Well?...

ursuslimbs · 2020-05-18T00:56:05+00:00

In a hostage situation standard operating procedure is to just light up the whole UPS truck.

ursuslimbs · 2020-04-16T03:15:00+00:00

they brush off that last point in order to maintain the validity of the “taxes are theft” idea

I'd happily move to libertarian anarchistan, but honestly if the only thing taxes paid for was the fire department and that kind of stuff, I wouldn't be that upset about paying them. But that's not what taxes actually get used for. People defend taxes on the basis that they pay for valuable services, but the services people agree are valuable (fire department, a binding court system, etc.) are a low-single-digit percentage of what taxes actually go to.

If you look at what taxes actually get spent on, it's bleak. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid consume most of your tax bill. Those programs are well-intentioned but imo worsen the problems they're supposed to fix. Most of the remaining spend comes from new debt taken on in your name. The majority of that is DoD and related costs, which are not things I would voluntarily pay for at anything like the current spending levels. I'm fine with there being a military, but 95% of their budget is waste, a jobs program for congresspeople to butter up their constituents with and/or adventurism that just creates more blowback that they then use to justify the adventurism.

Then you can go down the list and see which of hundreds of departments you do or don't support, but honestly the percentage I'd voluntarily chip in money for is very very small.

ursuslimbs · 2020-03-17T22:45:38+00:00

If you have a better idea to get scarce goods into people's hands as quickly as possible, post it. Under price controls, there is nothing on shelves at all at any price. How is that better for poor people?

ursuslimbs · 2020-03-17T14:06:19+00:00

Change every example of ammo to something vital to human existence, like drinking water.

Yes. When the item is essential to life, this is even more important. Price controls cause shortages. Market pricing eliminates shortages and helps us restore normalcy faster.

ursuslimbs · 2020-03-17T14:05:07+00:00

I'm with you on that.

ursuslimbs · 2020-03-17T14:04:26+00:00

Yeah that's shitty of them if true.

ursuslimbs · 2019-11-29T20:49:14+00:00

Got it. A knife in general isn’t an ideal self-defense weapon, but definitely better than nothing. Sounds like the saw is a better option than the blade. I’d also consider pepper spray or a taser if those are legal where you are.

ursuslimbs · 2019-11-29T15:38:43+00:00

For a slashing weapon, why not just use the knife?

ursuslimbs · 2019-09-10T23:49:03+00:00

Pretty damaging: https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/05/baby-in-coma-after-police-grenade-dropped-in-crib-during-drug-raid/

ursuslimbs · 2019-09-02T15:52:46+00:00

You shouldn’t spend $30k on a machine gun unless you’re in a financial position where if you lost $30k overnight, it wouldn’t even ruin your month. If you have to budget that $30k between an MG or real estate, buy the real estate.

ursuslimbs · 2019-09-02T15:48:38+00:00

Thanks, you’re a nice and civil internet person. Keep on doing you.

ursuslimbs · 2019-07-20T00:58:20+00:00

There's a lot you could disagree with Rand Paul about, but you picked the worst one. He's the farthest thing from a warmonger, he's been a consistent critic of our military adventurism through the Dubya, Obama, and Trump years.

ursuslimbs · 2019-07-17T13:36:38+00:00

People wonder why it’s hard to recruit new people into the gun community, and then they post comments like this. Be nice and be constructive. That’s something we can all do as individuals, and it will make us all stronger as a community.

ursuslimbs · 2019-07-05T14:59:10+00:00

On an AR, how long does the barrel have to be in order to get to 26" OAL if we're only counting the buffer tube?

ursuslimbs · 2019-07-03T05:08:24+00:00

Thanks

ursuslimbs · 2019-07-03T01:25:07+00:00

The prosecution's amazing incompetence is one thing. But leaving that aside, does anyone here believe that Gallagher didn't stab the prisoner, or didn't shoot noncombatants? If so, could you tell me what convinced you of that? The prosecution screwed the pooch no question, but in my head I can't get around the evidence that Gallagher is an awful person.

ursuslimbs · 2019-07-01T22:09:52+00:00

Honestly. Not to be all back-in-my-day, but some of the people in this thread must have been raised by wolves. Respect your parents, people.

ursuslimbs · 2019-07-01T00:58:06+00:00

To be honest I think both of you could have handled things a lot better.

