Michael Reagan on elections

He makes an interesting point - that conservatives see elections as an end point,  whereas liberals see it as a beginning. It's trite but true, and ties into my earlier post about the view of conservatives and politics. Elections are an event, but they are part of the unending political process.
It is tempting to say, "well,  we did our job, we elected a good congress, or a good president. Our job here is done,  we can go back to our lives, our jobs, because the election is over." I have seen this happen twice in my political life,  once after 1994, and once again, ten years later after 2004. In the second case,  it is quite obvious that the enemies of freedom were allowed to try to change our fundamental national values. But the abandonment of political responsibility after 1994 is less obvious,  but in some ways more insidious
We assumed that because we elected revolutionaries to Congress,  we could leave them in place unsupervised, that they would naturally and only defend freedom and refuse the misuse of power. The honest ones followed their Contract with America and left Congress again, leaving the rest to slowly lose the trust of the American people- to the point that they were willing to sit back and let the Democrats come back to power, despite the 30+ years of evidence that this was a bad idea.
Keeping politicians' noses to the grindstone, and their political morals on the straight and narrow is not a full-time job, but it isn't a job for the high holy days of our political system, either. It's an not even an every day job.But it's something that takes a little bit of time and effort every so often. How much effort does it take to call or write your representatives when they make an incorrect decision? A couple of minutes of time at the keyboard, and a few more to take it to the mailbox. A little bit more time if you choose to call, if that's your thing.
What takes a little more effort is keeping up on the doings of your representatives. I will admit I find politics to be an enjoyable spectator sport; so I spend a fair chunk of extra time on following politics. You don't need to spend as much time as I do. But you need to check up on them from time to time. Look at their websites every so often, maybe sign up for their email lists. If you think they should have a position and don't, let them know.
We often say that our representatives should work for us, not us for them. If so, why are we letting them work unsupervised?

Another reason for the NRA University program

Bitter quoting Instapundit: "As you change the culture in colleges and law schools, you change the culture in judge's chambers in short order." I don't know specifically if he meant that we should get the law students shooting, but it couldn't hurt.

Celebration of American Values - Part 1

Interesting; the first speaker is the Pinal County Sheriff. Talking about the threat of the drug cartels and the need for the local to protect themselves, because his deputies can't be everywhere. A powerful speaker, and one with moving anecdotes. And a powerful challenge to the Washington politicians: come down to the border and spend the night.

History vs the future

Listening to the speakers at the NRA meeting,  I am thankful for living when I do, rather than 30 – 40 years ago. New Jersey's laws and regulations are considered an anachronistic holdover, not the wave of the future.

Micro blogging

If you aren't following me on twitter @ianargent, you are missing a fair amount of my musings.

Meta blogging

The probability of someone doing something on a smartphone at any point during a blogger drink and dinner approaches 1.

NRA University

Had an interesting day so far.Morning was the NRA Grassroots volunteer workshop. The basic goal is to get good, accurate, and interesting information out to gun owners to get them interested and active in politics. It’s the legal and moral way to vote twice (or more!) in an election. The really interesting program they talked about, though, was the NRA university program.

This is a packaged presentation that NRA-ILA describes as a “two-hour training seminar for college students interested in learning more about NRA, the Second Amendment, gun safety, legislative threats to gun rights and the gun control debate. NRA-ILA staff will travel to a college campus and provide seminar attendees with the tools they’ll need to become more effective activists in the fight to protect our freedom, both on and off campus.” This is the kind of thing we need to do, get into colleges and help the young adults who have a desire to fight the collectivist  indoctrination endemic in today’s institutes of higher education. This is a program that needs expanding – the earlier we can get the truth about guns to people, the less effective the lies of the anti-freedom crowd will be.

Hale, whole, and sane

For now – despite the best efforts of other drivers and some rain to render it otherwise.
If you’re going to be at the the NRA Annual Meeting, I hope to see you.

What would you do?

For a Klondike Bar?

It begins

About to start the trip to Pittsburgh. Should be *excellent* driving weather...

