MicroBalrog's Fiery Blog

Priceless.

2005-02-24T05:33:00.000-08:00

Oleg Volk, in his infinite kindness, has forwarded me a letter sent to him by a certain person who was offended by his site. Here is that letter, name omitted to protect the [insert here].

> Name:
> Location: i am a phlebotomist. i found it
> E-mail:
> Homepage:
> Picture URL:
> Link: Do not have a link
> Best: existentionalism
> Worst: guns
> landscapes: on
> abstracts: on
> Frequency of Visits: First time
> Other Advice: OK, Dude...first of all. You are a talented
> photographer, and it seems you have skills with a CPU. I like the way
> your site is built and organized. Logical, simple enough to
> understand, yet it conveys complex ideas. However, one thing that I
> do not like is all the guns. I mean, have you heard of the columbine
> high school shootings? Also, let me give you a disclaimer: all this
> is my own biased opinion. However, the photograph of you with the M16
> lookin' rifle in a flak jacket is pure psycho. And what the hell is a
> "pocket weasel"????? You name your guns???? Do you also have a name
> for your penis? It is stated that you are single, lookin for a female
> to date. Well, it seems that if you don't find one soon, you'll start
> picking people off from a clock tower with a sniper rifle. Don't get
> me wrong, there's nothing wrong with guns, I celebrate the US
> constitution, the first (I am happy you express yourself) and second
> (you have your guns) ammendments. But c'mon...one or two images of
> you with guns would be good. Not a freaking hundred. Once again, I
do not mean disrespect, and hope you can take this constructively.
> :

I mean, hey, people. Oleg Volk, “picking people off from a clock tower with a sniper rifle”? I felt pissed. Very. And, having what the worthy Kim du Toit terms an RCOB moment, I replied [given in italics]:

Hello Mr. S.!

Mr. Volk, in his infinite kindness, has forwarded me this message. While
certainly you are entitled to your opinion, I am also entitled to mine. Here
is my opinion on your letter: OF COURSE Mr. Volk's [excellent] site has
pictures of guns. It is *about* protecting the right to keep and bear arms
in the first place. What do you expect to see on a site like that? Teddy
bears? Even more interestingly, you say that posting such images is wrong
because of Columbine. What does that have to do with anything? How does the
act of two young boys, driven homicidally insane by social pressure and
psychiatric drugs [look it up], committed via a mixture of guns,
incendiaries, and propane, have any relevance on the posting of images of
firearms on the Internet? [I understand from your letter that you agree with
the ideas expressed in the Second Amendment, thus I will not insult your
intelligence by thinking you actually believe it was the "availability" of
weapons that caused the massacre]. You also claim that the naming of weapons
is an unhealthy habit. Would you, then, call the authors of the Lay of
Roland, the Legends of King Arthur, and the Last of the Mohicans unhealthy?
Would you call Rudyard Kipling unhealthy? As to calling the affection with
weapons itself unhealthy, I will merely note that, to the experts, it is the
dislike of weapons that is unhealthy:

"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity."
~Sigmund Freud, "General Introduction to Psychoanalysis"

Sincerely yours, Boris Karpa, Ashdod, Israel

P.S. Here is some poetry for you. I hope you enjoy it:

www.scotwars.com/html/poem_brown_bess.htm

One would think the man would not reply. But he did.

>Indeed it is Mr. Karpa. Our right to keep and bear arms. Or arm (teddy) bears, for >that matter. God bless america. Or, run refugee camps over with tanks (I'm sorry, >that just slipped out, do forgive me).
>Also, I do not view Mr. Freud as a 100% valid authority. Too many of his theories >have been proven unbased by modern psychology and sociology. I mean, not >everything is a penis, for crying out loud.
>As far as your reference to ancient warriors naming their weapons. They did. They >also happended to be very knot-headed, "red-nekked", even for their times, not to >mentioned ours, male chauvinist pigs. They treated women, serfs (in applicable >countries, those were slaves, as you know), people of other race, creed or ethnicity >like shit. I do believe we, as a group of people living on this planet have move past >that, at least a little ways. I hope.
>God bless america for giving me the right to express my opinion (and yes, have >guns. >I own guns. I am not against or afraid of them) without fear of being >decapitated.
>Thank you for writing to me.

Oh well. Shrug.

Dear Sir!
I frankly don't know what "ancient warriors" you're talking about - I referred to sources diverging from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century, and certainly Mr. Kipling is no 'redneck' [whatever that means in the first place]. Your description of the treatment of women by such people doe by no means reflect the complexity of the reality of the Middle Ages or of the more modern times. Let me, for a moment, divert your attention to certain example of how an aristocrat was supposed to treat women in the days of the past.

"An insult directed at a woman is not answered by her, but by the man protecting her, which becomes the insulted party, while the insult becomes a degree graver than if a man where insulted." V. Durasov, The Dueling Code, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1912, reprinted in Y.A. Gording, "Duels and Duellers", St. Petersburg, the Pushkin Fund, 1996.

Why am I quoting it? You see, the various codes of behavior - which, in transformed form, influenced such late imitators as the famed Jim Bowie and the Alamo defenders - did exist, and they were based on the perception of the woman as a superior, rather than inferior, to a man, being. In truth, intolerance and hate were not the only fragment of those cultures and it would be a mistake to abandon them altogether [suffice it to say that the Anglo-American legal system takes its root in the medieva/feudal system as practiced in Britain in the 12th century. G.M. Trevelyan's "History of England" is a good guide to the society of the time].
So no, we are not in all ways superior to our ancestors. As you remember, in no other century were people of other "race, creed or ethnicity" treated more "like shit" than in the 20th. Not every moment forward in time means movement towards progress. It often does, but it is not necessarily so.

Sincerely yours,
Boris Karpa

Did you post that on your blog yet?

2005-02-21T14:00:00.000-08:00




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Horrible News

2005-02-19T15:06:00.000-08:00

Terrible News From The Front

U.S. Army Sergeant Adam J. Plumondore is dead. I never knew him, nor did I donate to the Walter-Adam Fund, but Kim made me feel he was alive. A person, rather then another number in an endless rank of troops. And it was to go he was on my side in a way.

