Category: Preaching to the choir

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“Preppers” Ain’t Crazy, Well, at Least Not Most of ‘Em

I see a common misconception pretty often (Well, it’s common, so I would. *heh*) It goes something like this:

“Preppers are individuals who believe that, in the near future, life as they know it will be challenged or changed due to a major event.”

No, cupcake. “Preppers” are people who think that being prepared to deal with a wide range of emergencies should they occur is just the intelligent thing to do. Heck, preparing in advance to be able to deal effectively with a wide range of possible natural or man-made disasters IF any of them should occur, is certainly better than playing grasshopper and then mooching off others should, say, an extended power outage from a winter storm or a major flood occur.

While I’m sure there are a few tinfoil hat wearers who meet the pejorative criteria stated in the misconception, but I believe them to be the exception, not the rule. Yeh, I know a few whose tinfoil hats seemed to cause brainwave malfunctions leading them to not just go “off-grid” but move to third world countries to escape “the coming collapse of civilization,” but I can count those few on one hand and have fingers left over. 😉

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Rights: Whence Come They?

Sidebar: I avoid terms like “gun rights,” because the real issue is the inherent right of every individual to defend one’s own life and limb against an aggressor (individual or group) doing or threatening to do harm, and to defend his loved ones and the otherwise defenseless innocent from the same. Guns are just one of many tools (excellent and effective tools, indeed often the best of tools, but one of many) for effecting legitimate self-defense.

I also do not like the terms “constitutional rights” or “2nd Amendment right” for similar reasons, but expanding to include the fact that those rights which arementioned in the constitution are mentioned only to prevent infringement of those rights by the federal government.

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Now, I’m Not a ‘Gun Nut,’ but. . .

. . .all the ignorant, emotional, lie-filled arguments by anti-gun, anarcho-tyrannist statists and wild, slavering, stupid calls for gun confiscation kinda irk me. In light of that, here: a .30-caliber, DIY, fully-automatic air rifle.

Make it in your garage. Completely unregulated, as far as I know, in any of the federal firearms laws, because: air rifle. It is not a firearm.

And that’s just if someone doesn’t decide to get their hands on various pieces of low-quality steel and emulate third world home “gunsmiths” the world around and manufacture themselves an AK-47, since it was designed for ease of low-tech reproduction, of download any one of the widespread sets of plans for making one’s own AR-15, go out along the highway collecting aluminum cans, forge and machine a receiver, etc.

Yeh, that very thing has been done by some guy in his own garage and back yard.

Idiots just irk me, and these willfully stupid, electively-ignorant, anti-gun, anarcho-tyrannist statists wildly screaming for gun confiscation, are just that: self-made idiots.

Oh, the “I’m not a gun nut” comment? Currently, entire “arsenal” consists of an 89-year-old revolver. I’d be happy with a couple more firearms, but right now, I just do not need them, and the lil revolver is enough for my current use. This is only possible, because I live in a county that is about as safe as Switzerland, probably because most folks are armed. *heh*

But.. . I will admit I am a “knife nut.” “Never bring a gun to a knife fight” might be something I would think, and even say. . . *heh* OK, just kidding. It’s always good to have both at hand in a “bad actor” scenario, but at or within arm’s length, I’m MUCH more likely to do serious damage with a knife, even with my teensy lil Spyderco Squeak Sprint1, a really, really small knife.

1Thanks again to my Estimable Son-in-Law. I use this knife–and those given to me by Son & Heir–daily, many many times daily.

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The Essence of Good Manners and Polite Behavior

“Your rights end where the other fella’s nose begins.” Conversely, the other fella’s rights end where your nose begins. That is to say, mind your own business, do not infringe on others’ rights and vigorously defend your own.

That does not, BTW, mean one can be excused for standing by while an aggressor assaults the rights of a person just acting innocently within their rights. Rights come with responsibilities (many) and one of them is to NOT merely stand by and watch someone being assaulted or having their rights infringed upon. That does NOT mean that one should automatically escalate to physical violence. Prudence is also one of those responsibilities of exercising one’s rights and duties.

Example, back 40-*mumble* years ago, my college roomie and I lived in a downstairs apartment off campus. It was one of eight apartments in two separate buildings. At one time, we had an upstairs “neighbor” who thought it a good idea to place his stereo speakers directly above our bedroom and crank ’em up to “pound the floor” levels late at night.