In future America, smartphone has you – and this is a good thing

Wet behind the ears says

Independent of operator billing, using phones should massively cut
down on credit card fraud. If your credit card is a fully-functional
computer that can verify its owner interactively, then one can use a
different “credit card number” for every transaction… And we’d no
longer be in this silly situation where merely knowing a 16-digit number
(plus a guessable expiration date and zip code) enables people to
impersonate others in purchases

The rub in that is “verify its owner” of course, but that is a problem to which there are already solutions and more in the pipeline. I envision a future where the check folio at a restaurant has an NFC unit and a net link back to the restaurant server; it sends the bill to the smartphone (at this point, just a phone), and the phone return a one-use token that has the authorization for the restaurant to bill x dollars of bill+tip to the diner’s financial institutio; and other such transactions. This, incidentally, protects both sides – the payer’s authentication information never leaves their control, and the payee can immediately verify funds-available. (Yes, this requires that the payee have internet access. It’s the 21st century, folks).

I no longer have to write the article

On why I didn’t understand the birther fascination with the missing birth certificate.

The White House Blog

President Obama's Long Form Birth Certificate

Can we start focusing on the actual issues instead of playing conlaw munchkin our own selves? All may be fair in love and war, but politics is neither.

If we want reasonable and decent politicians, how about treating them reasonably and decently?

NRA Annual Meeting

I’ll be there, though I doubt it’ll be with bells on from open to close. The homestead will be held secure by Allura and our felines; none of whom I would advise messing with.

Drop me a line if you want to meet up – either in comments here, or by emailing my nom de blog at gmail dot com

Random question

Has Obama ever run as an incumbent for the office that he was an incumbent of?

Paging New Jovian Thunderbolt

Outbreak! Zombie Apocalypse is the Coolest Social Check-in Android App - Droid Life: A Droid Community Blog
I can't recall if he does the smartphone thing and if so, which warring tribe he is a member of. But I do know he likes to shoot zombies in the face.

Regular Maintenance

Term limits. Hard money. Making service in government a hardship posting. All these ideas have I heard uttered across the wookiesphere. Government is the enemy, To get involved in it is to be inevitably and irreversibly tainted, and the people involved need to be changed out automatically and rapidly. And I scratch my head.

Government can be a terribly oppressive force, often with the best of intentions; that stuff they pave the road to hell with. But that’s not the be-all and end-all of government. Government, particularly the American system of limited constitutional government is a powerful mechanism for good. FDR, for all the damage that he did to that system (for example) also freed Europe from the Nazis. Lincoln established the primacy of the federal government over the states, and freed the slaves. I could keep going.

The US system of government, as expressed in the Constitution and amendments, is one of the safest forms of government yet invented – which doesn’t mean it’s safe. The original design was flawed, and had to be adjusted almost immediately. Since then we have made a few changes to the fundamental design, some well-thought-out, some not so much. Manyof the original adjustments are safety mechanisms that have been subverted in the name of power or speed, or for “temporary, emergency” reasons, or simple lack of understanding. The successors generally try and correct wrongs or imbalances in the original design.

As an analogy, lets consider another powerful tool of freedom, the automobile*. Constantly evolving since its invention over a century ago, every one is a deadly danger to its operator and any unfortunates in the vicinity. Powered, quite literally, by volatile substances whose explosions are kept in check and redirected by ingenious mechanicals; a modern automobile requires not only clever design and construction, but regular fuelling, inspection, maintenance, and occasional replacement of parts as demanded by circumstances. the environment it’s operated in and the quality of each part should be considered when performing maintenance and part replacement.  there are recommended maintenance schedules, but they ought to be treated as guidelines. Following them slavishly and exclusively (without actually inspecting the vehicle) will result both in spending a lot more money than necessary (particularly if you blindly take the car to the dealer for service or get major repair work done without shopping around, or replace a perfectly good part because someone else tells you it’s due), and result in a dangerous situation if a part fails early and you don’t see it. The same goes for governments – the mechanisms of government need regular lubrication, and the parts need to be changed out when worn, but blindly changing the oil every 3000 miles and calling that “done” is just as bad.

But what do I see in my RSS reader every week, and particularly in the comments? Suggestions on how to automate the process of maintenance. Calls to act that way with government, or worse. The extreme minarchs want a car-of-government that won’t exceed 25 miles per hour,or go slower than 5, has a turning radius measured in acres, and will empty the oil pan at 3000 miles on the nose whether it needs it or not. They don’t want to take the effort needed to take care of it. And then they wonder why it’s falling apart.

