Politics

Post by Michael Smith on Facebook:

The most impenetrable fortress is not a citadel built of concrete and steel, it is a delusional mind built from lies and raw emotion.

It’s way past the time when a rational and moral people understand that while the American left’s causes are not real, their violence most certainly is.

Its not unusual for family and friends to describe a perpetrator of political violence as a “nice, quiet person who never bothered anybody”, because most of the time they are­­—but interestingly enough, the same gamma ray energy that transforms mild-mannered scientist Bruce Banner into a rage monster called the Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, transforms that quiet person into a monster who plans and executes an attack on the President of the United States and his cabinet.

Rather than radiation, this “gamma ray” energy is a concoction of hyperbole, half-truths, and lies constantly emitted from Democrat politicians, operatives, and social media influencers and then amplified and beamed directly into the brains and bloodstreams of the Democrat Bruce Banners by willing media mouthpieces who smuggle accusatory premises into dangerous minds via loaded questions as they hide behind a shroud of “objectivity.

Normal, moral people would be shocked if something they said or did cause threat, harm or death to another person and would question their reasoning behind what they did or said. Not so with the contemporary left, and I include the mainstream media in that group (because they are not just friends and allies of the left, they are the left).

President Trump’s interview with Nora O’Donnell last night was a perfect example. O’Donnell feigned concern for a few minutes but that quickly evaporated when she shifted the line of questioning from “Gee sir, we are so shocked that someone would do something like that, but what response do you have to the charge made by the person who wanted to kill you that you are a rapist, a pedophile, and a traitor?”

I found that question interesting in that Scott Pelley, O’Donnell’s risible co-anchor of 60 Minutes, had just minutes before casually and uncritically described the January 6th riot as “the insurrection” as if it had been declared such with legal finality and certainty.

The media did take a gut punch with this assassination attempt because the perpetrator expressed the degree to which he had been irradiated by the left-wing media narrative—and it stopped them for a fraction of a second. And I do mean a fraction of a second because the pause was not due to the assassination attempt, it was the temerity that someone would do it in their presence.

Their response was not to self-examine, they went immediately into cover your ass mode with both blame shifting and the “both sides” rhetoric they always use, but that isn’t working the way it once did. When a faction considers speech as violence (and even silence is defined that way) and the cold-blooded public execution of an insurance company executive is defined as “understandable”, you are not dealing with normal, moral people capable of self-reflection.

It isn’t like the world hasn’t seen this process before.

For all the left’s protestation that the right is filled with Nazis, they are essentially making accusations in a mirror. Their tactics of framing accusation as common knowledge are the same as used by Hitler’s movement in pre-WWII Germany to convince the populace that Jews were the real problem.

That shift didn’t happen in a single leap; it was built over time by the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler by combining old prejudices with modern persuasion. Antisemitism already existed in Europe, but the Nazis reframed Jews as a racial and existential threat, then hammered that message through a coordinated propaganda machine led by Joseph Goebbels. Using newspapers, radio, film, and rallies, they repeated simple accusations—blaming Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I and the hardship of the Great Depression—until those claims felt familiar and, to many, plausible. Economic collapse, political instability, and national humiliation made large portions of the population more receptive to scapegoating and promises of restoration.

Once in power, rhetoric became policy. The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of rights and citizenship, while escalating acts like Kristallnacht signaled that exclusion and violence were acceptable. Social pressure, fear of punishment, and even material incentives encouraged conformity, while dissent became risky. Step by step—stigma, exclusion, dispossession—the regime normalized increasingly extreme measures. What began as accusation and propaganda hardened into law and, ultimately, into systematic removal and destruction.

If that sounds familiar, it should—and you are not wrong to think that.

Germany stared into Hitler’s mirror and rather than seeing their own reflection, they saw Jews. When contemporary Democrats stare into their mirror, they don’t see themselves, they see Trump and his supporters.

The Democrats, their media allies and the American left, just had the opportunity to ask themselves if they are the baddies—and they paused for a second and then simply ignored it and returned to staring at themselves in Hitler’s mirror.

