Obama’s election, and his promise to reinstate the assault weapons ban have people panicking a bit. According to this article, stores and distributors are starting to get low on their stock of semi-auto sport guns, magazines, and ammo. Any weapon that is semi-auto and has a capacity greater than 10 rounds is very popular right now, and is a potential victim to be banned.
Gun bloggers are not exempt from the buying frenzy by any means. Uncle let’s us know about Jay G’s potential black rifle purchase. There are dozens of posts on blogs and forums asking, “What should I buy before Obambi takes away our rights?!”. All these people are correct to buy what they want now. There is no telling when the ban will be reinstated, what it will contain, and there likely will not be a sunset provision this time.
The arguments against such a ban are for another post, or series of posts, but it is sufficient to sum the topic up with, “They don’t work.” This is a proven fact. I have been contemplating this for several months now. About a month or so ago an order was placed for twenty AR magazines. Today, I ordered half a case of ammo from Natchez.
We have discussed this in the past, and the wife agrees that we will need to make some more purchases before the end of the year. An AK variant of some type is on the list, along with mags and ammo for it.
The five hundred rounds of 5.56 that will be arriving are enough. Components to load several thousand more rounds will be purchased after the new year.
Hopefully we are all wrong about this, but it is better to prepare now, than to wish you had later.
This song is perfect for this week. Merle wrote the song during the dark days of the late Carter administration. The times were rough, as they are now. It is eerily appropriate.
This song is special to me. My wife and I try to live a simple life, and this song represents our simple American values. All we want to do is have a good life, get ahead a little, and raise our kids, and hopefully leave the world better than we found it. We love our country, and want to preserve it. We mourn the passing of a better time, that neither of us new. The time before the county’s innocence was lost, and the hippies ruined everything.
The song does end on a high note however. This period shall end on a high note as well, as long as we do as Merle instructs.
Michelle Malkin has a good list of ideas. She also offers this:
There is no time to lick wounds, point fingers, and wallow in post-election mud.
I’m getting a lot of moan-y, sad-face “What do we do now, Michelle?” e-mails.
What do we do now? We do what we’ve always done.
We stand up for our principles, as we always have — through Democrat administrations and Republican administrations, in bear markets or bull markets, in peacetime and wartime.
We stay positive and focused.
We keep the faith.
We do not apologize for our beliefs. We do not re-brand them, re-form them, or relinquish them. We defend them.
We pay respect to the office of the presidency. We count our blessings and recommit ourselves to our constitutional republic.
We gird our loins, to borrow a phrase from our Vice President-elect.
We lock and load our ideological ammunition.
We fight.
Exactly. We fight. We must stand up for our country and help rebuild our fallen and broken party.
The hits just keep on rolling. The Texas Comptroller’s Office reversed the bogus lean they put on my account yesterday. The money came back this morning. Of course now I am stuck with $560 worth of NSF charges, and the bank says there is nothing they can do to help me. I was told to call the Comptroller for help. Good luck with that, the guy at the bank said.
So the state has officially screwed me out of over $500 on a debt that I did not owe.
U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D. Toledo) whipped the crowd up before Mr. Obama took the stage yesterday telling them that America needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education, and a fair playing field for business and farmers.
This is an unbelievable quote. Thanks to Random Nuclear Strikes for posting about this little tidbit of pure communism. This is the definition of totalitarian communism as practiced by, the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, and others. The only way government can guaranty a job, health care, a home, an education, and “a fair playing field for business and farmers” is for the government to own it all, and force you to take this great government job that will not reward you in any way for working harder than the guy next to you.
“Fair” or “fairness” is liberal democrat code for taking away everything you have worked for and giving it to some shmuck who has spent their miserable life sitting on their ass.
The democrats are freaking communists pure and simple.
Update: Here is a video.
Here is the letter the Toledo Blade wrote to Senator Obama.
So, this all stems from our original Socialist in Chief, FDR. What a shock. This is the change we are going to get America. More failed socialist policies that have already doomed us to overwhelming debt, that will make us look back to today and smile fondly. Change my ass.
This has already been the week from hell. Yesterday I totaled my new ‘99 Tahoe, and today I accessed my checking account online, and found that it was negative $1,000! What the heck?
So I look into the details and I have a court ordered lien on my account for almost $3,000. This wiped out my checking, and savings account I use for overdraft protection, and incurred about a dozen NSF fees at $35 a piece. Great, I thought. What the hell is this all about. I owed the IRS a bit of money after last year, and set up a payment plan with them so that couldn’t be it. After calling them, they confirmed this. So who could it be? I don’t owe anyone money or anything.
At lunch I went to the bank to find out what the hell was going on. It turns out the Texas Comptroller’s Office put the lien on my account. Now here comes the scary part. Back in June I set up a business to sell fireworks. After applying for the necessary Tax ID number, I decided against it, and never sent in the required signature form. So I was never issued a Tax ID, or permit to conduct business. I also never conducted any business.
I thought the matter was over with seeing as how I never completed the process. I was wrong on that thought. A couple of weeks ago I got a sales tax bill for $200. Having not collected or filed any returns I was puzzled and made an inquiry to the government office in question. They replied that they could close the account, and asked me to send my ID number on the letter I received. I did that last week, and left Thursday night for our anniversary trip. We went camping and came back Monday.
