Reader’s Links for Oct. 25, 2024

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Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.

This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.

So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.

This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

For those interested, please check out https://vladtepesblog.substack.com/ as an another avenue of expression. The Substack is a different project in a sense. It is older videos that in the light of subsequent events, look different or of increased importance, Check it out now and again if you like.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

10 Replies to “Reader’s Links for Oct. 25, 2024”

  1. A sudden outbreak of common sense!

    Netherlands bans Palestinian activist Mohammed Khatib from entering the country
    https://nltimes.nl/2024/10/25/netherlands-bans-palestinian-activist-mohammed-khatib-entering-country
    Controversial Palestinian activist Mohammed Khatib will not be allowed to enter the Netherlands to deliver a speech during an event at Radboud University in Nijmegen next week. Khatib’s arrival was declared to be “highly undesirable,” said Justice and Security Minister David van Weel and Asylum Minister Marjolein Faber in a joint statement on Friday.
    Khatib “legitimizes, condones and glorifies violence against the State of Israel, including violence by organizations on the European Union’s terrorist list,” according to Van Weel and Faber. “He also actively expresses his support for terrorist organizations. These statements can have a radicalizing effect.”
    The ministers said this was enough to justify the entry ban. They argued it outweighed concerns about free speech protections in their statement.
    “Freedom of speech is a great asset,” the ministers emphasized. “There may be a rough spot here, but it is within the democratic values that we have agreed upon.”
    Khatib’s planned arrival sparked outrage because he condones the gruesome Hamas terrorist attack against Israel that took place on October 7, 2023. The assault on civilians across the border from the Gaza Strip, and the kidnapping of 251 triggered a new war between Israel and Hamas, and extensive bloodshed in the region as a result.
    “There is absolutely no place in the Netherlands for sowing hatred and glorifying violence,” the two ministers said.
    The cabinet also expressed support for a German proposal to put Samidoun, the organization to which Khatib belongs, on the European sanctions list. “This will allow us to impose sanctions at the European level, such as freezing assets.”
    Radboud University was not yet willing to comment when asked for a reaction. “We are waiting for formal confirmation and will then respond,” said a spokesperson for the institution.

  5. Israel Disarmed by Mark W. Smith | Book Review
    Ammoland Inc. Posted on October 25, 2024 by Dean Weingarten

    Israel Disarmed by Mark Smith. Highly recommended read by AmmoLand

    YouTube video player

    Mark Smith has written a thoughtful examination of how disarmament by the State of Israel enabled the most horrific massacre of Jews since World War II. At the 2024 Gun Rights Policy Conference in San Diego, Mark Smith was giving away copies of his latest book, Israel Disarmed: What the October 7 attack teaches Americans about the right to bear arms.
    The book exceeded my expectations. Mark is a Constitutional Scholar and a member of the United States Supreme Court bar. I expected a scholarly work and was not disappointed. I was pleasantly surprised to find a page-turning and exciting prologue that kept me on the edge of my chair.
    In the prologue, Mark documents the contrast between two Israeli kibbutzim. One kibbutz had no defensive firearms and about 750 residents. The other kibbutz had about 1500 residents and about a dozen men with firearms. Both kibbutzim came under attack by the Hamas Jihadis. In the first kibbutz, 60 residents were killed, 17 were taken as hostages, about 10 percent of the population. In the second kibbutz, the roughly dozen armed defenders held off the Jihadis, killing several and wounding several. Not one resident of the second kibbutz was killed. The detailed examples of armed defenders are graphic, detailed, and riveting.

    In the chapters which follow, Mark builds a detailed case of how important the right to bear arms is, how the Israelis became disarmed, and how October 7th changed Israeli philosophy about armed citizens. He explains the importance of the Second Amendment in the United States Bill of Rights, and how it is important today as a protector of liberty as well as for personal safety.

    Because of the extreme restrictions on firearms ownership and carry put in place by the Israeli government, only about 1.5% of the Israeli population were allowed to own firearms before October 7, 2024. There are about 6.7 private firearms for each 100 Israelis. With even this extreme restriction on gun ownership, the organizers of the music festival declared the festival to be a “gun free zone”.
    Hamas jihadis attacked the festival, killed over 360, and took at least 40 hostages. The dead included 17 police officers. It is not clear if the police officers were armed. In a similar attack at the Bataclan Concert in Paris, France, about 100 were killed. Eight police officers who were at the Bataclan off-duty were all unarmed.

