Radioactive Communist Zombies

The Bullying of Free Speech

Hat Tip: Instapundit

You know, the left wants to silence dissent.  They use speech codes on college campuses and they accuse anyone who disagrees with them of racism, homophobia, hating women (misogyny), and now bullying. Yes, now having a politically incorrect opinion is now "bullying."  As OpenMarkets.org reports:

A school superintendant has labeled a column in a school newspaper that criticized homosexuality as “bullying.” (The Shawano High School newspaper decided to run dueling student opinion pieces on whether same-sex couples should be able to adopt children; the student article that was labeled as “bullying” answered the question “no.” The school district also publicly apologized for the column, and said that it is “taking steps to prevent items of this nature from happening in the future.”)

Yes, mustn't make gays feel bad. Which probably means it's open season on white, heterosexual Christian males.

The definition of what constitutes bullying is so broad, that even criticizing the President (as I have been known to do) could be labeled "cyberbullying."

But schools and anti-bullying activists have adopted incredibly overbroad definitions of bullying. The anti-bullying website NoBully.com, and schools like Fox Hill and Alvarado Elementary, define even “eye rolling” and other expressions of displeasure or hostility as bullying, even though doing so raises First Amendment problems.

And

Since “creating web sites” that “make fun of others” also is deemed “cyberbullying,” conservative websites that poke fun at the president are presumably guilty of cyberbullying under this strange definition. (Law professors such as UCLA’s Eugene Volokh have criticized bills by liberal lawmakers like Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) that would ban some criticism of politicians as cyberbullying.)

The left always wants to shut up those who don't agree with them.  Labeling speech as "hate" or "bullying" is just another attempt to shut up the right.  There are lots of people who think homosexuality is morally wrong (I'm not one of them).  But expressing that opinion should be protected under the 1st Amendment, whether we agree or not.  People call the Tea Party racist all the time yet somehow that's not bullying, I guess.  Bullying is only to control the speech of those who disagree with liberals.

Unlawful Self-Defense in U.S.

I've written about how in Britain there is no right to self defense and they will put you on trial if you try to defend yourself or your property (see here and here).  Apparently that is also true in at least one U.S. state and wouldn't you know, it's one of the bluest states: Massachusetts (you know, where Romney was governor).  Michael Graham writing for the Boston Herald reports:

[Anthony] McKay is the young father who, seeing a local druggie breaking into his truck and stealing the tools he uses to pay the bills, confronted him, subdued him and held him for the police. When the police arrived, they found the bad guy had a knife, a billy club and — thanks to the unarmed McKay — a broken jaw.

Instead of thanking McKay for helping get an armed criminal off the streets, Swampscott officials charged him with a felony. As a Swampscott police spokesman said at the time, “We don’t urge anybody to fight back. We want them to call us.”

Thanks to media pressure, the charges were later dropped.  But according to Graham, McKay was lucky because not everyone becomes a media darling and has their charges eliminated.  So what are you allowed to do in the Bay State to protect yourself and your property?

[Lawyer] Wendy Murphy told me, “The standard in Massachusetts is you cannot defend yourself unless you’re going to die.”

And another lawyer:

Joe Flaherty told me, “You have the right to confront them and stop them  . . . but you don’t have the right to use force.” When I asked what I could do under Massachusetts law, he said, “You could scream and yell at them.”

"What are we supposed to use, harsh language?" as someone once asked.

Massachusetts also has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.  So they take away your rights and your ability to defend yourself and your property.  This is stupid and give criminals more rights than citizens.

Luckily this is just one bad state.  Most of the U.S. has much saner laws.  But if you live in Taxachusettes, you might want to invest in good insurance because apparently you are only allowed to call the police and watch the crooks steal your property.

The Dead Vote in New Hampshire

No, I'm not talking about the awful '60s hippie band.  I'm not talking about zombies.  I'm talking about voters who are dead and still voting in New Hampshire.  And you thought this kind of thing only happened in Chicago!

The left is trying to spin the need for ID to vote as a new Jim Crow. It's not.  It's needed to protect the integrity of our voting system.  And now we have proof that at least in the New Hampshire primary, the dead were able to vote.  Or more accurately, someone alive voted for them.  Poll workers were handing out ballots in the name of dead people and not requiring ID:

Voters in the Granite State are not required to present identification to vote. O’Keefe’s investigators were able to obtain ballots under the names of dead voters at polling locations Tuesday by simply asking for them, he said.
 
“Live free or die,” an election worker told one of the investigators in the video. “This is New Hampshire. No ID needed.”

Live free or vote when dead, is more like it. So now we know where all those Ron Paul voters came from (kidding!).  It's bad enough independents and Democrats were voting in a Republican primary but now the dead were, too!

Despite what the left and MSM wants you to believe, voter fraud is a huge problem in this country.  And the Democrats are going to pull out all the stops this year to get Obama re-elected.  Just wait.

