Insufferable

As I’ve often warned:  because our governing elites are in thrall to things that Europeans do — just off the top of my head, socialism, government-run medical systems, Corona cops and Scandinavian-level tax rates — what happens Over There often repeats itself Over Here.

Hence my bile directed at this latest little bit of Nannyism from Britishland:

Supermarket promotions of unhealthy food will be curbed as part of the Government’s war on obesity.
‘Buy one get one free’ deals on fizzy drinks, crisps and fatty foods will be banned in medium and large stores, as well as on websites, from April 2022.
And free refills of sugary soft drinks will be prohibited in restaurants and fast food outlets.

I know that we’ve seen examples of this before — once again off the top of my head, Malignant Dwarf  I mean  Mayor “Mike” Bloomberg’s ban on Big Gulps in NYFC a few years ago — but make no mistake, there is no part of your life that Bug Gummint isn’t interested in sticking its fat, snot-dripping wart-infested nose into.


By the way, I was in the restaurant business many years ago, and the “no free refills” is easily bypassed by asking customers if they think they’ll need refills, then adding a 1-cent surcharge onto the bill, making refills no longer “free”.  The cost of trying to police such practices makes the game not worth the candle, even for Gummint.

And as a one-time supermarket guy, let me assure you that any restriction on BOGO offers (or BOGOF, as they call it elsewhere) is just as easily circumvented in the scanning system — and that’s impossible for Gummint to monitor.

Insufferable, Pt. II

More Big Gummint bullshit, this time from Ozland:

Partygoers heading out to celebrate New Year’s Eve in two of Australia’s most populous states have been told by government officials what’s good for them, being warned against any random acts of affection due to the risks posed by the coronavirus.
In the southern state of Victoria, the government wants no displays of physical contact such as kissing despite the state going 59 consecutive days with no locally acquired coronavirus cases.
The state government has issued guidance for people not to kiss anyone outside their immediate family, to prevent celebrations becoming a super spreading event.
Victorians are also being advised to take hand sanitizer to parties on the night and use it liberally on anyone they come in contact with.

So, you wayward Aussies, your government is telling you there’ll be none of this:

…or this:

…or gawd forbid, this:

…just plenty of this:

No wonder people are becoming home-drunks.

Priorities

No wonder people hate prosecutors, the Justice Department and lawyers in general.  From The Treehouse:   

but:

Fucking hell… why not just bring charges against Cain for whacking his brother, while we’re there?

Oh wait, I know:  “That happened outside our jurisdiction.”

And you thought it was fiction… no wonder we don’t believe in our “nation of laws” anymore.  Fucking clowns.

Textbook Steps

Let’s open with a little received wisdom:

“There’s no way to rule innocent men.  The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.  Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them.  One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

That first sentence says it all.  As long as you keep on the right side of the law, you have nothing to fear from authority.

Now’s when it gets tricky, because politicians cannot resist making laws, and as the number of laws grows, so does the chance that you will fall afoul of one of them, no matter how hard you try.  As one FBI agent once put it:  “This is America.  Nobody can go a day without breaking some law or other.”  And that was said in 1998.  The fact that this could be said with pride — or resignation — makes me want to reach for the tar and feathers, but that’s only my reaction to the first step.  There are more.

The next step is to make transgressors into “Enemies Of The People” or (in the case of the Chinkvirus) a “Menace To Society”.  In sociological terms, this is called “scapegoating” or in extreme cases, demonization.  We’ve seen this in the past, of course, such as when the disgusting Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) publishes their various “hate lists” which set out to demonize as “hate groups” first the easy targets such as the KKK, and eventually the most innocuous organizations (e.g. campus-based Republican organizations).  From that. it’s easy to apply the perjorative term du jour  (“racist”, “Nazi”, “fascist” etc.) to whomever doesn’t agree with your position on anything.

Beyond labeling, of course, lies social shaming, “doxxing”, and the “cancel culture.”  After that, the force of law.  (We already have such laws on the books;  murdering someone in cold blood:  bad.  Murdering someone and calling them a dirty nigger at the same time:  somehow worse.)  At some point, it will become an actual crime to say the word niggerniggernigger anywhere, even inside your own home, First Amendment be damned.  And why not? seeing as racism has become punishable by law, any number of asterisks can be attached to the freedom of speech, of course.