Well apparently, they neither closed the account, or canceled the supposed fee. Instead they decided that I somehow owed them $2,343 and somehow got a government order to seize the money in my savings and checking accounts! So, the government provided no form of due process for me, no intent to levy letter or anything like that, and arbitrarily decided it would be OK to steal $2,300 out of a private citizens personal account.
This is unbelievable to me. Of course they have reversed the levy after I called and raised hell with them. How this is legal is beyond me however. The bank is going to try to get my NSFs cancelled, so that is good. What a complete nightmare and pain in the ass though. It scares me that the government can just come in and seize whatever they want, whether they are owed it or not.
Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.
House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-California, and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute.
This is just infuriating. Now they want to socialize our retirement savings even further. Never mind the fact that Social Security is an abysmal failure. More of the same should fix the problem. There’s real HopeChange for you.
A plan by Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic-policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, contains elements that are being considered. She testified last week before Miller’s Education and Labor Committee on her proposal.
At that hearing, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Peter Orszag, testified that some $2 trillion in retirement savings has been lost over the past 15 months.
Welcome to the free market and freedom. The markets go up and down. Government involvement is usually the reason for them going down, as we have recently seen in this downtrodden market.
Under Ghilarducci’s plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government but would be required to invest 5 percent of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration. The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3 percent a year, adjusted for inflation.
The current system of providing tax breaks on 401(k) contributions and earnings would be eliminated.
So, our “subsidy” would be a $600 tax break. Keep it. What good is that going to do me? What is that in real money for an average guy, $150? Get real people. Under our current 401(k) plans we can save up to $15,000 a year, tax free.
Now, we get to the very evil part of this whole plan. You read it correctly. They want to take another five percent of your income, and force you to put it in an account ran by the same people that have already ruined social security! Really? That is the plan? Please take that plan and keep it. We don’t want that rotting corpse.
These accounts would supposedly earn a guaranteed 3% interest. That’s right, three measly percent. That means when you actually got your money back it won’t be worth what it was when you put it in.
The sham of the whole thing is in the details. First of all, guaranteed means that we taxpayers are on the hook for the bonds that are going to earn all this lame interest. So if it doesn’t work, we get to pay for it! So on top of our overwhelming obligations to social security, this idiot economics professor wants us to give the government more of our money to throw down the same rabbit hole.
Secondly, remove the tax-incentive for comanies to match 401 contributions and the match goes away. You just killed a massive chunnk of wealth right there.
Finally, what do you think the market is going to do if this happens? Their cash cows, the vehicle most Americans use to invest in the market is going to dissapear. If you think we have a problem now, just wait until that happens. The markets will crash for real then, and those government bonds won’t be worth crap with no one around to buy them. This plan is just plain stupid.
“I want to stop the federal subsidy of 401(k)s,” Ghilarducci said in an interview. “401(k)s can continue to exist, but they won’t have the benefit of the subsidy of the tax break.”
Under the current 401(k) system, investors are charged relatively high retail fees, Ghilarducci said.
“I want to spend our nation’s dollar for retirement security better. Everybody would now be covered” if the plan were adopted, Ghilarducci said.
I sent this woman an email and told her that subsidy is the wrong term. Under the current 401(k) system we actually get to keep our own money if we invest it for the future. This is not the government’s money it is ours. Socialists always paint a tax break as government spending. The truth of course is, it is not government spending. It is our cash not hers, or “the nation’s”. This is a freedom thing here. This plan is nothing short of totalitarian seizure of our retirement savings.
Her last statement was especially egregious. Please FOAD lady! Leave OUR money alone you socialist hack! Go back to Notre Dame and drink another Manhattan and complain about how stupid we peasants are to your friends. We bitter clingers also cling to our money, so keep you damn hands off it!
I was going to comment on the rest of the article, but please just go read the whole thing. I can’t take it anymore. These damn communists are going to force us to revolt if they keep it up! I will be following this one closely.
This week President Bush announced that the federal government will be buying shares in several large banks, and the FDIC will be insuring bank-to-bank loans.
Read that sentence again.
He has just nationalized the banks. Our supposedly conservative, free-market, Republican President, has turned to socialism to pull us out of this financial crisis. This is unbelievable. It is really very disappointing on so many levels. This man, who is despised by so many, has stood on his principles throughout his two terms as President of our great country, no matter the cost to him politically.
While we have disagreed with him vehemently on a variety of issues over these last eight years, we always knew that he would do what he thought was the best thing for the country. This provided some solace when he disagreed with conservatives on immigration for example. Turning to the dark, dark specter of socialism however, is not something I can overlook. While I am sure that he is still doing what he thinks is necessary to preserve the nation, turning to the failed policies of one of the biggest blights in humanity’s history, is certainly not the answer.
He knows this is wrong. You can see it on his face. I have no idea how Paulson convinced himself, much less the President, that this is the way to go. Once Paulson, a former credible conservative investment banker, took hold of Treasury, it seems he lost his brain somewhere along the way.
