Augur

~by Augur Senior

This is Augur’s father writing in. Call me Augur Senior. I am so troubled by this post that I felt compelled to write. The author is wrong on so many levels it borders on delusion or brain-washing. Augur tells me the author is of German linage, as are we. I am sad to think that the once proud German people are reduced to the level of mindless sheep, sniveling about brass knuckles and such tripe while being so cavalier about wishing away the right to self-defense.

Indulge me while I tell you a true story. This happened when Augur was still in the crib, and I believe that neither he, his mother, nor I would be here today if I had not had a pistol on one hot summer night many years ago.

I was a student then, and his mother and I rented an old farmhouse that was fairly remote, down a back road, only neighbor about a half mile away. The front porch faced the road, and our living room had big picture windows on two sides so that anyone driving by, maybe two or three pickup trucks a day on average, had an unobstructed view into the house.

It was a sweltering night, maybe 10 o’clock. Of course we didn’t have air conditioning, and the front door was open to let air in through the porch’s screen door. We never locked anything back then. Augur’s mom was sitting on the couch in her nightgown. She was pretty, young and blond. I am sure she was a vision through the picture window, from the road out front. I was laying on the floor, out of sight, nothing on but my undershorts, reading a textbook and fighting my way through math problems. Augur was asleep in the next room.

A car pulled up and stopped in the middle of the road, right out front, so that whoever it was had a perfect view into the living room. Augur’s mom told me a car was just sitting out there with the motor running. I ran into the bedroom and grabbed some pants. I also grabbed my Beretta Model 70S. In hindsight it was little more than a popgun, 7 rounds of 22 long rifle. I had read about the pistol in a magazine. The gun writer had raved about its quality and reliability, and I was so intrigued I had purchased one, even though it was at least twice the price of most 22 semi-autos. Fun to shoot tin cans with, and to this day, I don’t think it has ever miss-fired.

I walked back into the living room and just at that moment our screen door flew open and one of the scariest looking guys I have ever seen walked into our house. No knock, no hello, no anything, just barged in with eyes only for my wife. My guess is he hadn’t seen me and thought she was alone. This guy had long grey hair and a beard, and he was covered with what looked to me like prison tattoos. He absolutely reeked of whiskey. I didn’t know how many more were in the car, but I knew he wasn’t alone. I stuck the pistol out and said something like, “Buddy you are about to get shot.” I was shaking so bad and so scared. If he had known, I had loaded the magazine but had not chambered a round in the pistol, so I am sure he could have taken it from me before I could have fired it. Then again, I was shaking so badly that I probably would have discharged it if it had been chambered. However, when he saw the gun the aggression in him disappeared just like flipping off a light switch. All I can figure is the little popgun must have seemed pretty big from the business end, because he stopped in his tracks. He backed out mumbling something incoherent and jumped off the porch and ran to the car. They gassed it and were gone a moment later, nothing left but a cloud of tire smoke.

There is no doubt in my mind what they had in store for my wife, and I can only imagine how it might have ended for all of us. I was pretty anti-establishment in those days, and I was so stupid I didn’t even call the police.

Do I still have my Model 70? What do you think?

I have a few other things now too, with bigger holes in the ends of the barrels, and I am very confident of my ability to protect my home and family, thank you very much. That is if our nanny government will allow it. Of course I live in a state that has taken away my INDIVIDUAL right to carry and protect myself and my family. My state has so little regard for me and mine that it has legislated us into the status of victims. I think that sucks. To believe the 2nd amendment does not convey individual rights is to ignore volumes of writing by the guys who framed the constitution. A more simplistic argument, but one that makes total sense to me, is that the Bill of Rights describes individual rights, not collective, militia rights. What does the First Amendment address? An individual right? Right? Why would you believe the 2nd was about anything else. Common sense, not quibbling about the placement of a comma for Christ sake. (as you may have noticed I don’t worry about comma placement very much anyway)

The best description I ever heard of the intent of the 2nd Amendment was that it is to ensure that the kings never take away the Serf’s pitchforks, so that they always have the ability to storm the castle if the monarchy becomes too oppressive. I think that is what the authors of the constitution had in mind. That is what they left in Europe.