Goodbye, Sergeant Plumondore. I don’t know if you liked poetry, but I find those lines, by R. Brooke, to be strangely fitting. Let him do the talking.

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

The Cities of Nationstates – an Overview [part I]

2005-02-19T14:46:00.000-08:00

The cities that a civilisation builds are it’s face. In a very real sense, the methods used by a group of people as they congregate together are a product of it’s culture and technology. From the sprawling megasuburbs of Port-Allanea, to the hive-like towers of Griffin, to the green domes of Pilon, cities are the highest expression of a nation’s architecture, engineering, and government. The following cities are examples of their own cultures, thus included here as part of our Nationstates city tour.

Allanea – Port-Allanea shares many of the features of Vinyatirion of the elves, however, the architecture is less advanced, and the teleportation circles. This both because the Allaneans have extremely varied tastes of architecture, and because they lack the magical expertise of the elves. The other main difference is the lack of tall buildings favored by elves. With the exception of the main business district, Port-Allanea features little skyscrapers, rather looking like miles and miles of urban sprawl.

This is even further augmented by low fuel prices and lack of automobile and property taxes on one hand, and absence of government subsidies on the other. Traffic problems are partially solved by the presense of Moller-type vehicles, and also extremely wide roads and intracity vehicle carrying trains run by Taggart Transcontinental.

The Allaneans have no laws regulating business from an ecological standpoint. This means Allaneans often resourt to civil suits against companies whose pollution is outright harmful to others, this serving as de-facto regulation. Still, factory chimneys are a part of the Port-Allanea landscape, poking up from among the cottage roofs. Allaneans do not consider this ugly, rather viewing that as a symbol of national productivity.

Of course, as with everything Allaneans do, there’s an exception to every rule – some subgroups of Allaneans do favor tall buildings, and Trek-Town, a small part of Port-Allanea near the business district inhabited by various Star-Trek fans – about 10-25 thousand in population – is testimony to that fact.

Pilon – Pilon, being entirely a Martian nation, houses most of its population in monstrous domed arcologies. The expertise of the Pilonese in applied genetics lead to that the domes are grown rather than built, and so are their vehicles. Due to the fact Pilon invests money and research in diversifying it’s population. Everybody from elves to orcs it present in the cities, and while Pilonese pretend not to care, they do point out how tolerant they are to any foreign visitor that cares to listen.

The Pilonese expertise in applied genetics has also solved to eliminate the problems of pollution in their cities – nearly all personal vehicles and power sources used are biological in nature and, of course, are gengineered not to pollute.

The Ctan – The subjects of Mephet’ran, like the Allaneans, enjoy great freedom, and see no need to shove into megacity complexes themselves. Rather, they spread out across the homeworld, making themselves very comfortable, utilising antigrav transportation tecnology to become the near-ultimate free state.

Owen's Law in Action

2005-02-18T11:33:00.000-08:00

How does a clique work?

Right now, I discovered this wonderful comment on my blog. I decided to post it here – just so I could demonstrate some things about cliques:

“Someguy You Know said...

Ya know...it wasnt anyone. But it was everyone. The CIA was out to get you and they post on NS for the sole purpose of putting you down and making you feel bad. They did it to Kennedy. Now they're after you.”

Greg, yes, I know you. I do not respect you. That is my right.

Anyhow, in this post of yours, you were right about one thing:

Ya know...it wasnt anyone. But it was everyone.

A clique – like the one our dear NYNJ belongs to – operates not by individual will, but rather like a hivemind, supplementing or replacing individual will, responsibility, and thought by ‘B… b… but everybody else does it, too!’

And about conspiracies, Greg: L. Neil Smith, in his book ‘Lever Action’, which I suspect you have never bothered to read, refers to Owen’s Law:

"Whenever it looks like a conspiracy, consider the possibility that it's only because they're stupid."

I believe this is the case here, too.

P.S. On a happier not, here's another Nationstates Blog

Nanakaland's Opinions

I leave Nationstates.

2005-02-18T09:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I left Nationstates. Temporarily, at least. Why? Well, two things happened. First, New-York and New Jersey pressured California and Alaska into ignoring me. Not by any rational argument of course. Bare “ignore Allanea or my army runs you over” stuff. Not even an ESUS member with meningitis would have pulled that, of course. During the same DAY, players have used wanton peer pressure on Nanakaland to make him ignore me. Give me a break, here.

Nationstates – or at least one of it’s forums – is overrun by a childish group of players, which I believe is, to the exact words of the player behind Abu-Dhabi Khrishtatata, a high-school clique, where ‘what everybody else’ thinks is more important than what any given individual does. Dozens of players told me they only ignore me because everybody else does.

I feel, personally, that Rping in this climate is not conducive to anything positive. If they enjoy this circular brown-nosing procedure, let’em. I will rather sit here and observe. Let us see where it goes next.

Imagine Freedom

2004-12-17T08:25:00.000-08:00

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A Call for Action

This is an urgent request for all those who cherish freedom. If you believe in increasing individual rights, repealing the useless and murderous provisions of the war on drugs, gun control laws and censorship acts (whether under the guise of "election reform" or "public decency"), this one is for you. I will not be asking you to call your representative, donate money to a pro-freedom group of my choice, or to go out and talk to people, preaching the One True Path (as defined by me). I ask you to do something truly dangerous.

I am asking you to devote five minutes – just five minutes – of every morning to freedom. Sit back in your favorite chair. Pour a glass of your favorite drink. Look out of the window. Sip on your drink. And imagine freedom.

Imagine the day when the speaker of the House (Knesset, Parliament) declares that "today, by a majority of XYZ votes, this Repeal Bill passes". Imagine that anti-freedom law you hate most swept away, broken down, erased from existence by a single vote. Imagine the joy of your friends at the gun club or the local Ale-Yarok headquarters as they struggle to hear on someone's ancient pocket radio the solemn, defeated voice of the anchorman say "Today, at 12:00 AM, the legislature has voted to repeal the Firearms Control Act". Imagine the posts on every single Internet forum you visit: "England legalizes marijuana!".

