“Black lives matter” is a great slogan

… if your aim is to guilt-trip Democrat politicians and alienate potential friends. Otherwise it’s just spouting a truism while denying the broader truism “All lives matter.”

But those who espouse the slogan are determined to hang on to it. Several activists have insisted that saying “all lives matter” is a violent statement against black people. (Short of a specific threat to do harm, I’m not actually sure what a “violent statement” is, and how valuing life could be a threat escapes me.) Taking a more moderate position, one Leonard Pitts writes in the Miami Herald (using specious examples) that it’s merely an act of moral cowardice to claim that all lives matter.

There’s nothing wrong, of course, with an interest group trying to protect its own interests. And some specific proposals of the Black Lives Matter movement could go a long way toward helping people of any race, color, or creed who encounter cops:

The platform also demands that all officers be equipped with body cameras; for hog-ties, nickel-rides and chokeholds to be felony offenses; for officers to undergo consistent racial bias training; police demilitarization and the establishment of a permanent special prosecutor at the federal level who will independently investigate all cases of a police killing or seriously injuring a civilian.

But shouting, “Black lives matter” — with its clear implication that other lives don’t matter is … well, at the very least, it’s terrible PR. It’s divisive and hostile (imagine how we’d react to the equivalent statement, “White lives matter”!).

Fortunately, if this poll is correct even most black people prefer the broader “all lives matter” viewpoint.

—–

But what about what these Black Lives Matter activists are actually doing to protect themselves and their communities? Petitioning for laws to curb out-of-control cops is well and good. But it’s not the same as taking personal responsibility to defend lives.

I think back to the Deacons for Defense and Justice, who clearly believed with their hearts and souls that black lives mattered, but who walked their walk. They didn’t bother disrupting and intimidating politicians. They just armed themselves. Not merely for protection against “freelance” racist thugs, but against those who enforced noxious Jim Crow laws.

Later came the Black Panthers, who were even more in-your-face than the Black Lives Matter activists. Their techniques were divisive, too. They scared the heck out of “honkies” and some of their techniques may have boomeranged on them badly (with the help of J. Edgar Hoover, who loathed them and militated against them).

Their sudden armed appearance at the California statehouse in 1967 may have been one of the factors that led to passage of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968. But let’s also not forget that, on that day at the California Assembly, they were acting as pro-gun activists. They were protesting a proposed bill to outlaw carry of loaded firearms.

To this day, historians debate whether the original Panthers (there’s now a revival party) were good or bad for the black community. But of one thing, there’s no doubt whatsoever. They armed themselves and took responsibility for trying to protect and better their communities. Per Wikipedia:

At its inception in October 1966, the Black Panther Party’s core practice was its armed citizens’ patrols to monitor the behavior of police officers and challenge police brutality in Oakland, California. In 1969, community social programs became a core activity of party members. The Black Panther Party instituted a variety of community social programs, most extensively the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, and community health clinics.

If Black Lives Matter advocates really believe what they say, then they won’t just protest and petition. They won’t wait — patiently or otherwise — for the political establishment to fix the problems they perceive. They’ll step up to defend real lives in the real world as the Deacons and the Panthers did.

It would be a bonus if they recognized that the very political establishment they’re looking to for their salvation is the one that militarized the police, equipped them with both the mindset and the materiel of soldiers, and ensured that few armed agents of the government would ever bear personal accountability for excessive brutality. That same establishment is the creator of the drug war that has wrecked so many black homes, left so many black children fatherless, and filled so many cities with gang violence.

If black lives really matter — and they should — then activists will step up to personally defend them. Not only with defensive arms, but with the understanding that government is a cause, not a solution, to their problems.

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The Victims’ Mothers

Carolyn Loughton with a photograph of her daughter, Sarah Loughton

 

(Carolyn Loughton, who lost her 15-year-old daughter Sarah at Port Arthur, is petitioning against the sale of the Adler A110 shotgun in Australia.)

Citizen, remember!

The fact I have been hurt in a horrifying atrocity makes me entitled to all of your rights and liberties, for all of eternity, claimable by myself. Should you not agree with the above statement, then you are, in fact, guilty of compassion.

It does not matter that bills have already been passed to enable the darkest dystopian dreams of sci-fi writers – mass gun confiscation, a registry of all gun owners, etc. It does not matter that the government has been empowered to rule, in secret, on what future regulations to pass and what liberties you will be allowed to retain.

