The Obscene Cap and Trade Bill

You know, I’ve opposed the Cap and Trade Bill ever since I heard about it. It stands to increase indirect taxes by an incredible amount. It will literally double your electric bill, and gasoline will go up around $2 a gallon.

This morning, I found out this bit that is in that bill. From Powerline:

“The cap-and-trade bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, for example,” Mark writes, “is a bold assault on property rights: in order to sell your home–whether built in 2006 or 1772–you would have to bring it into compliance with whimsical, eternally evolving national ‘energy efficiency’ standards, starting with a 50 per cent reduction in energy use by 2018. Fail to do so and it would be illegal for you to enter into a private contract with a willing buyer.“

Now, that, I didn’t know about. Wow.

I live in a pier-and-beam frame house built by Jim Walters about 30 years ago, which has had additions several times over the years. It’s clean, but all the windows are single pane, and the insulation is not the best. It’s true that we’re not planning on going anywhere – I expect I will die in this house. But here’s the thing.

When I do pass on, my sons will have to spend a lot of money to make this house compliant with these regulations, if they elect to sell it. I have not actually read this bill, but now I wonder if this provision extends to inheriting a home. If so, they would have to deal with it at the time they inherit.

It will probably be more cost-effective to destroy our home than to bring it up to their standards.

That is what the Democrats do for you when they are in power. These damned liberals take value created by hard work and a lot of payments, and destroy it with the stroke of a pen, all to support their social agenda. They can’t get voluntary support for this kind of thing, so they ram it down our throats, just like they are trying to do with health care.

This bill has passed the House already. If it passes the Senate, it will become law. We need to stop it.

-Popgun

Pocket Knives

The world has really gotten ridiculous. This young man is on suspension for having a small pocket knife locked in his car in a school parking lot.

Shucks, I carried a pocket knife bigger than his every day to school from the fourth grade on, completely without incident. So did most boys. A lot could be learned about a young man, based on what kind of knife he carried.

Farm boys like me carried a Case or maybe an Old-Timer 3-blade pocketknife, usually big enough to wear a hole in your bluejeans pocket. Boy scouts carried a Swiss Army knife. A couple of the more edgy kids carried a cheap switchblade (yes, that was illegal). I think I remember seeing at least one butterfly knife.

Big woo. Nobody got stabbed.

The only knife wound that happened in my entire school career was this one boy who stabbed himself in the belly trying to cut a button off of a shirt (why? I have no idea – but that’s what he told me he was doing). And he did that at home, with a hunting knife.

This whole knife thing is vastly overblown.

Having said that, I realize that I grew up in a time when most parents taught their kids that it isn’t nice to stab other people. This entire scenario has more to do with the failure of the concept of parental responsibility than anything else.

I think the failure to consider the context and just blindly assign penalties is wrong. Our country’s judicial system has a certain amount of leeway built into it to allow for special circumstances, and pig-headed school administrators should apply that concept as well.

-Popgun

Tax, In General

I personally would like to see the U.S. government convert all federal taxes to the Fair Tax or something similar. It would eliminate all federal withholding taxes, the need to figure your tax each year, and save a lot of money and hassle. There are many reasons it would be an improvement, not least of them that it would make the IRS unnecessary, at least in its present form. It would also make it far easier to know how much the federal government takes from us.

The Fair Tax should be the sole method of income generation for the federal government. All other federal taxes should be outlawed.

They will likely never enact this, though. The fed uses taxes to exert influence on the people, to control us through economic means. If you smoke, you’re paying an extra 63 cents a pack to pay SCHIP. The fed funds SCHIP, and they thereby ‘encourage’ you to quit smoking. All ’sin’ taxes work in this way. Even as I write this, the democratic congress is pushing for a tax on soft drinks to encourage people to live a ‘healthy’ lifestyle. “For our own good.”

The arrogance of this is breathtaking.

Taxes levied on businesses get passed down to us in terms of higher prices, and thus are indirect taxes. We are largely unaware of these indirect taxes – because they are rolled into the prices of things we buy.

If Cap and Trade passes the Senate, we’ll see our electric bill double after it goes into effect, and the cost of everything we buy will also be affected since we pay for the electric bills of factories and businesses through the cost of what we purchase. It will be a HUGE tax increase, yet a Democrat will tell you that your taxes won’t go up.

They are splitting hairs. Your taxes WILL go up radically – but indirectly. And they will look you right in the eye and say your taxes aren’t going up.

Shucks, coming up with new ways to tax us is a favorite sport of Democrats and Progressives. That’s where the expression ‘tax and spend liberal’ comes from – it’s so prevalent, it’s proverbial.

We need a law that taxes may not be levied for any purpose other than income generation. That tax should be the Fair Tax, and there should be no other.

Sometimes I feel like I’m buck nekkid in a room full of mosquitos and vampire bats. We need to reign in these blood-suckers.

-Popgun

Justice – Slow, but Sure

As they say in my line of business, “One ‘Oh Crap!’ cancels out 10,000 ‘Attaboy!’s.”

More than 100 Hollywood people have signed a petition in defense of their colleague Polanski.