Imagine the thousands of people walking out of the prisons they were thrown into by the unfettered cruelty of the prohibitionists. Visualize the millions who would never again, in their lifetime, face the threat of a decade in prison over the possession of a small bush – or, as a matter of fact, over the possession of anything short of a nuclear weapon. Envisage the Colombian cartels and the Afghani terrorist rings broken up and destroyed through the sheer lack of money. Look, with your mind's eye, at those responsible with the Waco massacre and see them in orange jumpsuits and handcuffs.

Imagine the people who fight for freedom – the people who bring about change. Those people need not be – and usually are not – a majority. All is needed is a minority active enough to remain visible and to continuously effect change through it's visibility itself. Most of the great freedom fighters of the modern era were not supported by the majority. From George Washington to Martin Luther King to Binyamin Hertzl, those people never started out with a majority. The key, the main ingredient to victory is willpower. Your willpower.

Think of it. All that separates today's reality, with it's ATF, MI-5 and GSS, from what you have just imagined, is your mind, that little spark that needs to be sent from your brain to your buttocks for them to get detached from the chair and do something. And when you decide not to write to that editor, not to go to that rally, not to vote, you are the reason it does not get done.

Now open your eyes and go call your representative.

Falujah Delenda Est!

2004-12-09T07:48:00.000-08:00

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Falujah Delenda Est!

Those people who call themselves "champions of the downtrodden" are now complaining that the War on Terror declared by America is phony, that president Bush has arranged the war out of some low personal reasons (winning the election, the Haliburton Contracts, or even The Oil). And you know what? They might be right. It might be even that George Walker Bush personally is full of bitter desire to drink the blood of Muslim children. But, and this is what the BPL’s desperately wish to avoid, another thing is also true: the war on Iraq is justified. Regardless of what Bush’s personal reasons are. Regardless of whether or not there are WMD. Regardless of whether Saddam did personally plan 9-11 or just provide some “minor weapons expertise” to Al-Quaeda on other issues.

Here’s the reason it is justified for the Coalition to go into Iraq – and if they wish to, into Syria, Iran, North Korea, and Lybia while they are at it. The reason is simple: those nations are enemies of the Western world. All of them are ruled either by Islamic fundamentalists or socialists, or some mixture of both ideologies – ideologies intrinsically opposed to what the West – and America especially – is all about. Sure, the West has it’s failures (the Patriot Act, for example.) and there’s some very good things coming from Iran (like Omar Hayam), but the point remains: the so-called Axis of Evil is about slavery. The West is about freedom.

And, behind all the little disputes, behind the oil, the gold, the power, herein lies the rub: our cultures are different. Their leaders – the Khomeini’s, the Bin Ladens, the Kim Il Sungs of this world – consider us morally depraved. Worse, they know, in the murky depth of their evil, tyrannous souls, that the very example of America’s existance is proof positive that, unlike what they say and think, their killing fields, prisons, and whips are unneccessary for the well-being of their people, and in fact are only standing in it’s way. Those two reasons are why they hate the West more than anything, and it’s freest nation, America, more than any other nation of the West.

We must destroy their regimes. We can’t get to all of them (China, for example, is out of our reach), but we must get to those we can. The libertarians among us will bring us will bring up the zero aggression principle. I will reply that not only do most of those nations either plot aggression against us or aid those who do, but they constanly commit aggression against their own people. The Kurds. The Maronites. The Sufis. Doesn’t the fabled zero-aggression principle allow defending others?

There is no place for multiculturalism in this debate. It is possible to discuss the tolerance by us of Sufism – the more tolerant and humane version of Islam. It is possible to discuss the equal value of the culture of France or Germany. But even to suggest that the culture represented by those to whom we habitually refer to as “those countries” – the strange, blighted lands that give us Khomeini and Saddam and other such creatures – is somehow of “equal value” to the culture of the West is madness. Let me demostrate:

“Lacking the equipment to open secure passages through Iraqi minefields, and having too few tanks, the Iranian command again resorted to the human-wave tactic. In March 1984, an East European journalist claimed that he "saw tens of thousands of children, roped together in groups of about twenty to prevent the faint-hearted from deserting, make such an attack." The Iranians made little, if any, progress despite these sacrifices. Perhaps as a result of this performance, Tehran, for the first time, used a regular army unit, the 92nd Armored Division, at the Battle of the Marshes a few weeks later.”
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milit...r/iran-iraq.htm

Does anybody honestly believe that (using the United States and Iran as an example) that the nation that gave us Jefferson and Toreau and MLK is the moral and cultural peer of the people who did that? Do we believe that the United Kingdom, with all its misgivings is the moral cultural peer of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Do we believe, in all seriousness, that Canada is the moral peer of North Korea? Thank you. I know your answer.
Those who now plot hatred and destruction against the Western world say: "You might havethe better weapons, but we are better than your, your depraved society and habits". They are wrong. The military superiority of America and the western world in general hinges exactly on their moral superiority. It is the West that allowed Browning to experiment with his tools in Utah and the Wright's to play about with strange devices at Kitty Hawk. It is the West's culture of individualism - the very culture that allows Britain's magazine covers to picture nude 16-year olds and America's streets to feature men with automatic handguns that allows the existance of F-16's and Daisy Cutters.

Those who practice oppression are rarely capable of creating anything at all. Bin Laden's videos, wheere he stands in a camoflage uniform holding a rifle and prophesying our destruction are vivid proof of that -for he is preaching his destruction on a Japanese camera, waving a Russian rifle, and wearing a uniform his henchmen probably bought for him at WallMart. Look at the pictures of Bin Laden’s wives and children. Of Afghanistan’s villages, where the only implements of civilisation are made from abandoned Soviet tanks. Of the North Koreans reduced to about 125 gram of rice daily. The leaders of the Axis of Evil – for indeed, it is an Axis of Evil – believe they are morally superior to us. For, indeed, there is an Us and Them here. Socialism and religious fundamentalism of all stripes are on one side. Freedom is on the on the other.

