There’ nothing shocking about this graph. It logically follows that when individuals aren’t prohibited from defending their rights to life and property, those who would violate said rights are less likely to do so.

Violent Crime and CCW:

Chart data sources:
Right to Carry Laws 2006 - www.nraila.org/map.
Violent Crime Rates in the United States 2006 - www.fbi.gov/table5.
National Average - Violent Crime Rates in the United States 2006 - www.fbi.gov/table1.

I think I need to offset my typically critical and pessimistic tone here. It goes without saying (here) that I take issue with the direction of our country and those leading the way. It’s simply my personality type to point out needless clutter, especially when it aims to overtake other serene areas of life. Just mentioning it, getting it out of my head, helps me deal with the tempestuous storm of nonsense thrown around every day. Unless I learn to ignore it, or no longer continue to find value in discussing it, I’ll keep doing the same.

I don’t mention the good stuff enough. It’s there, and plenty of it, but I tend to cherish it privately.

This morning I find myself at home, coffee in hand, working on a demo for my latest software package. I’ve enjoyed this project, as it’s allowed plenty of creative authority from both the architecture and design perspectives. I work from home mostly, which lends itself ideally to having a toddler. I hear music leading through the foyer as a backdrop to my son executing his first grasps at language. Every few minutes I hear his mother speak to him, verifying the truth of his statements and telling him how much she loves him. I’m adding value to a business using skills that I enjoy, and the most important entities on earth are only 10 steps away.

I can hear my lab’s toenails clicking on the floor when he swings by for a morning visit. He’ll report to our bed shortly for his morning nap… without his naps, he simply wouldn’t be able to make it.

The walls of my office are lined with guitars, ones with my name on them. Looking down at your instrument on stage and seeing a logo that you spent many years thinking about is a very rewarding experience. Music has been a strong ally for the past 12 years. My son now knows the word guitar and will eagerly strum the guitar when held in front of it - the one with his name on it. The music he heard in utero now serve as lullabies. John Coltrane, Blue Highway, George Winston - he likes them all.

My new shop is finally setup for production, now I just have to be creative with my time. I’ve years worth of orders still in the queue, very patient yet eager customers on the waiting end. I can’t wait to get each of them their guitar.

I spend about an hour, 200 rounds, $20, per week at an indoor firing range near my office. I verify reliability of my carry pistol, and work on drills. Hopefully this practice will make the difference in life or death for myself or my family in the unfortunate event that I’m ever forced to defend us. Shooting is a violent series of sincere tributes to man’s mind, with the lurking reminder of the evil that instigated the art form - an exhilarating mixture of pride and resentment. Having a weapon on my hip as I greet my son after travel assembles such an ironic event. The awe of beautiful, innocent life, and the reality that there are those who don’t properly value it.

My life is very fulfilling. I have a deep respect for reality, a strict sense of right and wrong, and a mental faculty that adheres to both. I enjoy using my mind, and I’m rewarded for doing such. I have a lovely, intelligent and tolerant woman that has accepted and started a family with me. The joy of our son is incomparably overwhelming. I have a family that continues to muster affection for me, overlooking my petulant tendencies. I have serious and part-time hobbies that I enthusiastically pursue, which satisfy my creative and inventive urges. I have friends with which I enjoy warm coffee, cold beer and intriguing conversation.

Life is good.

Socialist Paul Kanjorski [D-PA] further spearheads our descent into destruction with a gem of barbaric brilliance he’s named the “Consumer Reasonable Energy Price Protection Act of 2008″. H.R. 5800 would establish a “Reasonable Profits Board” that would serve to determine if oil companies are bringing in too much money.

Since we’ve, for all intents and purposes, abandoned the founding principles for this nation, and are no longer chained by constitutional justification, this measure is fair game.

Here’s uncle Sam’s claim - “You don’t have a right to your profits, we do. Therefore, it doesn’t matter how you might reinvest your profits, we’d rather confiscate them by force as a form of pandering and income redistribution.”

It escapes me how any human could claim the right to dictate the appropriate profitability of another. Unless he’s the consumer, by what right can he tell another how much the product of his labor and resources should be worth in barter? A producer and his voluntary consumers are the only entities with any justifiable means to determine price. Any man that claims such determination can rightfully be made by anyone other than the producer and consumer, and then imposed by force, is an advocate of slavery.