I am The Victim’s Mother. I can come at any time and demand more and you are totally defenseless against me, because I am the The Poor Innocent Victim’s Mother. Because your friends and neighbors are human, and because compassion towards a woman holding her dead child’s photograph in her hands is what most people will feel, this will empower my political masters to do anything we want.

The history of this practice – of rounding up victims’ mothers to protest for the political cause in question – dates back at least to the Prohibition. There are are more comical episodes – few people today remember Patricia Pulling and Kathleen Staples, for instance.

Sometimes I state that the True Revolutionary should be fearless, ruthless, and shameless. Incidents such as this one are examples why. The natural compassion we feel towards people like Staples, Pulling, and Loughton is essentially a tool in the hands of endless well-motivated do-gooders who seek to gnaw at the foundations of free society.

Some people in the liberty movement have taken to outright rudely mocking the endless throng of Victim’s Mothers which come out every time something tragic happens in our society. While this is something that’s hard to recommend to the mainstream politician, these acts of rude mockery exist because some of us have come to understand that the compassion that Victim’s Mothers elicit is such a powerful tool to bleed us dry.

I don’t need to turn to the experience of other people to discuss this. I have lost a loved one to a drug overdose, and for a while this did turn me to be anti-drug. This was fundamentally wrong. I realize now that the pain I’ve felt is not a hold over the humanity of others, nor over their dignity and freedom. Sadly the Loughtons and Pullings of this world never will.

 

 

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Welcoming Boris Karpa

The post just below this one is by TZP’s newest blogger. We are delighted to have Boris Karpa join us.

He may be a familar name to you. In the oughts, he blogged for USConcealedCarry.com. He has written for The Libertarian Enterprise. Most recently he’s been known for his translations of historic firearms and combat manuals.

Boris is a citizen and resident of Israel, but an American at heart. He’s done extensive study on 19th-century U.S. history and has a strong interest in worldwide military history. He’s a historian, translator, writer, and libertarian activist. And you don’t need me to tell you he’s going to bring tremendous talent and a vigorous new perspective to The Zelman Partisans.

Welcome, Boris! We’re looking forward to having you here.

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What the Right to Bear Arms is All About

decision

One of the issues that repeats itself in practically any gun argument is the trope wherein the anti-gun party commences its argument by stating: “We are not here to take your hunting shotgun. We are here to ban some extremely dangerous firearm that is only useful for killing other people.” Many times the people who are trying to defend their gun rights are lured into attempting to argue that their firearm of choice is actually meant for sports, and not actually meant for combat or self-defense. The extent to which this line is bought by gun rights advocates is quite fearsome – I have had numerous discussions with European gun owners who told me they actually feared discussing the concept of armed self-defense in public for fear of reprisals from the government.

It is important to understand that in these cases, the antis are often not deliberately lying. They do not intend to abolish the ownership outright – and there is no European country where gun ownership has been totally abolished. Even in the United Kingdom, individuals can buy shotguns and rifles if they prostrate themselves before the state sufficiently. That said, the right to bear arms in those countries has been extinguished completely as a social institution. (While a right of course is innate, and cannot be abolished by government fiat, the practice of defensive gun ownership has been de-facto eradicated in most of Europe).

To be clear, what the anti-gunners oppose is not guns as such. They are not lying, in that sense. What they oppose is the notion of people owning weapons. To an anti-gunner, there is no legitimate application, in modern society, of private armed force. He intends to take it from you, either by outright banning the ownership of weapons, or by making it as bothersome and complicated as possible. Nobody believes, of course, that introducing ‘universal background checks’ will prevent criminals from buying guns – but it might reduce gun ownership by, say, 1%, just by making it as bothersome and irritating as possible. Nibble a bit there, a bit there, and eventually the amount of gun owners decreases – like that of smokers – until it becomes politically tenable to do anything to restrain their rights and freedoms.