Those people who would like America's culture of freedom to be replaced with a world where cutting off a woman's clitoris is standard religious practice, deserve no peace. Those who wish to forcibly replace America's First Amendment with a culture that pours molten lead down the throats of Christians deserve no mercy. Those who wish to violently replace America with a place where homosexuals are stoned and then stomped to death by a mob, deserve no freedom. For them, there is only the whine of incoming bombs, the clatter of heavy machineguns, and the long, merciless, howl of an incoming A-10 Avenger.

Osama Bin Laden and his cronies got it right. This is indeed a Holy War. And in this particular Holy War, if there is a god, may God bless America.

Language of the Enemy

2004-12-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

Here's the deal... for those who are reading this. I have a PayPal account at karpa@netvision.net.il
Given that I am an IDF draftee, and get paid $60 a month, it would be nice if you donated.

And here's my newest rant.

Language of the Enemy

Using leftist rhetoric to promote the RKBA

The following two statements are taken among the pro-gun community as gospel truth: First, that 'anti-gunners' tend to be emotional, rather than logical, and vice versa for 'pro-gunners', and second, that leftist liberalism goes necessarily hand-in-hand with anti-gun beliefs. The sooner we shed those beliefs, the better.

Even a brief survey of the ranks of anti-gun activists – and even more so, the rank-and-file believers in Sarah Brady's "holy cause" – will yield the simple truth that quite a few anti-gunners are quite sane, logical souls, if not for their outlandish beliefs on the issue. Just as well, there's quite a few pro-gun leftists out there (unfortunately, they are currently a minority in the Democratic Party's elite). Just to note a single example, Alaska's current carry law (Alaska is one of the two states of the Union that allows concealed carry without any license – just like the Founders intended) was crafted and sponsored by Democrat Eric Croft. (One of the founders of the NRA-ILA, similarly, is Congress' oldest-sitting Democrat, John Dingell, otherwise famous for coining the term 'jackbooted storm trooper').

The real difference between a conservative and a liberal – or, to that end, a pro-gunner and an anti-gunner – is not whether they operate logically or not. The difference is that both sides operate on different premises and speak different languages. It is rarely possible to transition a liberal to a conservative or vice-versa through logical, structured debate – ever tried to use logical, structured debate to convert an atheist? – because what is in question is not a single point, but rather the very language in which the opponent thinks.

It is, however, possible to get the opponent to yield his ground on a key issue like the RKBA – if you use his language. Assuming for the purposes of the discussion that you are a 'conservative' and your opponent is a 'liberal' – and that he is not fanatical enough to be totally impervious to debate – here are some guidelines to what you can do or say to sway him to your cause.

· Point out that word 'liberal' itself – in its dictionary definition – implies tolerance for alternative lifestyles and support of, well, liberty. The hunter, the AR-15 collector, the CCW licensee – how are those not pursuits of alternative lifestyles? To pursue this train of thought further, perhaps it would be better if we refused to refer to the Feinstein-Boxer wing of the Democratic Party as 'liberals' and used BPL – 'blisninny pseudoliberal' – or something of the sort. Reserve 'liberal' for John Dingell, Eric Croft, and other similar legislators. Give credit where credit is due.

· Point out that gun control policies, such as the Sullivan Act, where originally invented to – and still do – mainly impact racial and social minorities – African-Americans, Italian immigrants, and so forth. Often, they were actually supported by unsavory groups like the KKK. In fact, Martin Luther King has applied for – and was refused – a concealed carry license at one point. The NRA, conversely, provided African-Americans with rifles and training during the 1960's.

· Point out that 'white males' are the people who least need guns for self-defense (though they certainly do, as well). Those who most need the equalizing effect of firearms are women, homosexuals, and people who otherwise are either more likely to be attacked or who are unable to resist an attacker through sheer force of muscle.

· Point out that the defense of gun rights is not solely the realm of the 'white male'. Groups like 'Pink Pistols' (www.pinkpistols.org) and similar will be excellent examples of this.

The regular arguments for gun rights – the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and so forth - won't do you much good – they are part of your language rather than a common language shared by both you and your opponent. A 'liberal' is likely to see the Constitution as merely another means to the establishment of civilized society, while a 'conservative' is likely to see it something valuable in itself. Similarly, appealing for studies like John Lott's "More Guns, Less Crime" is pointless – as you know, for every statistic, there's a counter-statistic. Use statistics only to decry your opponent's patently false statements – for everything else, they are useless.

By using the arguments described above, you are going to score a double victory for the right to keep and bear arms. Not only will you gain another supporter for your cause, but you will help to de-monopolize the issue. Today, a Republican legislator or candidate knows perfectly well that he doesn't need to be too good on RKBA to win – all he needs to do is to be less anti-gun than his Feinsteinite opponent –which usually isn't too hard.

If we could create more pro-gun 'liberals' that would put pressure on their party to stop trying to ride the dead horse of gun control, we could replace the Republican's monopoly on the issue with something more like free-market competition – and as we know, free-market competition primarily benefits the consumer. Us, that is.

The Constitution Is A Gun

2004-12-03T03:11:00.000-08:00

The Constitution Is A Gun

Imagine you bought a gun. The most expensive custom self-defense weapon possible – with all the bells and whistles you could only dream of mounted on it and with the best gunsmith in the world working on it. Now, imagine that, when the worst happens and you are attacked, you would not have the willpower needed to use it. Would that gun save you? It is likely that when it would be over, you would be lying there dead, clutching the most expensive paperweight in the world in your cold, dead fingers.

It is a well-known truth among gun enthusiasts and self-defense experts that a gun – or any other weapon – is only as effective as your will to use it. Abandon that, and the most advanced weapon in the world is worth no more than the steel and plastic and wood it is made of. And yet, surprisingly, few people understand that the principle also applies elsewhere – most importantly, in the fight for your Constitutional rights.