Requiring a voter to prove who they are with an ID is a sound, simply, non-discriminatory way to eliminate a lot of voter fraud.  Which is why Democrats don't like it.

London Residents Kill Boy for Witchcraft

There are so many angles to this outrageous story: ignorance, education, science, and multiculturalism. Where to start?  I guess with the facts.  A man and his "partner" allegedly killed the partner's teen-aged brother, torturing him to death, and forcing other members of the family to participate because they thought he was a witch.  And this happened, apparently in London, England.  According to ABC News:

Relatives who suspected a British teenager of practicing witchcraft beat and drowned him Christmas Day 2010 as he "begged to die" because of the pain they were inflicting, prosecutors alleged in a London court.

Kristy Bamu, a 15-year-old boy from Newham, east London, allegedly died at the hands of Eric Bikubi and his partner, Magalie Bamu, Kristy's sister. Both of them have denied the charges.

Bikubi and Bamu allegedly forced Kristy's four siblings to join in the attack.

The alleged attackers hit the teen with sticks, metal bars, a hammer and chisel, prosecutors said, and he "begged to die" because of the pain from the beating.

You occasionally read about this kind of thing happening in some poor, isolated outback country in Africa.  But not in a modern, Western city such as London.

Kristy and his siblings had arrived in London from Paris to see the East London couple for Christmas. But Kelly, Kristy's elder sister, said the trip turned sour when Eric Bikubi accused her and Kristy of practicing witchcraft and sorcery. Eric Bikubi also accused them of influencing his 3-year-old son.

So why is Bikuni so ignorant as to believe in witchcraft?  Maybe because he comes from a poor, isolated country in Africa (I'm speculating).  Or he may have been born and raised in London but his parents didn't assimilate and clung to their ignorant tribal ways.  This is the problem (one of many) of multiculturalism.  People move from hell-hole countries to the West and yet want to keep the same culture and beliefs that made that country a hell-hole.

Now us in the West stopped killing witches about 300 years ago and I really don't know what percentage of people in the West still believe in witchcraft, either from the "it's evil" side or the "I'm a Wiccan, not a witch" side.  In either case, an education in science would probably dispel that belief.

Why was Bikuni even in London if he's so ignorant?  I can't imagine he spent 16 or so years in British schools and came out so ignorant unless British schools are worse than American schools.  And if it's an immigrant, why was he allowed in the country with such stupid beliefs?  Oh, yeah, diversity, multiculturalism, etc.

If he's guilty I hope he gets the harshest punishment Britain allows (which seems to be 20 years or so in prison even if it's called a "life" term).

But we also have to look at those who tell us diversity and multiculturalism are such wonderful things.  And then lay at the doorstep every honor killing or death of someone who is accused of being a witch in freaking London or America. 

Gun Rights Save Another Life (or Two)

I don't know why more politicians and jurisdictions don't do this simple thing to save lives: give their citizens full 2nd Amendment rights.

Story that's gone viral on the interwebs today about an 18-year-old widow (!) with a three-month-old baby protecting herself from an intruder armed with a knife.  She used her shotgun to kill the man after he broke down her door.

Luckily, she was in Oklahoma, which has gun rights for its citizens.  If she were in Illinois or Massachusetts she might be dead today, leaving her son an orphan.

We'll never know how many people are killed by gun control.  Nor can we know how mnay are save through gun rights (not all stories hit the news).  It's estimated there's something like 2.5 million gun self-defense acts per year.  If just one percent of them saves a life, that 25,000 lives per year.

We can only hope politicians and jurisdictions come to their scences and allow this bacis right to be exercised by all Americans not matter where they live.  Your free speech righs are not changed by crossing state lines, why should your 2nd Amendment rights be?

New York Times Shoots Itself in the Foot (Again)

I was in Starbucks earlier today where they, of course, carry the New York Times.  And I saw a headline on the front page: "Guns in Public, and Out of Sight"  with the subhead (from memory): "More Concealed Guns and Some are in the Wrong Hands." Wherein I assumed (correctly apparently) the NYT was saying "Hey, look, some concealed weapons permit holders have committed crimes! Aren't these permits a bad thing?"

What other position would the NYT take, after all?  And here's the crux of their argument:

More than 2,400 permit holders [in North Carolina] were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, excluding traffic-related crimes, over the five-year period, The Times found when it compared databases of recent criminal court cases and licensees. While the figure represents a small percentage of those with permits, more than 200 were convicted of felonies, including at least 10 who committed murder or manslaughter. All but two of the killers used a gun.

(What do you want to bet "traffic related crime" is DUI, which has nothing to do with owning or carrying a firearm, although I would hope you wouldn't get drunk and pack heat.)