    Mark explains how the Israelis believed they could count on their large police force and their superb military to protect them. It was and is a mistaken faith. When seconds counted in Israel, the police and military were many hours away. Mark explains how the same problem exists in the United States. Many Americans believe the police will be there to protect them. American police cannot be where they are needed when they are needed. In addition, the police have been under attack and there is a strong movement to defund them. For the first crucial minutes, you will be your own first responder.
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    Israel Disarmed, highly recommended, $16.99 paperback, $27 Hardcover, $9.99 on Kindle at Amazon.

    https://www.ammoland.com/2024/10/israel-disarmed-by-mark-w-smith-book-review/

  6. No Place to Hide. No Place to Run. USA is the Last Best Hope
    Ammoland Inc. Posted on October 25, 2024 by Dean Weingarten
    GunVote IWI X95 Carbine Elcan SpectreDR
    An I Voted sticker on an IWI X95 bullpup carbine in 5.56mm with an Elcan SpectreDR 1.5-6x optic on top. IMG Jim Grant

    When you engage on the Internet, there are always people who do not want to do things, are unwilling to engage, and think they can hide from the government. They say they do not want to (pick your action), get a carry permit, sign a petition, purchase ammunition from a store, join a state or local action group, buy a gun from a dealer, or others because:

    They Do Not Want to Be on a List.

    The problem with this is:

    99.9% of us are on multiple lists, whether we want to be or not.

    There are a few people who do not own telephones, who are not on the power grid, who do not subscribe to magazines, read things on the Internet, or buy goods with credit or debit cards. They are very, very few. They are ineffective politically or in a conflict. The digital shackles we have accepted or which have been placed on us are ubiquitous and encompassing. There is no place left to hide and no place left to run. Either we win this fight for limited government and the rule of law politically, we lose by becoming engaged in some sort of civil war, or we lose everywhere because there isn’t any place left to run.

    Canada is becoming worse than the USA every day. Mexico is far worse already.

    Nowhere in Europe is better than the USA is now, and everywhere in Europe is likely to get much worse if the USA stays on the path the Biden/Obama administration has put us on. Africa? You joke. Japan? They don’t take immigrants. Australia—it’s already worse than the USA. China? India? They are much worse.
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    Convert to Islam? Islamic countries are all worse than the USA if you value freedom and private property.
    If you read AmmoLand or other forums about hunting or shooting or conservative politics, you are already on several lists. In authoritarian/totalitarian regimes, the government is concerned and very effective at finding and knowing who they can trust and who they cannot. Trusted people are a small number. Nothing on the Internet is truly lost. Credit card purchases are forever. Phone conversations are recorded and stored. They are probably only listened to by machines, if at all, but they are kept and can be searched later.

    At present, there are some protections in place that make it difficult to use these resources to divide the country into the enemies of the regime and everyone else. Those protections are rapidly being eroded by the current regime.

    Even if you take gold coins on a sailboat and head out to sea, you are subject to officials in every port. You will be asked for bribes, subject to have your boat confiscated, with no serious rule of law. Carry a gun with you on the boat to protect your life and possessions? Very difficult because most countries do not allow it. They will confiscate and prosecute if it is to their advantage. They have the power to search you in every port. Your voyage is tracked by satellite.
    We are in a great political contest to force the power of the government back into the cage created for it by the Constitution. If we win, it may take decades to undo all the damage created by the administrative state. It cannot happen all at once. Such is the nature of the rule of law. If we lose, the deterioration we see will accelerate. More inflation, more lawless importation of multitudinous immigrants, more potential cheating at elections without any accountability. The middle class will continue to be attacked from all sides. We are on the slide to complete tyranny, as experienced in Venezuela. The Supreme Court would likely be placed under the influence of Progressives.

    We can win. Our opponents do not have infinite resources available to cheat. Winning the election is the easiest fight we have available to win. Winning takes courage and the willingness to take small chances now to avoid terrible effects later. Political victory is much easier than winning a civil war, as patriots are picked off piecemeal against a strengthened and growing entrenched administration.

    Paraphrasing Patrick Henry: When will we be stronger? This is the time to use our political will and power, before our voices are silenced, before our rights become transgressions in the law, before our churches are only allowed to preach what the government wants them to preach. As a Christian, I urge everyone to vote. In the USA, it is our duty to vote. It is how we have an impact on our means of government. This is a sea change election.

    In the words of the words of Chinese military philosopher Sun Tsu, who lived centuries before Christ:

    The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

    In the words of candidate Donald Trump: “Fight! Fight! Fight!” to elect President Trump and change the course of history. This election may be our last best chance to restore the Republic without internal war or, perhaps worse, the tyranny seen in places like Venezuela. It is worth the hour it takes to vote.

    https://www.ammoland.com/2024/10/no-place-to-hide-no-place-to-run-usa-is-the-last-best-hope/

  7. A Dim Future Is Just Weeks Away
    Ammoland Inc. Posted on October 24, 2024 by John Farnam

    Opinion

    “Totalitarianism is feudalism in the twelfth-century sense of the word” ~ Barbara Amiel.

    Is this our future?