The sad truth is that the oppressive majority of Constitutional "activists" – if the word yet applies – are not "active" at all. Consider: there over 450,000 members in Gun Owners of America (a "hardcore" pro-Second Amendment] organization). Those members faithfully donate money to the GOA, which, in turn gives the money to various lobbyists (interestingly, the GOA spends more money on lobbyists in absolute numbers than the NRA. On the other hand, half the GOA lobbying money gets paid to people named Pratt). Similarly, the NRA – which admittedly is a "softer" group than the GOA – numbers over four million people, and spends equally staggering amounts of money on defending the Constitution (lobbying is just one part of the NRA's list of priorities). So what happened? Why are we almost continuously losing our rights?

This is not, by any means, a criticism of the GOA, the NRA, or any other groups. This an attempt to ask a key question: what went wrong? Because it is evident to anybody who is watching that something is amiss. If everything would be fine, people would not be sitting in prison because a piece of steel they owned was an inch too short.

To add oil to the proverbial fire, I will remind my readers of a truth with which many are doubtlessly familiar. Namely, that, under the Constitution, the jury retains the right of jury nullification – the right to judge not only the facts, but the law in question, and to acquit the defendant when a law is unconstitutional or unjustly applied to him (additional information on the subject may be found at www.fija.org ). To do that is, in fact, the civic duty of the juror. What would happen if jurors refused to convict people under laws such as NYC's Sullivan Act? What would happen if DA's across the nation knew that, if they want to have their good conviction percentage – and they do – they had better not bring people to trial on charges that their rifle's barrel is just 15 7/8" long instead of the full sixteen inches? We know the answer: gun control would be dead.

Admittedly, jury nullification is just one example. The Constitution provides many ways of defending your rights – from the First Amendment's pickets and marches, to the 5^th Amendment's appeal process, to the 6^th Amendment's jury nullification. But the fact - and the problem is – they are not getting used. As supporters of the Bill of Rights, we much prefer to just mail $25 to one group or another and just expect then to protect our rights for us. That is just not going to happen – if it was possible, it would have happened already.

A person who expects people to defend his rights is like a person who has no functioning immune system. The hospital staff can put him into a clean and sterile room, and wear hermetic suits when talking to him. For a while, they may be able to protect him – but when the smallest spore of the faintest illness gets into the sealed room, the patient will die, and not even the best doctors on the planet will save him.

Just like anything else that is important – whether your safety, your health, or anything else important in your life, your freedom needs your participation. Ask an expert, and they will tell you that the biggest asset in politics is activists – people ready to detach themselves from their chairs and do something about the matter. Jason Sorens, who teaches Political Science at Yale, founded the Free State Project on that very principle (you can find out about the Project at www.freestateproject.org ). While certainly nobody can demand activism from you, remember, that the only person who you can truly rely to protect yourself in a gunfight is you. That is, after all, why people own guns. If you don't trust other people (the police) to protect your life, why do you trust others to protect your liberty when you don't?

Open Letter to a Canadian Friend

2004-07-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Nicole!
I am a strange person. I have multiple weird habits, strange clothing tastes, peculiar pick of music – but above all, I have surprised my friends and correspondends by outright refusing to fit in with a party line – any party line. As an example, I am describe by some of my friends as a left-liberal. Yet, during the night of your federal elections, I cheered for the conservatives. Not that they were much better – but they were better on two key points.
The people who spent that night with me – or at least part of it – in a God-forsaken IRC channel – laughed and gloated as the Canadian Liberals and the NDP closed their grip on the throat of Canada. Unfortunately, what they were not aware of – what most people are not aware of – is that most of the so-called "liberal" politicians have anything to do with liberalism. Not that they are all-out wrong – they have nice social policies – but liberal they are not.
Remember, Nicole, the key part about liberalism is not about supporting, say, giving money to homeless people – although that is very good. Liberalism is about freedom. That's why it's called liberalism, for f*cksake. The Canadian liberals have proved in the last few years that their relationship with Lady Liberty is a strained one at best.
They have created a monstrosity called C-68 – the fabled gun registry. Not only has it violated the privacy of thousands of Canadians, but they have already had several absolutely innocent people harassed by the RCMP – and even imprisoned under C-68 (does the name Oscar Lacombe ring a bell?). Notedly the Canadian Supreme Court agrees with me at least partially on the idea that the C-68 is an abuse of civil rights (it has already acquitted several people). The "Liberals", however, have not. Part of their platform is continue enforcing – and putting more money into – C-68. How liberal. How tolerant.
Moreover, the have created campaign finance regulations – also known as the Election Gag Act – that are deliberately built to prevent third parties from participating in the political process in any remotely meaningful way. Obviously, somebody forgot to tell the PseudoLiberals something about freedom of speech. Or is it something about preventing new political players from entering the playing field – under the pretense of making it "level". While they were at it, they based the Gag Act on an ideology full of mistrust – on the idea that the majority voters where nothing but ignorant peons, and that if campaign advertising were not limited, rich evildoers could simply herd them towards the voting booths like mere cattle. In such a worldview, obviously a government nanny is needed to prevent that. One would want to ask of the "liberals" – if that's the way you feel about the electorate, why let them vote in the first place? Even more importantly, why should they vote for somebody who feels that way about them?
I myself am more of a left-winger than the reverse, but I think we have a problem, Nicole. The left has been hijacked, it seems, by a peculiar breed of blisninny pseudoliberals (BPL's). The BPL's have nothing to do with liberalism, but they have, by some tragic historical coincidence, successfully merged themselves with the word "left liberal". As a left liberal, I am appaled.
Dear Nicole, hold on. You are headed for several years of continuously decreased freedom – decreased by those who wear their liberalism like a badge of honour – but are really nothing but. I hope your people get a wit or two and kick the bastards out – but in the meanwhile, hold on.
As a liberal, I see a problem here. I'd even venture out and say that the liberal movement has a big problem. Certainly, when the conservatives are more liberal than the liberals, something has gone wrong.
I hope someone will fix it.
Yours in Liberty,
MicroBalrog

Open letter to armchair generals

2004-07-09T16:29:00.000-07:00

Open letter to armchair generals

Dear General,

Today, it’s obvious that freedom in the Western world is in danger. The trouble is, it is rare that the people who recognize the danger have any connection to power.

