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The Forgotten Communist Traitor
…forgotten, that is, except by people like this guy. And me. But along the way, in reading about this bastard, we see the following:
Leftism in America isn’t really a political commitment, though of course the left takes and supports a recognizable range of political positions. Leftism is, first and foremost, a fashion accessory that indicates a certain type of social status, similar to a Gucci handbag or a Rolex watch. It is a way to define oneself, and proclaim one’s solidarity with a self-conscious elite, and one’s social superiority to a hated group of outsiders. In America, the higher one rises in position, wealth, power, and status, the more leftward one’s political commitments move. This is counterintuitive at first glance, but it is nevertheless true. All their rhetorical arm-pumping about equality, revolution, income-redistribution, and hatred of Wall Street notwithstanding, left- liberals are primarily the representatives of the ruling class in America. They are not an absolutely dominant ruling class, but that is not for want of trying. They very strongly believe that they have the right and duty to govern all the rest of us.
More importantly:
The defense [of Hiss by the Left] is perfectly understandable if we read it as a claim to aristocratic privilege: Hiss is a member of the governing elite; by definition he can do no wrong! This is the same claim made by any mandarin class, whether the Prussian Junkers in Wilhelmine Germany, the landed gentry in Victorian England, the nomenklatura in the Soviet Union, or the upper-level managerial class in American corporate life today. People in such aristocracies sincerely feel that they have an inherent right to rule, and cannot be brought to book; they are a protected class immune from prosecution.
What happened in the Alger Hiss case was really important per se. But what it reveals about the Left — then and now — is more important still. Read the whole thing. (It’s quite long, but if you read nothing else today…)
Marxist Economics
From POTUS-wannabe Pocahantas comes this policy proposal:
Democrat presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren wants to use federal excise taxes to reduce gun and ammunition sales.
Her gun control, made public in August on Medium, shows Warren believes the current ten percent excise tax on firearms is too low. She wants to raise that tax to 30 percent while increasing the tax on ammunition to 50 percent.
Because excise taxes are paid directly by the consumer–the taxes are added to the price of the goods–this means a $500 gun would immediately cost $515 and the price for a $20 box of ammo would immediately rise to $30.
Warren claims this taxation policy would “bring in new federal revenue” that can used for “gun violence prevention.” And she simultaneously suggests the tax would raise the price on guns and ammo to a level sufficient to stifle sales.
So using her “economics” it would go something like this:
- Currently, 1,000 rounds of 7.62x39mm (eeevil AK ammo) @ $300* yields $33 (@11%) in excise tax revenue
So therefore Madame Marxist suggests that with her plan:
- 1,000 rounds of eeevil AK ammo @ $300 would yield $150 (@50%) in excise tax revenue… whoopieeeeee a net gain of $127
stolentaxed by the gummint.
Except of course that in the real world, AK ammo sales would fall to 100 rounds and yield only $15 in excise taxes (a 50% loss in revenue). “Yay yay yay, but ammo sales have fallen!” she would pronounce. But why would sales fall so precipitously, she asks? Because of the higher tax?
Because, you Commie coksucquer, during the months before you could enact this poxy tax increase, we AK owners would buy countless millions of rounds of ammo, so that we’d have enough stored for the lean years — just like we did before the term of that other socialist asshole Barack Obama — and resume buying once an actual American became president again.
Ditto all those eeevil AR-15s and AK-47s you hate so much: we’d buy so many before you could touch them, the gun factories would have to institute 365-day / 24-hour shifts just to cope with the demand.
I swear, I’m a huge fan of the First Amendment and I like to hear politicians spell out their proposed policies; but I would also propose that anyone using idiotic economics theory (like the above) to create policy should be forced to wear a dunce cap and be beaten with wet spaghetti — just because of their naked stupidity.
And this phony bitch wants to run things?
* (example) Wolf Performance (WPA) is $304 / 1,000 at Cheaper Than Dirt at time of writing.
Mail, I Get Mail
Every so often my Brit buddies send me mail that gets me going. From Mr. Free Market:
“Sitting in the BA First Class lounge this afternoon. Guess I’m going to make Greta cry again…”
And from The Englishman:
“I think the menu for a Defender launch event says all I need to know about the target customer…”
(From Kim: No Full English Brekkie, nary a steak pie or sausage roll, and forget about a good bacon butty*. My earlier post about this silly vehicle is quite appropriate, I think. And WTF is a “frittata”?)
From Reader PaulG, who isn’t a Brit but could be:
And so say all of us.
Then Mr. FM gets serious:
The addendum to your post [yesterday] on 6.5mm should be along the lines of this:
6.5 Creed is ballistically better than the Swede but in the real world, not enough.
More critically it fails the “where do I get ammo?” test. Sure sure in the US you have aisles dedicated to Creedmore: not so in the rest of the world.
The first time I went to Africa there were 3 chaps from Texas there. They’d become detached from their ammo — but the real problem was they were all shooting some sort of WSSM & we were in a Safari camp!!!
If the Swede isn’t enough for you, shoot 270. Your PH or stalker will have a box of it in the glove box.
True dat.
* “bacon butty” (for my Murkin Readers):
New Kid On The Block
Doc Russia astounded me the other night by telling me that next year (2020) he’s not going to use his custom Remington 700 in .300 Win Mag to cull Scottish deer with Mr. Free Market. Instead, he’s downloading to (another) custom Rem 700 in 6.5 Creedmoor.
Okay, as any fule kno, I am hugely skeptical of new cartridges simply because, as some smart guy put it:
“Typically, this is how we get new cartridges. A gunmaker approaches an ammo producer—which is sometimes part of the same parent company—and says, hey, we want to introduce a new round, and if you make it, we’ll produce several thousand rifles to support it. They then hype the hell out of it, cross their fingers, and hope shooters are drawn to it like raccoons to hot garbage.”