At first it might appear – and millions of gun owners the world around believe this – that you can compromise with these people, after all not all of us personally own guns as weapons, if we but explain to them rationally that our guns are not weapons, we can preserve our hobby…

Every gun rights organization around the world that tried to have this as their driving strategy has been utterly crushed. The reason is simple: once you’ve accepted the narrative that the only legitimate reason to own firearms is to use them in the shooting sports, most people do not empathize with your desire to participate in shooting sports. When the average person – who does not have the shooting sports as their hobby – is offered the chance to choose between some gun control measure that is peddled as increasing the security of his children, and the right of some person he doesn’t know to engage in a strange hobby, he will only naturally choose his children’s security. (Obviously, in real life, these measures won’t make him safer,  but he doesn’t have any way to know that).

Sadly, while the more advanced and knowledgeable segments of the RKBA movement have already understood this, there are still millions of people – especially outside the US – that haven’t quite grasped this concept. The lesson of the past few decades of gun rights activism is one that needs to be spread far and wide, beyond the core of the RKBA faithful.

The only meaningful strategy to defend the right to bear arms is to recognize what the Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution have meant it as: a right to have weapons, implements of self-defense with which you will fight and kill people who intend to do you harm. Self-defense is a concern that all human beings share, and if you can poise an alternate narrative – telling the listener, in effect, that the right to bear arms is the mechanism by which you mean to enhance your own safety (a desire everyone shares), and that it arguably also enhances his safety, you will be able to forge a universalist argument.

The truth is, we support the right to bear arms – and we own various guns and other implements of combat – because we recognize that there is evil in the world, and because we hope we are prepared to face it with guns in hand. If we attempt to cede our opponents’ argument, to try and haggle with them based on the false notion that our firearms are not tools of self-defense, we will end up humiliated and vanquished – as gun rights advocates around the world have been.

Only digging in on the position of the truth – yes, I defend guns because guns are useful for killing criminals and tyrants – is going to be successful. Only the truth shall set you free.

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There they go again

For a while it’s seemed as if the anti-gunners have been staggering around without direction. Yes, they’ve won several billionaire-funded state-level victories on the issue of gun-owner registration universal background checks. But beyond those few determined mega-rich (we’re talking to you, Bloomberg, Hanauer, and your elitist Microsoft pals, and you, too, Ms. Wynn), the hoplophobes appear to be wandering lost.

No doubt the financial smackdown for the Brady Center’s frivolous lawsuits has had something to do with that.

But recently, the marching morons show signs of getting their feet back under them so they can go goose-stepping along their merry way.

To wit:

1. The influential Pew Research organization issued yet another poll claiming that darned near every American, of any party or philosophical stripe is just dying to impose more restrictions on gun ownership.

It doesn’t matter that poll questions can be carefully crafted to produce desired results. It doesn’t matter that the 85% supposedly in favor of forcing us to ask government permission to buy guns universal background checks almost certainly haven’t studied the matter at all, let alone studied it well enough to grok the ramifications. Pew helpfully produced a statistic for the antis to use. And use it they will.

2. The University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health (consider the source!) next drops a badly done “study” claiming the more guns in a given state, the more murdered cops.

3. Then Georgetown University (consider the source!) comes out with a report on “Lone Wolf Terrorism” that once again makes the laughable claim that “far-right extremists” (e.g. angry gun owners) are at least as big a threat as Islamic jihadis.

This isn’t new, of course. It’s a notion that the media and various alphabet agencies of the fedgov have been promoting for a long time. But there is a problem when it becomes acceptible (and even encouraged) to think of millions of fellow countrymen as the enemy — not just as people you might disagree with, not just as political opponents, not just as members of a different culture — but as enemies.

TZP_MollieIvans_EnemiesQuote

(And yes, it’s ironic that that excellent quote was tweeted by the wildly excessive, polarizing CSGV, who have been responsible for stirring endless hate against gun owners — to the point of calling on people to SWAT us and otherwise threaten our health and our lives.)

We already know what happens when propagandists turn an entire country against a portion of its population. Been there. Done that. Have the mass graves to show for it in country after country. Of course, not very often do Masters of Public Opinion choose well-armed millions as their target.

That could end up getting interesting if they push the issue.

—–

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Rumblings Below the Bible Belt

When you think of observant Judaism, San Antonio, Texas may not spring immediately to mind. Yet in north-central part of the City there is a Jewish community large and vibrant enough to support two orthodox synagogues.

One, as is found in nearly every viable location on Earth, is a Chabad Lubavitch shul. Indeed, theirs is so strong that they have no less than THREE shaliach couples (Rabbis and their indispensable wives).