So lets talk about the tragedy at Northern. One of the people on this blog actually suggested that it would have been worse if a half dozen armed students had opened up with semi-automatics? Huh? Innocent kids are being shot in cold blood. It can’t get worse. Do you want to be a victim or have a chance to defend yourself and maybe save some lives? What if somebody accidentally gets hit? Are you serious? People are intentionally getting hit. Are you just going to sit there and wait for your turn? I bet guys like you are easy to herd into boxcars!

So if you don’t want a pistol in your back pocket, OK, that is your choice, your right. BUT do not propose to take away my right to carry mine.

Ps If you really want to understand the politics of gun rights, join the NRA. They put out a couple of great magazines that will teach you something.

John McCain’s website doesn’t list his position on gay marriage. In reviewing a story on his opposition to the Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage, the only thing perfectly clear is that he opposed the amendment. He mentions that he supported the Defense of Marriage Act, but also says that if the states aren’t able to effectively prohibit gay marriage, and if the federal government also fails, then a gay marriage amendment might be appropriate. I’m wondering how the Agora’s Rainbow Panthers feel about McCain’s half-hearted opposition to the gay marriage amendment, and also how our Pro-McCain posters feel about McCain’s position on preserving hetero-marriage.

Here is an interesting article by David Lightman on why negative attacks didn’t work this cycle. The author offers the following reasons:

1. Information overload.
2. A higher tolerance for misbehavior.
3. Negative campaigning went too far.
4. The charges don’t fit.

This analysis needs revision:

Point 1, “information overload.” This doesn’t keep negative attacks from getting through, it just makes them a little harder to make stick with news outlets tiring of reporting a story for more than one or two days. For an attack to stick, it’s better to unpack it slowly, and find new talking points spinning the same attack every few days.

Point 2, “higher tolerance for misbehavior.” The author’s observation is spot on. Two examples: (1) the change in the impact of drugs (Bill had to deny he inhaled, Barack smoking rock didn’t really hurt him), and (2) listen to how the pundits are discussing rumors of McCain’s infidelity and notice how little talk there was of Rudy’s personal life, let alone the often quoted observation that in the GOP primary field the only candidate with only one wife was the Mormon.

Point 3, “Negative campaigning went too far.” This was a factor in terms of South Carolina’s response to attacks against McCain. I think the voters felt bad that the “black baby” attack on McCain worked. In general, the negative attacks themselves haven’t been particularly effective. Hillary’s attacks against Obama have appeared childish and petty. One great example is Rezko. She picked on him for working on a case that was loosely connected with Rezko for 5 hours when he was a junior associate. The attacks that really had legs involved the continued relationship between the two in terms of access, fundraising, state $s, and Obama’s land deal. The attacks have been too light, or poorly packaged. In several cases the negative attacks didn’t go far enough to be effective.

Point 4, “The charges don’t fit.” This is a sloppy way of saying the message of the attacks was off. Often leveling charges that don’t really fit can be very effective, like the swift boating of Kerry. Before that was launched Kerry was the war hero, and Dubya was the draft dodger. The swift boating charge didn’t fit. Imagine if, for instance, attacks on McCain would have been based on attacking his perceived strength. If he would have been attacked from the beginning saying he was corrupt rather than being a contrarian. Keating five ads, and oppo research on favors for lobbyists could have devastated him, and they “don’t fit” with his image. Part of negative ads is destroying an image.

