Thursday, January 17, 2013

Long Overdue Update:

Greetings, friends!  I realize it has been several months since I have updated, and multiple things have happened that have inspired me to make an update post for those of you who are reading this from around the world (according to my statistics!).  I generally do not cover subjects of a political or dramatic nature here if I can help it, but I feel that a few things have transpired that demand it.  I am unable to make the comments I'm about to make on my normal social media channels, so I am left with writing them here.  This is going to be a fairly negative post, and for that I apologize.  In fact, if you are not interested in negative, pragmatic talk, I'd recommend skipping this post altogether, I won't hold it against you. 

Firstly, President Obama was reelected.  I myself voted for Romney, even though I knew it was a lost cause.  I knew it was going to happen.  I'm not calling that from the position of 20/20 hindsight.  I knew it was going to happen.  In fact, any general observer of this country and its swiftly changing moral attitudes would have known that Obama was going to win.  Let me briefly cover a few key points, but as I do, remember that these are my opinions only.  You may have a different view, and that's just fine.  You know what, instead of points, I'll just point out the groups that Romney and Ryan alienated in their quest for the White House: 

- Atheists, Agnostics, and Other Religions:  Romney and Ryan made it very clear where they were on the Religion subject (which is one of the most polarizing of all subjects, next to Politics itself).  They got up on stage and spoke directly into the camera when they referred to their religion, and plainly stated that their religious beliefs did (and would) factor into their political designs made.  I knew right away that they were in trouble after doing so.  I myself am not very religious, what leanings I do have are private and thus not up for discussion.  However, in my online wanderings, it sure does seem that there are more Atheists and Agnostics running around than ever before.  The amount of bashing that they took (Romney especially for being Mormon) was insane, and it definitely did not endear them to many people.  There are millions and millions of Christians in America, but many of them are in that "I believe in what I believe, but don't go around pushing it on people, because I understand that this would alienate me to others." camp.  Too bad Romney and Ryan didn't follow that particular view. 

- Women:  This was probably the turning moment for me as to when I knew it was over.  Paul Ryan was debating Vice President Biden, and when asked about Abortion, Ryan looked right at the camera and (I'm paraphrasing), made it clear that Abortion was going to be an active target they were going to work to abolish.  As I am pro-choice, this was one of the problems I myself had with them.  I'll just say this, frankly, Abortion shouldn't have even been on the discussion sheet.  It should have been three things: the Economy, Jobs, and the National Debt.  Nothing else is remotely on the same level, sorry but it isn't.  Anyway, after getting on television and bluntly stating that they would try to overturn legislation that have allowed women the right to do what they will with their bodies, is it any wonder that women turned out in droves for Obama?  I won't even go into all the soundbites by various top-level Republicans as to their views on rape and Abortion.

- Minorities:  Romney and Ryan are wealthy Caucasian men, and in every respect, looked as though they would return the Presidency to the pinstripe suit wearing, heel-rocking, pocket-change jingling, rich White Good Ole Boy network era of Washington politics.  Romney with his slick, polished, perfectly styled silver hair, mouthful of perfectly capped teeth, and an ingratiating smile as he spoke to "the Middle Class" as though he understood what any of them go through each day.  Most minorities I spoke with all believed one thing, without deviation: Romney and Ryan would be leadership concerned with doing things for rich White people, and no one else.  Is that true?  I don't know, but Romney's campaign strategist should have been fired for allowing people to form that opinion.

- The Gay/Lesbian Community: They made their stance on same-sex marriage clear, and in effect instantly lost the vote of many LGBT community members. 

- The Poor/Out of Work: I don't need to go over Mr. Romney's famous (infamous) 47% speech, do I?  Telling people that they're worthless is never a good way to win their vote.

All that said, I voted for Romney because there were things he promised to do, which in this election were all I cared about: namely add jobs, shrink the debt, and strengthen the economy.  These are key areas that Obama is a failure at, in my educated opinion, and I won't bore you with the details at how badly he has failed at all three things.  It is also my opinion that many people who voted for Romney were like me, they disagreed with one or more of his stances as outlined above, but voted for him because he wasn't Obama.  Ah well.  In any case, I expect we'll now have four more years of failure from Mr. Obama's policies of overspending as a result of this election.  It is my sole hope that our country's economy will survive it.

The Sandy Hook Elementary Tragedy Ok.  I just want to state for the record that I am not a tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy theorist.  I do not visit sites like www.abovetopsecret.com or www.infowars.com because I think a lot of what those sites post is hilarious nonsense.  Our Government is so inept, it can barely tie its own shoes, much less be involved in as many conspiracies as people like to talk about.  "9/11 was an inside job!" or "We never landed on the Moon!" or that whole aliens at Roswell thing.  But I just have to say, this tragedy at Sandy Hook is really, really fucking suspicious. 
I will explain.