The proper response to this meddling is for the victim (big oil) to simply say “no, we quit”. It would only take once, as the crumbling economy would send a message to congress reminding them who’s rightfully in charge - the men of production, not crooks and cowards who scheme their way into office and pander to stay there. Kanjorski and all the other rodents would scurry in a desperate attempt to officially retract the 13th amendment in order to fix their boo boo. I long for the then day where men proudly assert their right to the product of their labor. When the victims realize their sanction is the only power Washington thugs maintain, the sick little game that is American politics will be nothing more than a footnote in history.

So, keep pushing Paul. The more you push, the sooner those of us who understand life, liberty and property can rebuild the nation you’re doing your best to obliterate.

“Stimulus Package” - what a colossal parade of ignorance. This episode of pandering is about nothing more than a bureaucratic desire to appear to be ‘doing something’ about the economic situation resulting from previous desires to appear to be ‘doing something’ - in both cases, economic ignorance is to blame. Walter Williams nails the do-gooders as he always does.

There are three ways government can get the money for a stimulus package. It can tax, borrow or inflate the currency by printing money. If government taxes to hand out money, one person is stimulated at the expense of another who pays the tax, who is unstimulated and has less money to spend. If government borrows the money, it’s the same story. This time the unstimulated person is the lender who has less money to spend. If government prints money, creditors, and then everyone else, are unstimulated. As my colleague Russell Roberts said in a NPR broadcast, “It’s like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of a pool and dumping it into the shallow end. Funny thing — the water in the shallow end doesn’t get any deeper.”

This “package” is nothing more than income redistribution, just like all other economic meddling perpetrated by our government. When government touches the free-market, regardless of how, value is taken from one person and either given to another, or simply destroyed - by force.

by Jeffrey R. Snyder - (C) 1993 by The Public Interest.

OUR SOCIETY has reached a pinnacle of self-expression and respect for individuality rare or unmatched in history. Our entire popular culture — from fashion magazines to the cinema — positively screams the matchless worth of the individual, and glories in eccentricity, nonconformity, independent judgment, and self-determination. This enthusiasm is reflected in the prevalent notion that helping someone entails increasing that person’s “self-esteem”; that if a person properly values himself, he will naturally be a happy, productive, and, in some inexplicable fashion, responsible member of society.

And yet, while people are encouraged to revel in their individuality and incalculable self-worth, the media and the law enforcement establishment continually advise us that, when confronted with the threat of lethal violence, we should not resist, but simply give the attacker what he wants. If the crime under consideration is rape, there is some notable waffling on this point, and the discussion quickly moves to how the woman can change her behavior to minimize the risk of rape, and the various ridiculous, non-lethal weapons she may acceptably carry, such as whistles, keys, mace or, that weapon which really sends shivers down a rapist’s spine, the portable cellular phone.

Now how can this be? How can a person who values himself so highly calmly accept the indignity of a criminal assault? How can one who believes that the essence of his dignity lies in his self-determination passively accept the forcible deprivation of that self-determination? How can he, quietly, with great dignity and poise, simply hand over the goods?

The assumption, of course, is that there is no inconsistency. The advice not to resist a criminal assault and simply hand over the goods is founded on the notion that one’s life is of incalculable value, and that no amount of property is worth it. Put aside, for a moment, the outrageousness of the suggestion that a criminal who proffers lethal violence should be treated as if he has instituted a new social contract: “I will not hurt or kill you if you give me what I want.” For years, feminists have labored to educate people that rape is not about sex, but about domination, degradation, and control. Evidently, someone needs to inform the law enforcement establishment and the media that kidnapping, robbery, carjacking, and assault are not about property.

Crime is not only a complete disavowal of the social contract, but also a commandeering of the victim’s person and liberty. If the individual’s dignity lies in the fact that he is a moral agent engaging in actions of his own will, in free exchange with others, then crime always violates the victim’s dignity. It is, in fact, an act of enslavement. Your wallet, your purse, or your car may not be worth your life, but your dignity is; and if it is not worth fighting for, it can hardly be said to exist.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m overwhelmed with joy. I stumbled on this refreshing LTE in reference to the insidious “gun free” mentality. There are conflicting premises floating amongst the primary Objectivist circles. At times, the subject of guns, open or concealed carry, and objective laws pertaining to their uses and limitations seem almost taboo. Specifically, the question of what involving a firearm constitutes a threat of force.

