Thoughts On A Sunday

I picked up the trusty RAM 1500 4x4 pickup from the body shop this past Thursday, it having gone in to deal with some spots of rust (caused by chipped paint) and deep scratches in the paint job. I didn’t want the pickup to rust out from under me like my old F150. Mechanically it had been in excellent shape, but the rust finally killed it, as the cost of fixing the rust was more than the F150 was worth. So it made sense to ‘keep ahead’ of any rust on the body work and to have the under-body and frame coated just prior to every winter on the trusty RAM 1500 4x4. Hence its recent trip to the body shop.

I did ask about the scratches and rust spots in the pickup bed, but the body shop owner said it wouldn’t be worth the price of his shop doing something I could handle with some rust converter and Rustoleum® for a fraction of the cost, particularly since my pickup is a working truck and not just a ‘purdy’ gentlemen’s toy. I could get it lined, but it is cheaper to use the Rustoleum® once a year or so and let’s me keep an eye on any developing rust. It means I will also be more likely to be able to keep this pickup for at least another 10 years, particularly since I average putting on about 8,000 miles per year on it. (Last year I only put on about 4,700 miles due to Covid since most of the places I would normally go were either closed or had severely restricted access, and I was working from home most of the time, so my commuting time and mileage was a fraction of normal.)

Considering the prices of both new and used vehicles due to a chip shortage (which was caused by Covid shutdowns and other supply chain disruptions), keeping my existing vehicle makes sense. When used vehicles can go for prices approaching that of new vehicles, you know the market is screwy. I’ve had a few dealers approach me about selling the trusty RAM 1500 4x4, but why would I want to sell something that is paid for, is in great shape, and meets my needs more than adequately?

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Seen over at Chris Muir’s DayByDay cartoon in the comments:

Bottom Line: If a politician doesn’t completely and unequivocally trust you and your right to keep and bear arms, you can never trust them.

Similar to the character Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol: Every time someone votes for a democrat, they forge a link in the chains of American slavery.

I think the first point doesn’t go far enough. If a politician doesn’t completely and unequivocally trust you and your rights as enumerated by the Constitution, you can never trust them. So many of them have come to believe we only exist to elect them and then to do whatever they tell us to do, forgetting that they work for us and not the other way around. If we have to constantly remind them of this, then they shouldn’t be representing us in the first place.

I understand that being a politician, being an elected official means one has to be able to perform a balancing act in the circus that is local, county, state, or federal politics. It isn’t easy to do that, or worse, one forgets where they should be focusing their efforts and who it is they’re supposed to be working for.

It seems to me that the higher the office one occupies, the harder it is to remember the people they represent and the easier it is to be seduced by the lure of power. Power corrupts. It always has.

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This morning’s weekly shopping trip to Walmart showed me more empty shelves. While the cat and dog food aisles were now fully stocked, there was no distilled or spring water to be had at all. The frozen food aisles were even more sparsely stocked this week as compared to last week.

The items that are in short supply tends to be different from store to store. Our local supermarket, just a couple of hundred feet down the road from our Walmart, has plenty of distilled and spring water. But they don’t have nearly the selection of yogurt or cream cheese gracing Walmart’s shelves. It’s hit or miss.

And so things continue in post-Covid America.

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This is known by anyone with a modicum of intelligence: Go soft on crime and you get more crime.

However, too many Democrats across the nation seem to have forgotten this, or worse, chosen to ignore this truth. This has led to a crime wave which seems to baffle the very people responsible for the increase in crime.

The numbers are in, and the debate is over. Our nation is in the midst of one of the worst crime waves in American history.

New nationwide data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation reveals that last year the number of murders rose by 29 percent, drug overdose deaths increased 30 percent, and the number of gang-related killings skyrocketed more than 55 percent. To put this carnage into context, a 29 percent increase in murder isn’t simply bad, it’s the worst single-year increase in American history. (Emphasis added – ed.) Similarly, the drugs flooding into our communities aren’t only deadly, they are the deadliest drugs ever sold. For the first time ever, over 100,000 Americans lost their lives to drugs and homicide in 2020.

The number of assaults rose by 12 percent last year and criminal assailants committed nearly 75,000 more violent crimes than they committed in 2019. Although the total number of property crimes fell, the total cost of those crimes rose by nearly $2 billion. Recorded cases of arson also rose by nearly 35 percent, a trend that is likely associated with last summer’s BLM riots, which were the most destructive in American history.

In Democrat-dominated cities, violent crime rose far more than the national average. Last year, murder rose 50 percent in Chicago, 44 percent in New York, and 38 percent in Los Angeles. The murder rate in Baltimore was higher than El Salvador’s or Guatemala’s — nations from which citizens can claim asylum purely based on gang violence and murder.

This cannot be repeated enough: If you go soft on crime you will get more crime.

It’s too bad that so many of the Democrats leading our cities can’t seem (or don’t want) to grasp this simple concept.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Sharryl Attkisson asks the right question: Why the mask?

President Biden is wearing a mask outside. He walks up to press corps, takes down the mask, and talks to them.

Please explain the purpose of the mask.

The answers she gets are certainly illuminating. Read The Whole Thing...including the comments.

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Related to the above, one of the side effects of the Covid con game has been training a new generation of snitches which has had the effect of “destroying due process and normal social relations”. An example:

Earlier this month, a student at one of the country’s most eminent law schools received an email announcing that a fellow classmate had anonymously lodged a complaint against him. The allegation: that he had violated University policy by engaging in prohibited behaviors, such as momentarily lowering his face mask to take a drink of water during a 90-minute lecture.

“Anonymously lodged a complaint” sounds like just another version of the sexual assault accusations made on college campuses against male college students. We are entering the age of the ‘stukachi’, something the Progressives have been working on as part of their efforts to create the New Soviet Union. No totalitarian regime can survive without its snitches.

That the anonymous denouncement of a student for taking a drink of water at lecture at a prestigious law school has occurred tells me Progressives have succeeded on that level.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has not been cooperating, meaning time out on the lake had to be postponed, and where Monday is already intruding upon my thoughts.