Cracking the lid on the Schrödinger Economy
Schrödinger's Cat is a famous theoretical physics construct (or thought experiment) posed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 which attempted to simplify the paradox which exists between classical and quantum states of matter, or more precisely, the delineation between the two. The experiment involved a theoretical cat placed within a sealed box containing a poison which either killed the cat or did not kill the cat (the poison being spilled as the result of a random event outside the observer's control). When the box is closed, the observer does not know whether the cat is dead or alive and cannot determine which is the case until the box is opened. Therefore, under the "quantum mechanical" method of observation, while the box is closed the observer must regard the cat as being 1) alive, 2) dead, 3) both, or 4) neither. In other words, while the box is closed, all possible states must be considered since the observer has no information on the cat's existence.
A similar and widespread phenomenon has taken hold among Americans with regard to the state of the economy. Very few observers have sought to open the economic box in public and report whether the economy is alive or dead. Instead, the media, central bankers, and their cheerleaders in the Congress and White House insist on proclaiming that the economy is very much alive, without actually making an observation by opening the box. Under the quantum mechanical perspective, such a proclamation would amount essentially to "magic" since an outside observer has no information upon which to base his assertion.
The best description of why the current debt/spending/stock market bubble "works," according to Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, and a horde of others, is that the system simply works because they say so. One does not need to break out the abacus to determine that 3 plus 1 equals 4, but accepting the Keynesian notion that 3 minus 1 equals 4 (i.e. debt = wealth) depends on one simple word: magic.
It's the magic we've all been living under for decades, while being told with all assurance that yes we can borrow our way to prosperity [1] [2]. It has even worked for a while! But, at the end of the day, the piper must be paid. The temporary gains of the last 40 years have been purchased at the cost of future, compounded generational prosperity. Our great grandchildren will be working to pay off the debt that we have accumulated to improve our own lives today. Math can be bent and avoided for a while. But 3 minus 1 always equals 2 and not 4. Every single time.
We've long been sold the story that government spending, even when at a deficit, is beneficial for the economy because it supposedly stimulates long term growth (see references 1 and 2 in the previous paragraph). But, is it true? Since nobody else is willing to crack the lid on the Schrödinger Economy, let's dive in.
(All data presented is sourced from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Economic Data, FRED [3], and the Bureau of Lies and Scams [4] and is freely available to the public.)
The Monetary Base:Â How the Fed "monetizes" debt
Waaaaaaaaay back in June 2009, just months after the passage of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Ben Bernanke (then in his third year of chairsataning the Federal Reserve) delivered sworn testimony to Congress in which he stated that the "Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt [5] [6]."
That promise lasted all of a year at the most (the Fed resumed purchasing Treasury securities - i.e. monetizing the debt - in mid 2010), although this is arguable considering that the Fed already held $700 billion in U.S. Treasury securities prior to Bernanke's testimony. As you can see below, the total of the Fed's balance sheet is mostly the sum of two assets: 1) mortgage backed securities (bundled mortgages, many of which are likely garbage) and 2) U.S. Treasury debt. Additionally, the total assets held by the Fed correlate strongly with the monetary base (the total currency in circulation among the public and reserve banks), indicating that "monetization" has occurred whenever the Fed purchased an "asset" after mid-2008. In other words, the Fed is effectively printing money to purchase mortgages and U.S. Treasuries - thus, the amount of money in circulation increases accordingly (note the very strong correlation between the solid black and red lines in the figure below).
Seriously, we won't monetize the debt. We super promise.
How monetized debt affects the stock markets (Dow Jones and S&P 500)
The 'golden key' for any budding journalistic sensation on the local news to showcase their finesse in observing the state of the economy is to breathlessly report on the "record highs" reached by the Dow, which must be the result of "green shoots" of growth, of course! The latest such "record high" was reported on May 28, 2013, as the Dow vaulted to 15,409 [7], exceeding the pre-2008 peak by a good 1,300 points. The assumption which is consistently made by those proclaiming the Schrodinger Economy to be alive and healthy, without opening the box to be sure, is that the market peaks are due to economic growth. Unfortunately, the S&P 500 and DJIA mirror the increase in the monetary base in general and mirror the purchase of U.S. Treasury debt in particular.