The first problem is, in any large population, you're going to have some bad people.  I wonder, for instance, who many killers could one find among NYT subscribers.  Doesn't mean subscribing to the TImes makes you a crazed killer (well, it might me).  But as Robert VerBruggen points out in The Corner, the NYT story proves that gun holders are more responsible and peaceful than the average North Carolinian (links original):

North Carolina has a statewide murder rate of about 5 per 100,000. Even without counting manslaughter, that’s 25 murders committed per 100,000 North Carolinians every five years. There are about 230,000 valid concealed-carry permits in North Carolina, so by pure chance, you’d expect these folks to be responsible for nearly 60 murders over five years. And yet only ten of them committed murder or manslaughter. Instead of “rais[ing] questions,” the Times has demonstrated yet again that permit holders are more peaceful than the general population.

Of course the New Yuck Times has an anti-gun agenda.  And it's easy to cherry-pick your data to prove almost anything (just ask so-called climate scientists).  Or as someone said "figures don't lie but liars figure."   Study after study shows that the more access the public has to guns, the less crime there is.  Being blind to the facts is part of the Time's stock in trade.  That they are lying about guns is no surprise.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my readers (both of them)!

No Wonder They Wailed

After the death of Kim Jong Il, North Korea's "Dear Leader" (as the government called him) some videos went viral of North Koreans wailing in apparent anguish at the loss of their dictator.  Some people wondered about that.  I didn't.  Even if they hated Kim, they would wail for the cameras (and for anyone else) to avoid being sent to join the estimated 200,000 political prisoners in Kim's gulag.

Ira Stoll details just a few of the stories that have come out of the nightmare camps.  If you have a strong stomach go read them.  Women publicly executed for having handing out bibles.  Or for "Ideological Impurity."

North Korea is the most brutal regiem on the planet.  Oh, and we get word today that Jimmy Carter sent condolences.  To a mass murderer.

Until the day North Korea no longer exists (it's possible), this kind of repression will continue.

Wither North Korea?

I feel as if I should say something about North Korea and the death of "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il.  After all, when I was in the military (22 years ago) I was something of a DPRK expert. But, I hate to admit, I haven't paid that much attention since then.  (My novel, Hammer of Thor, deals a little bit with the Korean War but I haven't paid much attention to post 1989 Korea.)

Kim Jong Il is the scion if Kim Il Sung, the "founder" of North Korea.  He was a guerrilla fighter against the Japanese during World War II.  He was taken to Moscow and educated in how to be a brutal dictator (lessons he apparently took to heart) and was set up by the Soviets after World War II to lead North Korea.  He believed that treachery went three generations, thus if someone was a traitor, their grandchildren could expect to be arrested and sent to a prison camp to be slowly worked to death.

When he died in, I believe, 1986 (I'm feeling too lazy to look tha up), his son, Kim Jong Il become the leader of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK).  The son continued the exact same policies as his father.  This has resulted in hundreds of thousands of political prisoners, famines that have killed at least a hundred thousand (and made a generation of North Koreans shorter), and kept the masses in the "worker's paradise" poor.  Check out this chart by Dan Mitchell on the relative economic growth of communist North Korea and (at least since the '70s) capitalistic South Korea (click for a full sized image):

Does South Korea have more natural resources than North Korea?  No, actually, North Korea has most of the Korean Peninsula's resources.  So why the difference?  It must be because South Korea is (relatively) free.

So what's going to happen next?  Kim Jong Il's youngest son, Kim Jong Un, is slated to take over according to Western news reports, continuing North Korea as the only communist country with a hereditary succession system.  Will anything improve for the poor North Korean people?  Not likely.  If Kim Jong Un has the backing of the military he will be able to keep power.  And the military (who like their extra food rations) likes staying in power.

They Are Ignorant Barbarians

I thought, I could be wrong, but I thought that Saudi Arabia was one of the more modern Islamic countries.   I mean, it's not some backwater like Don't-know-where-istan and it's not completely taken over by religion like Iran.  At least I thought.  But I must have been wrong because of news today that Saudi Arabia executed a woman for the crime of "practicing magic and sorcery."

Now, the AP story is a little vague.  The reasons given for her conviction were:

The London-based al-Hayat daily, however, quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of the religious police who arrested the woman, as saying she had tricked people into thinking she could treat illnesses, charging them $800 per session.

So was she executed for scamming people out of money (seems a harsh sentence) or because the government of Saudi Arabia thinks this woman was a witch, something we in the West pretty much stopped doing about 300 years ago?  (The last person executed in a Western country for witchcraft according to Wikipeada was in 1811 in Prussia but most had stopped by the late 17th century.)

If this poor woman was executed because the government of a modern nation though she was a witch, that is absolutely ridiculous.  That makes the leaders of Saudi Arabia ignorant barbarians.  I know there are people who claim to be witches (i.e., Wiccans) but any modern-thinking person should realize there's no such thing as witchcraft.

And this is Saudi Arabia, our ally (supposedly).  A modern, Islamic country.  And its government is executing witches.  Have them call me in, say 300 years, and we'll talk.