Gang Member Convicted of Murder in ‘Retaliation Shooting’ at Norcross Hotel
A gang member was convicted of murder after a targeted retaliation shooting at a Norcross, Georgia hotel. The case involved gang-related violence where the defendant sought revenge for a prior incident, resulting in the death of the victim.¹

Warrants: Greenville Man Arrested for Soliciting Gang Retaliation Shootings
A Greenville man was arrested on warrants for allegedly soliciting gang retaliation shootings. Authorities say he directed others to carry out violent reprisals on his behalf as part of ongoing gang conflicts.²

Complaint: 3 Charged in Alleged Gang Retaliation Shooting That Killed 26-Year-Old
Three individuals were charged in connection with a gang retaliation shooting that killed a 26-year-old. The criminal complaint details how the shooting was carried out as payback in a gang dispute.³

Former DA Says Stockton Shooting Shows Signs of Gang Retaliation
A former district attorney stated that a mass shooting in Stockton exhibited clear indicators of gang retaliation. The incident is being analyzed as part of a cycle of gang violence rather than a random event.⁴

I think we can all agree on how the word retaliation is used. It means tit for tat. It means you hit me so I am going to hit you back.

Retaliation is always in response to something. When we start digging into gang-related violence, we often find that retaliations are long-standing, with the original event long lost to time, with each side justifying their behavior as just a response to something else.

September 1, 1939– German forces crossed the Polish border at first light in a lightning campaign of coordinated tanks, infantry, and aircraft. Polish units have been driven back on all fronts as the German Army advances deep into western Poland.⁵

May 10, 1940 – In a stunning blow, the German Army has struck through the Ardennes Forest, bypassing the Maginot Line. Panzer columns have split the Allied armies, driving toward the Channel coast and threatening to cut off British and French forces in Belgium.⁶

June 22, 1941– At dawn this morning, more than three million German troops supported by thousands of tanks and aircraft crossed into Soviet territory along a vast front. The long-expected invasion of Russia is now underway with full fury.⁷

December 16, 1944 – German panzer divisions have launched a powerful surprise attack through the Ardennes in bitter winter weather. The enemy is attempting a desperate breakout toward Antwerp in what appears to be a major counter-offensive aimed at splitting American and British lines.⁸

When we are at war, we are not retaliating over anything. We have objectives that we are striving to achieve. These can be attacks on infrastructure, combat units, lines of communication, or command and control.

I am sure there are other types of targets.

These targets are all picked to achieve the goal of victory.

But let us look at a counterexample, the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo.

In April of 1942, sixteen B-25 bombers launched an attack from the USS Hornet while 650 nautical miles from Japan. They were targeting military targets in Tokyo, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Nagoya, and Kobe.

This could have been seen as a retaliation mission, but it was not just retaliation. It had both tactical and strategic value.

The short-term tactical value was that they did destroy some military targets. In the grand scheme of things, the effect of that destruction likely went unnoticed on the front.

On a strategic scale, it was a huge success. It told the Japanese, in no uncertain terms, that the United States was still standing, still fighting, and could reach out and touch them in their homeland.

The results were long-lasting. The Japanese recalled parts of their fleet to the home waters to protect the islands. This reduced the forces available for active combat.

Was it retaliation for Pearl Harbor? More “No” than “Yes.”

Iran threatens tit-for-tat retaliation against power plants
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards issued a statement warning that any attack on its electricity infrastructure would prompt reciprocal strikes on Israel’s power plants and facilities supplying U.S. bases in the region. The declaration emphasizes proportional deterrence, stating “If you hit electricity, we hit electricity,” amid escalating threats from U.S. President Trump regarding Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.⁹

Iran’s retaliation forces Gulf nations into difficult choices
Following Israeli strikes on Iran’s South Pars gas field, Tehran launched retaliatory attacks on energy sites in Gulf Arab states allied with the U.S. This has placed countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE in a dilemma: whether to fully align with the U.S.-Israel effort or face ongoing Iranian strikes, highlighting Iran’s strategy to widen the conflict and pressure regional neighbors.¹⁰

Iran vows retaliation if energy infrastructure is targeted
Iran’s deputy foreign minister and parliamentary speaker warned that threats to its power plants violate international law and would trigger proportional responses, potentially targeting regional energy and water facilities. The statements come as Iran continues retaliatory missile and drone strikes while facing U.S. and Israeli pressure over the Strait of Hormuz and nuclear sites.¹¹

Trump’s ultimatum prompts Iranian retaliation threats
In response to President Trump’s 48-hour deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face destruction of its energy sites, Iranian officials doubled down on warnings of retaliation against critical infrastructure in the Middle East. Parliamentary speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf stated that such attacks would make energy facilities “legitimate targets,” raising fears of broader disruption to global oil and water supplies.¹²

Lack of Autonomy

To say that something is done in retaliation is to claim that an entity has no autonomy. They can only react.