A couple of miles to the West, is a bit of a fixture in San Antonio: Congregation Rodfei Sholom.

Rodfei Sholom, affiliated with the Rabbinical Council of America / Orthodox Union, serves a congregation of over three hundred families, from a wide variety of backgrounds, from orthodox to reform. Their Rabbi is Aryeh Scheinberg.

Rabbi Scheinberg, classically trained in a Brooklyn yeshiva, has spent the last thirty years building a reputation for integrity, blended with inclusiveness and tolerance. The latter aspects, although always valuable, are crucial in communities where Jews are few and yiddishkeit difficult.

Although raising eyebrows along the way, Rabbi Scheinberg has built Rodfei Shalom into an integral and valued part of the larger community.

On Wednesday August 12th, congregants filed out from early morning Shacharit services, to find that not everyone in San Antonio was a “Pursuer of Peace” (as the Rodfei Sholom translates from Hebrew). Someone had spray painted swastikas and racist sentiments on the synagogue, neighboring homes, cars, fences. One of the cars also had the window glass shattered. Over thirty locations in all.

The local police began their investigation, soon joined due to the “Hate Crime” aspect, by the FBI, who has recently added a $5, 000.00 reward for the capture and conviction of the culprit. Then the reward was doubled.  Reportedly, they have their eye on one particular person who resides in the area.

Most noteworthy was the immediate and strong response of the internationally known Pastor John Hagee, who roundly condemned the act, and underlined his long-standing support. Pastor Hagee, of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, was quickly joined by a wide variety of political and social leaders in condemning the acts and calling for swift justice.

These kinds of acts, usually perpetrated by some defective goober, rarely precipitate into violence against people. Like the numerous KKK or Neo-Nazi “Rallys” where maybe three or four rather sad characters turn up to a city park in their clapped out AMC Gremlin, to wave flags, march about, and annoy several hundred counter-protesters for the TV cameras, only to return to obscurity, this racist graffiti and mischief likely portends nothing.

Still, when the real violence happens, the perpetrators were usually among the participants in the lesser crimes, or the “rallys”. So, it is wise to keep an eye peeled.

I am not a fan of the idea “Hate Crimes”. If they do catch the culprit, I would much rather he or she be compelled to make full and personal restitution, in a very public way, to each and every victim.

Who knows, doing so might save the idiot from a path leading to a determined Jew defending his home and family with a shotgun.

“The Lord tries the righteous, but His soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.”  Tehillim 11:5

 

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The Double Edged…….. Standard

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”. The sentence comes from the novel Animal Farm by George Orwell. The synopsis is pretty good if you are unfamiliar with the book.

So it seems that some groups are allowed to say and do certain things with impunity, while other groups are branded with evil labels very undeservedly. I have a few examples for you.

Remember the “Draw Mohammed” contest in Garland Texas a while back? The event was organized by Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs. She was demonized by all on the left and some on the right. Because she felt in America, we should have free speech. The event was sometime after the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Casher grocery terrorist attacks by muslims. The Hebdo attack was prompted by a cartoon that appeared in the magazine and the perpetually offended “religion of peace” went on another killing spree. Many criticized Ms. Geller for having such an event. Why bound to cause trouble, no need to stir things up, best to just shut up and not make waves and all, right old sport? Ms. Geller’s point was, if in America, we are no longer free to speak, or have a cartoon drawing contest, we are no longer free. We have already submitted to Sharia law. This story ran on the news for DAYS on end, without stopping.

Now let’s just compare that to how the mainstream media went on for DAYS on end about a muslim professor at Lincoln University in Philadelphia. Just kidding about it running on the news for days on end </snark>

The Pakistani Professor Kaukab Siddique has made the statement “calling Pamela Geller and like-minded anti-Muslim commentators “dirty Jewish Zionist thugs.” Okayyyy, and if Pamela Geller would have called Kaukab Siddique a dirty muslim thug? But she didn’t, and as it turns out in addition to receiving his paycheck from taxpayer dollars, some of which no doubt are Jewish he also has the lamestream media to fly cover for him. As a state related university Lincoln receives about 13 million dollars in state funds. Wow, so 13 million contributes towards a professor who teaches that the holocaust didn’t exist. From Atlas Shrugs

Of course he won’t retract. Such ideological rhetoric and hatred has been normed by a sharia-adhering culture, and most particularly by academia. Islamic Jew-hatred goes under the guise of “palestinianism,” when it is actually nazism.