Tell me, when was the last time you did something useful in politics, other than bitching about it on the intertoobs. (Voting in the final election of the season doesn’t count – that’s the last part of the maintenance process.) When did donate to a candidate? Volunteer to work for his or her campaign? The choice between lizards on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November is not the be-all and end-all of governmental maintenance. You want a real choice? Start with your town council, and your statehouse. Don’t just complain about a candidate; help his opponent. Volunteer for the campaign. You don’t like the choice of lizards? Where were you in the primary?

Government is not necessarily your enemy – neither are the people who work in it. How many of you want Rand Paul term limited out? (For that matter, how many of you would have preferred that the Republican Class of ‘94 who voluntarily term-limited themselves out as part of the Contract With American remained in charge of the GOP rather than the party hacks?) For all the aspersions cast at the SCOTUS, it was SCOTUS that got Heller and McDonald a chance to own firearms. It’s likely that SCOTUS will force NJ to recognize my right to self-defense not only in my lifetime, but within the next few years.

Sebastian and Bitter (among others) have banged on the drum of working for change before me, and are much more active in politics than I am. There are bloggers who have entered politics directly as candidates. That’s what this country needs, not half-baked radicals who would destroy the system to save it.

(My friend Elmo Iscariot lit the spark of this blog post. Pun intended- see my comment there)

* – did you think I’d refer to the firearm here? A firearm is a marvel of simplicity compared to an automobile and so painfully a unitasker when compared even to my Smart Car that there is no comparison. The single most powerful tool of freedom is the automobile, followed by electric lighting. The firearm simply doesn’t compare.

Regular Maintenance

Term limits. Hard money. Making service in government a hardship posting. All these ideas have I heard uttered across the wookiesphere. Government is the enemy, To get involved in it is to be inevitably and irreversibly tainted, and the people involved need to be changed out automatically and rapidly. And I scratch my head.

Government can be a terribly oppressive force, often with the best of intentions; that stuff they pave the road to hell with. But that’s not the be-all and end-all of government. Government, particularly the American system of limited constitutional government is a powerful mechanism for good. FDR, for all the damage that he did to that system (for example) also freed Europe from the Nazis. Lincoln established the primacy of the federal government over the states, and freed the slaves. I could keep going.

The US system of government, as expressed in the Constitution and amendments, is one of the safest forms of government yet invented – which doesn’t mean it’s safe. The original design was flawed, and had to be adjusted almost immediately. Since then we have made a few changes to the fundamental design, some well-thought-out, some not so much. Manyof the original adjustments are safety mechanisms that have been subverted in the name of power or speed, or for “temporary, emergency” reasons, or simple lack of understanding. The successors generally try and correct wrongs or imbalances in the original design.

As an analogy, lets consider another powerful tool of freedom, the automobile*. Constantly evolving since its invention over a century ago, every one is a deadly danger to its operator and any unfortunates in the vicinity. Powered, quite literally, by volatile substances whose explosions are kept in check and redirected by ingenious mechanicals; a modern automobile requires not only clever design and construction, but regular fuelling, inspection, maintenance, and occasional replacement of parts as demanded by circumstances. the environment it’s operated in and the quality of each part should be considered when performing maintenance and part replacement.  there are recommended maintenance schedules, but they ought to be treated as guidelines. Following them slavishly and exclusively (without actually inspecting the vehicle) will result both in spending a lot more money than necessary (particularly if you blindly take the car to the dealer for service or get major repair work done without shopping around, or replace a perfectly good part because someone else tells you it’s due), and result in a dangerous situation if a part fails early and you don’t see it. The same goes for governments – the mechanisms of government need regular lubrication, and the parts need to be changed out when worn, but blindly changing the oil every 3000 miles and calling that “done” is just as bad.

But what do I see in my RSS reader every week, and particularly in the comments? Suggestions on how to automate the process of maintenance. Calls to act that way with government, or worse. The extreme minarchs want a car-of-government that won’t exceed 25 miles per hour,or go slower than 5, has a turning radius measured in acres, and will empty the oil pan at 3000 miles on the nose whether it needs it or not. They don’t want to take the effort needed to take care of it. And then they wonder why it’s falling apart.