This is a persistent theme from the left. They claim that the person doing a bad thing lacks autonomy. We see this over and over again.

The black kid did not have a choice; that is why he murdered that 80-year-old woman. She used a bad word on him.

Hamas is just responding to Israeli actions. They never would have done that without Israel first doing that “bad thing.”

And now we have Iran. Iran is acting like a child, retaliating for what is happening to them. They refuse to own their own choices. They are in the FO part of FAFO but they did not do anything to deserve it.

It is sickening to listen to the media frame Iran’s shooting missiles at civilian targets as “retaliation.” These are not military targets; these are terror targets.

It is the age-old method of these terrorist states and leftists. They tell you that they are going to do really bad things unless you let them do little bad things.

That is stopping. That is coming to an end. We will not be blackmailed by terrorists.

1. Gang Member Convicted of Murder in ‘Retaliation Shooting’ at Norcross Hotel, Atlanta News First, February 14, 2026, https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2026/02/14/gang-member-convicted-murder-retaliation-shooting-norcross-hotel/.
2. Warrants: Greenville Man Arrested for Soliciting Gang Retaliation Shootings, WITN, March 15, 2026, https://www.witn.com/2026/03/15/warrants-greenville-man-arrested-soliciting-gang-retaliation-shootings/.
3. Complaint: 3 Charged in Alleged Gang Retaliation Shooting That Killed 26-Year-Old, CBS58, November 14, 2025, https://www.cbs58.com/news/complaint-3-charged-in-alleged-gang-retaliation-shooting-that-killed-26-year-old.
4. Former DA Says Stockton Shooting Shows Signs of Gang Retaliation, ABC10, December 11, 2025, https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/stockton/former-da-mass-shooting-shows-signs-gang-retaliation/103-98419476-005d-4207-8d8b-b13a83b4f0a0.
5. German Forces Launch Blitzkrieg Invasion of Poland, N.Y. Times, Sept. 1, 1939, at 1.
6. Germans Attack Through Ardennes Forest, Bypassing Maginot Line, The Times (London), May 11, 1940, at 1.
7. Operation Barbarossa: Germany Invades Soviet Union on 1,800-Mile Front, Wash. Post, June 22, 1941, at 1.
8. German Panzers Launch Surprise Breakout Offensive in Ardennes, N.Y. Times, Dec. 17, 1944, at 1.
9. Iran points at tit for tat retaliation if power plants targeted, statement, Reuters, March 23, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/iran-points-tit-tat-retaliation-if-power-plants-targeted-statement-2026-03-23.
10. Iran retaliation is forcing Gulf nations into a stark decision: whether to join the fight, NBC News, March 19, 2026, https://www.nbcnews.com/world/middle-east/iran-retaliation-forcing-gulf-nations-stark-decision-whether-join-figh-rcna263915.
11. Iran vows retaliation if its energy infrastructure is targeted, Iran International, March 22, 2026, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202603225423.
12. Trump’s ultimatum to Iran draws threat of retaliation, Associated Press, March 22, 2026, https://apnews.com/live/iran-war-israel-trump-03-22-2026.

The phrase “lowest common denominator” is commonly used by the public, but what people actually mean is — the smallest integer greater than one that divides evenly into all members of a set. In everyday language, it describes reducing anything to the lowest level shared by the group.

Education is all about the LCD

Public education now operates on exactly this principle. In any classroom, resources are disproportionately poured into the single lowest-performing student, dwarfing the attention and instruction given to everyone else.

Unfortunately, “lowest common denominator” describes how the educational industry treats educating students. In any classroom, there is one student lower than all the rest, who receives the bulk of the educational resources.

The amount of resources that goes into supporting that one student will dwarf the resources that go into the rest of the classroom.

We Cut Off the Right Hand Tail

When my children were in first grade, they were part of the gifted and talented program. Students were selected by the G&T teacher to be part of the program. They were proud to be part of it.

While it was only a few hours per week, they were stretched in ways that they did not see in the normal classroom.

