The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.
“Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason.” – John Harrington
“…Give the devil his due” – Shakespeare- “Henry The Fourth”
“GRAPESHOT, n. An argument which the future is preparing in answer to the demands of American Socialism.” – Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”
This week, we had a tie in the Council Category between Joshuapundit’s–A Message For France – And For Us which was my reaction to what happened in Nice and what is happening aro0und the world and Bookworm Room’s – The Devil And Gun Control .
I got off some pretty good riffs as well as some decent perspective in my piece, but I have to give pride of place to Bookworm’s wickedly imaginative idea of a dialogue between Satan and one of his minions!
Here’s a slice:
Gun control proponents have a problem. Irrefutable data shows that, since 1992, as American gun ownership has gone up, crime has gone down. When pressed about the dramatic decrease in crime, the best that the Left can do is to point to anything but the increase in privately held weapons:
“Possible reasons for the decline include the country’s high incarceration rate, an aging population and an increased use of security cameras and cell phone videos capturing incidents.”
If gun grabbers were forced to grapple with the fact that the increase in guns tracking precisely with the decrease in crime, they’d also have to acknowledge that all the aging Americans, the imprisoned Americans, and the video cameras are irrelevant. Why? Because if more guns really meant more crime, as they insist, the 300 million guns in America today would more than offset age, imprisonment, and video.
The fact is — as even the CDC was forced to admit — that guns are used defensively as often as 1.2 million times a year. This short John Stossel piece gives a very down-and-dirty explanation for the fact that, while guns are a problem when they’re in criminal hands, they’re not a problem in the hands of law-abiding citizens (and, in America, most citizens are law-abiding or at least non-violent):
So what do you do if you desperately want gun control, but the data refuses to cooperate? Well, I can imagine Lucifer and his chief minion having a meeting that goes something like this:
The scene: A well-appointed office in Hell. Satan, in a snazzy red suit is seated behind a heavy oak desk. Standing in front of the desk, facing him, is Jezebeth, a pimply young demon, who’s one of his primary Earth operatives. The year: 2009.
LUCIFER: Jezebeth, you know and I know that too much freedom is good for human souls and therefore bad for our business. Without an all-controlling government, there’s so much less scope for the corruption that fills our Hell halls. After all, every time a petty official is given the power to control a person’s activities, we’re going to start seeing all sorts of wonderful bribery and other graft.
JEZEBETH: Oh, I agree, Satan the Supreme, I agree.
LUCIFER: Don’t interrupt again. We’ll take the groveling as given. Now where was I? Oh, yes. It’s very hard to empower a corrupt, despotic government when the people are armed. Those bureaucrats may crave power, but never enough to put themselves on the wrong side of an armed citizenry. You understand, then, what we have to do: We have to take guns away from Americans.
JEZEBETH: Your Supreme Evilness, you know that we’ve been working in America for years to get guns out of people’s hands. We’ve arranged with our earthly operatives to ensure that every single time more than two white people are shot with a gun in the same event, that our friends in the Democrat party blame guns and demand gun control. But it’s just not working. People keep getting more and more guns — and let me tell you, 9/11 didn’t help us at all. Neither did Hurricane Katrina. Those people we couldn’t sway directly or through our media imps actually realized that, when there’s a crisis, that non-damned NRA was right all along — when seconds count, the police are minutes away.
LUCIFER: Stop babbling, Jezebeth, and focus here. I know that your team has been pushing gun control for years, but you’re failing. We need to brainstorm here. The problem, as I see it, is that the more that ordinary Americans get guns, the fewer guns crimes there are. It’s devilishly hard to convince people to give up their guns when they’re feeling safer. We have got to make them feel less safe.
JEZEBETH: Well, your Evil Lordship, I have been thinking about this and I’ve got an idea. How about if we increase the violent crime rate so that people feel less safe?
LUCIFER: How in the Hell are you planning to that, Jezebeth? I just said that the problem is less crime.
Much more at the link.
In our non-Council category, the winner was Gavin McInnes in Taki’s Magazine with Oops, We Started A Race War submitted by The Watcher .
He has quite a few interesting things to say about race relations, cime, #Blacklivesmatter and a few other juicy topics.
Here are this week’s full results. Only Daley Gator was unable to vote this week but was not affected by the usual 2/3 vote penalty:
Council Winners
- *First place with 2 votes!–Bookworm Room – The Devil And Gun Control
- Second place with 1 2/3 votes –Joshuapundit–A Message For France – And For Us
- Third place with 1 1/3 votes –Stately McDaniel Manor – Time For A Little Paranoia?
- Fourth place with 1 vote –Puma By Design – Casting call for extras, actors during Cleveland RNC violence
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –VA Right! – Was McAuliffe’s Appointment of Roush to the Va Supreme Court Related to his Convict Voting Order?
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Razor – Goth Inside
- Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Glittering Eye –Can We Live With Terrorism?
- Sixth place with 1/3 vote – The Daley Gator – Newt Gingrich is right about Sharia Law, and why he is short-sighted
Non-Council Winners
- First place with 1 2/3 votes! –Gavin McInnes/Taki’s Magazine – Oops, We Started A Race War submitted by The Watcher
- Second place with 1 1/3 votes – Captain Capitalism – Traits are No Substitutes for Accomplishments submitted by The Glittering Eye
- Third place *t* with 1 vote –City Journal –The Fire Spreads submitted by Stately McDaniel Manor
- Third place *t* with 1 vote –Intellectual Froglegs – Guilty As Hill submitted by Joshuapundit
- Third place *t* with 1 vote –The College Fix–Professor rejects Marxism after traveling the globe: ‘Socialism doesn’t work’submitted by Bookworm Room
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –Jason Willick/The American Interest –The Make-Believe Supreme Court and the Coming Constitutional Crisis submitted by The Razor
- Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes –The National Interest – Everything You Need to Know About Russia’s Lethal Tank Force submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Daniel Greenfield/Front Page Magazine –How the Media Covers Up Muslim and #BlackLivesMatter Terrorism submitted by Puma By Design
- Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Heat Street –Elizabeth Warren Has A Bullying Problem, But No One Cares because She’s Not A Mansubmitted by The Daley Gator
See you next week!
Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum.
And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.
It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere, and you won’t want to miss it...or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.
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