Tell me, when was the last time you did something useful in politics, other than bitching about it on the intertoobs. (Voting in the final election of the season doesn’t count – that’s the last part of the maintenance process.) When did donate to a candidate? Volunteer to work for his or her campaign? The choice between lizards on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November is not the be-all and end-all of governmental maintenance. You want a real choice? Start with your town council, and your statehouse. Don’t just complain about a candidate; help his opponent. Volunteer for the campaign. You don’t like the choice of lizards? Where were you in the primary?

Government is not necessarily your enemy – neither are the people who work in it. How many of you want Rand Paul term limited out? (For that matter, how many of you would have preferred that the Republican Class of ‘94 who voluntarily term-limited themselves out as part of the Contract With American remained in charge of the GOP rather than the party hacks?) For all the aspersions cast at the SCOTUS, it was SCOTUS that got Heller and McDonald a chance to own firearms. It’s likely that SCOTUS will force NJ to recognize my right to self-defense not only in my lifetime, but within the next few years.

Sebastian and Bitter (among others) have banged on the drum of working for change before me, and are much more active in politics than I am. There are bloggers who have entered politics directly as candidates. That’s what this country needs, not half-baked radicals who would destroy the system to save it.

(My friend Elmo Iscariot lit the spark of this blog post. Pun intended- see my comment there)

* – did you think I’d refer to the firearm here? A firearm is a marvel of simplicity compared to an automobile and so painfully a unitasker when compared even to my Smart Car that there is no comparison. The single most powerful tool of freedom is the automobile, followed by electric lighting. The firearm simply doesn’t compare.

You can’t stop the signal

Take these three ideas. Add a small bit of mad science…

We’re all used to firearms being durable goods. Strong, well-made. You can reasonably expect a firearm manufactured a century ago to be entirely usable today with only routine maintenance. If you’re careful, that threshold can go out to the dawn of the smokeless powder era. Consequently, they’re rather expensive.

But, they don’t have to be. What if you only needed to get a magazine or two worth of use out of them, then pitch it? Tam’s idea of sealed, non-reloadable, disposables is a good one, to be sure – but you would still need to go to an FFL to get one (unless there’s a radical change in legalisms in this country). It gets worse in other countries.

What if instead you could “print out” your furniture and most of the rest of your hardware? If the only metal parts you needed to purchase were the barrel and chamber, and the magazine spring? Maybe a trigger group. A tube of heavy-gauge metal and some funny springs and flanges. Then download your plans from the internet, run it off on your printer, et voila.

Each individual “gun” is not very sturdy; sure. Good for a couple of magazines before the plastic melts, or cracks, or what have you. The expensive bits (barrel and FCG) are re-usable. Run off another copy and drop the barrel into it. Tinker with the shape and size – play with your semi-customized grip before you order up a race gun; decide what grip angle fits you best before taking the plunge on a “re-usable.”

And, tech marches on. Today the printer Sebastian and Jason are using is $1200 and the finished product is rather rickety. I can remember when a laser printer was twice than that and slow as molasses in January to print; and now I have what amounts to 4 separate laser printers sitting on the table behind me, and I paid a third of that for a SoHo-grade color laser printer with networking. The material science side is the hard part – but CNC machines are already getting pretty cheap, too. If you can mill your own barrel and frame from blanks, and your own furniture from sturdy plastics, and “print” the rest, you’re 90% of the way to competing with Gaston Glock. Just wait for his patents to expire, first. A very quick internet search says that a “desktop” CNC machine can be obtained for “under $10K,” and that you can build them as school projects. That’s much cheaper than I remember the last time I checked – and no reason they couldn’t get cheaper yet.

But wait, there’s more. There’s a reason I linked to Mad Mike’s Manifesto. The AK-47 is out of patent, and a design notoriously tolerant of manufacturing imperfections. Since it’s intended to be made of stamped metal, perhaps it’s not the best choice for a gun intended to be milled out by CNC, of course.

So, what are the enemies of freedom going to do when you can punch out your own personal arsenal in your basement for under a grand in capital costs and under a C-note in materials? Sure, each one may only be good for a thousand rounds or so at first. Until the design is refined…