Monstrosities

…and I’m not just talking about the Modernist buildings, either.  My own loathing of this architectural form is, I think, well documented (here, here).

What Theodore Dalrymple talks about is how awful the first actual Modernist architects were:  Gropius, Van Der Rohe and of course, the execrable Le Corbusier (to name but three) were all either pure totalitarians (Le Corbusier) or Nazi sympathizers and supporters.  But we all knew that.

What Dalrymple explains further is how this “school” of architectural thought has turned into the leitmotif  of all modern architectural teaching (just as Marxism has infected the liberal arts disciplines):

[He] knows that he is arguing not against an aesthetic, but against an ironclad ideology. The architectural Leninists have been determined so to indoctrinate the public that they hope and expect a generation will grow up knowing nothing but modernism, and therefore will be unable to judge it. (All judgment is comparative, as Doctor Johnson said.) In Paris recently, I saw an advertisement on the Métro (a few days before the fire in Notre-Dame) to the effect that Paris would not be Paris without the Centre Pompidou—which, of course, has a good claim to be the ugliest building in the world. In the face of such an advertisement promoted by the cultural elite, what ordinary person would dare demur?

That description of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, by the way, is not egregious:

…and that’s the “pretty” side. Here’s the hideous one:

I am also heartened by Dalrymple’s characterization of the horrible Tour Montparnasse  as “said to be the most hated building in Paris” (and with good reason):

Never a jihadi-piloted airliner when you need one…

Read the Dalrymple piece for the full horror.

1911 Criteria

Following yesterday’s post, I knew that people were going to ask me for my criteria in buying a new 1911 (and they did — I got a dozen emails just last night).  Just to remind everyone, here’s my (much-modified) Springfield Mil-Spec (G.I.) model:

My new 1911 will have to look close to this one, except I’d like Novak sights or similar.

To recap then, here are my purchase criteria:

  • between $650* and $900 retail
  • bobbed hammer (no more Colt “hammer-bites” for Kimmy)
  • no serrations on the front of the slide  (chews up my holster, and I don’t need them anyway)
  • no serrations on the front of the grip (chews up my hand in an extended range session)
  • smooth (not that extruded crap) beavertail grip safety (ditto)
  • decent-sized ejection port
  • 5″ barrel
  • fixed Novak-style rear sight
  • I’m pretty agnostic about frame color (blued or stainless steel will work for me, although blue has a 51% chance, all things being equal)

*sorry, but I work my 1911s to death, and I’m unconvinced that Taurus, Iver Johnson, Metro, Rock Island et al. are up to the task.  At some point down the cost curve, too many sacrifices in materials and quality have to be made — and I think that nowadays, $600 represents that point.

So these 5″ models are priced right, but fail on features:

Kimber Custom Two-tone

Remington R1 Stainless (I can live with the small rear sight)

Here’s one (Ruger SR1911) which comes thisclose, but fails because of a single feature

See what I mean?  [sigh] I guess I’ll end up with the Ruger SR1911, but have a gunsmith replace the grip safety with a traditional “flat” one.  And those stupid grips on the blued model will go bye-bye as well.

Watch this space.

What Price History?

From Reader Ranger:

When to restore an old gun versus keeping it with honest wear? For example:  I have several old firearms.

1.) Old heavily worn SMLE, lots of interesting carving on the furniture, but the barrel might as well be a smooth bore. If i remove anymore rust, then fire the rifle I’ll start seeing daylight thought the side of the barrel. Originally I bought this for a song to convert to a modern De Lisle through one of those kits Rhineland Arms sells, by the time I got around to buying the kit (also putting the money together) Rhineland Arms stopped selling the conversion kit.

2.) A between-the-wars commercial 1911A1, which I picked up for a song. It looks like the previous owner had taken a belt sander to it. The rampant Colt is half gone and the serial number is barely visible. Before I dare fire it, I would replace the barrel, grips (broken), and replace all the springs, at a minimum. Of course since I like to shoot, I probably would get a gunsmith to lower and flare the ejection port, fit modern sights, and put some finish on the exterior. This would probably remove the faded Colt, etc. In other words, I’d probably spend the equivalent of buying a new Springfield 1911A1 to turn old steel into new. At the same time, I would be destroying another little piece of history.