Polanski did the crime; a particularly heinous crime. He drugged and raped a 13 year old girl repeatedly. He needs to do the time. No matter what achievements he has in the film industry.

The idea that somebody should get off scott free for ANY kind of crime, much less rape, just because he has a following in Hollywood, is itself obscene.

There’s a reason that the statue of justice has a blindfold.

-Popgun

A Couple of Issues

First issue:

Some school officials are being sued because they prayed in the presence of students in Florida. This is just plain wrong, on many levels. Next thing you know, you’ll get arrested for praying in the waiting room at the airport. What is America coming to when you can’t even pray without worrying about getting sued?

So I’ve got an idea. Those of us who pray, let us do so every chance we get – but do it silently. So we can be praying and those who hate us for doing so won’t know for sure if we are or not. Just a silent prayer every once in a while, with your eyes closed.

That’ll piss them off. They can’t sue you for closing your eyes for a few seconds.

Second issue:

Maxine Waters, Democratic congresswoman (and nut case, IMHO) from California, wants demonstrators and opponents of ObamaCare to be probed for racism. I wonder what happened to freedom of speech? It is not illegal to be racist – it’s just illegal to act on it (as it should be).

I would like to point out something very fundamental at this point.

There is no law in the U.S. that governs how you are allowed to think.

What matters is what you DO. You can go to jail for what you DO. So far, at least, you cannot go to jail for what you THINK. This is a really big deal, and we need to pay close attention to anyone in the government that starts wanting to censor how we think.

The advent of different penalties for ‘hate crimes’ is a step in the direction of mind control. A crime is a crime whether you do it for fun or because you hate someone, and the penalties should not be different. If the standard penalty is not enough to deter criminals from committing a crime, they need to raise the penalty. Why the crime was committed should not be a factor in assessing the penalty.

Hate crime legislation puts a jury in the position of determining what a person was thinking when they committed a crime. This is absurd on the face of it, and certainly will assess unjust penalties.

The mind is the last bastion of freedom. Let’s keep it free.

-Popgun

Apolitical

I used to be completely apolitical. Up until 9/11, I didn’t even watch the 5 o’clock news on TV, except for the weather. In the newspapers, I only read the funnies.

Robert A. Heinlein once pointed out that politics was only slightly less important than your pulse, but I didn’t understand him at the time. It seemed to me that politics was just a bunch of old guys taking care of business.

Silly of me.

On 9/11, I started paying attention.

From this ignorant perspective, I was startled at some of the things I found. Maybe ignorance really is bliss. I discovered that there is a war going on right here within the U.S.A., between those who believe in personal freedom and responsibility, and those who believe the government should control every aspect of our lives. Unbelievably, I had never known this battle was going on.

Then, a few years ago, my son re-introduced me to shooting. I owned some guns, but had not done any shooting in around 35 years, due to a shoulder injury. I had been convinced that recoil would be an issue, and I just assumed I could not do that sport. My son pointed out that shooting a pistol probably wouldn’t bother my shoulder, I tried it, and I was hooked.

Again, starting from an ignorant perspective, I was surprised to find the state of gun laws in Texas and the U.S.. When I was growing up, I got my first .22 at age 13. I had friends who were teenagers that had pistols. Back then, people had rifles in gun racks in the back windows of their pickup trucks. My dad had a .38 police special in the glove box of his truck. I didn’t know gun ownership was any big deal, or that I needed permission from the government to purchase one.

I had no idea what the laws were. So I started studying the subject, starting with some of John Lott’s excellent books. I read Ayoob’s books and articles. I learned the philosophy and practice of self defense using lethal force – Cornered Cat made a big impact on me, with the best philosophical logic I’ve yet seen, and helping me relate it to my Christian beliefs. I decided to get a concealed handgun license, and learned some more. I studied a lot of crime statistics, and began to take notice of the number of home invasions I see on the local news. I saw, not too long ago, that a family of five over in Shreveport was murdered during a home invasion. I’ve seen news media reports of at least three cases of people going into a church and shooting a bunch of defenseless people. This, within a few hundred miles of where we live. I began to carry even in church. I’d probably never need it, but it would only take once to be worth the hassle.

I learned that the war between the freedom lovers and the government lovers extended to gun control. In fact, gun control was one of the major sticking points between the two sides. The people who want government control of the populace don’t want the populace to have practical means to defend against their control. This is the philosophy of every totalitarian government anywhere on the globe.

To me, it seemed inherently obvious that anybody would want to be able to defend themselves by any means available. I see no logical reason to limit that. I believe in my heart that the good guys need to have equal or better firepower than the bad guys. I don’t like politicians that would really prefer that I be unarmed, when I know that evil people would be armed, not being constrained by the same laws. Laws that take away your right to defend yourself are not laws written for your benefit.

I saw news of several massacres (with guns) which took place in gun-free zones. Funny how those signs don’t stop killers, but they do stop law-abiding citizens from defending themselves with equal firepower. I became opposed to laws which keep the law abiding citizens like myself from defending ourselves on a level playing field.