    The ultimate goal of domestic leftists/socialists/Communists/Democrats in dissolving our national borders is not just to manufacture a source of illegal votes[for Uniparty & Democrats]. It is the same reason they de-fund local police, empty prisons, apologize for violent criminals, make any species of legitimate self-defense a crime, and refuse to prosecute actual violent felons.
    They intend to make our lives so terrifying that we will blindly accept their long-advocated Marxist agenda, which includes obliterating our First, Second, and Fourth Amendment Rights as Americans.

    The rest will fall quickly!
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    “Elections” become mere cynical formalities.

    Mouthing “misinformation” becomes a felony. In fact, some Democrats are even now openly suggesting penalizing all who “spread misinformation” (i.e., any speech unflattering of them).

    De-funded/demoralized local police and Sheriff’s departments are swept away, replaced by heavily armed “federal police,” endowed with all kinds of extra-constitutional powers, and who answer only to their Communist masters.

    Indeed, FEMA personifies that right now!

    All “citizens” (not just Jews, Christians, men, property-owners, business people, capitalists, whom they hate already), become frightened, disenfranchised, impotent slaves, mere “property,” with no rights.

    “Capitalism” is just another term for “economic freedom,” which is why Democrats hate it so viciously!

    We thus descend into a frightening, tightly-controlled, feudal police-state, with them in permanent possession of absolute power, and all (now “serfs”) who express concern precipitously thrown into gulags and never seen again, just as is currently the case in North Korea, Venezuela, and other Communist shit-holes!

    “The historian of the world will see that it was the Principle of Liberty; that settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace, and keeps peace; and that abolishes slavery” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.

    /John

    https://www.ammoland.com/2024/10/a-dim-future-is-just-weeks-away/

  8. Critics Predicted Constitutional Carry Would Make New Orleans More Dangerous. So What Really Happened?
    By Cam Edwards | 10:01 AM | October 25, 2024
    AP Photo/David J. Phillip

    In the weeks and months before Louisiana’s Constitutional Carry law took effect on July 4th, critics proclaimed the new law would wreak havoc on the state; particularly in New Orleans, where officials tried to turn most of the French Quarter and downtown business district into a semi-gun-free zone where concealed carry licenses would still be required for folks to lawfully carry.
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    Those plans haven’t panned out, and for now, visitors and residents are still free to carry a concealed firearm without a state-issued permit, so long as they’re legally allowed to own one. So has the new law led to anarchy in the Crescent City?

    Not according to the city’s crime stats.

    New Orleans police have seized fewer guns and made fewer illegal gun possession arrests this year compared to last, leading experts to question the impact of Louisiana’s permitless carry law.

    According to the NOPD’s most recent crime report, illegal gun possession arrests have dropped by 42% and officers have confiscated 1,788 firearms in criminal investigations, a 21% decrease.

    Criminologist Ashraf Esmail, Ph.D., from Dillard University, says the decrease is partly due to a new state law allowing residents to carry concealed firearms without a permit or prior training.

    “Police are now limited to stop anyone suspected of a gun because permitting concealment is no longer necessary,” Ashraf Esmail, Ph.D. said.

    Esmail says the law restricts how the NOPD can make arrests and take guns off the street.

    “The use of guns have to visible for law enforcement to do something about it and that could lead to even more gun violence,” he said.

    At first glance, the stats might indicate that Esmail is right. Fewer guns are being confiscated and fewer people are being arrested for illegally carrying a gun since the permitless carry law took effect. But is that because of the new law, or because fewer crimes are being committed to begin with?
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    However, University Medical Center emergency room doctor Annelies De Wulf says as of now, crime is on a decline just like gun seizures.

    “I think that mirrors what we see in terms of gun violence and homicide numbers also precipitously dropping,” De Wulf said.

    The NOPD reports violent crime is down 24%, meaning less shootings and homicides compared to this time last year.

    Violent crime is down substantially, and homicides have declined even more. According to crime analyst Jeff Asher’s Year-to-Date Homicide Dashboard, homicides in New Orleans are down by more than 40% compared to last year.

    That’s not necessarily because of Constitutional Carry, but it’s pretty clear that the new law hasn’t led to an explosion of violent crime as critics predicted.

    De Wulf credits a collaborative effort between local and state agencies who are committed to helping crime victims and educating communities about crime.

    One of those programs is UMC’s Seeds of NOLA Trauma Recovery Center, which De Wulf helps run. She says her staff partners with community organizers to reach out to people in need, address root causes of crime, and has directly helped 180 victims of gun violence this year.

    “Our team is actively de-escalating conflict while talking to people’s intense responses after injury,” she said.