My son was part of the G&T program, even though he had communication issues. The teacher recognized his abilities. He shone in the program.

Within a year of my children becoming part of the G&T program, they had renamed it because “other children felt excluded” and it “had lowered their self-esteem.”

The teacher was moved to teaching something else and the new program accepted anybody who was “gifted” or “talented,” where those terms were very inclusive.

The kid in the second grade that couldn’t read CVC words but drew “pretty pictures” was a gifted artist and if he wanted, he was part of the gifted and talented program.

Over the time my children were in elementary school, the resources allocated by the school system to smart children were reduced to near zero. All gifted programs were funded and run by volunteers.

The resources that went to the “low achievers” continued to grow.

Diluting Resources for the Many

When “No Child Left Behind” was in the spotlight, I knew what it meant. It meant that every child would get the resources needed to assist that child in getting the best education possible for that child.

That is what I believed until a teacher explained how it was being implemented.

The requirements were that the schools “pass” as many students as possible. This translated, at the lowest levels, to teachers being told they couldn’t give low grades to students, that they couldn’t fail students, or in the education industry vocabulary, hold back a child.

Since the schools were being graded on how many students graduated, the standards to graduate fell.

At some point, we started the integration process. Whereas before, we had classrooms for those needing special education, now we have integrated classrooms.

This is a boon for many students. There were bad things happening to students that were labeled “Special Ed.” before this happened. The stories of smart kids with speech or reading disabilities being treated as if they were stupid.

Integrated classrooms solved this. In a Special Ed. classroom there was nothing to stretch the boundaries of smart kids, so they all looked equally disabled.

They told my son not to take math

My oldest son has a learning disability. At an Individual Education Plan (IEP) meeting we were discussing his classes for the next year.

Every female “educator” at that table suggested that he not take math classes, because math was “hard.” Math was easy for my son. His disability was in communications. Still is.

He was smart enough to convince his teachers he was reading 3 grade levels below his actual grade level because he liked to read The Magic Tree House books. And they wouldn’t let him read those if he was reading at grade level.

His teachers never noticed him become less skilled until he was where he wanted to be.

The point being that these educators didn’t know their student and they didn’t know what he was capable of accomplishing, even though they were the experts in the room.

My son took resources from the rest of that classroom, until they stopped treating him as disabled and started treating him as capable.

Today’s education industry is built around servicing, their term, “special needs” students. The rest of the students can fend for themselves.

A Million for Special Ed., None for Gifted

I’ve been told it costs over $200,000 to send a student out of district. Our local district spends more than a million dollars a year on sending “special needs” students out of district to schools that can handle them.

That’s less than 10 students who consume 5% or more of the school budget. That does not include the overhead of all the administrative stuff that goes into servicing them.

In some ways, I prefer that they be sent to a real special education school. It improves the educational perspective of the students that are still here.

Now, the school system could group those kids by needs and abilities. They don’t. Instead, they spread them across all the classrooms. Every class has one or more special needs students in it.

The worst school I attended had 30 students per class. There were 6 classes at my grade level, labeled “A” through “F”. Classes moved as a group from classroom to classroom.

This is a poor way to get the best outcomes. Not all “smart” kids are smart in all things. But it is the way the school system had set it up. Which was good news for me.

That’s because I was in class A. And in class A we were taking the hardest math, science, English, French, and history in the school.

While our math class was preparing us for higher math, class F was also attending math classes, where they were learning to do money math. That’s right, they were learning to add, subtract, and have a clue as to how much they spent.

The saddest thing? Class F students were still failing at a higher rate than Class A.

But for one class a day, our teachers were able to teach. I believe they lived for that small joy.

No Child Left Behind was meant to provide reasonable services to those with learning needs outside the norm. Instead it has become a nightmare of teaching to the lowest in the classroom and not caring about the highest; they’ll do alright on their own.

I’m sure that many of you have heard this dilemma asked. As a baby, Hitler was innocent. He remained innocent through his youth, through World War I, and beyond.

At some point, he became evil.

I would not kill baby Hitler. My world is what it is today because of WWII. Would it be better if Hitler had never been the leader of Germany? I don’t know, and neither do you.

We know the results, and we are where we are today because of our history, good and bad.

In 1989 or so I was interviewing with Cray Research. They gave me two options: I could work at an Army site, or I could work at NASA Langley.

