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All of the cool kids are doing it.

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I actually met an honest to goodness communist. This guy was hard core. He was trying to tell me how the Soviets had found the perfect form of government. We had a discussion, and I kept it civil, mostly because I was fascinated at his grasp on alternate reality.

I pointed out the many flaws of communism, and he actually said to me that communism will work, it just hasn’t because no one that is smart enough has tried it, yet. When I asked him how he would keep people working, once they realized that they got a share of the wealth, whether they worked or not, he said that people should work for the common good, not for personal gain. He said that those who refuse are traitors to the peole and should be imprisoned or killed.

The prosecution in the Zimmerman case has released statements from one of George Zimmerman’s cousins, alleging that GZ inappropriately touched her. When they were 6 and 7 years old. She also alleges that the behavior continued until they were 16 and 17.

Why do events that transpired more than a decade ago have any bearing on this case? Our justice system has become a reality show, where people dial a 900 number to vote for the winner.

EDIT: Come on, people. Here is the money quote:

At one point — the interview isn’t clear on timing — Zimmerman’s
mother said she didn’t like President Barack Obama, the witness said.
“I said ‘why not?’ you know just thinking she was joking,” Witness 9
told investigators. “And she said, ‘Because he is black. I am a racist.’
Just loud and proud.”

A post at Unc’s today illustrates the point that I frequently try to make about business in the modern American age: Businesses are trying to gain market advantage, not by being competitive on service, products, and prices, but by getting the government to tilt the odds laws in their favor.

The sales tax is a way that businesses fund the services that local and state government provide. When I open a business in another state, I do not benefit from those services, therefore I do not pay the tax. (Before you argue about the roads that the goods are shipped on, those are paid for by taxes on the shipping company, a different entity)

So the local businesses were upset that they are at a advantage by having to pay a sales tax, forgetting that they have the advantage of the shipping fees, and the advantage of the customer instantly getting his stuff. The businesses sought to get the government involved, so that they could eliminate the Amazon advantage, thereby tilting the equation in their direction.

Amazon now has no reason to keep their shipping centers remotely located, since the reason that they were remote was to avoid the taxes. So now we have the brick and mortar stores making me drive to the store, offering poor service, and employees that know nothing about the products they sell,  in competition with Amazon, who allows me to buy the same stuff without leaving the house, and able to do it cheaper because of fewer locations and not having to pay the aforementioned stupid and rude sales staff, and using robots to ship your stuff.

So much for trying to use government to eliminate the competition.

When I was a kid and the Soviet economy was crashing, I remember reading about bread lines- the Soviet people used to stand in line for hours to get a loaf of bread. Shortages were endemic, especially as the economy of that country got closer and closer to collapse. The most active part of the Soviet economy was the black market.

As our own economy falters and gets closer to collapse, we will see shortages get worse. Already, we are seeing significant shortages in medicine, and the ObamaCare changes haven’t even taken effect, yet. Speed completion of your preparations. This is gonna hurt.

I decided to go to the range today. I went to Shoot Straight in Apopka. They have an indoor range, and more importantly, they allow long guns, and since I needed to test some repairs that I had done to one of the ARs, we went there.

When we got there, I went to go pay the fee, and the employee behind the counter insisted that he inspect my firearms. Now, I have shot at this store and the sister store in Cassleberry perhaps 20 or thirty times. I have bought perhaps 15 firearms from that store over the last few years. Heck, I bought four firearms there so far this year alone. Not once have I had my firearms ‘inspected’ by an employee.

They have never asked this before, so I wanted to know why things had changed. He told me that they have always had this policy, and proceeded to lecture me about how they can inspect or search anyone who is on their property at any time. I told him that I wasn’t looking for a lecture, I wanted to know what they were checking for. He ignored me. I still don’t know why they were inspecting my guns.

This was rude, and will mean that I will likely never set foot in that store again. Congratulations guys, you just lost thousands of dollars in future sales.

Years ago, before I became a paid fire medic, I was a volunteer, and I made my living in industrial automation. It was a tough life, and layoffs were common, because Florida doesn’t have much industry to automate. One of the places that I worked was a certain theme park that was infested by a huge rat.

We, the employees, had a meeting once with management to discuss the future of the company. We were told that the company’s vision was to have no permanent, full time employees. Replacing the full time workforce would save the company approximately $90 million in benefit costs each year. Later in the meeting, during the question and answer portion, of my coworkers pointed out that he had read an article that the CEO had been paid $270 million in salary, perks, and stock options the year before. He asked if it would be more prudent to let the 30,000 full time employees keep their benefits, pay the CEO $180 million, and the company would still save the same amount each year.

The management team told us that executive compensation was not up for discussion. My coworker pressed on: He asked how one man could be worth three times as much as every other employee combined. After all, he pointed out, if the CEO was on vacation for a week, no one would notice, but if the other 30,000 of us didn’t show up for work for a week, the company would shut down.

He was disciplined for advocating a strike.