I would rephrase this last point to say, at least for the Democrats, “These candidates are different.” For most of her career when Hillary Clinton is attacked her numbers go up, when she is attacking in self-defense they stay up, but when she launches a petty attack, or attacks in offense her numbers go down. This phenomenon itself is a curiosity in American politics. The best ways to attack Hillary are 1) attacking Bill; 2) provoking her to go over the top making a petty attack; and 3) policy based attacks to make her look radical. Anything that looks like a personal attack on her, anything that looks like a low blow, anything looking the least bit sexist will backfire. Another interesting phenomenon about Hillary is that there are a great deal of people who don’t support Hillary on the merits, but start to support her when it looks like she’s being unfairly attacked.

Mr. Obama is also hard to lay a glove on because he positions himself above the fray. His trend lines dropped when he started to attack, and his campaign quickly figured that out and knocked it off. Hillary’s problem: when you hit someone who wont hit back you look like a bully. Worse yet, Obama says “this is the same politics of deception and personal destruction that American’s are tired of” and rallies of 20,000 at a time collectively applaud and nod their heads. The playbook on how to attack Senator Obama is still being written.

Did anyone notice Hillary totally plagiarized John Edward’s closing line in the debate. In I think at least 2 debates at the very end Edward’s said “After all of this is over we’re all going to be fine, this is about making sure the American people are fine.” Hillary basically just cribbed that and used it herself.

How dare she after the “change you can xerox” line.

I remember Edwards using this same bit more than once. No one in the media is picking this up yet. Her high point of the night was STOLEN.

Concession speech:

“Today, I am suspending my campaign for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. But I want to say this to everyone: with Elizabeth, with my family, with my friends, with all of you and all of your support, this son of a mill worker is going to be just fine. Our job now is to make certain that America will be fine.” -John Edwards

November 15, 2007 debate:

“You know, before I came over here tonight, I was thinking, we’re going to have this debate; when we finish, all of you are going to be on television saying, oh, who scored points, who won the debate. All of us are going to be fine. The question is, will America be fine?”
-John Edwards

October 30, 2007 debate:

“As a matter of fact, it’s not about any of us. The truth is, when this election is over, I’m going to be fine. Senator Clinton is going to be fine. Senator Obama’s going to be fine. Will America be fine? And will we ensure — and I think this is the great moral test of our generation — will we ensure that our children have a better life than we have had? That’s the responsibility we have.” – John Edwards

Oberman now has this, he just said he did this in December too. He hat tipped Politico, but we had it first at Urbanagora.

Update: Now there is a comparative YouTube video.

While I thought the plagerism argument was silly, when you spend 2 media cycles attacking your opponent for plagerizing, that makes doing so yourself a little more damning. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo points out that she also sort of stole from her husband’s 1992 remarks.

“He who hesitates is a damned fool” – Mae West

Senator Obama seems genuinely uncomfortable with confrontation, this is apparent from watching the few heated exchanges from the many Democratic debates. This is partially due to his basing his campaign on bringing “a new kind of politics” to America. His has disarmed himself from launching attacks on Hillary. Even Edwards, who most would assume would support Obama, has offered as his excuse for waiting that Obama doesn’t seem like a fighter.

As Jonathan Martin at the Politico points out, Obama is way too slow to respond to attacks. And Hillary’s attacks often come right before a major electoral event. Perhaps it’s the educated liberals running his campaign momentarily assuming that the less educated public wouldn’t take the attacks seriously. This is why swift boating sunk Kerry. There seems to be a curve of sorts where up to a breaking point, the more ridiculous the attack the more effective it becomes because there is a lower chance of there being a response. The Obama campaign’s current approach could become even more damaging as Hillary’s anti-Obama 527’s get off the ground.

A winning mantra: Only attack in defense, but don’t hesitate for a moment to respond when attacked. Do not let a news cycle go by without a response. No matter how ridiculous or offensive the attack, hit back. Temper your response based on how damaging the attack may be, and the risk of backfire, but don’t wait to respond. Every counterattack should be unmistakably structured as a response to an attack, as setting the record straight and reminding the people why we need to turn the page on the politics of destruction and deception.