The SMLE is easy:  turn it into a “mantlepiece gun” — put it up on the wall somewhere as a decoration, and give the old war weapon a dignified retirement.  There’s no point in “fixing” it, because the history is too important — why lose that piece of history when you could take the same money and get a new gun for about the same price?

As for the 1911,  I say the opposite:  go for it, and fix it up;  turn it into a shooter.  Frankly, from the sound of it, the gun has been all but destroyed, and as such it has little real intrinsic value, especially as it wasn’t a service piece.  By all means replace all the innards (don’t forget the firing pin) and get it running.  Oh, and you may want to talk to a gunsmith about the serial number:  for some reason, the fuzz don’t take too kindly to an anonymous gun, and it may be necessary to redo the stamping (along with a certified notification for future use).  Also check for frame cracks, because from all accounts the poor old thing has been horribly abused.

It’s an interesting conundrum, isn’t it?  And thanks for the letter.

Interesting Thought

During one of those interminable Brexit / Remainer arguments in Britishland, one of the ripostes from a young Brexiteer was this priceless gem:

“The 17 million who voted for Brexit aren’t all angry, racist, 50+ year-old men.”

Which led me to a tangential question:  what if the 17 million who voted for Brexit were all angry, racist, 50+ year-old men?

In the broader sense of the thing, what happens when an “undesirable” group of people become the majority of the voting population?

Actually, we all know what happens, because we’ve seen it since late 2016.  What happens is that the once-entrenched “elites” — especially if said elites are on the Left side of the political spectrum — will try to overturn the election results.

In Europe (and more recently in post-Brexit U.K.) the Left resorts to re-running the elections until they get the result they wanted in the first place.  Hence the endless delays and negotiations involved in the Brexit debate, with all the obfuscations about “tax union”, “backstop” and all the other smokescreen terms used essentially to slow and eventually stop the process.

In the United States, the Left over the years has resorted to all sorts of underhand and illegal methods to get their desired result, such as trying to overturn the winner’s election through multiple recounts (Bush/Gore 2000 et al.), trying to get states’ electors to vote against the wishes of their voters (Trump/Clinton 2016), trying to undermine the winner’s election by asserting foreign collusion (Trump/Clinton 2016 again), or trying to pad the electoral rolls with illegal voters (every election in living memory).

All the above are a consequence of a group of people labeled by the Left as “undesirables” (clingers, flyover country voters, deplorables, angry old White men etc.) growing in number until they achieve an electoral majority.

What’s interesting in Britain is the emergence of a single-issue political party (the Brexit Party) which is draining voters away from both the Conservative and Labour parties and which will basically serve to enforce once and for all the desire of a majority of British voters to leave the European Union.  I am reliably informed that even a large number of people who originally voted to remain in the EU have become disgusted with the EU’s arrogance and bullying of Britain’s hapless PM Theresa May, and will change their vote in favor of Brexit if the Remainers manage to arrange another referendum on the topic.

That hasn’t happened Over Here.  There has been no hint of a third (TRUMP!) party to force the political establishment to follow the MAGA principles and policies.  Instead, the Socialist Democrats of the Left have wrenched the once-dominant Democrat party into the loony extreme-Left sliver of the political spectrum, and their lunacy has managed to drive not only moderate Democrats but also a large number of one-time Never-Trumpers (excepting some egregious hardliners) to coalesce into support behind the President and his policies — aided greatly, it should be said, by the massive surge of economic growth and the concomitant reduction of unemployment since Trump’s inauguration.  When one-time Leftist hardliners like Nancy Pelosi are now seen as the “voice of reason” in Congress, you have to realize that despite all the Left’s insult and invective, the country seems to have resolved itself not into three camps like the U.K., but into a near-supermajority of moderates and conservatives drawn from all socio-economic classes on one side, and a segment of extremist Marxists in a small (and still-shrinking) minority out on the other.  (This, by the way, is why the Democrat party — what’s left of it — is grasping so firmly at the amiable but forever unelectable Joe Biden as their “centrist” white knight, despite his eternal and unshakable catastrophic awfulness as a presidential candidate.)