I knew where Langley, VA, was. It was in the heart of the swamp. I couldn’t afford to live in that area, and I would hate the city life. Everything about living in Langley, VA, sucked for me.

I accepted the job offer for the Army site. It turned out that I got to work on the bleeding edge of computer graphics. I got to do stuff with amazing computers. I found a mentor that taught me more than I had learned in years. It took me through two bad marriages and into a great one.

It turns out that NASA Langley is located in Newport News, VA. About 20 miles from where I graduated from high school. It was in a part of the country I love. If I had known that NASA Langley was not located in Langley, VA, I would have taken that offer.

Would I change that decision if I could? No.

This is my world.

We live with the consequences of choices—both the ones we make and the ones we refuse to make. Today the same people who claim they would kill baby Hitler are screaming that Trump had no right to stop the Iranian regime before it could build its own final solution.

We hear from the better educated elites about how horrible it is that Trump attacked Iran without permission or provocation.

Let’s get some facts very clear. Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979. When the “students” deposed the Shah, they installed the current theocracy—at least until last week. They declared, “Death to America”. They declared war on us.

Except for the time when Iran and Iraq were busy killing each other’s child soldiers, Iran has been actively attacking the United States.

The bombing of the USS Cole? Iran. The mining of the Strait of Hormuz? Iran. The mine almost sinking the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf? Iran. The first bombing of the World Trade Center? Iran. The arming of Hamas and Hezbollah? Iran.

If you look at any Muslim terrorist action, you can trace it back to Iran. (And if you aren’t covering for the the media’s beloved Obama, you can see the money he sent them funding those operations.)

Now I called them “students,” because in 1979 that was how they were labeled by the lying media. They were communist-trained revolutionaries—the same militant radical instigators we find on US college campuses today.

Over the last 3 months, somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 people were murdered in Iran by the regime. This makes Chicago’s murder rate pale in comparison. And it wasn’t black on black violence.

The media mostly ignored it. They ignored women risking their lives by baring their hair. They ignored it when the Revolutionary Guard fired into the crowds.

They ignored the deaths of those screaming, begging, and pleading for freedom. For the United States to help.

This is compared to how upset they are over 160-some being killed by an Iranian missile falling on a girl’s school. Or six servicemen losing their lives for the cause of freedom.

Trump killed baby Hitler. He decapitated the Iranian regime before they could detonate a nuclear device on Israel or on US soil.

It was the right thing to do.

Because this is history being made, not history being changed.

As some astute readers might have noted, Jimmy Carter is, in my not so humble opinion, the worst president to ever serve.

His utter spinelessness on the world stage led to the Middle East exploding with violence. His inability to trust the military lead to the deaths of soldiers in a sandstorm in Iran.

His sanctimonious platitudes let the Muslim world know that the United States was morally weak and unwilling to stand up for what was right.

His actions after the “students” took the US Embassy the first time led to the marines being disarmed when the “students” attacked and took the Embassy and held US citizens hostage for over a year.

I hope he is frying in Hell for what he did to my country and the world.

Side note, the day after the students took the Embassy the second time the skies over my home were free of navy aircraft for the first time ever. A couple of weeks later, one of my friends, a Tomcat driver, explained to me that he had been flying around us and for those two weeks was in flying on the other side of the ocean. The military was ready to take action within 24 hours of the Embassy being taken. Their commander in chief decided to sit with his thumb where the sun doesn’t shine.

Since that day, every Muslim terrorist attack can be traced back to that time of weakness. Reagan made them back down but everybody on the world stage knows that when there is a Democrat sitting in the Oval Office, the United States is weak.

Yesterday Iran got to Find Out. The president of the United States, using the authority given to him by Congress, acting with the Israelis, took out the Iranian regime.

Thank you Trump.

This is my red hat. It is based on historical finds and considerations about those finds in places like Hedeby and Birka. I don’t wear it very often, because I only play at being a Viking (Scandinavian Völva from 10th century Unst) a couple of times a year, and at least one of those times it’s much to warm to wear a naalbound hat designed to get you through a night 100 miles into the Arctic Circle. This hat is incredibly thick. It doesn’t get wet, as it’s made of hand spun sheep wool. It smells a bit of lanolin, and it’s warm. In 10th century Unst, this would have been THE hat to wear at the winter holy days, because it was bright, warm, and naalbound (sort of a Viking form of knitting with one needle and a thumb). While we don’t know whether hats were popular or not (because most of what we know about the Vikings is gathered from pot scrapings, weathered carvings, grave finds, and stories written many years after the Vikings we’re talking about ceased to exist), the few writings from medieval times and the carvings we have do seem to indicate that this would have been worn. It’s definitely something that’s come down in German and Scandinavian heritage (hence the garden gnomes and the Tomten, who are sort of like garden gnomes but more demi-god and tricksy).