All over the world, politicians devise new ways to abuse you, your rights, and your dignity. You have a lot to worry about: from the Assault Weapons Ban, to increased search and seizure powers, to drug prohibition, and all the way to the Ashcroft Patriot Act. And with every day that passes, your situation gets only worse.

Tell me, have you ever stopped and looked at the screen and asked yourself,

· How do they get away with it?

· How do they manage to pass such nonsense into law and policy, again and again?

If you’re like most aware people, you probably shrug and blame the uninformed – the careless majority that takes the abuses for granted. Maybe you blame the corrupt media and the evil politicians.

All that may be true. But it was always true. And it will be true forever.

But you probably conclude there’s nothing you can do about it. So you move on with your life, content to be an Armchair General.

The press was corrupt during the time of Mahatma Gandhi and MLK. Yet those people made a difference.

The majority of colonists were indifferent in 1775. Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and friends made a difference.

Certainly the politicians were just as evil in Warsaw, 1943.

The uninformed are not to blame – they simply don’t know. But there is someone who bears responsibility for the sad state of affairs.

It’s you.

You have known about all of the abuses, the prisoners, and the killings. Perhaps you chose to hang a poster on your wall declaring how you support freedom. Maybe you signed up for an email list. Or you might’ve attended a meeting with others who agreed with you about the problem.

Other than that, maybe you’ve chosen to move on with you life.

Perhaps you swore at the television when the FBI burned the Branch Davidians alive. Maybe you went to see a movie when Aaron Zellman was working on Innocents Betrayed. Maybe you stayed home with your girlfriend when Ale Yarok activists were handing out election leaflets.

You ignorant neighbor is not responsible, General. He doesn’t KNOW freedom is in danger. You do.

Let me tell you a short story, General.

In Auschwitz, the Nazis killed something in the order of two thousand people a day. Every day Allied victory was postponed meant death to two thousand people.

Some things never change. The anti-freedom politicians are killing and imprisoning people every day – in Colombia, in Baghdad, in Israel, in America. From Waco, to Thailand, to Tel-Aviv – the war on freedom rages on.

And if, because of your inaction, the war rages on one extra day – those people will suffer. The Good Book says, “To him who knows to do right, and does it not, to him it is sin.” With your knowledge and awareness comes responsibility.

I beg you, do something, General. Do something, and do it today, because some folks cannot afford for you to wait until tomorrow. Fight for the cause you support most – ending the drug war, supporting the right to bear arms, freedom of speech – but [i]fight[/i] for it, General.

Otherwise, when freedom wins (and it will win) – it might just turn out to be a day too late for someone.

And that someone could be you.

Author: Boris Karpa, AKA MicroBalrog
Slight Editing By: Jiim Babka

Machineguns – the Truman Solution

2004-07-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

As I write this, we have a little over one seventy days left until the expiration of the so-called "Assault Weapons Ban". It is clear to absolutely anybody who cares to look, that the ban will indeed expire – even the VPC has given up on this one. It is the first time in modern Western history that a major gun law is being repealed. We can now smile and screw flash suppressors on to our rifles. But the question is, what do we do from here?
There is really two answers here: the NRA solution and the Truman solution. Imagine the NRA has a legislative victory (like, for example, stopping a federal trigger lock bill from passing). What would the NRA do? Well, given that the NRA position is that they want to 'enforce existing law' and 'support existing laws, with the exception of the semi-auto ban', the NRA would then rest on their laurels and screw flash suppressors on to their AR-15s – until the next anti-gun bill comes up.
The NRA solution has proved it's falsehood time and time again, from the American shores to the Australian plains. Years ago, the United Kingdom had an organization similar in purpose to the US NRA – the UK-NRA, upon which the Americans have originally based theirs. It's still around. It has about two thousands members. They are currently bracing for a government ban on de-activated firearms.
But despite opposition from conservative NRA leaders such as LaPierre, there's a new solution, discussed at gun rights conferences and brought up on Internet forums. It has very little media time, but it's there, and it's slowly starting to happen. That is what I call the Truman solution. Truman is often credited with being one of the people that started the Cold War and stopped the advance of Communism. He is quoted saying "If our only goal is to remain where we are, we will be driven back".
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of the matter. To truly be able to defeat the anti-gun crowd – and in fact, to truly be able to defend freedom – it is not sufficient that we only stand and try to stop tyranny's advance. To fight for freedom – any freedom – is only possible when you goal is to make sure that your children have more freedom tomorrow than you do today.
What does this mean for you and me, today, on the gun rights front? Very simple, comrade. We must repeal a gun law. You are now probably thinking "How?". Well, I might not be the expert to ask, but here's my suggestion: Let us start by small rocks. After all, it's by throwing small rocks down the slope that you start an avalanche. What is our rock going to be?
I suggest the 1986 machinegun ban. Here are some of the reasons: on one hand, it is blatantly stupid and pointless (crime with legally-owned private squirt guns is about as common as traffic violations with Lamborghini Diablos.). On the other, it is blatantly unfair, restricting ownership of the weapons to the rich only – class warfare at it's best (or worst).
So imagine this: a group of dedicated grassroots Internet activists start spreading the message about repealing the 1986 ban. The ban is so blatantly pointless that any group speaking out against a repeal would embarrass itself to no end (the fact that an NRA spokesperson went on the air and said she wouldn't want to "repeal the machinegun ban" without any negative results is something that only happened the interview never got much publicity, so it's neither here nor there). Eventually the ban would get overturned… and become a stepping-stone for further repeals.
And if we don’t mess it up horribly, there’s absolutely no reason how this will not work. So, is there a good, honest reason out there not to go and drive this one extra nail in the coffin of tyranny?

Why join the NRA, anyway?