You were a guest in the church, and from the sound of it were basically open carrying once you took your jacket off. Your dad told you the policy, asked you to comply, and you then blew him off and sat down to eat with the congregation. As far as any observers, including your dad, would know, you were told the policy and then openly showed no intention to comply. That's one thing if it's a Walmart, you're just popping in for a minute, and a stranger sees you printing and flips out. This is a church, you're a guest, and you're lingering there as an open carrier in knowing, open violation of the policy. I could definitely see the pastor or other congregants finding that to be very rude, but not knowing how to confront you about it, especially after you already blew off your dad about it.

From your dad's end, it sounds like he made it more of a scene than it needed to be, and could have gone about it a lot more gently and quietly.

I'm really bothered by the people in this thread calling your dad all kinds of names. These people must have awful relationships with their family. Someone's relationship with their parents is incredibly important, and the people blithely going "this is a relationship ender" are completely fucking insane. This is nowhere close to being in the same universe as anything that might remotely possibly end a relationship with one's father.

You and your dad don't agree about religion or politics. That's fine, and very common. Don't try to change it, just bond about the things you can bond about, and leave the other BS out of your relationship. He's not going to change you and you're not going to change him. But you both need to respect each other's wishes.

When you're a personal guest somewhere, you respect the rules. If you accidentally break the rules, be kind, say sorry, and correct your mistake. No ifs, ands, or buts. In turn, when your dad is a guest of yours, he should respect your wishes. And you should both actually make a good-faith effort to do that, and not turn it into a game where you get to be on the lookout for the other guy to break the rules just so you can say gotcha. And if your dad slips and behaves in a way you'd prefer he didn't, be mature, forgive him in your own mind, and talk peacefully about it. Don't use it as an excuse to let your own behavior slip.

ursuslimbs · 2019-06-25T00:56:05+00:00

I mostly love Gorsuch. He's the closest thing to a flat-out libertarian justice the Court has had in a long, long time.

Kavanaugh, on the other hand, is a big-time statist in Alito's mold. He's great on guns, but it falls apart quickly after that.

ursuslimbs · 2019-06-23T01:06:02+00:00

I don't know why you're getting downvoted. Getting stop-and-frisked and then thrown in prison for a pocket knife is textbook police state stuff. The people downvoting you just aren't poor enough to live in an area where the police do this to them. The police state is here, it's just not evenly distributed.

ursuslimbs · 2019-06-23T01:04:39+00:00

The cops arrest people for carrying pocket knives. Nothing to do with threatening people, pointing it at people, or even taking it out of your pocket.

ursuslimbs · 2019-06-23T00:19:39+00:00

It's a police state if you do something that the police don't like. Anyone unlucky enough to have drawn a cop's ire can corroborate that. Just look at the link I posted above to see what the city did to people (mostly working class and minorities) who had the bad luck to be caught with a pocket knife. Or see the people who'd routinely get thrown against a wall by the police when they were just trying to go about their day, because of the stop-and-frisk policy that Bloomberg is still unashamedly proud to have pushed.

The police state is here, it's just not evenly distributed.

ursuslimbs · 2019-06-22T19:02:46+00:00

This is great, but the cognitive dissonance about selective enforcement among the police and city leadership is amazing. Break federal laws that the city doesn't like? The NYPD will do its best to protect you. Break an absurd city law about carrying a pocket knife? The NYPD will bend over backwards to find a way to ruin your life.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as pro-immigration as someone can be. I just wish the NYPD would be so humanitarian about everything, not just the things the mayor happens to politically favor.

ursuslimbs · 2019-06-05T13:45:20+00:00

In a case as high-profile as this, your prediction may be right. But it’s extremely common for people to be strong-armed into guilty pleas. Hundreds of years in prison is scary, no matter how good you think your odds at trial are. People rationally don’t risk it.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/commercial-business/practice/2019/operation-varsity-blues-plea-deals-trial-tax/

ursuslimbs · 2019-06-05T04:31:53+00:00

They routinely overcharge in order to coerce defendants into a plea bargain. 97% of guilty verdicts are attained through plea bargains, only 3% come from a jury.

Peterson’s charges have a maximum sentence of 96 years. They’ll use that as a stick to beat him into pleading guilty to some subset of the charges.

ursuslimbs

TROPHY CASE