It is already common knowledge that Operation: Fast and Furious failed.  If you don't know what this is, please minimize this page right now, and go Google it.  Nevermind, here's a decent Wiki explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal

The US Government was behind that debacle, and there have been multiple pieces of information that point to Fast and Furious's true purpose: to enact new gun legislation here in the US.  This was just last year!  And now, this tragedy at Sandy Hook.  Now, here's what I find so suspicious about it.  First of all, the timing.  Right after Obama is re-elected, and right before he's to start his second term, we have this terrible mass shooting.  Secondly, the media.  That day, all of the major news outlets were running the story, and constantly updating as "new information" was fed to them.  The total and constant confusion and contradictions are glaring.  First it was two shooters.  Then just Adam Lanza.  Some news outlets report that he killed all the children with a Bushmaster "assault rifle" (italics because frankly, semi-automatic AR-15's are NOT "assault rifles).  Then it was reported that he had two handguns that he used instead, and that the Bushmaster was actually discovered in the trunk of his car and hadn't been used at all.  Still other articles claim that he had the Bushmaster and the two handguns on his person and used them (a Glock and a SIG, respectively) and had a fourth firearm in the trunk.  Lanza shot his mother.  First it was reported that he'd used an "assault rifle" that she had legally owned, then it was changed to a .22 rifle (again, reports vary).  And all the while this is going on, every outlet had articles online with giant, abnormal sized pictures of AR-15 sporting rifles with the headlines "ASSAULT RIFLE USED IN MASS CHILD SHOOTING!!!!!!11!" screaming across the page, with an article talking about how the gunman had a bunch of "high-capacity" magazines which allowed him to shoot all those people so quickly.  The hysterics were both obscene, and every single motherfucking journalist who fed it, or bought into it should be tarred, feathered, and their unobjective asses run out of town.

I digress.

What followed was a mass hysteria of panic buying both online and at gunshops nationwide, as people desperately snapped up everything they felt would be immediately banned January 1st:

- AR-15 and AK-47 style sporting rifles
- 30 round AR-15 and AK-47 magazines
- Magazines for any other rifle with what could be construed as "high-capacity" such as the Ruger BX-25 25 rounders for the Ruger 10/22 rifle
- Ammunition of ANY type, or weight in .223, 5.56, 7.62, 9mm, .45, etc. calibers
- AR-15 spare parts of any kind (lowers, uppers, BCGs, etc.)
- Glock 18 33 round magazines (as these were allegedly used by Lanza in his Glock 9mm handgun he used to commit his murders)

And so on.  We also saw a lot of companies make moves that left a lot of the shooting community feeling betrayed or angry.  Companies like Wal-Mart, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Gander Mountain pulled all AR-15 sporting rifles from their shelves immediately.  Some online companies made some really shady moves, like CheaperThanDirt.com, where they would cancel orders that had already been placed, citing "out of stock" as the reason, and then the next day, items were mysteriously back IN stock, but at much higher prices.  They have (rightfully) been roasted on the various gun/survival forums, and have lost a lot of business permanently. I hope it was worth it, you fucking scumbags.  Auction sites like Ebay yanked all auctions for "high-capacity" (they consider anything beyond ten rounds "high-capacity") magazines, and some of the gunbroker type sites ended all firearms-for-sale postings.

On top of that, Dianne Feinstein has introduced new, highly restrictive "assault-rifle ban" legislation that would seek to place very strict regulations on gunowners everywhere in the country.  Think California-style gun regulation.  The NRA has the details of this proposed bill already on their website for your viewing pleasure.

So, back to the whole "suspicious" thing.  All of this seems to be playing right into the hands of the gungrabbers in Government.  These are the people who do not want the American people to have guns.  And that's what concerns me.  What was that saying about the Devil about his greatest trick being that he'd convinced people he didn't exist?  Well, that's what we're looking at right now.  The Government is seeking to take away Americans' Second Amendment rights, and there are millions of blind Americans out there...SHOUTING FOR THIS TO HAPPEN.  That's the insidious nature of what our "elected officials" are trying to do.  They want to disarm us, only instead of being forthright "We are going to oppress you, the American citizenry, by making it impossible for you to defend yourself against us"; they are shaking their heads sadly like "Well, if this is what you want, so that we can stop this tragedy from happening again...we're doing it for the children".  THAT'S what the concern should be.  They are riding this wave of (typical) emotions-overriding-rationality to try to push through legislation.  And look at Obama.  Think about things for a second.  He didn't dare touch any firearm legislation in his first term because he was trying to get re-elected.  Now that he's done so, this would be the perfect time to expend all his political capital pushing this through.  After all, he's just starting out his second term.  He is essentially untouchable, and his Party still controls the Senate.  This is scary stuff, folks.