2004-07-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

Today, it is almost ubiquitous for gun rights supporters to ask people to join the NRA – in the end of practically every sermon they deliver to their pistol-packing choir. Well, this is my official response to these pastor: the NRA will get membership money from me when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. See, the NRA leadership is the sort of people that no thinking Second Amendment supporter would support – ever.
You’re probably shifting colors into the infra-red spectrum in your comfy seat out there in Virginia, but there’s a whole bunch of totally logical reason for a true supporter of freedom not to join the NRA. Let us look at it rationally.
According to the NRA, they are a “civil rights group”. In fact, they are obviously not a civil rights group – certainly not one defending the Second Amendment. Type www.nra-ila.org into your Web browser. Right at the top of the screen, you will see the words of the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” On the same website the NRA officials claim to support “existing gun control laws”.
Now, what sort of civil rights group would support laws that violate the Bill of Right? Can you imagine the ACLU saying “we support enforcement of existing decency protection bills” and refuse to defend Larry Flint? Can you imagine Amnesty saying “we support enforcement of existing apartheid laws”? Try searching LaPierre’s or Heston’s speeches for the word “repeal”. It’s not there. It’s not in the NRA dictionary.
Speaking of apartheid, the NRA often mention the fact (and it IS a fact) that many of today’s gun laws were targeted at putting African-Americans at a disadvantage. Yet at least one member of the NRA Board of Directors os visibly racist. Here’s a remark by Ted Nugent: "Apartheid isn't that cut and dry. All men are not created equal.” Now, I like The Nuge. Fact is, I’m listening to his songs as I write this. But he’s a racist – which is in itself not a crime – but when racists start leading “civil rights” groups, something is deeply wrong.
The NRA is the world’s largest “gun lobby”. It has four and a half million members. Yet it spends half as much money on D.C. lobbying as the GOA with it’s 450,000 members. When a group ten times smaller than the NRA spends twice as much money, something is deeply wrong.
The NRA also claims to have been supporting gun rights for the last 133 years. Let’s see, The NRA-ILA has been active since 1975, protecting civil rights(at least sometimes). Before that, the NRA has been active in relation to Federal legislation in 1932 (when they helped several states to create the Uniform Machinegun Act – which set the framework towards the NFA).
In 1934, the then-president of the NRA spoke before Congress to say that the Second Amendment “didn’t matter” as concerning the NFA. Ask yourself – why no NRA help in US vs. Miller? Because this 133-year old organization thinks the Second Amendment doesn’t matter. Mind you, the main reason Miller’s attorney didn’t show up at the trial was because he an Miller couldn’t afford to print the brief – or travel to D.C. If somebody has given them the money, perhaps today we wouldn’t be spending millions to stop people from being put in prison over a flash suppressor.
In 1968, the NRA has advocated a seven-day waiting period on handguns. Note: this is more than what Feinstein wants today – Feinstein wants five days. Can’t you just see the ACLU pushing for adding limitations on campaign financing to the CFR bill? Yeah, right.
Not that the NRA doesn’t have successes, mind you. One of the big NRA successes is Project Exile – zero-tolerance enforcement of federal gun laws. The NRA is dead set on putting anybody who has a felony conviction but has a gun in prison. (By the way, they lie when they say Project Exile only includes violent felon). For those unfamiliar with how Project Exile works, here’s a quote from David Holthouse’s analysis of Project Exile in Colorado: “The majority of the defendants -- 154 out of 191 -- have no violent felonies on their records; two were illegal aliens with no criminal record at all. Among the 37 who do have a history of violence, seventeen did not use a gun in their previous crime. This means that just slightly more than one in ten of the prohibited persons prosecuted under Project Exile -- twenty out of 191 -- has a proven history of gun violence.” Violent gun felons, right? That’s very truthful of you, Mr.LaPierre. This is not an assault.
So, given that the NRA is today’s equivalent of Microsoft in the gun liberty market – I think the time has come to go Unix.

Interview with Sorens

2004-07-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

It has often been repeated by all sides of the political debate that the US constitution is in danger. The Evil Bushistas (or Clintonistas, depending on who you ask) are trampling on our rights all over the place, and there's nothing we can do about it. Well, Jason Sorens thinks we can. His plan is to move 20,000 pro-freedom people into one state - New-Hampshire - and to make it as free as possible, proving by experiment that freedom works and expanding from ther. MicroBalrog was there and spoke to him. Here's what he found out.

1.Can I call you Jason?

Yes!

2. Jason, you have a PHD in Political Studies. Can you explain to the readers how moving twenty thousand people into a state with a population of over a million will shift it's policies? After all, 20,000 are not much of a voting block.

They're a marginal voting bloc, but they are a significant activist base. 20,000 pro-freedom activists in New Hampshire would outnumber all other
activists currently there. The idea is not to take over New Hampshire, but to "leaven the loaf," to increase the visibility and saturation of
pro-freedom ideas and proposals. So we're expecting all signed up FSP participants to be "activist" in some sense: supporting pro-freedom
candidates and thinktanks financially or with volunteer time, for example.

3. What is the social background of the average Porcupine? Where do they come from? Is the average FSP member rich, poor, Sourthern, Northern?

We have participants from every state and every background. According to one survey we did, their incomes are on average a little
higher than the U.S. average, they tend to be somewhat more educated on average than the U.S. average, and they also tend to be younger, with a
significant proportion between ages 18 and 35.
4.Why are you doing that? I mean, don't you people have a life or something?

Why are we moving? Well, it's very natural for Americans to move to states where they can have a higher quality of life. New Hampshire is
consistently rated as having the best quality of life in the U.S.: it has low taxes, low crime, strong communities, and an independent spirit. It's just the right state for people like us. The fact that thousands of liberty-oriented Americans will be moving to New Hampshire over the next several years also means that a bright future looks secure for the state. The state provides a good environment to invest, work, raise a family, and follow leisure pursuits.

5. Jason, you know my average reader is a 2nd Amendent supporter. What are you going to do for the NH gun owner?

NH has some of the best gun laws in the country. It's a shall-issue state and has few other regulations on firearms. Some of our supporters in NH testified in favor of a bill that would repeal even the permit requirement for concealed carry: it passed the Senate but not the House. Once Free Staters start moving to the state and getting active, I expect legislation like this will begin passing regularly. Gun owners can expect to see their rights respected if they move to NH.