The situation is similar with the Dow Jones (DJIA) - as the monetary base increased from mid-2008, the Dow Jones increased proportionally. This is a problem because it indicates that the supposed 'growth' in the economy is very clearly related to the growth in the money supply. In other words, the growth is synthetic rather than organic and is unlikely to be sustained in the absence of debt monetization.
So what? Aren't we all getting rich if the Dow rises?
Not really. The stock market isn't composed of people and it doesn't measure very well whether observed growth is synthetic or organic. However, when paired against the Fed's balance sheet, any casual observer can see the strong correlation between the two and infer that the "growth" is largely synthetic.
This is an important point, because it confirms the suspicion that many people have that the stock market is in a bubble. It exists purely due to the sugar rush of monetary stimulus [8] and without that stimulus it simply cannot support itself. What's terrifying about this is that the Federal Reserve doesn't seem to make this rather simple observation even when stocks fall immediately following Bernanke's Congressional testimony hinting at reducing the stimulus [9].
Do rising stock markets and an expanding monetary base 'stimulate' growth?
The chart speaks for itself - the rise in Real GDP (gross domestic product adjusted for inflation) is clearly strongly correlated with the rise in the monetary base. Printed money creates the illusion that GDP is increasing but the effect is unlikely to support itself unless the growth is mostly organic, which it clearly is not.
This figure becomes even worse when Real GDP is corrected to remove the corresponding monthly increases in debt. This is the chart we should be paying the most attention to because it clearly indicates that the large increases in debt post-2008 have failed to produce equally large increases in GDP. In fact, the net effect has actually been negative. For every dollar we print, the net impact upon GDP becomes smaller and smaller. For the math geeks out there the effect is similar to a limit - as more and more money is printed, the net impact upon GDP will eventually become zero. This chart is the graphical representation of what I've said numerous times before - the Fed is out of bullets and is down to throwing the gun.
How money printing impacts you, the average American
So, you're Joe Sixpack. You have a typical 9-5 job, a small retirement account, a house, a couple of kids, and a few shares in a mutual fund your grandfather gave you for your 10th birthday. The stock market is rising, GDP is up, and the talking heads on the television seem upbeat and jovial. Surely money printing doesn't impact you, right?
Wrong.
As it turns out, several things important to you are directly impacted by the Fed's bubble blowing. Take gasoline, for example.
Up until the economic crash in mid-2008, gasoline prices were rising moderately due to the usual reasons - insecurity in the middle east, changes in driving habits, and so forth. In 2009, the price of gasoline dropped like a rock from $4.00 per gallon to just over $1.50 per gallon. Ever since then, the price has steadily increased at a rate which strangely mirrors the increase in the money supply. As it turns out, money printing does affect you. If it weren't for the Fed's extravagance, gasoline should be quite a bit cheaper today since the economy has failed to improve dramatically since the crash. Instead, we're back up near the $4.00 mark with no major increase in the economy to match.
The story is virtually identical with your rate of personal income.
Yep, real personal income has risen from its 2009/2010 low back up to where it was just before the crash. The problem is that the increase has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in money supply. You have more money in your pocket because Bernanke has a printing press, not because the economy has improved.
The bottom line
Observing the available data, much of which I have incorporated here, strongly suggests that the majority of supposed economic "growth" is nothing more than a smoke screen. Another bubble blown by the Federal Reserve. Actual economic activity has stagnated.
For example, the labor force has failed to recover since 2009 despite massive monetary stimulus:
The monthly changes in job creation numbers have mostly failed to keep up with population growth, indicating a net decline in the percentage of employed Americans (the same result shown on the above figure):
This is more clearly seen by observing the net increase or deficit in the number of jobs created minus population growth:
The President loves to claim that the economy is in "recovery." If the above figure is any guide, such claims are clearly lies. Not only has the economy failed to create a net growth of jobs while in "recovery," but it has also never made up for the massive losses from 2008 to 2010. Those jobs are still gone and an anemic amount of 'growth' every other quarter hasn't done jack shit to replace them. But, apparently this is now the new gold standard for "success," since the American people voted to continue this exact "recovery" by a 126 point electoral vote margin in the 2012 elections [10].
