Firearms and Freedom notices that Sarah Palin looks like an ordinary person. I think it’s interesting, but if you look at some of the parallels, she’s not completely unlike Teddy Roosevelt. TR overshadowed McKinley on the ticket. Given McCain’s age, it’s not out of the realm of possibility she could end up assuming the presidency. She’s about the same age TR was. She has a reputation as a reformer. She’s an outdoorswoman. There would be more than a few people in Washington who’d be rather unhappy to see her ascend to the highest office. I doubt she’ll be giving a speech with a gunshot wound to the chest any time soon, but she just might be the same kind of political personality. TR defined the presidency for the 20th century. Could Sarah Palin do the same thing for the 21st? Hard to say. Reality doesn’t quite live up to the reputaiton, but the same charge could have been leveled at TR. Legend matters, and Sarah Palin’s story has the potential to be that kind of legend.
Year: 2008
CSI Effect
The Other Sebastian points to a forensic technique that’s been used to jail a lot of problem. The problem is, it’s totally bogus.
The Mortgage Crisis
It’s a giant shit sandwich, and we’re all going to have to take a bite. After this all runs its ugly course, we need to make sure the government gets out of the mortage business completely. It never should have been in it in the first place. Thanks FDR!
Almost Cool
The airforce seems to be getting closer to having a workable chemical laser system. This is good, but a key feature of a useable defense system will have to include a laser that can refire in a short amount of time. These types of COIL lasers aren’t really of that variety.
Of course, we have come quite a long way since the days of Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars,” which at the time really was science fiction. Back then researchers were happy to test x-ray lasers that used nuclear weapons as a pumping mechanism. Needless to say, you don’t get much repeatability out of that. Of course, these days we’re pretty close to useful x-ray lasers.
Having a workable laser weapon would be transformative on the battlefield, so I support these kinds of programs. Plus, as we’ve seen with x-ray lasers, you never know what other useful things you’ll be able to do with the concepts and technology.
UPDATE: Looks like they are also working on high power solid state laser systems. We’re probably still a long ways off a laser rifle, at least with currently battery technology.
High Gas Prices
Tyler Cowen has explain to his mother why the price of gas is high because of Ike, and why that’s not a bad thing. Sadly, it’s not just Tyler’s mother, but a lot of the politicians who run this country that need this basic lesson in economics.
Obligation to Be Informed?
I’m glad Ilya Somin has clarified that he’s sympathetic to the idea that voters do have a moral duty to be informed, even if they are, as he has suggested, rationally ignorant of politics. I think voters do have some obligation to be informed, but my bar is not set very high. When I think about a voter’s moral obligations, I have to take into account the fact that I don’t believe the the single issue voter is shirking his civil responsibilities.
If someone is, for instance, well informed on the gun issue, and vote specifically on that issue, I have no issue with their going to the polls and casting a ballot. But how far is someone obligated to be informed on their single issue? I tend to take the position “trust, but verify.” Don’t just vote a certain way because your buddy told you candidate X would take all your guns. Do some research. See if other people are saying that too. Check with organizations who advocate on behalf of your issue and see what they say.
I think there’s little problem with general political ignorance provided that the voter is reasonably informed on the issues that bring him or her into the voting booth. They don’t have to be experts, but they should be well enough informed and engaged as to make up their own mind.
I view my job as an activist for this issue to be making sure gun owners have the right information and are asking the right questions. I won’t hide McCain’s record on guns, but nor will I exaggerate it. I’ve heard way too many other activists claiming there’s no difference between McCain and Obama, which just isn’t true.
Media Bias?
ABC News edited key parts of Charlie Gibson’s interview with Sarah Palin. Now, I’m not a professional journalist, but I would think if you need to edit a segment for length, you cut out questions, along with the answers. It appears to me that all the answers that reflected the depth of her understanding of issues ended up on the cutting room floor.
But hey, ABC News has an election to win. All is fair in politics right?
Headed Home
I’m in the car on the way home from the NRA Board Meeting. Bitter and I didn’t stay for the whole meeting. We decided to head over to The Nations Gun Show in Chantilly, VA to meet up with reader AughtSix. I bought some primer, powder, and bullets while I was there, and then AughtSix was gracious enough to treat Bitter and I to some BBQ.
It’s good for us to go to the meeting to represent bloggers. NRA has really put themselves out there with the outreach, and there’s a lot of interest in bloggers and blogging among staff and board members. They have shown themselves to be serious in reaching out to us, and I think it’s important for us to show we’re serious about being part of the NRA. It helps validate NRA’s effort in this for board members and staff to see us there. Hopefully this is a relationship that will continue to develop. The NRA/Blogger relationship has come a long way since the 2007 Fall Board Meeting when Chris Cox and I sat down to figure out how we could work together.
Thank You
Last night Bitter and I had the honor of attending the President’s Reception. My iPhone camera isn’t the greatest, but I managed to snap a couple of blurry photos. One of them is President Sigler thanking Alan Gura for his work on the case, the other is of David Young with his book marked up with all the citations that he’s gotten on the various court cases, including Heller. Alan Gura said I should promote David’s book, and I couldn’t agree more. They are:
We owe a great deal of gratitude to David, and to all attorneys and scholars who were recognized by President Sigler. Without them, we would not have had victory in Heller.
Friday Committee Meetings
We started out going to the Public Affairs Committee. Nothing of note really happened there, and it was relatively uneventful. Susan Howard, of the TV show “Dallas” fame chairs that committee. Main topic was on increasing membership numbers, through reaching out to younger people. NRA is focusing efforts to attract more members from our police and military, who will tend to be younger.
Wayne LaPierre mentioned that a lot of young shooters have parents and grandparents who are NRA members, but have not joined themselves. He also mentioned that the latest polling shows that the public perception of NRA has never been more favorable. Wayne mentioned NRA traditionally hasn’t had a lot of money to do advertising, but they are setting up funds to address that, and get the NRA message out there.
Chris Cox’s report to the committee stressed the upcoming elections, saying “at five to four, it’s frightening.” in reference to the fact that the next administration will likely pick two or possibly three of the next Supreme Court justices.
After the Public Affairs Committee, Bitter and I made our way to the Civil Rights Defense Fund Committee. Although what goes on there isn’t, strictly speaking, privileged information, it wouldn’t be a good thing for me to spread details to the four corners of the earth. But Civil Rights Defense fund is the committee which funds the legal defense for gun owners who have their second amendment rights violated. One thing about CRDF is they never have enough money to fund all the cases they would like to take.
CRDF also funds the research of Dave Hardy and Dave Kopel, who both gave reports on their research to the committee. Dave Hardy, in particular, has done some really outstanding work in the past few months. I’ll leave it up to him to elaborate on that if he wants to, but hopefully he’ll get it published soon, because it’s good stuff. Dave Kopel has been working hard on research on the international front, which we’ve talked about a lot on here. Funding their research is money will spent, as far as I’m concerned. The CRDF also recognized attorney Steven Poss, who convinced his firm to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of legal work to help us win the Heller case.