The Unorganized Rebellion

The Unorganized rebellion is a state of revolution where, rather than operating in an organized and identifiable group, the rebels act individually, taking it upon themselves to assassinate the politicians who are the cause of the grievance. The goal of the unorganized revolution is to force the government to change it's policy in order to avoid the risk of assassination of the individuals in charge of policy.

The Reason:
An individual assassin lacks the greatest weakness of any revolution - the need to trust. Since the individual operates alone or with a small group whom they know well, there is very little chance of counterrevolutionary infiltrators leading to discovery and death. In addition, the assassination of policy makers (in large enough numbers) may lead to the elevation of sympathetic policy makers, or the fearful capitulation of the already in place policy makers.

The Weapons:
There are a multitude of firearms in the US (approximately 1 firearm per individual), but for the purposes of this post, the concern is with rifles (with a ratio of approx. 1:3), and more specifically, with rifles capable of allowing an individual to assassinate an individual from a distance where a protective detail would be incapable of detecting the assassin or responding in time to capture said assassin (assuming a well laid escape plan). This excludes a great deal of rifles in a variety of calibers, but still leaves behind a considerable amount of weapons. Unfortunately, there are no estimates of the number of rifles with this capability, an estimate made more difficult due to the ease with which a scope can be attached to a scope-less rifle. Even without such attachments, it must be noted that the most successful sniper in history used a scope-less rifle designed in 1891, and during the American Civil War sniper kills as far away as 800 yards were recorded. The standard infantry rifle of the Union, the Springfield 1861 rifled musket, had a maximum range of 1000 yards, with trained soldiers capable of accurate aimed fire at 500 yards. No amount of bodyguards can protect an individual from a halfway competent shooter. The ability of the shooter to escape depends upon the person assassinated, the location where the assassination took place, and any measures that the individual took to prevent identification.

Even if only a third of all rifles are capable of being used for the proposed purpose, there would still be millions of them. Should the line in the sand be crossed, and large numbers of citizens choose to exercise the political power inherent in a gun, the proverbial "rifle behind every blade of grass" will be aimed at the politicians responsible for crossing the line.

Given that it is effectively impossible to disarm a populace that doesn't want to be disarmed (e.g. Chechnya) the citizenry of the US will always have the means to express their extreme displeasure.


A disorganized rebellion, with individual sharpshooters running around taking potshots at politicians will quickly establish  that no policy maker is truly safe from a sufficiently disgruntled populace.

Memorial Day

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
John 15:13

In all of the USA's wars, 848,163 Americans have died in combat, with another 433,161 dying from "other" (disease, wounds, etc.) leaving us with a total of 1,321,612 deaths.

Members of the US military sacrifice a great deal, traveling to places far from home and family, often a place where someone is doing their utmost best to kill them.


 No matter which service a person chooses to join, be it Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, or Coast Guard, that person has chosen a path which could lead to their death.
Let us not forget those who gave the greatest sacrifice

Let's play Pretend...

I have a pellet gun and an 83 Chevy S10 with severe problems. You live all the way across the country, over two thousand miles away. You own multiple cars, all new Corvettes and a couple of trucks, both new F-350s, along with enough enough firearms to arm a company of Marines. I tell you that I'm going to drive all the way across the country and drive all the way into your driveway waving my pellet gun, just to prove that I can.

This is essentially what the Iranian navy is planning upon doing. And this is why we should just ignore them.

Governor Chris Christie

He should step down until his scandal is cleared up.

Seriously, Governor Chris Christie should step down until it is determined by a third party, non-affiliated investigator whether or not he was involved in closing down a bridge in retaliation for not supporting his reelection campaign (Bridgegate).

That said, he did own up to being ultimately responsible for the actions of his staff. Thus, I am not calling for his immediate resignation, only a pause in his administration.

Rope is Cheap and Reuseable

Apparently the drugs used for lethal injections are in short supply, causing some states to consider going back to the firing squad and others to look for new alternatives, and causing some people to talk about cruel and unusual punishment.
They should go back to hanging them. Cruel and unusual punishment is meant to limit the punishment to that appropriate for the crime, so that petty thieves don't receive the sort of punishment that those guilty of first degree murder do.
Rather than trying to find the ultimate in painless death - which given the inability to ask the deceased anything is rather pointless - we should be be looking for quick and cheap. Forget the firing squad - send them to the long drop. Even if an accidental beheading occurs, the long drop is the guaranteed quickest and cheapest form of execution.