The author of the article, Susan Snyder, validates this vile professor’s hatred when she describes me as “anti-Muslim.” I am anti-jihad. But if she described me that way, people would think, “what’s wrong with that”? Snyder goes on to use the radical, fringe Southern Poverty Law Center to further smear me. Mind you, this is an article about a Muslim professor at an American university calling Jews, and me in particular, “dirty Jewish Zionist thugs.” And Snyder works hard to norm this depravity. She did not, of course, bother to contact me for comment.

In calling our free speech event in Garland, Texas “cultural genocide,” Professor Siddique reveals how truly insidious his agenda really is. Standing for free speech against violent intimidation is “cultural genocide”? Snyder passes on this ridiculous claim without remarking upon it. What Siddique is saying is that violating Islam’s blasphemy laws is tantamount to mass murder — and the only alternative is that we submit and accept those blasphemy laws.

It’s really cute how budding “reporter” little Susie Snyder uses the Southern Poverty Law Center as a credible source. Sort of like a local parrot cage liner around here used the Violence Policy Center as a reliable source of un-biased information on guns. I know, sometimes they can’t help but tell us how ignorant and biased they are when they used sources like that and then claim they are unbiased.

So cartoon contest=evil, must not speak or draw of such things.

Calling Jews and their supporters “Dirty Jewish Thugs”=free speech that must be protected and supported with taxpayer money.

Wow, really?

So, while we are on the topic of culture, there is a Jewish American reggae singer named Matisyahu.

It seems Matisyahu was scheduled to preform in Spain at the Rototom Sunsplash festival. But then the radical BDS movement got involved. They demanded that the singer produce a compelling document or video that he supported the two state “solution”. They accused Matisyahu and Israel of supporting “an apartheid state which practices ethnic-cleansing,”. So the organizers in a effort to placate the tolerant freedom loving and supporting BDS movement caved and pressured Matisyahu, who didn’t cave.

“The festival organizers contacted me because they were getting pressure from the BDS movement. They wanted me to write a letter, or make a video, stating my positions on Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to pacify the BDS people,” wrote Matisyahu.

“I support peace and compassion for all people. My music speaks for itself, and I do not insert politics into my music,” he continued. “Music has the power to transcend the intellect, ideas, and politics, and it can unite people in the process.”

“The festival kept insisting that I clarify my personal views; which felt like clear pressure to agree with the BDS political agenda. Honestly it was appalling and offensive, that as the one publicly Jewish-American artist scheduled for the festival they were trying to coerce me into political statements,” wrote Matisyahu.

“Were any of the other artists scheduled to perform asked to make political statements in order to perform? No artist deserves to be put in such a situation simply to perform his or her art. Regardless of race, creed, country, cultural background, etc, my goal is to play music for all people. As musicians that is what we seek,” he concluded.

The answer is no. No other artists were pressured into making political statements that more than likely they didn’t agree with. Certainly another shining example of how freedom of speech (if you are Jewish or Israel supporter anyway) doesn’t go both ways.

It takes courage to continue to fight for her right to speak out, or draw cartoons and Pamela does continue to speak out. It takes courage for Matisyahu not to cave to the pressure to make a statement he may or not agree with. The fact that he was the only artist pressured to do so is very telling.

So while some can say and do as they please with media support, some can not. Some animals really are more equal than others aren’t they?

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And Then…

I recently attended a lecture on the fate of the Sephardic Jews during WWII. Most people are familiar with what happened with the Ashkenazi Jews, as it was mainly the European Jews caught up in the brunt of hitler’s maniacal extermination plan. But the Sephardic Jews certainly shared their fate, but their stories are less well known.

Much of this came to light when US military forces invaded Iraq. On 6th May 2003 when US forces entered the military intelligence HQ of Saddam Hussein (as opposed to barak hussein). They found papers, prayer books, documents, office correspondence, and Hebrew calendars in about 4 feet of water. Astonishing! For more than one reason. It survived and is being preserved and restored and two, it shows the presence of a thriving Jewish community that existed in Iraq. Apparently the late Hussein, well, and the still living barak hussein wished to destroy any evidence of Jewish existence. I know, big yawn, what’s new. But some of the info the lecturer covered was very interesting. So, I’ll just give you a short report.