6. Yeah, but what of the various federal policies on the issue? Is there going to be any help on that?

I think so. There are clever ways to circumvent federal policies with state law. For example, a friend of mine who runs the Montana Sport
Shooters Association says that he is working on legislation for that state that would repeal federal permit requirements for purchasing and owning machine guns produced within that state. Since there is no interstate commerce involved, that would be a state issue. We could do something similar in NH. Furthermore, we have to realize that spreading our resources thin across the whole country is not going to affect the federal government. We need to have a solid base somewhere in the country to push for a smaller federal role in many policies, including gun laws. With an active state legislature and governor calling for pro-freedom reforms and two representatives and senators, we would provide the leverage needed to turn the anti-freedom tide.

7. Some critics of the Project have said you are going to have difficulty finding jobs for the newcomers. How are you going to handle
that problem?

NH actually has a very good job market, and that was one of the reasons it won the vote we held among FSP participants. NH easily defeated every
other low-population state under consideration, partly because it is expected to create over 110,000 jobs over the next 10 years. Moreover,
many Free Staters are bringing their own businesses to NH and are looking to hire. If you sign up, you have several years in which to move to New Hampshire (the way it works is that we're trying to get 20,000 signatures, after which everyone who signs up is expected to move within five years - it's just a 'moral' obligation, not a legal one), which is plenty of time to find a job and home.

8. The Drug War is largely a federal policy. How are you going to address that on a state level?

There are ways we could address this issue on the state level as well. First, we could end collaboration between state law enforcement and
federal law enforcement in drug and gun laws. Then we could pass a resolution calling on the federal government to recognize that federal
drug policy is unconstitutional, and that drug policy is properly a state and local matter. We could take 10th Amendment lawsuits to the federal
judiciary, which is proving surprisingly receptive to constitutional challenges to drug laws on federal grounds. Ultimately, we could consider
options such as nullification.

9.What are your positions on hunting? I personally am not a hunter at all, but I gather this is very important to some of the readers of this.

I'm not a hunter either; I simply wasn't raised with it. I'd like to learn how to hunt, though. I have no moral problems with hunting.

10.Aren't you afraid you project will attract some creepy wackos? How do
you filter people out?

The only way you can filter these people out is if they identify themselves in some way. We've taken a strong stand against people we've found making racial comments or taking other wacko stands. There have only been a small handful of these people so far, among the thousands of people who've signed up - and I've never met any of them among the hundreds of Free Staters I've met at events all over the country. Somehow we've ended up with the good ones!

11. For the liberal reader, what do you think about gay marriage, abortion rights., and the Patriot Act? I'd think these are very
important to the well-being of a free society, but maybe that's just because I'm a liberal democrat :).

Well, I think Free Staters have different views on abortion - it all depends on whether you think the fetus is a person with rights or not.
Free Staters favor getting government out of marriage altogether, and accordingly the gay marriage debate really misses the point. Free Staters
oppose the USA PATRIOT Act, and in fact I think the Bush Administration's abuse of power has really helped our recruitment! People are looking for alternatives, and they know that replacing the Bush-Cheney crowd with a new establishment won't solve things.

12.Speak of the devil:-) , do you think there's reason for the Democrat reader to sign up?

I think any Democrat, Republican, Green, or Libertarian who supports individual freedom across the board would want to sign on. We want lower taxes, more business competition, and secure property rights, but that also means less corporate subsidies and stricter regulation of pollution.
We want to legalize drugs and prostitution for consenting adults and end foreign interventionism, while maintaining a strong stance against
fraud and violent crime. There's something for everyone in there, but we are really looking for people who support more or less the whole package. You don't have to call yourself a "libertarian"; these ideas used to be known as "liberal."

13.Some leftist would probably gasp in horror at your oppostion to campaign finance regulations, claiming it would enable rich fatcats to buy their way into an election. What response do you have for those people?

The real problem with the U.S. political system is two-party establishment control of the media. Voters only vote for what they know; to break the two-party stranglehold we have to break through to the media directly. Sometimes the best way to do that is through the help of wealthy
individuals. In 1992, Ross Perot used his fortune to pry open the political system just a little bit, and his presence in the election
actually increased voter turnout for the first time in decades. Now, Perot was obviously a very flawed candidate, but the principle
nevertheless holds that third parties and alternative movements can only break into voters' consciousness with money. Campaign finance regulations will merely solidify the sclerotic two-party system.

14. A lot of federal policies are hinged on the federal government threatening to pull out federal higway funds. How are you going to solve that problem.

NH already gives up some federal highway funds in order to forego seatbelt laws for adults. NH is a compact state and is not at all dependent on
federal funding. Ultimately, if the federal government decides not to fund our roads at all, we won't collect a federal gas tax. We'll run all
the highways on state gas taxes and tolls, and we'll be just as well off.

15.Now when we dealt with important parts, what about the Gun Nut Question of the Century? 9mm or .45?

Haha! Well, as I said, I've never hunted before, and I've actually only shot a gun on one occasion. I enjoyed it, but I haven't gone to the range since - we don't have many of them in Connecticut, where I'm living now. Once I get to NH, I'm sure I'll shoot more. I haven't shot the .45, just a 9mm (Glock semiauto, pretty standard I guess, although it was a 10-bullet clip, which I understand Feinstein has since made illegal to sell), so I'll have to go with the 9mm for now!

16.And another Question of the Century: Star Trek or Star Wars?

I never enjoyed Star Trek - too regimented and preachy. So Star Wars over Star Trek, but Lord of the Rings over both!

17.Anything else which you think we should know? And no, I'm not going to bless you.

I'd encourage everyone to check out www.freestateproject.org to see what we're all about. This is a very serious movement, and the future of a
free society may ultimately hang in the balance. Get involved!

Jason Sorens, PhD
Dept. of Political Science, Yale Univ.
PO Box 208301
New Haven, CT 06520
www.freestateproject.org

MicroBalrog,
59511, Ashdod, Israel
protector@keepandbearms.com