So, after having opened the box and observing the state of the Schrödinger Economy, the data confirms the following conclusions quite clearly:
- There has been no economic "recovery" in the five years following the Great Recession of 2007/2008.
- Any illusion of "recovery" has been created out of whole cloth, carefully crafted to appear as if prosperity has returned.
- Most of the recovery illusion has resulted directly from the printing of money by the Federal Reserve.
- The stock market record highs are not due to increased economic success, but rather artificial wealth created out of thin air.
- The widespread feeling that the unemployment problem has lessened is absolutely false. The percentage of Americans participating in the labor force is worse today (63.5%) than it was at the peak of the recession (66%).
- Any decline in the unemployment rate falsely represents the actual state of employment and the economy in general. The supposed "growth" in monthly jobs figures has not only failed to keep up with population growth but has disastrously failed to repair the losses from 2008-2010.
Schrödinger's economic cat is not only near death, but is currently being pumped full of poison, asphyxiated with a pillow, and beaten with a hammer by Ben Bernanke.
This poses a serious conundrum for the Fed - stimulus cannot continue forever (and is becoming less effective each time it is employed) but cannot be withdrawn without organic growth to support the economy on its own. If the Fed exits too soon or too late, interest rates will rise causing the government to be unable to afford the cost of debt.
No amount of "hope" can possibly save us.
Liberty or death,
The Bulletproof Patriot
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Storm Watch: A brief caution for the next 48 hours
I don't send these sorts of things out frequently (because I want people to take it seriously when I do) and hopefully this will end up being a false alarm, but if you're a market watcher or news-hound pay close attention for the next 48 hours. I'm coming across quite a bit of 'chatter' from various places indicating two items worthy of additional scrutiny:
- There looks to be a heightened possibility for a large swing in the stock markets (perhaps as much as 3-5% or 500 - 750 points on the DOW) due to a loss of confidence in central bank ability to 'grow' world economies - if this swing occurs it will likely begin at or near market opening. Several conditions are ripe for a more sustained slide (these conditions currently are similar to 2007/2008) and there is the potential for an initial shock to be prolonged.
- A very substantial news item may be about to break which could implicate people of both political parties - I'm hearing that this is dependent upon the comfort level of more than one major whistle-blower who is afraid for their life.
If you haven't discovered by now that the Republican vs. Democrat jousting is nothing more than a shell game, I beg you to open your eyes and ears to the world around you. Think as an individual, not a party member. Parties exist to win, not to represent principles or your best interests.
I've been putting together an analysis of several publicly available economic data sets and pouring through them for myself. The analysis is complete and I will post tomorrow or Friday. These data (from the St. Louis Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics) very clearly confirm several things many of us have long suspected, namely that the economic "recovery" we've been experiencing for the past three years is complete and total nonsense and is simply a bubble blown by the false prosperity of credit. The numbers don't lie - wait to see for yourself.
Liberty or death,
The Bulletproof Patriot
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It’s time for a Special Prosecutor
On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee formally adopted Articles of Impeachment against Richard Nixon, then President of the United States. Article 2 of said Articles made the case that Nixon had violated his oath and, among other things, had "repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens:"
Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies [1].
After observing the events of the last several weeks unfold around the President's ankles, witnessing the repeated and willful violation of citizens' rights, most notably those protected under the Fourth Amendment, and watching the Administration blame anyone but themselves (i.e. George W. Bush), even I am surprised to learn today of yet another scandal - this one constituting the widespread illegal gathering of personal information by the National Security Agency (NSA) under a classified program known as PRISM [2].
It is time to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the President (and members of his Administration) for high crimes and misdemeanors, in order to determine whether the President was complicit in the abuses of power (or just grossly incompetent as he claims), and to determine exactly who needs to be imprisoned for illegal conduct within the federal government.
Spying on American citizens, as has been carried out under the PRISM program, is an outrageous violation of the Fourth Amendment, which requires not only the issuance of a warrant but also that the warrant describe the specific areas and items that are to be contained within its scope:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized [3].