None of this bodes well for the Left, by the way, especially as Trump — as he promised back in 2015/2016 — is populating the courts with Constitutionally-sound judges, a policy which will deny the Left their favorite method of undermining the popular will and even laws by a sympathetic judiciary.  (Had Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts not somehow transformed himself into an Anthony Kennedy “moderate”, the effect would have been greater still.)  When even the loony and oft-overturned Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is driven to support the President’s policies on topics such as immigration, you know the writing is on the wall.

Of course, none of this is written in concrete.  British voters may decide to split their votes between Brexit and Labour — thus dooming the Conservative Party to irrelevance (a fate, it should be said, that is richly deserved) — which may even bring that foul and unrepentant Communist Jeremy Corbyn to power at the head of a Labour government.  (The wealthier Brits can see that possibility all too clearly, by the way, and are making the necessary SHTF preparations.  Always follow the money.)

On this side of The Pond, things are equally uncertain.  Moderate (traditional) Democrats may refuse to vote rather than vote for Trump in 2020, and the traditional Black- and Hispanic voter blocs may yet vote for the “interest-group” party (Democrat) instead of voting for the man whose economic policies have allowed them to climb out of poverty in greater numbers than ever before.  (I know, it makes no sense to me either, but such is life.)  And just as most Brits are quailing at the thought of Prime Minister Corbyn, most Americans should be afraid of a President [deep breath]  Biden / Harris / Booker / Buttigieg / Warren / [add your favorite Dwarf’s name here].  We should also, as a nation, be afraid of the reelection  of House Reps Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Omar — to name but the three most egregious socialists — but with metro New York, urban Michigan and suburban Minneapolis / St. Paul, there’s no telling.

In Britain, there used to be a political party known as the Raving Loony Party (headed by the wonderful Screaming Lord Sutch) and in Canada there likewise used to be the Rhino Party (whose party manifesto stated that if elected to power, they would immediately resign and call for new elections).  Both parties gave voters a chance to vote for “none of the above” by virtue of their absurdity.  How interesting that the modern-day Democrats are trying to create such a party in the United States — but unlike the Raving Loonies and Rhinos, they  are actually deadly serious about putting their own policies into practice.

Over at samizdata.net, Andrew Douglas had this to say in Comments about the post referendum polity in the U.K.:

The only things we certainly know more about since the referendum are that neither the Conservative or Labour parties are to be trusted, the top echelons of the civil service are staffed by quislings and traitors, and the EU is an even less desirable place to remain than it was in 2016.

Substitute “Election 2016” for referendum, Republicans and Democrats for their respective British counterparts, leave the “civil service” part alone, and you have pretty much my opinion of our own polity.

Gun Story

From Reader Dave L.:

Should you run out of stuff for your blog (highly doubtful) here’s nice piece of gun porn. It’s a Uberti Cattleman in .357.  I really like the case hardened frame against the blued cylinder and barrel  (me too — K).

I bought this some years back when the gov did an “economic stimulus” of $400 for veterans.  I decided that the best thing I could do with the check was to piss off Nancy Pelosi and buy a gun so I took a ride up to H&H in Oklahoma City.  I may have paid a bit too much but I fell in love with the look and just had to add it to my collection.
I went with .357 because I have several revolvers and one long gun (Rossi 92) in that caliber.  I have .38 and .357 reloading dies and about 3500 rounds in stock.  The pistol rides in a nice holster that I bought down in Mexico back when it was safe to cross the border.
If our idiot governor had signed off on Constitutional Carry, this was going to be my BBQ gun.  It shoots pretty straight and with a stout hollow point .357 load I don’t think that I’m going to need more than six anyway.

“Hi, my name is Dave, and I’m addicted to pretty guns.”

Everybody say after me…

When “New” Means “Expensive”

I’ve been thinking recently about supplementing the old Springfield 1911 with another one sometime.  So I’ve been idly browsing the usual places, looking for a new 1911, with only a few specific must-haves.  Mostly, it looks as though I’m going to have to spend around $800-$900 to get what I need.  I’m not ultra-fussy because to me, a 1911 is like a hammer:  you pick it up, it works, and I don’t need much in the way of add-ons.

Over at Shooting Times there’s an article talking about the new 1911s on the market, so I went there with all sorts of anticipation.  Here’s one they listed:

Now before you explode, go to the article and read the comments.

Me, I need a drink.