President Bush is stating that this is a temporary measure designed to preserve the free market. I have three major problems with this line of policy and thinking.
First, free markets must regulate themselves. If people are irresponsible they get punished by the market. If a large chunk is irresponsible, everyone suffers. That is how we learn lessons, and how overarching greed and corruption are contained. You don’t help freedom by, choking it with socialist policies and government nannyism. That approach is throwing the baby out with the bath water. It is stupid, and it is counterintuitive. “Bailing out” the financial sector does not foster healthy lending practices. Why should the banks act like banks, when they fail, and are rewarded for it by the American taxpayer? This goes beyond a bail out. That could be seen as a onetime investment to right the ship, and get us back on track. This is a takeover.
This brings up the quintessential problem with socialism/communism. Incentive. There is now no incentive for banks, and citizens shortly, to be good financial stewards of their depositors, or their own money. When the government will bail you out, you have no reason to not fail.
This tactic affects the good guys as well. The normal guy that goes to work, works hard, and pays his bills on time, has no incentive to continue to do so. Why does he have to do this, when the stupid bum that lives across the street is getting his mortgage renegotiated, reduced, and suddenly finding himself flush with government-guaranteed equity?
This leads to my second major problem with this boondoggle of a plan. The looming election of Barrack Obama makes this entire situation even more gloomy. First for the guy paying his mortgage. Obama is going to lean on him like never before to actually, pay for the bum across the street. His newly raised taxes of all sorts, will wreak havoc on the overall economy. So Mr. Responsible will be getting it from all sides now.
His job may be in jeopardy as his company looks to cut costs so they can pay Mr. Obama’s taxes. He will find that his beleaguered portfolio is getting hit harder than ever due to the markets dismal performance, and any gains he does make will be wiped out by Obama’s new capital gains tax increase. Poor Mr. Responsible is going to wish he had acted foolishly like the bum across the street. He is being punished unmercifully for actually being a responsible citizen. The only hope is that enough Mr. Responsibles will continue to be good Americans, and lead us out of this socialized darkness, by working their tails off.
This is only the beginning of the problem however. Mr. Obama has just been handed a socialized banking system, by his Republican predecessor. Hallelujah! He has no need to spend his political capitol, by shifting our country towards totalitarian communism himself. It has already been handed to him on a silver platter by a Republican no less!
So that temporary nature, of the nationalized financial system President Bush tries to convince us and himself about, will not be so temporary. It will become the norm, and slowly as government largess always does, creep farther and farther into the most successful free enterprise system in human history, destroying it bit by bit. This is the Pandora’s box, that Paulson, Bush, and the legislature have unleashed upon us. God help us all!
The third major gripe I have about all of this is simple. It hasn’t and won’t work. Socialism is a failed policy. The reason America has been better off than Europe is because of our free market system, not in spite of it. Free market capitalism is the best model for prosperity, incentive to improve oneself, and general happiness ever conceived. Turning to what we have already discussed as a blight on humanity, is the worst possible thing we could have done.
Socialism has just about ruined Europe. If you think our future entitlement responsibilities are great, try looking at Europe. They are set to become a society of do-nothings, getting paid to, do nothing, by the government. Who knows how they will pay for it. Maybe they can sell some paper to China as well, and we can eventually welcome the Chinese as our masters.
This nightmare is emboldening our enemies as well. Hugo Chavez has taken to calling Bush, comrade now. He sees what Bush is doing as a validation of his and Castro’s communist ideology. The rest of the world will see it the same way.
“Here is America, that has been preaching free market capitalism to us for decades. Now that they are in trouble they too have finally turned to socialism.” This is how we are being seen in the world. Obama’s policies will only further this perception. The Iranians are claiming that this is the end of free market capitalism, and see it as a further sign that their radical Islamic caliphate is even a better idea. Hell, even the American Communist Party is getting excited. It is a veritable, love-in of commies and terrorists, all filled with glee over Bush’s socialist utopian rescue plan.
This leads us to the abyss I alluded to in the title. We are standing on the precipice my fellow citizens. If we elect Barack Obama, we may well be pushed in. Right now we are at that point of being able to turn around, and fight our way away from the edge.
We are staring at the abyss of abject failure, and turning headlong into the cesspool of communism. We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of our great nation, and the most noble principles of government ever set forth by mankind. We are wasting the legacy of victory over the Marxists that our beloved Ronald Reagan entrusted us with. It may already be too late.
The only thing we have to cling to in these times, is our hope. Real hope, that the American people will wake up and reject this new direction we are clearly headed for. We must fight it in every way we can. We cannot succumb to the lurid sloth of subsisting off of the dark teat of a nanny government intent to deprive us of our rights as free men.
All of us that believe in our inalienable right to keep and bear arms may have to stand in the gap for our fellow weaker citizens. We may have to spill the blood of some of our people again, to insure that our values and way of life do not go quietly into the night. So, we must prepare ourselves for just such a situation. We all must prepare ourselves to be able to protect our families, and ourselves from oppression. We must prepare to defend ourselves from our own government, which of course is what the founders had in mind when they enshrined our ability to do so in our Constitution.