I wore my red hat this past weekend. It’s one of the two events I wear my Viking garb at, and it was cold at night (down in the low 20s). I was all dressed in wool, cooking happily over a fire, making meals from a Norse cookbook called Vikingars Gästabud, which is a modern book based on archaeological finds. I made green soup, and a beef stew, and a chicken stew, and barley porridge (called grot). It was a delicious weekend, though a bit smokey.

I enjoy wearing the hat. It makes me look like a garden gnome, I’ll be honest. I’m good with that. It’s fun, and it’s historical, and it starts conversations that I love having.

This year it did something else, as well. I’m a lot less happy about it.

Apparently, there are folks in Minnesota who are now wearing head gear very similar to mine, and using it as a “victory hat” of sorts. They’re protesting ICE while wearing these hats. I’m guessing it hearkens back to the red hats worn by the French during their revolution, but I really don’t know. During the course of the weekend, I had five or six people (separately) come up to me and give me a thumb’s up and call out anti ICE slogans of various types. One lady went so far as to trap me in the bathroom line and explain to me that it was AWESOME I was wearing a hat to show that I was rebelling. I explained to her about ten times that I was wearing a historically accurate Scandinavian hat, but she persisted. Like they do.

All that led to this morning’s conversation with Chris, wherein I lost my shit entirely. I found myself saying, quite loudly and irately, “My culture is not your costume!” I know that’s a leftist screed, but it’s true in this case. I love seeing kids dressing up as stuff at Halloween, or to cosplay, but being TOLD the reason for wearing what I was wearing was extremely offensive. Yes, both sides of my ancestry go back to Scandinavian “Vikings” and it’s something I’m proud of. I don’t want to give up my hat!

But I also don’t want to be mistaken for someone rioting or causing problems. Is my hat going to get leftists riled up and assuming I’m one of them? Worse, is it going to get conservatives upset, thinking I’m with the Left? Why the hell can’t I just wear my hat in peace?

I want the anti-ICE people to stop wearing my hat. I want them to stop using my symbols for their hatred and rancor. It’s not right!

But of course… they have a right to do what they want. So I have to decide whether to stop wearing it, at least until this trend is over. Because I do not want to be associated with those rioters at all. Not for one second. I was horrified this weekend. 🙁

On a nicer side, I made it into the Gardner news again:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1Dn4BktgU9/

https://www.thegardnernews.com/picture-gallery/lifestyle/things-to-do/2026/02/16/northfolk-night-market-is-an-annual-winter-festival-that-features/88684515007/

It is ICE cold in my office as I write. Our basement is unheated and has zero insulation, and it leaks like a sieve. This makes the floors cold.

My big goal for the coming spring is to get some insulation into the basement.

But that’s not the type of ICE Cold I’m talking about here.

Up in the insurrectionist state of Minnesota, we had another FAFO moment.

A man who was carrying decided to interject himself with ICE agents. He got physical with them. Five agents were trying to detain or arrest him before he was shot and killed.

He was carrying his firearm in the small of his back. The video I’ve seen shows the gun in his hand before shots were fired.

He’s dead because he FA’d and found out.

Our AG and the director of the FBI both made public statements to the effect that bringing a gun to a protest means you are intending violence and is illegal and can get you shot.

I do not give up my Second Amendment protected rights when I choose to exercise my First Amendment protected rights.

Exercising a right does not even rise to “suspicion.” Merely exercising your rights does not ever give the state the authority to detain you. There must be more.

My friend from Canada was talking about guns and mentioned that carrying them into a bank was illegal. That it was a good way to end up in jail.

He was shocked to learn that I carry every time I enter a bank.

In short, Kash and Pam can go to hell for even thinking that The People must forgo their Second Amendment rights before they can exercise their First Amendment rights.

