you in and give you a place to stay. The only problem is that Arkansians dont have crawfish boils.
crawfish or the Romanian equivalent are difficult to it is is hard to get the meat out of the tail.
One minute’s instruction from my wife and you can peel them as fast as you can chew. She is a world champion crawfish peeler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF-4Bbau1WU
Got you covered.
http://www.lacrawfish.com/Louisiana-Crawfish-Tail-Meat-1-lb-P222.aspx
Good lord. 22 bucks/ lb? I can get them for 8 bucks/ lb at the local grocery.
Well sure. But I bet your grocery won’t ship anywhere in the US though.
^This. I don’t give a shit what language you speak, what color your are, who you worship, who you bang. If a person is committed to liberty they are more than welcome in my book.
Hear, hear.
Romanian and english, white, agnostic, your sister. I am committed to liberty
We need to make this happen. How do we get Pie to ‘Murrica?
Visa lottery:
http://www.uscis.gov/green-card/other-ways-get-green-card/green-card-through-diversity-immigration-visa-program/green-card-through-diversity-immigrant-visa-program
Employment option:
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/employment-based-immigrant-visas.html
You might as well apply for that Green Card lottery, Pie
I know people who played the green card lottery every year for more than a decade–without any success.
I hear over staying a visa is a popular option.
He’s Euro-Caucasian and wouldn’t vote for Dems. He won’t qualify for amnesty.
Fully agreed. Pie, you’re good to go. And Suthen is wrong. We boil crawfish with corn on the cob and andouille sausage.
No shit? I had no idea. I figured Shreveport was the northernmost extent of crawfish eatin’.
I tried some in Galveston once. It was awful. They had no idea what they were doing. Biloxi, Ms has a few La transplants that boil decent crawfish. That is about as far east as you can go for good ones, west the coonasses in Port Arthur can do good ones…but Arkansas? I had no idea.
I know some folks who are absolutely shameless about appropriating Cajun cuisine.
There are places on the coast in Alabama and the Pensacola area that have crawfish, but as I’m not a Louisiana native I can’t vouch for their quality.
Didn’t know they were this far gone.
Norway will be banning semi-auto hunting rifles.
The article also mentions the
which is a massive gun grab. The Swiss got themselves exempted (which makes the law discriminatory) and the Czechs are protesting and will probably ignore the thing.
Godspeed, Czechia
If there was any doubt that these gun grabs are a coordinated globalist effort, this should remove it.
That and the uber-organized effort coming within hours after Parkland.
IMO, the only way we get a civil war here in the US is if the gun grabbers make a significant populist push toward significant or total ban.
http://www.simplefactsplainarguments.com/2013/02/the-revolutionary-war-began-with-gun.html
I dont think they understand this.
Yet, today people are routinely arrested and convicted of gun crimes that would have caused the same reaction 200 years ago.
Here’s one for possessing a training grenade simulator.
https://www.atf.gov/news/pr/grants-man-sentenced-federal-prison-illegally-possessing-grenade
First step is making it illegal. Everything after that is criminal got arrested for XXX. No one is starting a second civil war when the ATF arrests someone for an illegal silencer or an unlawful transfer of a firearm.
Gun rights in this country hang by a slender thread. The last Assault Weapons Ban only went off the books because of the sunset provision. The gun grabbers won’t make that mistake again. Hows that Obamacare repeal going?
They’re using the frog boiling method; just keep ratcheting one tooth at a time.
The progressive movement started more than 100 years ago. They are patient.
See: LA Times unionizing. In 1910 their office was bombed for being strongly anti-union. 2018 the office unionized.
Columbus wants higher murder rates.
https://www.10tv.com/article/columbus-city-leaders-propose-common-sense-gun-laws
Yes, because that’s the root of the issue. There are too many gun stores nestled within the suburbs.
Not that this isn’t just an attempt to impose a de facto ban on gun sales within city limits, like the “no gun stores within X feet of a school” laws.
IMO, the only way we get a civil war here in the US is if the gun grabbers make a significant populist push toward significant or total ban.
I would also forsee a civil war if they ever tried to reinstate the draft.
Are the poles going to take that lying down or are they just relying on the Czechs to fight the political battle?
No more Jerry Miculek videos? The bastards!
*calls floating stone head, mumble hiss, mumble his…ok*
BRUTAL FAMILY INTERVENTION CLEANSING IS ENROUTE TO YOUR LOCATION.
A little update on YouTube’s new gun content policy. It looks like they really are caving and will begin enforcing their policy next month.
-Trigger Warnings autoplay video and Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-21/youtube-bans-firearm-sales-and-how-to-videos-prompting-backlash
what about forgotten weapons? i liked that channel it was relaxing.