The widespread collection of data on American citizens includes emails, videos, photos, content of file transfers, and other pieces of electronic communications believed to be generally private. According to the UK Guardian report on the program, the NSA implemented the PRISM program to skirt around what they claimed to be tight warrant requirements for "people who were not entitled to [such protections]:"
'Fisa was broken because it provided privacy protections to people who were not entitled to them,' the presentation claimed. 'It took a Fisa court order to collect on foreigners overseas who were communicating with other foreigners overseas simply because the government was collecting off a wire in the United States. There were too many email accounts to be practical to seek Fisas for all [2].'
So, rather than obeying the Fourth Amendment requirements and FISA court restrictions on communications warrants, the NSA made their way around this "problem" and collected what is reported to be billions of phone calls, text messages, emails, locations at the time of communication, and credit card numbers and transaction details [4].
The NSA and President Obama have both claimed that "nobody is listening to your telephone calls [5]," or even searching the massive data mine - in fact, the agency claims that special permission is necessary to access the data for investigations. So, rest assured, they aren't listening to your phone calls. But, those phone calls have already been recorded just in case they need to listen to them later.  We super promise.
The President seems to have no problem with this.
Bullshit. Let's take another quick glance at the text of the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized [3].
Notice that little section underlined there in the middle? You have a constitutional right against not only searches, but also seizures of your information without a warrant which specifically describes the information to be searched or seized. Simple convenience for law enforcement is not an exception and the President knows it.
This latest revelation, by the way, confirms the purpose of the Utah Datacenter, the massive $2 billion NSA warehouse that is designed to record and store all of your communications [6]. Hell, why not - the NSA is already intercepting 1.7 billion domestic communications a day [7].
So, just to sum up recent events:
- The Department of State was complicit in covering up the murder of an Ambassador and his staff in Libya and instead blamed a little viewed Youtube video, while knowing from the beginning that the attack was in fact planned terrorism and that there was never a 'spontaneous demonstration' outside of the compound. But, the President didn't know anything about it.  In fact, he was absent while the Ambassador and staff were being murdered, sodomized, and dragged through the streets [7a].
- The IRS has admitted to targeting groups with the words "tea party" or "9/12" in their names, in addition to other "patriot" groups, for extra scrutiny and in many cases imposing the cost of an audit on people related to these groups. But, the President didn't know anything about it. (Even though the IRS commissioner's name shows up on the White House visitor logs 157 times [8].)
- The NSA is recording billions of phone calls, emails, text messages, and other personal conversations domestically without warrants. They also built a $2 billion data warehouse in Utah to store all of this information. But, the President didn't know anything about it.
- The EPA also appears to have targeted conservative groups [9]. But, the President doesn't know anything about it.
- The Department of Justice has been found illegally running guns to Mexico, one of which was used to murder an American. But, the President didn't know anything about it (even though he knows enough to claim executive privilege over the matter).
- The Department of Justice has also admitted to tapping the phone lines of reporters, supposedly during an investigation into information leaks. But, the President doesn't know anything about it.
The President is as clean and pure as the wind-driven snow. He is simultaneously the smartest man alive (a "Constitutional Professor," you know) and so grossly incompetent that he has no idea of the massive failures of justice within numerous parts of his Administration, some of which have been ongoing since 2010.
Perhaps the President and Cabinet members need to be reminded that the primary purpose of government is to secure the rights of its citizens and that such government exists at the pleasure of the governed [9a].  When a government abdicates this responsibility and becomes one of greed, corruption, power, and despotism, it is not only the right but the duty of the governed to alter or abolish such government in order to ensure that their liberties remain faithfully preserved.
The President wants you to "reject those voices" that warn of tyranny [10].
Tyranny could never come from government.
We super promise.
Liberty or death,
The Bulletproof Patriot
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Tyranny and government
In the American experiment, man's authority to govern himself was the principle protection afforded by the Constitution - the very same Constitution which was structured specifically to avoid the rise of tyranny in any branch of government, duly insulating the three branches from one another and holding each accountable through various parallel mechanisms, with the federal government organized as a truly federal government rather than national government, subservient to the People and the several states (except as carefully excepted), as the best protection of the People's liberty.