I think he had a valid question. The Disney CEO received nearly $53 million in salary and stock options last year. Disney’s 58,000 other employees received $1 billion, meaning that the CEO was paid 3,075 times as much as the average employee. I can see paying a CEO more than the average employee, but how can you justify paying him more than 3,000 average employees COMBINED? You can’t claim it is because he is such a great CEO, not when the company has shown a loss during four of the six years that the he has headed the company.

I think that the occupy movement has a legitimate beef, I just think that government intervention is not the answer.

This is the third part of a three part post. Part one is here. and Part two is here
 
 
When we got to the court, it turned out that the tests on my shotgun did
indeed show that my shotgun had not been fired, nor had any other
weapon that the police had taken that night. There was no evidence of
GSR on my hands. However, the witnesses (teens in the car) all testified
that they had seen me shooting.

Then, the attorneys asked the judge if they could have a recess, and it
was granted. My attorney talked to the others, and then came over to me
and said that the other side had offered to drop the charges against me,
if we agreed to drop our charges against them. We agreed, and so did
they. It all went away.

For weeks after that, gang members would sit outside of my house,
watching us through binoculars. We called the cops daily. I still had no
weapons, as mine had not yet been returned. They had plenty, I guess
bought on the street. One day, my neighbor came over and told me he knew
how to put a stop to the harassment.

He stood in my second floor bedroom, about 10 feet back from the window,
looking back at the gangsters through the scope of his Remington 700.
After a minute or two, the one with the binoculars did a double take,
and they got in their car and left.

The harassment continued, and my wife did not want to stay home alone. We moved a few miles down the road.

Lessons learned:

– I should not have allowed the bat wielding teen to leave AND/OR
– Once I saw a weapon (the SKS) in the teen’s hands in the car, I should
have shot him. Letting either of them leave, taking with them the
evidence to prove me correct, was a mistake.
– When the police arrive, keep quiet until you have an attorney there.
There is not anything you can say that will help you that won’t wait and
help you after the attorney gets there. You can, however, say something
stupid or make a minor mistake that will come back to haunt you later.
– When the cops get there, they will likely take all of your guns, not just the ones they think were involved.
– Lawyer up. Don’t try to handle things yourself. There is an old
saying: “A good lawyer knows the law. A great lawyer knows the judge.” I
was amazed at how my attorney knew everyone, and at how he got things
done that I couldn’t. Well worth the money.
– The altercation took place in 1991. This country has decidedly gotten more
self defense friendly as far as the law and local prosecutors are
concerned. People in the 1980s and 1990s used to get routinely charged
for murder in situations that people now walk free and clear in. In
Florida and maybe other states you are now even protected from civil
lawsuits after cleared in a self-defense shooting. That was unheard of
until recently. Different time and different laws. This is why stand your ground is so important.
– This time period was during the early part of the anti-gun movement’s heyday. Remember that.
– Even CCW laws are better now. This was back in the time when concealed weapons permits were nearly impossible to get. I will freely admit that I was committing a first degree misdemeanor by carrying a weapon without a permit for several years before I was able to get one.
–  Gangs used to be given more freedom to
operate. If a situation like I described happened where I live now, it
would result in an army of LEOs responding, and the gang members would be
dealt with ruthlessly. In the 1980s and 1990s,
I can remember drive-by shootings where 1 or 2 officers would show up
and they wouldn’t even bother looking for the shooters.
– This incident is why I have sympathy for George Zimmerman. I have been where he is now, except my incident was not a political football being used to advance political ambitions and agendas.

Brock Townsend posted this over at Borepatch’s place, and I thought that it applied to what we see in America today. Tell me what you think:

When certain sovereign and independent states form a union with limited
powers for some general purpose, and any one or more of them, in the
progress of time, suffer unjust and oppressive grievances for which
there is no redress but in a withdrawal from the association, is such
withdrawal an insurrection? If so, then of what advantage is a compact
of union to states? Within the Union are oppressions and grievances; the
attempt to go out brings war and subjugation. The ambitious and
aggressive states obtain possession of the central authority which,
having grown strong in the lapse of time, asserts its entire sovereignty
over the states.

Whichever of them denies it and seeks to retire
is declared to be guilty of insurrection, its citizens are stigmatized
as “rebels”, as if they revolted against a master, and a war of
subjugation is begun. If this action is once tolerated, where will it
end? Where is constitutional liberty? What strength is there in bills of
rights-in limitation of power? What new hope for mankind is to be found
in written constitutions, what remedy which did not exist under kings
of emperors? If the doctrines thus announced by the government of the
United States are conceded, then look through either end of the
political telescope, and one sees only an empire, and the once famous
Declaration of Independence trodden in the dust of as a “glittering
generality,” and the compact of the union denounced as a “flaunting
lie”.

Those who submit to such consequence without resistance are
not worthy the liberties and rights to which they were born, and
deserve to be made slaves. Such must be the verdict of mankind.

–Jefferson Davis’ farewell speech to the United States Senate, January 21, 1861