And after a couple years of frenzied excitement, the cartridge disappears as though it never existed, leaving gun owners with a rifle that’s as useful as tits on a boar hog.
However, this 6.5 Creedmoor seems to be the business, not only because it’s a good hunting rifle, but it’s also winning competitions for accuracy — delivering about the same impact as a .300 Win Mag (!) but with considerably less recoil. No wonder Doc is interested.
So with that said, read all about it.
As intriguing as it sounds, however, I’m unlikely to follow the trend (and not for the first time) because I’ve long known about the beauty of a 6.5mm bullet, in its incarnation as the 6.5x55mm Swedish cartridge, developed in the nineteenth century. Granted, the 6.5 Creedmoor hits harder than the Swede, but I’m reminded of the trenchant response from a guy who had been shooting .270 Win his whole life when told how much better was the .270 Win Short Magnum cartridge that came on the scene: “So what?”
Put me in his camp. However, I can’t wait to see what happens when Doc hits the Angus Glens with his new death-dealer…
Why Bother?
As Longtime Readers may remember, I was involved for many years with the “customer loyalty” business — specifically in the supermarket arena, but tangentially in a couple other industries — so I kinda know what I’m talking about when it comes to this stuff. (As an aside: if you use a Kroger Rewards card when you shop there, I’m at least partially responsible; sorry.)
Back when I lived in Chicago, I used to fly in and out of O’Hare Airport about 50-60 times a year, and was a member of both the American AAdvantage and United Mileage Plus programs.
Once I even spoke to the head of one of their programs, complaining that my friend used to fly internationally once a quarter and accrued thereby a massive number of miles, whereas I flew rather fewer miles and couldn’t get to his level of “SuperDuperPlusGoodPlatinum” level in their program. This, despite the fact that he was making four purchase decisions a year to fly with them, while I was making that many purchase decisions every month. But my flights were Chicago-Kansas City, Chicago-Minneapolis, Chicago-Des Moines and so on, while my friend’s were Chicago-Singapore, and I felt that I was being short-changed for my loyalty. Rather to my surprise, the program director agreed with my logic, and although this had probably been planned anyway, about six months later the policy was changed to factor in the number of flights (“segments”) as part of the loyalty determinant. Only then — and far too late — did my “status” improve.
In the rather interesting George Clooney movie Up In The Air, much is made of his goal to reach ten million air miles (with American, as it turns out), and the status that this conferred on him. There’s no doubt that this gave him something desirable (as far as he was concerned, anyway), but it’s interesting to note that had the movie been made today, those ten million miles would have made him rather less valuable a customer.
A new era of airline loyalty programs has arrived. United Airlines announced this week that the criteria for elite qualification in its MileagePlus loyalty program would change dramatically next year. Starting in January of 2020, United’s loyalty members will earn elite status based on Premier Qualifying Flights and Premier Qualifying Segments only. Flight miles, the traditional metric by which frequent flyers used to earn status, are no longer going to be considered.
It wasn’t too long ago that frequent flyers on American, Delta, and United earned elite status based solely on how far they fly. If a passenger flew 100,000 miles or 100 segments on any of the carriers, for example, top-tier (published) status was awarded, yielding perks such as upgrades, free checked bags, and free seat assignments.
In 2013, however, that formula changed when Delta introduced qualifying dollars to its equation for calculating for elite status. From that point forward, frequent flyers needed to earn a baseline number of miles or segments and also spend a companion amount of cash — up to $15,000 for the top published tier — to earn the same status as before. American and United quickly followed suit.
I should point out that for Oz’s Qantas Airlines, this has always been their policy because all their flights are long-haul, so it made sense to reward spending rather than just miles.
That’s not true for our local Murkin companies, of course, but it’s unsurprising that United (motto: “We’re the Friendly Skies, until we have to break your nose“) and American (motto: “We cancel flights, just for spite”) would make this change, because they’re a bunch of bastards. (I can’t speak for Delta as I’ve only flown with them a few times.)
As I’ve said many times before, I know that to the airlines I’m just self-propelled cargo, but I don’t want to be treated that way. So they’re making flying even less attractive for people — and screwing up their programs in the process.
Needless to say, the Usual Suspects (i.e Gummint) are horning in on the action:
Air miles reward schemes should be banned because they ‘stimulate demand’ for excessive flying, according to a report commissioned by the Government’s climate change advisers.
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC*) commissioned report says that frequent flyers should also be hit by an ‘escalating air miles levy’ to put them off flying too much, but measures should not raise prices for people taking an annual holiday.
There [are] approximately 220 frequent flyer clubs with an estimated total membership of 200 million across the world, many of whom take additional flights to ‘maintain their privileged traveller status’.
The new suggestions are aimed at reducing air travel for the 15 per cent of the UK population estimated to be responsible for 70 per cent of all flights.
The latter would be people like Mr. Free Market, who don’t have any choice but to fly as their business is 90% international. And gawd forbid people should actually be productive and, you know, earn salaries for themselves and profits for their companies — I think Marx had some ugly things to say about that — when they’re polluting the atmosphere and stuff.
I have an idea for improving our planet’s well-being, but as it involves rounding up all the the eco-loons and climate freaks and converting their bodies into fertilizer, no doubt someone’s going to have a problem with this.
I don’t know why they’re trying to kill off frequent flier programs, when the airlines are perfectly capable of doing it all by themselves. But that’s Big Gummint for ya.
*Actually, that’s not what “CCC” stands for; it’s “Climate Change Cunts”, i.e. all of them.