That’s a good channel. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
I’ve been binge watching the Valor Ridge guy.
I was thinking this is a gigantic opportunity for a Youtube competitor. Never occurred to me it would be PornHub.
You’re the Hicock45 liker right? Remember he thanks Buds on almost every video when they loan him a gun. You can say goodbye to any videos where that happened at the very least and, you’re right, this is a big opportunity for someone.
He thanks Buds and American Federal.
And reminds us to sign up with the NRA.
t””Remember he thanks Buds on almost every video when they loan him a gun. “”
They would use a single instance of this “promotion” to ban his entire channel.
just as they’ll use a single example of any “field strip” of a weapon as an example of “teaching people how to assemble weapons”.
the degree of cooperation between news media and social-media in spinning-the-shit out of their pogroms is fucking breathtaking. that Bloomberg article makes it sound like Youtube was badly put upon and has only started barely nibbling at the margins of these flagrant violations…when in fact they’ve been doing it for a year or more and are now putting on blanket-bans.
*AND just as they’ll use any example of some gun channel “Shooting those exploding targets” as “instructions on how to use explosives”
“Guns, knives, stabbing Pee Wee with knives”
– the late great Wesley Willis
“Watch as Buffy fires this brand new Daniel’s Defense AR while her girlfriend Missy penetrates her from behind with a strap-on.”
More seriously, if MindGeek were smart (which they are) they would immediately start a GunHub.com site to start soaking up all that traffic. They are the only video upload site with the same kind of market penetration (heh heh heh) as youtube.
Is that PornHub’s parent company? It’d be hilarious if they ended up being the big winner from all of this.
They own something like 75% of all online pornographic content including all the major tube sites. They are privately held, but if public would almost certainly be Fortune 100.
I’m gonna go build my own YouTube with guns and porn stars!
ATF.com
Ass-sex, Trannies and Firearms.
Just make the menuing and filtering simple, guys.
And… Reddit decided to get in on the fuck you gun owners club.
https://www.reddithelp.com/en/categories/rules-reporting/account-and-community-restrictions/reddits-policy-against-transactions
This caught out the obvious r/GunsForSale but also r/GunDeals, r/BrassSwap and r/AirSoftMarket
“”YouTube will ban videos that promote or link to websites selling firearms and accessories, including bump stocks, which allow a semi-automatic rifle to fire faster. “”
this is a lie; they’ll just use it to ban all gun-channels.
Just closed my Firstbank Visa account and let them know it was because of their handling of the NRA. The customer service rep said she couldn’t get into specifics, but sounded like they are getting a lot of closed accounts because of it.
Good job, more people need to put their money where their mouth is. If they do it and we don’t we’ll forever get the short end of the stick.
That’s why I axed Google. I’m still waiting for a viable alternative to YouTube, but as soon as one appears, I will quit going there.
BitChute is the closest and best alternative out there but they’re a little light on content for now. I go there for my political stuff but I still have to use YouTube for the history related things, car vids, and gun stuff I’m also into.
“gun stuff I’m also into”
Not for long.
Same here. Fucking progs are really starting to get under my skin. I have already ditched google and looking around for another email acct.
ProtonMail.com
Free encrypted email account with Swiss privacy protections.
^^^What he said.
Do they also monitor your email and give you narrow gaze when you deserve it?
I wish I could quit Google but both my job and my school use Google as their email platform.
At least establish your own private and non-school, non-work email identity, on a less controversial platform.
Both of the ones you currently have could disappear for any number of reasons.
I’m working on Google too, but it’s imbedded deeply at this point. I’m liking proton mail. I just don’t know of a viable alternative for phones at this point.
I’d love to see a detailed review of the Silent Circle products,
Flip phone.
I’d resurrect my RAZR 5, but that damn keypad!
Then again, we could always try to capitalize on gun owners having to wear an online scarlet letter and start our own gun instruction site.
There are software people on here, get on it.
I’ll supervise and take my 15% royalty for coming up with the idea.
Gibguns.com?
Cool name, bro. I want my 10% for coming up with the name.
At this rate, we’ll have claimed 110% of the royalties.
::Starts humming ‘Springtine for Q, and Libertopia‘::
If you get too successful they’ll just ban you like they did The Daily Stormer.
Something else to think about; the more you abuse a group, the more insular, recalcitrant and internally close-knit they become. Look at (((us))); attempts at destruction and marginalization have become part of the (((identity))).
You mean we’re turning into the cast of Far Cry 6?
Basically yes.
The only thing is our small and insular group is actually the majority of the American public, we just don’t make enough noise.
where ma afternoon lynx?!