Barack Obama is none of those men, but under his Administration government has entrenched itself further into American life than ever before. Government is now mandating that individual citizens enter into a private health insurance contract, under penalty of law, as a deeply flawed application of federal taxation authority. Call it whatever you like - at the end of the day, it has removed a small piece of your liberty to make your own decisions for your life by requiring you to engage in commerce purely as a consequence of existing.
Until now, the federal government was granted leniency under the interstate commerce clause to dictate terms and conditions on damn near anything, under the guise that such dictation represented a "regulation" of commerce between states. Government was allowed to "regulate" your specific behavior or anything related to your behavior which might possibly affect commerce between states, no matter how tiny or inconsequential. Indeed, government was permitted by the Court in 1942 to deny a private farmer the right to grow his own crops in whatever amount he pleased, even if for the express purpose of personal consumption (and not for resale), under the reasoning that such growth meant that the farmer would purchase fewer crops from someone else (possibly across state lines), thereby affecting interstate commerce.
Last year, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was upheld under the basis that government can force a citizen to enter into a private contract, therefore "regulating" not only all economic activity (as in the Filburn ruling), but also economic inactivity. The authority was apparently discovered in the unwritten portions of the Constitution describing the federal government's taxing authority. When paired with the Filburn ruling, the government now possesses the authority to "regulate" all economic activity and inactivity whatsoever, so long as even the weakest case imaginable describing an effect on state-state commerce can be made, and if it cannot, that a tax be imposed as a penalty upon the behavior.
If government can compel a private citizen to engage in commerce against his will, whether such force benefits society as a whole or not, that citizen is no longer free. If government can compel a man to enter into a private health insurance contract, a power not enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 (and rather reserved to him under Amendments 9 and 10), what else can it compel him to do which is not enumerated that might pose some supposed benefit to society? Can it compel him to purchase life insurance? If he dies without it and leaves nothing behind, his relatives are left with the burden of his estate and burial. Can it compel him to consume a particular quantity of vegetables each week and record his calorie count for government inspection? His health affects the community and everyone has to pay for his decisions.
In the 18th century, tyranny was a parliament and king bent on taxing the People without their consent or consultation. In the 21st century, tyranny is a government bent on taxing its People for not purchasing health insurance and infringing upon their right to own a firearm. Tyranny, in both cases, is the arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power [2]. In the former, such tyranny led to armed rebellion. In the latter, so long as a government of the People's representatives enables tyranny in paper and words, any rebellion is necessarily limited to the same as a matter of conscience.
Regardless, tyranny is the natural progression of government, because government in the hands of man invariably seeks to rule rather than govern.
Government is like fire. When controlled and monitored, it keeps us warm and protects us from starvation and danger. When allowed to control itself, without the constant checks of the People, it burns and consumes everything in its path, whether a majority of us chose to light the fire or not.
Warning against creeping governmental tyranny and being prepared to take a stand against it, with pen or rifle as the need requires, is not simply a sideline distraction destined for the annals of the internet - it is the duty of all Americans to jealously guard the liberty their Creator thought necessary to bestow upon them at the moment of their creation.
For today, the weapon of choice must be the pen.
Tomorrow? Liberty or death.
In love of liberty,
The Bulletproof Patriot
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Updated (15 May 2013): "Government is like fire" quote is falsely attributed to George Washington and I could find no sources prior to about 1915 which could confirm otherwise. The attribution has been removed.
The Boston Embarrassment
The people of Boston should be ashamed of themselves.
As the nation watched in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, the Boston Police department (with the help of the FBI and neighboring law enforcement officers) apparently cordoned off a 20 block area to search, house to house, for 19 year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The suspect was eventually found hiding inside a dry-docked boat in the backyard of a neighbor [1]. Tsarnaev was arrested following nearly 24 hours of intense manhunt.
After all was said and done, the Police had packed up their armored vehicles, AR-15s, and helicopters, and the people of Boston applauded the effort and hailed the Police as heroes.
After reviewing the footage of the manhunt and contemplating the scene for a day or so, it seems clear that the people of Boston should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for allowing a Police force to willfully trample their rights and shut down the entire city at a cost of nearly $1 billion.