Now, if you don't know why I'm concerned, and why all gun-owners are (or should be) concerned, I'd recommend reading up in the Second Amendment.  Hint: it wasn't to ensure people had the right to hunt, or plink paper targets at the range. 

I won't come right out and say "The Government perpetrated Sandy Hook", because I just don't know, and again, I'm not a tinfoil-hat guy.  But everything about this was extraordinarily convenient in timing, and it just blew up WAY too fast, and the anti-gun rumbling is highly emotionally supercharged.  And whenever you have people running hot, no common sense will come of it. 

"The Fiscal Cliff" Folks, this game is rigged.  It's either that, or else the politicians really are that stupid.  Actually, it's most likely both.  You'd think that possessing skills in basic mathematics would be part of the job description for being a Congressman or Senator.  The fact of the matter is that our current monetary system is in huge trouble.  America currently owes more money than it can possibly repay, our Economy is stumbling along in one of the slowest recoveries in history, and what do we have?  Republicans and Democrats fighting over what to do in order to avert fiscal disaster in this country two days after the deadline.  At this point, it should be clear to everyone that no one in the White House, the House, or the Senate have your best interests in mind.  None of them.  It's also clear to me that none of them have any inkling of the way the money system (rigged as it is) works.  Well, here's a hint, folks.  You simply cannot keep printing money that's not backed by anything.  Prices are constantly going up on everything, NOT because everything is becoming more expensive, but because our dollar buys less.  Keep that in mind the next time someone complains that milk and bread cost more.  They don't, your devalued dollar is buying less milk and bread, that's all.  That's what's happening. 

The real fact of the matter is that Politicians like being extremely well-paid.  They love their cushy jobs, and their armies of aids, assistant undersecretaries, and go-fers that do their every bidding, and power steak lunches and lobster dinners on the Taxpayers' dime.  They love their cadillac health plans, and being able to vote themselves lavish raises.  They love having the authority to push their personal beliefs on the American people (see Feinstein and her rabid anti-gun legislation).  So, NONE of them will work towards, or even say anything that will get them kicked out of their job.  That's why they don't want to sit down and have a real, frank discussion about this country's problems.  The vast amount of spending, the waste, the pork, the crushing debt, changes that need to be made, the belt-tightening that needs to happen.  Their main goal is to remain in power.  Period.  Understand that fact.  Make no mistake, it IS a fact.

Obama's Call for Another AWB

This of course just happened yesterday, and all I can say to that is this: I'll be very surprised if we see another AWB.  There are a ton of reasons why not, but the biggest one is this.  Remember what I just said about scumbag worthless politicians wanting to remain in power?  Same applies here.  There are already articles all over the news with quotes from DEMOCRAT representatives shaking their heads saying "Just don't think it's going to happen, not enough of us will vote for it."  Know why?  Because it'd be a career killer, and those scumbags are at least aware of it.  Another thing to consider.  Frankly, we aren't the America we were in '93/'94 when Clinton's AWB1 passed.  These days, there are millions of AR-15s and tens of millions of 30 round magazines in the hands of citizens.  What are you going to do, make millions of people criminals overnight?  Well, for one thing, you can't.  It's Unconstitutional, you see.  Oops:

Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Roughly translated, it means the Government can't take something that was legal, make it illegal to own, and then consider all the citizens who own that item to be criminals in possession of illegal goods.

Do I think we'll see some sort of attempt on a magazine capacity restriction?  Possibly.  But an outright AWB?  I am keeping my fingers crossed that it won't happen.

So, I hate to end this on a doom and gloom note.  I will just say that I have purchased more ammunition, and have really stepped up my food storage and water purchases.  I am working to pay down my debts, and am working to get into better shape.  I am hoping to end 2013 in a much better place than I ended 2012, and will be working to post more consistently this year. 

So, that's about all I have right now.  I have no quote prepared at this time for a closer.  Just this advice:  I strongly urge you to keep on prepping.  Stack it back, stack it deep.  There are a lot of things leveraged against the American people right now, and it's on us to be ready to take care of ourselves.  Our Government won't do it for us, and if you are one of the "Middle Class", you are directly in the Government's sites.  The wealthy and the poor are not going to prop up this country's failed policies and obscene debt.  We are.

Take care,

Unnamed Prepper