31 thoughts on “20!”

  1. Making Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and Florida priorities for later this year and 2022, Ohio being the most ripe of the 4 for the picking.

    Sadly, Mike W noted on the previous Blo-Board that Delaware has finaly fallen. Maryland Style Handgun Licensing and a 15 Round Magazine Limit passed their State Senate and are a 99% Guarantee to pass the State House and be signed by the Democrat Governor.

    1. Hey it’s Joe!!! again. Maybe you ought to move there and do something about it. You seem more enthusiastic about the issue than anyone else in Delaware. Overall it’s a sleepy, slow (Joe as in Biden) state.

  2. I can’t apply my Theory of Enhanced Penalties as I did with Tennessee — Iowa doesn’t have private prisons that need filling = subsidization. ;-)

    I’ll withhold comment on the SCOTUS until they make up their minds.

  3. “Why, it’s almost like those coattails Joe Biden totally didn’t have, but Trump apparently did, are starting to pay off.”

    Coattails?

    I gave this a few minutes more thought, and it occurred to me that while I may no longer know how to play this hand in detail (the gun culture I grew up and spent my young adulthood in no longer exists) I have a broad idea. I’ll put it this way:

    I think the Republicans are flailing, searching for some way to make a comeback from their Trump fiasco. They need “traditional” issues that haven’t been totally polluted by Trump’s embrace. We should take advantage of that, by not giving away the store for nothing but fine phrases and promises.

    For the next two years (until mid-terms) we should demand they produce. Constitutional Carry has been a good start, recently. (I’m moved to ask where they were on the issue for most of the six decades or so of my adulthood, but I’ll let that go for now, except as Exhibit A for desperation providing late-in-life motivation to Get Religion.) We should not let elementary defenses of gun rights suffice. We should demand gains.

    We have the advantage that our gun issues are probably supported by a broader base than most of their other Culture War issues. We are not necessarily on the wrong side of history and demographics — if we play our cards right. (That the NRA’s self-immolation was concurrent with their forays into the Culture Wars via NRATV, etc., is not a coincidence, in my opinion.)

    1. Trump was just a 21st Century version of Warren Harding……Flawed, but in the right place despite the imperfections.
      “I think the Republicans are flailing, searching for some way to make a comeback from their Trump fiasco”.

      You’re rrrrreeeeeaaaaaalllllyyyyy trying but failing to mask your inner RINO, aka, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, John McCain, John Boehner, Bush-Family, Country Club Establishment Republican self……It’s quite irritating TBH……..

      Before you try and lecture me, as you’ve done to others on this blog about the whole “Libertarian” thing, Libertarianism won’t become mainstream amongst GOP Voters and both Conservative and Moderate Conservative Independents until Libertarians ditch the Open Borders and Unrestricted Free Trade garbage.

      Libertarians like myself have greater disgusting attitudes towards the “Bush-Mold” Republicans than Trump. Cut it out with the George Will talk.

      1. You’re not really a libertarian if you’re haranguing people as RINOs because they didn’t kiss Trump’s ring enough.

          1. I caught you claiming the label of “libertarian” for yourself and corrected your error.

            1. I think Joe illustrates what I’ve been saying all along: That the basic philosophy that I recall from my (big-L) Libertarian period (1982 – 1995?), has evolved into something I would not recognize as such today.

              It was happening at the time I left the LP, but it’s not why I left the LP. But it is also why I was never tempted to go back.

              It is among reasons you’ll find “infiltration” a frequently appearing word in my lexicon.

              1. TBH, I don’t think Joe is arguing in good faith. If you don’t like immigration, free trade, or whatever else, that’s all well and good. But it’s not the same thing as saying “I don’t understand why Libertarians don’t share the same conservative values I do that aren’t supported in their philosophy.”

                There are legit criticisms to be made (to include the concern about “infiltration”) but I don’t think they’re made in screeching about RINOs.