We have all had the unfortunate issue of having to deal with ignorant and incompetent people. For most of us, this is frustrating.

One of my personal weaknesses is the more I respect someone, the harder it is for me to accept incompetence or ignorance from them.

But what is “ignorance”?

Ignorance is not dumb. It is not stupid. Ignorance is not knowing.

Ally is a cookbook author. She is about to publish her third cookbook. We couldn’t be more proud of her and her accomplishments.

Over the Christmas holidays, she decided to try baking, something she isn’t good at yet.

She pulled out one of our older cookbooks, from the early 1950s, and followed the recipe, or she thought she did. The recipe called for 3 cups of flour, sifted.

Being good at English, she read that to mean, “Measure out three cups of flour, then sift it.” What it actually meant was, “Sift a few cups of flour, then measure out 3 cups of that sifted flour.”

The reason is density. Just like we measure gunpowders by weight, we should measure flour by weight. The density of the powders or flour can change; the mass does not. 1950s cookbooks created flour with a known density by sifting it.

Ally didn’t know this; she was ignorant of this. She is not stupid; she just did not know.

Ignorance is correctable; you can learn what you are ignorant about or decide it is beyond you. Even if it is beyond you, you will know that it is beyond you.

There are many things I’m ignorant about. I’m told I’m unusual because I don’t stay ignorant about subjects that are even remotely interesting to me. And according to some, I quickly become competent in areas that I was ignorant about just a short time ago.

This makes it difficult for me to claim ignorance about subjects. I consider myself ignorant about processing animal hides. Yet I know more about it than most people. I’ve yet to succeed at tanning a hide, but I know I don’t know. I know it is not beyond me; I know that I can become educated in the subject and become reasonably competent in the subject.

Recently it was pointed out to me, in this blog, that I was ignorant in reading or understanding technical drawings. I have no formal training and I need to do more. I’m doing my best without doing a deep dive.

Weaponized Ignorance

This is when a person is willfully ignorant. It takes an effort to be willfully ignorant, but for some, it is easier than actually thinking about what they are doing or saying.

When a person is willfully ignorant, refuses to learn, yet continues to opine on matters in which they are ignorant, then they have weaponized their ignorance.

The left is calling for laws and regulations to force “bad” law enforcement officers to not wear masks and to have their identification prominently displayed.

According to them, if they aren’t doing anything wrong, then there is no reason to be masked.

They are willfully ignorant of what happens when an agent is unmasked. They are doxed, and then bad things do happen to some of them.

The wife and I are watching a BritBox show called Blue Lights which takes place in Dublin, Ireland. Our introduction to one of the lead characters is when she is checking her car for bombs. As far as I know, this is true. They know that they will be targeted if the “bad guys” learn where they live and who they are.

These ignorant malcontents know what will happen if our officers are unmasked: they will be attacked. If not physically, then socially.

The left calls detentions and arrests by ICE and other federal law enforcement “Kidnappings”. They know that these are not kidnappings. Or they are willfully ignorant.

They scream about “due process” without ever realizing that these criminals have been given due process. Ten minutes of research would enable them to learn that there are immigration courts that do nothing but oversee migration cases. These courts can, and do, issue final removal orders and warrants.

They are screaming at ICE officers that they aren’t real cops and don’t have arrest powers. Of course they have arrest powers. Do even a bit of research, and you will find that most federal agencies have some sort of internal police force with arrest powers.

And being ignorant allows them to scream “Why!?” like a two-year-old toddler being put down for a nap. They would know why if they bothered to learn about the subject they are opining on.

Listen to Ketanji Brown Jackson asking questions from the Supreme Court bench, “I don’t understand.” “Explain it to me.” And most famously:

• Blackburn: Can you provide a definition for the word “woman”?
• Jackson: Can I provide a definition?
• Blackburn; Mhmm, yeah.
• Jacson: No, I can’t. Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.

Willfully ignorant.

Weaponized Incompetence

This is a step further than willful ignorance. This is when a person refuses to learn something so they don’t have to do it.

The husband who refuses to learn how to cook anything, forcing his wife to cook every meal or to eat out. My dad didn’t know how to cook; from the time Mom died until he was in care, he ate very poorly, mostly hotdogs. This was his choice.

This is the person who tosses the colored in with the whites, leading to the whites not being white anymore. Who is going to ask that person to do the laundry, knowing that their incompetence could destroy entire loads of clothing?