I suppose you could call the holocaust hitler’s muslim outreach pogrom, er, program. The Mufti of Jerusalem and hitler were buddies and allies in their desire to exterminate all Jewish life from planet earth. In 1941 Iraq had their pogrom. And while Achmadinajakerchooo denies the holocaust, he apparently doesn’t know his countries history. No, I mean he doesn’t know Iranian history. During the holocaust he denies, Iran was a safe way station for Jews going to the future Israel. He doesn’t know of the decency of “The Children of Tehran”. Apparently while Achmadinajakerchoo is brainless enough denying the holocaust, he is equally adept at exposing his ignorance of his own country. He thinks it has 57 stat…oops sorry, wrong dude.

The Island of Corfu. There Jews were craftsman and there was a small Jewish community. The mayor was a vicious anti-Semite and all but about 200 of the Jews were rounded up and shipped to Auschwitz. To get there, they had to go through 9 different countries, with 9 different currencies, and yet they were shipped. The 200 that did escape were sheltered by the local population of Corfu. The Greek Jews did not fare well at all in the concentration camps. They didn’t speak Yiddish, or German, Polish or any other language except Ladino. Therefore, where the other Jews in the camp could pass on life saving tips and tricks the Greek Jews were unable to understand the others, or to communicate with them.

In Salonika (Thessaloniki) the Jews were rounded up to be sent to Auschwitz. The community paid 2 billion drachmas for their freedom. And yet 50,000 were sent to Auschwitz, their Synagogues destroyed and cemeteries desecrated. Only 1,950 of them survived. Many of the Jews from Salonika were forced into being Sonderkommandos. I didn’t learn this in the lecture, but found it interesting. On 7 October 1944, the Sonderkommandos from Salonika joined with other Greek Jews in an uprising. They stormed the crematoria, killed 20 guards, fire-bombed the building and destroyed it before they were massacred by the Germans. Before they met their end they sang a song of the Greek Partisans and the Greek National anthem.

The Greek Jews that could escape being rounded up often joined up with the Greek Resistance and fought back.

I didn’t learn this in the lecture either, but I like it. When Mayor Carrer of Zakynthos was told by the Germans to give over the names of the 275 Jewish inhabitants of Zakynthos, the Metropolitan Bishop of Zakynthos turned over to the Germans a list of names. Two names. His and the Mayors. The island of Zakynthos then hid every single member of the Island’s Jewish population.

It was in Yugoslavia that the Germans developed their mobile execution chambers. They used moving trucks into which special flooring was put in. They then had the exhaust hoses fed to the inside of the truck. The special flooring was to deal with the body’s actions at time of death. It made it easier for the nazis to hose the trucks out.

Bulgaria. Bulgaria is interesting. Now while old Abe Foxman of the ADL is happy to laud Bulgaria for their courageous saving of the Bulgarian Jews, this article goes into even more detail than our lecture did about what a truly mixed bag the “saving” was. No, Bulgaria didn’t want to deport their Jews. Yes, there was a massive eruption from the writers, lawyers and other professionals when the nazis wanted to begin deportation of Bulgaria’s Jews. But this was after they had plenty of blood on their hands. They were fine with containing them in ghettos and seizing their property, making them wear a star and mark their homes with a star making them easy targets for thugs. In addition to which 20,000 were deported. Not to a concentration camp of course, you understand and all. They were transported to about 3 different cities, for 3 weeks. THEN they were deported to Treblinka. In the end, Archbishop Roncalli wrote to King Boris and told him if he did this his place in heaven would be denied. He wasn’t going, no way, no how. That apparently did it. Afterwards Archbishop Roncalli wrote King Boris III and told him his place in heaven was assured.

North Africa, the King of Monaco flat refused to deport the Jews of Monaco. In fact the Jews were better off living in Monaco than they were Vichy France. In case you don’t know how “helpful” Vichy France was to the Jews.

Tunisia had local concentration camps, but they were not death camps.

In Algeria the Jews led a unsuccessful resistance to the Germans, but luckily, the Americans were in the neighborhood for Operation Torch.

The Italians were fine with persecuting the Jews, but in GENERAL, it didn’t want to kill them.

In certain countries, the price paid was the entire country, the impact of WWII on Sephardic culture was severe.