“But the Supreme Court will intervene!”  Don’t make me laugh.  As an entity, the fucking Supreme Court has shown itself to be as useful as a paper-towel birdscreen on an airliner’s jet engine when it comes to protecting our rights.

Which leads us to the next Amendment, of course.

Now the Second has some issues for our wannabe-tyrants, of course, because gun owners are, well, armed (always a decent albeit drastic check on government excess).  And disarmament is likely to prove difficult if not impossible, simply because even if only 1% of gun owners turn violent, that’s still a greater number than the number of law enforcement officers who would be tasked with doing the job.

There is another way to disarm gun owners, and it’s quite legal:  pass a law or regulation that requires gun owners to pay a tax on some or all of their firearms, and when they refuse… ta-dah!  Not only can the government use the I.R.S. to harass and prosecute, but because the refuseniks are de facto  lawbreakers (refusal to pay federal taxes is a federal crime), they can be prohibited from owning firearms altogether once convicted of said crime.  (Remember, trying to win a case against the I.R.S. in their own court system is 99.99% impossible, as to win, all they have to do is show that they acted properly in terms of their own regulations.)

Which is why the Socialists’ plan to tax “assault rifles” is such a pernicious act.  If it ever becomes law (or a regulation under an Executive Order), we gun owners are fucked, pure and simple.

We can expect no help from the judiciary, as I noted above.  We can likewise expect no help from local law enforcement refusing to enforce these un-Constitutional acts either, because the Biden Administration will just deploy federal agents (I.R.S., FBI, Fish & Wildlife, Postal inspectors — anyone they can bring to bear) and bypass your friendly sheriff’s deputies altogether.

And don’t think that there will be some kind of passive resistance from local law enforcement, either.  If little Ector County in Texas (!!!) can deploy Meal Team Six just to shut down a fucking bar which stayed open defying a stupid Chinkvirus lockdown order passed by some local asshole mayor, believe me, you’re not going to be safe in your little suburban or rural bunker no matter how angry you are and how many rounds of 5.56mm ammo you have on hand.

I’m not often a doomsayer, but this is one of those occasions.

I’m also not given to issuing threats or warnings, so don’t expect some kind of challenge to come from me either.  Let’s just see what happens, shall we?

And?

Sometimes, I just wanna shoot people.  Here’s one reason:

The world’s wealthiest 1% account for more than twice the carbon emissions of the poorest 50%, a new UN report has found.

And what, exactly, are we supposed to do with that information?

FFS:  The world’s wealthiest 1% also account for about 75% of new job creation, about 99% of the world’s yachtbuilding industry, all the top end car / watch / jewelry / etc. business.  They drive cars, fly around the world (on business, mainly — business which helps sustain the poor and gives them jobs), and as a result of their industry, the world is a far better place than it was in the Middle Ages, for instance.

I know:  the hidden meaning behind this “study” is that we should take away their wealth so they can’t emit carbon or whatever.

I would also like to point out that the poorest 50% of the world’s population account for about 90% of all terrestrial and maritime pollution (i.e. garbage) and if you don’t believe me, take a trip anywhere in the Third World:  look at the garbage carried out to sea at the river mouths of the Ganges, Congo, Yangtze and Amazon — to name but some — and drive for any distance outside the major cities to see how the Pore & Starvin just fucking trash the place.

The sooner we defund or otherwise destroy the United Nations, the better off we’ll all be.  Ask me which is my preference.

Total Bullshit

Not 25 miles south of where I’m sitting, this nonsense happened:

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is sending state police resources to the City of Dallas in response to a spike in violent crime. The governor responded to a request for assistance from the Dallas Police Department after city leaders cut the police overtime budget by $7 million.

So the “city leaders” cut the police budget and then discovered that the resulting resources were inadequate for the task (Bullshit Item #1, like they couldn’t have seen that coming), and then (Bullshit Item #2) the TexGov bails them out of their stupidity instead of letting them stew in the soup of their own making?

I should point out, by the way, that like Houston, Austin and San Antonio, the “city leaders” of Dallas are irredeemably Democrat, ergo  in thrall to the BLM pustule that has infected big cities anywhere.

Abbott should have told them to go pound sand, and sent in the Texas State Guard when the thing got really nasty.