That was definitely impinging on our “noses.” We asked politely. We asked more firmly. We appealed to the buildings’ owner.

No joy.

So, one late night, I was awakened by his floor-pounding speakers yet again. I banged back on the ceiling. He took offense, and pounded down the stairs and then on our door. My roommate, who was still awake pulling a late cram session, answered the door to physical and verbal abuse from a guy nearly twice his size. I wandered in wearing my typical sleep wear (nothing), walked up between them and decked the guy. Most authoritatively. While he was trying to regain his breath, I told him to turn his stereo OFF and leave it off at night or he could expect to see me again, and I would NOT be so gentle next time.

He moved out.

Now, I am not a big guy, certainly not as big as the jock (he was on one of the university’s sports teams) asshat, but I do NOT long suffer fools, as it were.

And that is how we all should be, but no. We must meekly accept the Norms of a society that would have us all simply bend over and beg, “Please. May I have another?”

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FWIW (a brief note on worship)

Many, many people worship Satan without ever considering their actions as such worship. As an Authority on the subject once said to some such,

“You are of your father, the devil (diabolos = slanderer, false accuser), and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of lies.”

Just sayin’. . .

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Capitalism vs. Our Current American Economic Model

It seems some folks are unclear on the differences between capitalism and the big business-government crony system we currently have. The two could not be farther apart. When there is corrupt behavior in a capitalist system, competition and civil courts can deal with that. The corruptocratic institutional system we now have has as its purpose the filling of politicians’ pockets and “bureaucraps'” rice bowls. From the consumer’s POV, it’s the worst of both capitalism unrestrained by market forces and the typical socialist model: politicians and their cronies are massively favored, enriched, and protected.

Of course, the 19th Century system that evolved into our current regulatory state was almost as corrupt. The monopolies and cartels “feddle gummint” regulations against monopolies and cartels were designed to deal with were either created or enabled by government intervention in the market. A good example of the regulatory state: create or exacerbate a problem in order to expand the scope of government, allowing perpetuation of the problem at a rate regulated only by the amount of graft.

And so it goes. Meanwhile, the sheeple never wise up, looking to the creators of the problems to solve them, against those creators’ perceived best interests. Suckers.

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Warning Signs

1.) The book blurb for a self-pub contains orthographic and grammar errors as egregious as this, first sentence of a blurb did,

“A global flu pandemic has wiped out ninety nine [sic] percent of the worlds [sic] population.”

The first page of the book includes, among other offenses, “He staggered back, unable to breath.”

You might well, with signs like this, think, “Hmmm, Cupcake, if you haven’t bothered to learn basic English, why should you expect to have English speakers/readers buy your book?”

Oh, and if “Cupcake” thinks so highly of his own subliterate capabilities (and is so dismissive of his readers) as to eschew paying a competent line editor to mend his execrable grasp of grammar and vocabulary, well, that’s another strike against him and his “literary” non-efforts.

(And yeh, the butchery of English continued in that case, until I finally exited the snippet and sought some mind-cleansing in better-written text.)

Note: there is a lot of non-fiction written nowadays that is just as bad as in the fiction referred to above. Damn democratic influences in the arts! *heh*

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Just One More Reason to Deplore the “New Truckers’ Version”

I’ve seen a few citations of John 3:16, as mistranslated by the “New Truckers’ Version” (NIV), in the run-up to Xmas:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

I deplore the “New Truckers’ Version” (NIV) in part because of rather gross mistranslation like this. My only gripe with this is that “monogenes” does NOT mean “one and only son” but “only begotten son”. The two are rather profoundly different.

“One and only” is easily impeached by other scriptural passages, even without simply translating “monogenes” correctly. Adam is called a son of God; Israel is called sons of God, Jesus calls peacemakers sons of God; the resurrected, those who have faith in Christ, etc.: all “sons of God” according to scripture. Jesus is the only BEGOTTEN Son of God: unique, no other like Him.

Yes, I know more and more commonly illiterate folks nowadays might stumble on “begotten,” but that’s just another reason for Xians to be more literate, so we can explain things like the virgin birth, the miracle of the Incarnation.

Or heck, give ’em a dictionary.