I’m encouraged to find others who see reality as I do, and that I’m not intrinsically at odds with some obscure Objectivist tenet that I’ve yet to integrate.

The NRA is clearly not who I thought they were. To the extent that they persist in their crusade for Florida’s HB503 bill - a bill that enables possession of firearms on another’s property, and regardless of the owners discretion - the association has revealed themselves as unprincipled and obtuse warriors for a cause at any price.

Per their public statements and my private conversations with NRA-ILA staff, their claim that an individuals right to life trumps property rights. Their error is failure to distinguish the right to life, and the right to defend one’s life by use of deadly force courtesy of the second amendment. The former inalienably stands alone, while the latter assumes a corollary right - the right to property.

In the Florida bill, they are opposing the sanctity of property rights as they pertain to a situation where all involved parties are voluntarily present, and most likely bound (also voluntarily) under contractual terms. If an individual’s right to property is subject to the whim of political consensus, then what’s the NRA’s wildcard for excluding a specific type of property (firearms) from such whim? Based on their logic, a homeowner also should have no right to allow others to possess firearms on his property. How can the NRA not see how detrimental such precedent will be? Maybe not until gun owners property rights are trumped by the same premise that the NRA now blindly ignores when a new state bill crosses a Governor’s desk that deems firearm owners have no right to their property (firearms) because such right encroaches another’s right to life.

The counter claim that an employee’s automobile is shielded by his property right fails to consider the overall context. An employees car is (typically) their property, but that car is parked on the employer’s property. There has to be an authoritative hierarchy of rights, otherwise the employer would have no legal basis to tow an employees car from their parking lot. If an employer’s rules specify no weapons on premises, it doesn’t matter where or how, or what justifications, none are allowed - period. If you can’t/don’t accept those terms, attempt to negotiate or find a new job.

Laws and legal enforcement thereof should be based on rights. If an action doesn’t forcefully encroach on another’s right to life, liberty or property, or doesn’t objectively convey intent to do so, it shouldn’t be illegal. The biggest destroyer of personal freedom and economic prosperity are subjective laws - ones that ignore the above prescription. In this case, the employees right to property isn’t forcefully encroached because their presence is voluntarily acceptive of a particular set of stipulations. They are agreeing to a stipulation regarding their property right while present on the employers premises. Therefore, any law overriding this hierarchy is irrational and a detriment to our nation. Neutering a business owners right to enforce his preference to ban weapons is no different than government telling a restaurant owner, who’d otherwise allow weapons, that he can’t. The underlying principle is identical. If you support the fist case, you are supporting the second - you can’t have it both ways.

Not only are the NRA wrong in their stance on this measure, but by throwing phrases like big business and corporate bullies, they’re now bordering on class-warfare, anti-business rhetoric that would feel at home in any DNC stump speech. Heston would be so proud.

The result of any political stance void of explicit premises is nothing more than a pragmatic and likely contradictory opinion. To compromise a fundamental principal for the sake of one that relies on such is irrational. This case is perfectly illustrative of a misguided and ignorant crusade that will serve to undermine the more important cause. The NRA is doing nothing more than arming the enemy (the anti-gun crowd) with yet another avenue of battle. What a tremendous mistake.

An interesting illusion is discussed in the context of the left/right brain dichotomy.

If you see the dancer spinning clockwise, the story goes, you are using more of your right brain, and if you see it moving counterclockwise, you are more of a left-brained person. The typical characteristics of each hemisphere are:

Left Brain

Right Brain

I found it interesting that I saw the girl twirling counter-clockwise as the page loaded and up until I started to read the text of the article. Then, immediately my peripheral vision caught her change directions after reading only the first half of the first sentence. As I then resumed focus on the image, her rotation shifted back to counter-clockwise. As quickly as I can focus on her, or process the text, she’ll rotate accordingly.

For many years I’ve been charged by friends/family/coworkers that I’m neither wholly left or right brained, maybe this supports that concept.