              2. “TBH, I don’t think Joe is arguing in good faith”

                Also TBH and to give him the benefit of a doubt, there are people who wouldn’t recognize a nuance in philosophies if it bit them on the, er, foot.

                It would have been nice to know more specifically what “Bush Mold” was supposed to mean, and what about it is shared by George Will. Neither of them is among my favorite people, so chances are we share some common ground. But, I don’t find Donald Trump a desirable alternative to either of them.

                Bush and Will may define “Same Old Shit”, but as I said elsewhere, that doesn’t mean I want to embrace fascism as my New Shit. If nothing else, it ain’t all that new.

      2. “Libertarians like myself have greater disgusting attitudes towards the “Bush-Mold” Republicans than Trump.”

        There are other ways to oppose “Bush-Mold” Republicans, without supporting overt fascism.

        1. So many people say President Trump was an overt fascist, but after seeing how he handled the riots this past couple of years (mostly leaving it up to the States to deal with), as well as the COVID-19 pandemic (again, leaving it up to the States), and attempts (however half-hearted) to deregulate Federal laws, and how the other side threatened a continuation of riots if they didn’t win the Presidency, and how the other side has embraced outright censorship, both before, and especially after, the election, I have a difficult time seeing President Trump as an “overt fascist”.

          The other side, however, has dialed up fascism to 11.

          1. Funny, all the overt fascists recognized him as one of their own.

            When I was a farm boy, I never saw a ram humping a sow.

            But of more parochial interest in these parts, I never saw anyone lay down a better foundation for gun control, without saying he was; at the same time he was doing nothing at all for us. And that was when his party was holding all the cards.

          2. “The other side, however, has dialed up fascism to 11.”

            Another very fundamental point of logic: You seem to be arguing that because you can recognize fascism in the competing faction, that somehow precludes the existence of fascism in your own faction.

            We have always been in a condition where the only question was, which faction of authoritarianism is the more immediate threat. But, both factions have always been threats.

    2. Republicans flailing?

      If the Democrats are so secure in their power, then why are they so desperate: to pack the Supreme Court by increasing the size of the Court to 15 members; to pack the U.S. Senate by adding Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico as States; to pack the voter roles by giving citizenship to 20-30 million illegal aliens?

      The simple fact is most of the population of the United States lives in States where the Democrats are out of power. The Democrats are only holding a slim and temporary hold in the Congress and Presidency.

      Even if the national vote in 2022 is identical to the 2020 vote, the Democrats will lose a majority of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, because of the 2020 Census and Reapportionment. No wonder the Democrats are desperate.

      The Democrats and their allies in power were overly dependent on Trump as their crutch. But that crutch is now gone.

      1. “If the Democrats are so secure in their power, then why are they so desperate: to pack the Supreme Court…?”

        Same reason the Republicans were, I imagine.

        1. Since when did the Republicans pack the Supreme Court?

          And no, striving to appoint Justices to the Court doesn’t count as “packing the court”.

          1. “Since when did the Republicans pack the Supreme Court?”

            Wasn’t that the reason we were supposed to support Trump? And the reason for blocking Garland?

            I realize we can quibble about the definition of “packing”, but it seems to me that abandoning or really stretching “convention” in the nomination/confirmation process is equivalent. Both increasing the number of justices, and sitting on a POTUS’s nominee, are allowable under the constitution, so where is the complaint?

            I’m only asking for objectivity about tactics. You can’t be a clear-thinking tactician if you really believe your opponents in a game are alone motivated by evil, when what they are doing is equivalent to what you have done yourself, and when both tactics are allowed under the rules of the game.

          2. “when both tactics are allowed under the rules of the game.”

            According to the Supreme Court website:

            The Constitution places the power to determine the number of Justices in the hands of Congress. The first Judiciary Act, passed in 1789, set the number of Justices at six, one Chief Justice and five Associates. Over the years Congress has passed various acts to change this number, fluctuating from a low of five to a high of ten. The Judiciary Act of 1869 fixed the number of Justices at nine and no subsequent change to the number of Justices has occurred.