    De Wulf obviously has a vested interest in promoting her program. I have no idea how effective those efforts have been at preventing initial or retaliatory acts of violence, but it stands to reason that strategies focusing on the relatively small number of New Orleans residents who are most likely to commit violent crimes are going to be far more useful than casting a wide net of gun restrictions over everyone in the hopes of ensnaring violent criminals along with lawful gun owners.
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    Granted, Constitutional Carry has only been in place for a few months in New Orleans, and homicides were already trending down this year before permitless carry took effect. But there’s no indication that those trends changed once Constitutional Carry became the law of the land in Louisiana either. New Orleans is on pace for one of it’s biggest one-year crime declines in its history; fantastic news for its citizens, and yet more evidence that Constitutional Carry isn’t the invitation to anarchy the anti-gunners proclaim it to be.

    https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2024/10/25/new-orleans-constitutional-carry-n1226685

  9. Harvard Point-Counterpoint On Guns Includes Dumbest Anti-Gun Takes Yet
    By Tom Knighton | 5:29 PM | October 25, 2024
    monkeybusinessimages/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    I once thought Harvard only accepted smart people.

    Then David Hogg got in after being turned down by much lesser schools than Harvard claims to be. It became clear that the Ivy League’s prestige is based on history more than anything else.
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    But one would hope that most who end up at Harvard have at least some inkling of an idea of how to think. I’d like to think that. I can’t, but I’d like to, and this point-counterpoint article on guns certainly didn’t help.

    I’m going to to delve too far into the pro-gun arguments because, well, they’ll all look familiar enough. I’ll only use summarize them to frame some of the anti-gun arguments.

    It starts with the pro-gun perspective saying that we need guns for self-defense. The author points out that defensive gun uses are far more common than offensive gun uses, etc.

    To which his opponent in this debate offers this:

    Proponents of individual gun ownership seem to continually emphasize their necessity in acts of self-defense. However, the reality is that firearms are rarely used in such situations. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, only 1.1% of all the self-protective behaviors undertaken by victims of violent crime involved the use or threat of a firearm, making it the least-employed method of self-defense in America. These statistics starkly contrast with the perception, often held by pro-gun lobbyists, that guns are necessary in America as self-protective measures.

    First, understand that the National Crime Victimization Survey data looked at 2013-2015. That was an era when violent crime was relatively low, lower than it had been since the late 1960s. That matters because if there are fewer violent crimes then there will be fewer cases of people needed to defend themselves.
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    Further, the National Crime Victimization Survey is conducted by the US Census Bureau. The truth of the matter is that a lot of people who use a firearm defensively aren’t going to open up about it to the United States government. For one thing, they might be concerned that they’re going to get harassed by law enforcement or jammed up in some other way.

    Then we have the fact that they use the phone book to get numbers for the survey. As a result, they don’t get the most representative sample of the American population.

    But even if all of that is true, it doesn’t negate the fact that for those 1.1 percent, having a gun might well be the only reason they’re alive.

    He then goes on to tout a bunch of nonsense we’ve debunked here a thousand times at least.

    The pro-gun author then notes that proponents of gun ownership emphasize not self-defense but defense from tyranny, which leads this this crap:

    It is undeniable that the historical context of the Second Amendment has made contemporary gun ownership in the United States particularly contentious. However, the original context in which this Amendment was ratified is arguably not applicable today. In fact, current American firearm laws are based on ‘‘interpretations’’ of the Second Amendment—in a modern context, what’s to say these aren’t misinterpretations?

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    The phrase “shall not be infringed” is pretty damn clear.

    Moving on…

    Furthermore, in its original context, the Second Amendment was intended to safeguard the right of militias to bear arms rather than to protect the rights of individuals to own guns. As evidence, in District of Columbia v. Heller, former Justice John Paul Stevens indicated in his dissent that “nothing in the Constitution protected the use of arms outside the context of a militia.” Therefore, it would seem that in America as we know it today, where the army has taken the place of militias in ensuring national security, the circulation of guns for private ownership is not necessary.

    Additionally, even if the Second Amendment was indubitably clear about personal gun ownership in today’s America, it was written at a time when a typical musket used in the American Revolution could fire three rounds per minute. Compare this to a modern AR-15, which fires 45 rounds per minute with higher accuracy and greater range. It’s hard to imagine that when the Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment in 1791, they could have foreseen the potential mass destruction that modern firearms would bring.

    Again, this isn’t new, but it should be remembered that the private ownership of artillery was permitted at the time of the nation’s founding, despite claims by our current POTATUS notwithstanding. To claim that a modern firearm is too destructive for the Founding Fathers to approve
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    The author here should remember that our Founding Fathers were distrustful of government. They recognized a need for it, but they wanted it kept in check. That included a standing army. This is clear from the numerous writings they left behind on the subject.

    To argue that the Second Amendment is irrelevant because we have an army that therefore negates the need for a militia is absolutely insane.

    But this is what we get from Harvard in this day and age. Nothing but regurgitated talking points based on absolute BS.

    https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2024/10/25/harvard-point-counterpoint-on-guns-includes-dumbest-anti-gun-takes-yet-n1226684