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Watch "MidAmeriCon (1976) Worldcon - Robert Heinlein, Guest of Honor Speech" on YouTube:
T.J. Mason
[email protected]
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Beto Again
Beto O’Rourke is a Yuppie liberal who has drunk the “gun control” Kool aid. He buys into the myth that some weapons are too dangerous. I think like many people in this country on both right and left he believes that unregulated freedom must be regulated, that “It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.”
Not all of them are bad people, but they are obviously easily swayed by tyrants. It is up to us who value freedom to help them see where they are being misled and at least give them an honest choice on whether or not they are trading liberty for the illusion of security.
A.X. Perez
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I’m guessing this is what L. Neil Smith had in mind when he made reference to people getting in trouble for smoking a “politically incorrect vegetable” a while back in one of his writings?
I bought this thing at a gift shop in Breezewood PA back in 2006 for shits and giggles and it ended up on the outside of the door to the Florida Room while it was just a fish/reptile room. I also got another one promoting California weed which I hung on the greenhouse but it was exposed to the weather and rotted away.
This will probably make the police and drug enforcement agents excited enough to wet their drawers if they come a calling to check out the increase in my power usage. Like they did Chuck the Snake Man who had a room of similar dimensions filled with cages and aquariums burning a helluva bunch of 60 watt bulbs. The LED lights are more efficient than what I had before but I have other lights and a heating pad under the Turtle Table and my last electric bill was about $99 and it usually averaged in the $60 to $80 range. Actually I’m less worried about getting raided by the drug warriors and more worried about GND and the Green Police likes of the old Superbowl commercial.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c9ciAi8e-e0
The sack makes visiting the FR fun—much like some of the other paraphernalia—like the wanted poster for Bat Boy on the cover of Weekly World News that I’m looking to get laminated someday.
Jeff Fullerton
[email protected]
To which L. Neil Smith replied:
I don’t remember for sure, but I think that reference may have been to tobacco.
L. Neil Smith
[email protected]
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FOUND ON FACEBOOK THIS WEEK
Contact L. Neil Smith [email protected]
“How can a gun enthusiast still claim their right to bear arms is more important than public safety?”
All of your Constitutional Rights come at the cost of safety.
For example, you would be much safer if I could search houses, cars, and people whenever I wanted to, for any reason, or no reason at all. I’d catch more real bad guys. You know those stories about creeps who keep sex slaves locked in their basements for years? I’d find those victims and rescue them. That neighbor of yours who might have a meth lab that is going to send poisonous fumes into your child’s bedroom window, or explode and burn down your house? I’d find out for sure whether a lab was there.
How about all those guys who are probably child molesters, and we’ve got some evidence, but it isn’t enough to convict in front of a jury, especially with that defense attorney throwing doubt all over our evidence? Those guys are on the street right now, and a child you love may be their next victim.
Give up your rights under the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments, and I’ll make the world safer for you. No question about it.
The only problem is that if you give up all those rights, which are really just restrictions on the things I’m allowed to do to you, what’s going to keep you safe from me?
Every right you have increases your danger from other people who share that right. Free speech? It allows monsters to spread hateful messages, possibly about a group to which you belong, just the same as it allows you to petition your government with legitimate grievances.
That free speech even allows you to argue in favor of discarding freedom and liberty as just too dangerous to trust in the hands of ordinary people. Now that, my friend, is what scares me—that people with opinions like that will spread them to weak-willed individuals who haven’t really thought through the consequences. I won’t argue for taking that right away, though, despite the dangers. That would be even more scary than you are.
Yes, some people in a free society are always going to abuse those freedoms. Criminals are going to hide behind the 4th amendment to conceal the evidence of their crimes. People who commit horrific acts are going to hire excellent defense attorneys who can convince a jury that doubt exists. And, yes, some people are going to use guns to commit murders.
Freedom is scary, but lack of freedom is scarier.
Paul Harding, Deputy Sheriff since 2000
Private Pilot — Instrument Rated
Aug 8, 2019
Forwarded by L. Neil Smith
[email protected]
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Re: Letter from L. Neil Smith (above)
“How can a gun enthusiast still claim their right to bear arms is more important than public safety?”
In the words of Mona Lisa Vito, “That’s a bull shit question.”
For the last couple of months certain internet trolls have been posting the above question on the internet and congratulating themselves on their own cleverness. They are suggesting that a gun in your possession, that you’re having the right to be armed, is a threat to public safety. They are asking you to acquiesce to a lie.
I don’t know about you, but the only person(s) who is in danger of me shooting them is a person who is attempting to rob, beat, maim, rape, and/or murder me and/or other people under my protection. I think the same is true of most people reading this.
I am not sure, but I opine that my ability to defend myself, family, friends, and other people who might find themselves in need of my assistance is a step in increasing public safety. I opine that the ability of the vast majority of decent people to defend themselves and others adds to public safety. If this is true, and perhaps I’m wrong, then logically people having the appropriate tools, like guns perhaps, enhances rather than diminishes public safety.
Our right to bear arms is not a threat to public safety. Now it may cause hormonally deficient types to feel an urge to soil their under linen, but I know of no right to pusillanimity or to require others to cater to it. And I surely cannot explain to my satisfaction how conceding my rights to satisfy the physical and moral cowardice of others contributes to public safety.
A.X. Perez
[email protected]
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