            I would add to that, that every change in the number of Justices was for a political purpose, with perhaps the greatest fluctuations occurring around the hot-button issue of slavery.

            So, there really is no such thing as “packing” the Supreme Court. Congress can small-d-democratically set the number of Justices wherever it chooses to, from time-to-time and for whatever reason. When they do, there is nothing constitutionally to complain about, so if we believe in the constitution we won’t complain; though of course those whose issues will lose out as a result will always complain.

            The number of nine is only a convention. It may be a convention that has stood since 1869, but in the past five years or so Americans have demonstrated that they believe conventions are for schlemiels, so surely they would have no foundation for complaining about abandonment of that one. Everyone should enjoy the full fruits of their revolutionary mindset.

  4. “You’re rrrrreeeeeaaaaaalllllyyyyy trying but failing to mask your inner RINO…”

    A minor point of information: I can’t have an inner RINO because I’ve never been a Republican of any kind, though I fellow-traveled with them a lot more than I’m proud of. And I haven’t “lectured” anyone about libertarianism because I figured out that like all “ideologies” it is mainly (not completely) manipulative bullshit; but the manipulative parts pollute the good parts, so it all becomes academic anyway.

    But I like to believe that being without affection for any power-seeking faction, I can view political tactics and popular motivations more objectively than most. So, I’ll stand by what I said; Republicans shot themselves in the foot with the Trump era, and the least fortunate part of that is that they shot every issue that fellow-traveled with them in the foot at the same time. Gun rights issues like Constitutional Carry could well be swept off the board in the long term, as a result.

    1. Republicans have been shooting themselves in the foot since 1989 with the Bush Family and their Open-Borders, Free Trade With China, and endless Middle East War Agenda.

      As RAH said best: “Trump was not a cause of the culture war but a result of that”.

      If you want to blame a more recent Republican for the current fiasco, you can blame Mitt Romney for going belly-up to Obama in 2012, and Paul Ryan for giving the Speaker’s Gavel back to Pigs*** Pelosi in 2018.

      You understand, Andy BUSH?

      1. “Trump was not a cause of the culture war but a result of that”.

        Is that sorta like Hitler was a result of the Untermenschen?

        2. “Hitler was the result of Versailles.”

          I think we’re going too far afield if we start debating the nuances of our metaphors, but I would suggest that the revolution in Germany (that was the real cause for the end of WWI) was the reason behind Hitler-as-opportunist, and that Versailles only provided his tools and talking points. However I will concede that the reparations imposed on Germany at Versailles did result in very real hardships in an already-revolutionary atmosphere, and Hitler wasn’t the only opportunist.

  5. I think my issue with libertarians is that they are soft or left on social issues and only support gun rights. They straddle the fence. Then they claim the moral high ground because of that. It is irritating. I can respect the left on guns because they are consistent and have a take no prisoners attitude.Trump did the same.

    Trump was not a cause of the culture war but a result of that. CC preexisted Trump and still on a trajectory of acceptance.
    Republicans are “flailing” as you said because they lost power. Whether that was a legitimate loss or not is up to debate.The difference on a electoral level was 16,000 votes in 2016 and 45000 votes in 2020 Very narrow margins. We really are 50/50 split.

    So GOP lost on the Federal level but not on the state level. So they push on state level for the causes they are passionate about. Thankfully that is CC on guns.

    1. Libertarians have a generally consistent attitude towards personal freedom (hence your “soft or left on social issues”); Trump doesn’t care about our rights. Former seems preferable, but that’s just me.

  6. Scotus on Carry will have to take it up sooner or later because of the recent 9th circuit opinion. Right now I count 5 vote for carry and 3 against or 4 with the squish of Roberts.

    1. “Right now I count 5 vote for carry. . .”

      I fear you may be in for a rude awakening, but I will be happy to be wrong.

  7. It’s almost like there are two countries. One with vote fraud and one without.

  8. “One with vote fraud and one without.”

    Or one with evidence of vote fraud, and one without.

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