These were people that were just going along, having a nice life. Living with their families, loving, raising children, going to Synagogues, doing their jobs, practicing their professions. Their communities had been there often for hundreds of years living with their neighbors. And everything was fine.

Everything was fine, until one day. And then it wasn’t.

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Seattle Taking Stupid Pills

OK, who put the stupid in Seattle’s water?

The city council in that den of dimwittery has unanimously approved a “gun violence” tax.

Under the new law, referred to as the “gun violence tax,” gun and ammo sales in the city are subject to a tax of $25 per firearm at sale and $0.05 for every round of ammunition at sale ($0.02 for every round of .22 caliber ammunition and smaller). Seattle’s City Budget Office estimates that the gun violence tax will raise between $300,000 and $500,000 per year: revenue raised under the tax will be earmarked for violence prevention.

Some gun rights opponents dolts claim that the tax will deter potential criminals from buying a gun which would be used to commit a violent crime.

Because criminals so often buy their guns legally? Because there are no firearms available on the black market or from a local drug dealer? Because they can’t borrow or steal a firearm? A $25 fee will somehow deter someone intent on committing violence from doing so?

A similar tax was adopted in Cook County, IL, and that apparently has not in any way prevented the carnage that’s going on over there! Do the city council members think that somehow their results will be different?

Chances are a special tax on constitutionally protected purchases will do nothing to stop crime.

What it MIGHT do is prevent those who purchase guns legally from doing so in Seattle. And once Seattle gun shops start losing business – and if they lose enough of it – they might want to consider relocating to an environment that’s more friendly to both the Second Amendment and the free market. And once they relocate, how much in tax revenue are you going to lose, morons?

Additionally, what it also will do is make effective tools of self defense more cost prohibitive to the very people who need said tools the most: the poor, who tend to live in not so nice neighborhoods, and for whom the $25 might mean either purchase of a firearm with which to defend their families from thugs who will more likely than not get their guns illegally anyway or food on the table, but not both.

Why do the elitist members of the Seattle City Council hate the poor?

Given the abject FAIL that was Cook County’s “violence reduction tax,” why do the members of the Seattle City Council insist on repeating the insanity?

Apparently the entire city council fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down.

I can only hope that every gun shop owner picks up and leaves the city and that businesses outside the city benefit from the sales while Seattle hemorrhages tax revenue. If there’s any common sense or justice in this world, it will happen.

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Pant, pant, pant … posting as fast as I can to catch up!

First thing: Thank you BIG TIME to Sheila and Y.B. for carrying the blogging load the last week or so. I’ve been trying to get here for at least a small post but … life.

So I’d just like to give a couple of quick updates:

  • Thanks to everybody who submitted dumb anti-gun quotes for TZP targets. We’ve verified those that can be verified (and thank you so very much to you who submitted quotes with original-source links!) and are now passing the entries around among the TZP leadership group. We’re not sure exactly when we’ll announce the winners, and it may be that after we’ve chosen our “favorites” a designer will have the final say as he fits everything together. But we’ll keep you posted. We definitely got some grins and groans out of your submissions.
  • The same day our quote contest closed, Lucky Gunner announced the final results in its poll to give away the money owed to it by the Brady Center. Your votes kept TZP solidly in the middle of the pack all the way to the end. Our numbers were modest but we still came out in the vicinity of several larger, better-known groups. And the main thing is that we had an unprecedented chance to get noticed. Kudos to you.

Now, that said, here are some links I’ve been collecting for you:

  • A couple of my recent posts were about resistance within Germany to the Nazis. Y.B. sent these links to information on Christians who resisted on principle.
  • “They Hate You Because You’re Jewish, You Idiot!” No comment.
  • Man, this is (almost) enough to make a body like Chuck Schumer. And note how quickly the Obama White House stabbed him in the back.
  • This spring, I stumbled across a weird story about officials in a Greek town demanding — of all things! — that a star of David be removed from a Holocaust museum. Um … srsly? But the actions of a couple of politicians halfway around the world didn’t seem all that newsworthy, so I just sat on the link at the time.
  • Then more recently, Y.B. sent me these poll results — which put the actions of Greek officials into much more chilling perspective. No wonder the Jews of Europe are either getting out or beginning to agitate for the right to bear arms.
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