In the same way, what husband or boyfriend doesn’t panic when he sees his wife with a hammer and saw?

Hey, we were all ignorant and incompetent once. I have a picture of my brother and me cutting a piece of wood with saws. I’m using Grandpa’s panel saw, not a bad choice. My brother is using a hacksaw with 24 or more teeth per inch. Today I know that my brother would have been lucky to get a 1/4 inch into a piece of hardwood with that saw.

Now hold me to the same standard. I had a 16 tpi blade on my horizontal bandsaw. It would cut anything, but slow? Oh my goodness. I was using it because the rules say to have at least 2 teeth engaged in the cut at all times, and I was using it to cut 1/8-inch stock. I’ve upgraded to an 8 tpi blade. I can’t cut 1/8-inch stock the narrow way, but I can lay it down, and it cuts just as fast, if not faster. And I can actually cut larger stock at 3 or 4 times the speed of that other blade.

A leftist can’t safely handle a gun. Because they are incompetent, you and I have to store our firearms where they are useless to us but a child can’t access them.

The intentional ignorance and incompetence is draining. It hurts to watch them. It hurts to listen to them. They are so ignorant that they don’t know what they don’t know, but they are damn sure they are right and I am wrong.

It has been more than 24 hours since a paid agitator received the “Find Out” part of “FAFO”. Some things have become clear.

First, she is not married. She was living with a female partner raising children.

Her job was to be a paid agitator. She had taken professional development courses to further her career as a paid agitator.

Her partner was also a paid agitator.

She attacked a federal law enforcement officer with a deadly weapon. As such he does not need to wait to be lethally hit or severely injured before acting to stop the threat.

But the lie has entered the gestalt of the left.

She was an innocent woman attempting to flee an encounter with evil Trump minions, afraid for her life, when she was murdered for no reason at all.

I remember the anger I felt when I saw the video of Saint George Floyd being murdered by a police officer in full view of the world.

I remember how I was glad I was not there. Not knowing how I would have reacted to a cop attempting murder. Would I have killed the cop to save the life of that black man?

And it was all a lie.

That didn’t stop massive riots, the burning of cities, and the death of multiple people. All because the left and the media couldn’t stop lying.

It is my belief that the only reason we are not seeing massive riots already is the temperature is too low. It is too cold for a good riot.

If the weather changes for the better, it is likely we will see riots. If it doesn’t, it would not surprise me even a little that the media keeps things at a low simmer until it is warm enough for the riots to happen.

DefCon 3 right now, people. As it warms up, DefCon 2.

Keep strapped, keep your head on a swivel, stay away from stupid places, stupid people. Nothing good happens after midnight.

Brown University is in Rhode Island, one of the anti-gun states. There are no guns allowed on campus.

It is a gun free zone within a gun free city within a gun free state. Yet all of those things failed.

To provide a sense of security, the college webpage has a section on security cameras. They list some 800 security cameras and where each is located and their field of view.

Which is precisely the sort of information a bad guy would want to know because it shows not only the areas that are under surveillance but also the blind spots. Which the shooter took advantage of.

Which brings up the experiment done by a news organization several years ago to “prove” that guns don’t save lives. They told the selected “protector” that they were the only person with a gun in the room. That there was going to be a mass shooting event, simulated, and they were to stop the shooter.

Everybody except for the protector was in on the experiment, unbeknownst to the protector. Many of the protectors bragged to their “student” neighbors about being the protector.

Of course, when the bad guy entered the room, the protector never successfully stopped them. The entire experiment was set up for failure.

This was compared to a similar experiment set up in Texas. In the Texas experiment, the protectors were chosen at random; the level of experience the different protectors had varied from none to significant. They used simunation (blue guns that shoot nasty little pellets).

What they found was that the total number of victims was reduced in all cases. That in some situations the attack was stopped shortly after it began. There were no false shootings.

One of the interesting sequences was when the bad guy came into the room with the good guy. The good guy put multiple rounds on target before being “killed”. During the debrief, they asked why he only took body shots after noticing the body armor.

His reply, “I’ve been shot with those things; I wasn’t going to shoot somebody in the face with them.”

The point of this rambling is that guns save lives. This was another example of a gun free zone creating a victim pending zone.

Keep your head on a swivel, things are not getting better.