Martin Luther King Day

Today we celebrate the life of the man who defines American civil disobedience. America is a better place because of him.

The US budget: How to make everyone mad.

Cut everything to 1946 levels. The levels where we had just finished a war. The levels before the cold war started. Well, with some inflation.

Everything. Parks. Social Security. Military.

Or: we could cut everything but the bare nececities of a nation. That being a military, and transportation networks. Everything else is secondary. FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.

The primary purpose of any government is to protect its citizens from physical harm. Such as an invasion. Nothing else is more important; if its citizens are dead, then there is no nation.

An attack on Freedom

California, already one of the least free states of the Union, is rapidly becoming less free. A bill that is currently passing through the California legislature would enable the government of California to take away the tax exempt status of private groups with "discriminatory" policies.

I'm a more than a little pissed off about this, for several reasons.

1. This bill is aimed directly at an organization that I am affiliated with, the Boy Scouts of America. While the BSA has decided to allow openly gay scouts, it still refuses to allow openly gay adult leaders. This is a blatant attempt to force the BSA, a private organization, to do what the government of California wants it to do.
2. It isn't people's livelihood on the line here. Making laws to prevent discriminatory hiring practices in a business? Understandable. Making laws to prevent discriminatory entrance requirements in a non-profit volunteer organization? Reprehensible.
3. If you don't like the entrance requirements for an organization, go start your own that does the exact same things, only with different entrance requirements. Don't like the BSA's stance on homosexual adult leaders? Go form your own organization and let homosexuals become adult leaders.

Honestly, I think that the BSA's response to this should be to stick to the current rules no matter what, even if tax exempt status is revoked.

Reducing the laws for average citizens

Note: This is a draft of a constitutional amendment. I am not a lawyer.

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Laws, regulations, and treaties shall be referred to as “legal material” in this document.

All legal material shall be readable and understandable to the average 10^th grader or person who is 16 years old, whichever is younger, who shall hereby be called the “student”, and that average student shall be able to read and understand all of this government's legal material after spending 7 hours total learning and/or reading the legal material.

Also, legal material shall fit on 100 (one hundred) pages or less of 8 ½ by 11 inch paper using 12 pt Times New Roman font with 1 inch margins on each side, using the measurements as established on or before the year 2010.

Laws shall come before treaties which shall come before regulations, and any legal material that occurs after the 100^th page shall not be enforced. Also, any part of any legal material that does occur after the 100^th page shall be removed from the legal material until that section is able to fit within the 100 page limit.

Legal material shall be printed in the order they were passed, with the caveat that all regulations shall be printed after treaties which shall be printed after laws regardless of when the regulation or treaty came into force. In the event that legal material is amended, that legal material shall have the effective pass date of the date of amending.

In the case whereby legal material is passed which are after the 100^th page, they shall exist for 12 (twelve) years before being purged from the record. In no case shall any legal material have effect until it is included in the 100 pages.

All external sources shall count towards the page limit, and may be republished as part of the US law regardless of who hold copyright.

The Constitution does not count toward the page limit.

There shall be no "footnotes" or "endnotes."

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The intent of this proposed amendment is to enable all American Citizens to understand all US laws and regulations without becoming a lawyer. In other words, is this a potential federal crime or a state crime (I can guarantee that with today's federal laws, everyone is a criminal).[1]


 I wanted this to be as simple as possible.
But I didn't want lawyers to poke holes in it. They still will. But hopefully not too many and not too much.

Sources:
[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304319804576389601079728920.html

Immoral Boycotting

The Rev. Jesse Jackson is trying to get people to boycott Florida because of the decision of the jury to rule that Zimmerman was guilty.
It is highly immoral to punish someone for something that they, personally have absolutely no control over - and by definition, the state has no control over any jury and its rulings. Nor can they change them.
I'm going to keep on buying Florida orange juice.