You read that correctly - one billion dollars. All to catch a wounded 19 year old terrorist who never even bothered to flee the city.
The terrorists won.
As we've all now seen clearly over the past couple of days, all it takes to shut down an entire city, put all of the residents on lockdown, cease all public activities, and enforce orders to 'shelter in place' is two terrorists with a couple of pressure cookers and some gunpowder. In addition to the three lives these two pieces of garbage consumed in their Islam-driven [2] hysteria, the two managed to:
- Consume a full 24 hours of Police presence totaling 9,000 officers. At a rate of $100 per hour (salary, benefits, equipment, and overhead during an emergency) per officer, the cost for one day of Police response totaled at least $21.6 million.
- Shut down all economic activity in a city of 625,000, effectively wasting one full day in a city having a GDP of $315 billion [3]. The net cost in pure lost commerce, per day totaled about $900 million.
- Force the residents of the 20 block 'house to house' search area to give up their 4th Amendment rights to protection against unlawful search, when Police removed residents from their homes at gunpoint, hands above their heads.
Don't believe me? Here's the video:
This is not only shameful, but illegal. Private residents cannot lawfully be removed from their homes without a warrant for their arrest (or search of the home), upon probable cause, or by voluntary consent. Voluntary consent does not entail being commanded to exit at gunpoint with your hands over your head.
Anyone who allowed the Police to forcibly remove them from their own homes without cause and without the freedom to do so voluntarily is an embarrassment as an American.
Your Fourth Amendment rights to be secure in your own homes applies to situations exactly like this and are most important during times of crisis. These are not "priviliges" which the Police can simply suspend when they feel the situation warrants - they are yours and yours alone. Guard them with your life.
Unfortunately, none of this is surprising. Massachusetts has whittled away at the rights of their own law abiding citizens to protect themselves for decades - really, the people of Boston should expect nothing less when the Police feel that if the 2nd Amendment does not apply, neither does the 4th. You have succeeded in marginalizing the rights which have been endowed upon you directly by God.
And if the 2nd and 4th don't apply, it won't be long until the 1st dies as well.
The terrorists have won.
In love of liberty,
The Bulletproof Patriot
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Moms Demand Action: The Progressive disease lurches onward
When I was about 10 years old, I was at a neighbor's house down the street overnight, more or less alone with several other neighborhood friends for a birthday party. We stayed up most of the night, watched Predator 2 (not the best idea at 10), shot off bottle rockets, and fired a BB gun into the woods. When a BB ricocheted off a tree and hit me in the front tooth, my mother held me accountable for being an idiot - I could have lost an eye had that BB hit a few inches further up my face. As I recall, she also called the parents of the neighbor kid and probably expressed her disinterest in me visiting their house again with such poor supervision.
She also started a national campaign to ban the sale and possession of military-style assault BB guns, regulate the purchase of BBs, and require all existing 10 year old BB gun owners to register their assault weapons with the state - the campaign was called "Moms Against Senseless BB Gun Violence"... or at least it would have been, had she been a modern, collectivist Progressive hell bent on holding the entire nation responsible for the actions of her idiot son. After all, it "takes a village," doesn't it? Of course. As we learned from MSNBC last week [1], children "belong to whole communities... we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents."
And so goes the modern debate on public safety and responsibility.
Some mentally deranged lunatic kills his own mother, steals her firearms, and murders 26 people at an elementary school in Connecticut and rather than holding that individual accountable for his actions, all gun owners are now treated as potential mass murderers. That's why they can't be allowed to have "high capacity" magazines or AR-15s, despite literally millions of these weapons being in private ownership having never been used to commit a crime. It's the fault of the collective, not the individual. The individual can't afford to have his feelings hurt.
In the wake of the Newtown massacre, the group Moms Demand Action [2] has released three advertisements which perfectly (although unintentionally) illustrate the problem with modern, Progressive parenting - namely, that the entire world is responsible for their children, because they're too busy to raise their kids up correctly themselves. Therefore, all things even slightly dangerous must be banned. (I also have submitted a lengthy and well thought out, respectful comment noting actual murder rates and how rarely "assault weapons" are used in crimes on their website. Not surprisingly, my comment was removed by the moderator every time it was posted. So much for "honest" debate, but I really shouldn't be expecting much from people who are driven on a 90/10 mixture of emotion/logic.)