I have lived to see a day when the news media distorts and omits facts based on their political leanings; the recent election being a perfect, obvious example. When I was a kid, you could count on getting reasonably accurate information from the news – this is no longer true. Statistics on this subject are available – it’s amazing how the news media tends to suppress the use of guns for self defense.

The United States is still the best place on the planet to live. But I have come to realize that it is a constant ongoing battle by those who love freedom, to keep that freedom. Freedom requires maintenance. This country is at a cusp – the big-government lovers are in control of all three branches of our government. We are very near the point of losing everything our founders wanted for us. It has been somewhat of a shock to me to realize that we have reached that point. How can any freedom loving person sit back and say nothing?

I am no longer apolitical.

-Popgun

Challenge to Our Government

A challenge to the United States Government:

Do not pass ObamaCare – unless you can guarantee that it will provide equal or better health care than we are getting now, for equal or less money than we are paying now.

Do not pass Cap and Trade – unless you can prove without doubt that:

• Man-made Global Warming is a real phenomenon (given that for the last ten years the planet has been cooling! – an inconvenient truth…)
• This legislation will result in an improvement in the human condition that is worth the incredible cost that you already know it will inflict on each and every U.S. citizen, and the real poverty that will ensue as many, many businesses are shut down.

I don’t think you can guarantee any of that.

Do not pass ANY legislation – that you haven’t read line-by-line, in person, and understood. The rule is simple: if you haven’t read it, vote no. This simple rule will prevent poorly considered legislation from being passed.

I’m just one man, watching the upper management of the U.S. cause our country to descend into chaos through complete and total mismanagement and the inflicting of poorly fitting political ideologies. I don’t have any faith at all that anybody in our government will actually do any of the above…

-Popgun

ObamaCare Funds Abortion

ObamaCare will probably fund abortion.

Another article about ObamaCare funding abortion. < Added 8/5/09 >

And another: Tax Money for Abortions < Added 8/6/09 >

Whether you believe that abortion is moral or not, still, abortion is an elective surgery. Elective surgery has no place in a government funded and run health care system that will be rationing care.

Save the money that would pay for those abortions, and apply it to the health of the elderly that this plan will short-change.

There’s something sick about this “health care” plan. Higher costs; paying for abortion; rationing care for the elderly or the permanently disabled; how is this better than what we’ve got?

Funding abortion; rationing care; end-of-life strategy counseling; it seems these people want to control costs – by means of death.

Call your congress-critters and tell them to vote it down!

-Popgun

Bloomberg Lies Again

Regarding the Thune amendment, rabid anti-gun Mayor Bloomberg said:

“It would make it a lot easier for illegal gun traffickers to walk the streets of any city with multiple hand guns and that’s particularly problematic,”

Hey, Mayor Bloomberg – illegal gun traffickers do that anyway! That’s why I want my gun!

Idiot. What makes him think a law is going to stop a law-breaker?

He said elsewhere, with feigned horror in his voice, that concealed carry laws allow people to carry guns into (gasp) movie theaters, and (gasp) restaurants. Let me explain, Mayor Bloomberg – two kinds of people carry guns into those places: law abiding licensed citizens, and crooks. The crooks don’t care if you pass a law against it – they’ll be there anyway.

Many law abiding citizens want protection from the crooks. The cops are always a few minutes away, and though they do their best, I don’t have one in my pocket. I do, however, have my gun on me.

Texas Grandma and I went to see the movie G-Force the other night – I had my gun, and nobody got shot. But we would have had a means of defense if we’d been jumped in the parking lot. It’s a rough town, and there wasn’t a cop in sight.

Sunday, we went to church – followed by lunch at a restaurant. And again, nobody got shot. Texas Grandma went to the local mall Sunday evening, and took her gun. Nobody got shot.

We’ve been doing these things for years… nobody has been shot.

If you meet someone with a concealed handgun license, you can rest assured of one thing. That person has never had a history of trouble with the law. Felons cannot get a concealed handgun license!

The last time I had reason to talk with a police officer (a traffic stop), when he learned that I had a CHL – he relaxed and became friendly... because he knew he was safe with me. In Texas, a CHL holder is seven times less likely to be involved in any crime compared to the average citizen.

Those of you who don’t do guns, and those who live where it is unusual – be aware that regardless of the lies of Bloomberg and his ilk, those who legally carry concealed are the good guys. We’ve been screened by the police, we have clean records, we have had training in gun safety and the relevant laws.

-Popgun

Terrorists Have Constitutional Rights?

The article’s title is “Obama’s Assistant Attorney General Tells Senate: Terrorists Captured on Battlefield Have Constitutional Rights“.

How’s that again? Excuse me! I thought the U.S. Constitution applied to, you know, U.S. citizens. That’s one of the perks, so to speak, of being a citizen. There is a difference between being a citizen, and being a non-citizen – and that’s it: the Constitution of the United States.

If it applies to everybody, why would anyone bother to become a U.S. citizen? This may be a key question, shedding light on what Obama’s administration and other progressives truly want to accomplish.

I don’t know if this is true. But it hints at a movement towards a one-world government.

The progressives are trying to remove the distinction that makes United States citizenship something special.

There’s something truly rotten in the Obama administration.

-Popgun