The first ad reads, "We keep Little Red Riding Hood out of our schools because of the bottle of wine in her basket. Why not assault weapons?"
Well, gee. A cartoon bottle of unopened wine in the basket of Little Red Riding Hood is so dangerous that it is now banned from schools? Perhaps if Riding Hood was passed out next to the empty bottle and slumped in a chair at the entrance to a brothel we should be concerned. But a bottle of wine laying harmlessly in her basket? Common sense has lost all meaning. Not to mention, children cannot purchase "assault weapons," so I fail to see how keeping them "out of our schools" would change anything at all, except making the Progressive parent feel as if they have "done something" to repair the false sense of security they strive to live under (at the expense of your liberty) - in fact, firearms are already illegal on public school property, yet that didn't stop Adam Lanza. But they don't actually want to participate in the safety of their own children, you see - they want you to make them feel as if they've done something of substance by banning something of which they have an irrational fear. This is parental laziness at its best.
It's no wonder modern children have no idea how to behave in the real world where violence and hard decisions actually exist. They've never been taught how to deal with them or take responsibility for themselves because we're so busy "protecting" them from a cartoon drawing of a bottle of wine.
The second ad reads, "We ban the game dodgeball because it's viewed as being too violent. Why not assault weapons?"
The game dodgeball is too violent? Let's hope your son or daughter never goes to war, because the enemy is an excellent "dodgeball" player and a bouncy rubber ball would be the least of their worries.
If we ban dodgeball, why don't we ban baseball? Or football? Or art class? After all, a child could draw a dodgeball cartoon scene on paper, become terrified, and breathe his last breath slumped over a chair in front of a brothel, err... art class desk. Why not ban pencils? Or paper? It's to "protect" them, after all, so we should stop at nothing!
The third ad states, "We won't sell Kinder chocolate eggs in the interest of child safety. Why not assault weapons?"
I admit, I had no idea what a "Kinder egg" was, but I looked it up and thank God it's banned. According to Wikipedia, a Kinder egg is "a chocolate egg containing a small toy, often requiring assembly [3]." Assembly with what? Large construction equipment? Chainsaws? Matches and gasoline? Unexploded nuclear warheads? Surely, if children can handle parents who guard them against cartoon drawings of wine bottles without becoming mentally ill and going on shooting rampages with cartoon drawings of "assault weapons," they can handle a chocolate egg with a toy inside, but what am I thinking? We have to act! Cheap plastic toys inside chocolate eggs are responsible for literal ones of deaths in this country (a total of six in the entire world, apparently [3]).
Take a look at the second and third ads again - the kids have their fingers on the trigger. Perhaps the reason these kids and their parents are terrified to death of AR-15s is because nobody taught them basic gun safety as children, probably because the parents were curled up in the corner shivering in fear over an advertisement for Bud Light they happened to see on the television out of the corner of their eye. When children and parents lack even the simplest level of understanding and respect for firearms, it's no wonder they're scared to death of them.
Despite the hysteria propagated by Moms Against Hurt Feelings, or whatever the group is called, I fully intend to have my own children out on the range at a very young age. Shooting a .22 at five years old, under close supervision of course, is a great start to teaching children to respect firearms. Learning to shoot a 20 gauge at 10 years old and a 9mm at perhaps 15 are logical next steps. My children will respect firearms. They won't be terrified of them, even if society is convinced they need to be.
If we continue allowing this sort of message to continue largely unchallenged in the public arena, rather than philosophically beaten to a bloody pulp as it deserves, we will continue to have children who are terrified of cartoon drawings, dodgeball, and plastic toys. We will have officially completed our transformation from "rugged individualism" to "pansified collectivism," where the men will have become so caked with hand lotion and cologne that they can no longer grip a tackle box or hunting rifle, let alone build a house, clear a forest, or defend their families against physical harm.
Progressivism is a disease, as I have long argued.
This disease kills the host, every time, and it will consume your life and liberty along the way.
In love of liberty,
The Bulletproof Patriot
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