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meme

The Deadliest Mass Shooter

Democide is a term revived and redefined by the political scientist R. J. Rummel as “the murder of any person or people by their government, including genocide, politicide and mass murder”. Government-​sponsored large-​scale killings for racial or political  reasons would be considered democide under Rummel’s definition. Democide can also include deaths arising from “intentionally or knowingly reckless and depraved disregard for life”; this brings into account many deaths arising through various neglects and abuses, such as forced mass starvation. Rummel explicitly excludes battle deaths in his definition.

He put the total number of people killed by governments during the 20th century at 262,000,000 of which he says 148,000,000 were killed by communist regimes

  1. Summary and Conclusions [20th Century Democide]

I BACKGROUND

2. The New Concept of Democide [Definition of Democide] 3. Over 133,147,000 Murdered: Pre-​Twentieth Century Democide

II 128,168,000 VICTIMS: THE DEKA-MEGAMURDERERS

4. 61,911,000 Murdered: The Soviet Gulag State
5. 35,236,000 Murdered: The Communist Chinese Ant Hill
6. 20,946,000 Murdered: The Nazi Genocide State
7. 10,214,000 Murdered: The Depraved Nationalist Regime

III 19,178,000 VICTIMS: THE LESSER MEGA-MURDERERS

8. 5,964,000 Murdered: Japan’s Savage Military
9. 2,035,000 Murdered: The Khmer Rouge Hell State
10. 1,883,000 Murdered: Turkey’s Genocidal Purges
11. 1,670,000 Murdered: The Vietnamese War State
12. 1,585,000 Murdered: Poland’s Ethnic Cleansing
13. 1,503,000 Murdered: The Pakistani Cutthroat State
14. 1,072,000 Murdered: Tito’s Slaughterhouse

IV 4,145,000 VICTIMS: SUSPECTED MEGAMURDERERS

15. 1,663,000 Murdered? Orwellian North Korea
16. 1,417,000 Murdered? Barbarous Mexico
17. 1,066,000 Murdered? Feudal Russia
References Index

 

More information here

R.J. Rummel’s published work listed here

 

Categories
Accountability crime and punishment government transparency ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies too much government

Smoke But No Gun

The Republican memo soaking up so much attention paints an ugly picture of a republic gone off the rails — but it should not be mistaken for The Facts.

We have smoke, sure. And the smoke can be seen, not unreasonably, as a sign of … a vast insider conspiracy.

But we have only second-​hand information; the “smoking gun” has yet to be presented.

The House Intelligence Committee Report memo relates to the behavior of the FBI and its use of a dossier prepared by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele. This operative was hired by Fusion GPS, a political research firm, which was under contract first with a conservative website, The Washington Free Beacon, and then with the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton for President campaign. His assignment was to research an alleged connection between Trump and the Russian government.

Steele dug up some interesting stuff, which would have been more persuasive had not some of it been obviously fabricated (I’m thinking of the infamous Russian prostitution story). The dossier got into the hands of the FBI by a circuitous route* and was used, says the memo, to get FISA warrants to electronically surveil a Trump campaign operative, Carter Page. Tellingly, the FBI never told the FISA court the specific origin of the dossier.

To get to the truth, we need more — the FISA warrants themselves, at the very least. 

There may be a proverbial smoking gun somewhere in this mess. The missing-​then-​discovered text messages of two partisan FBI agents do suggest a conspiratorial mindset.

That being said, let’s not jump to conclusions. Alan Dershowitz is right: a non-​partisan investigation is necessary.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Including Sen. John McCain!


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Categories
general freedom ideological culture media and media people Popular

Memed Into the Public Domain?

When the definitive history of the 2016 presidential election is written, the central figure may turn out to be … a frog.

“Pepe,” to be precise.

The cartoon frog with red lips started out as a minor figure in a Matt Furie webcomic, but came to symbolize so much more.

“This iconic amphibian has been labeled a Nazi, condemned by a presidential candidate, and now is at the center of an important First Amendment battle in an era of unlimited replication, imitation, and mutation,” writes Zach Weissmueller in a highly entertaining story in Reason. “It’s a fight that involves the alt-​right, Trump voters, a powerful Washington, D.C.-based law firm, and the anonymous online image board 4chan.…”

Mike Cernovich, the pro-​Trump, anti-​SJW publicity artist, has found himself at the center of the legal controversy. He’s hired a lawyer.

Oddly — or maybe not, politics and culture wars being what they are — the lawyer for Pepe’s creator makes much of the alt-​right/​hate group usages of Pepe:

“You can’t copy other people’s ideas and claim free speech,” says Tompros. “[The alt-​right is] absolutely free to spout hate in some other form. We just don’t want them using Pepe the Frog to do it.”

Contra Furie’s lawyer, you are allowed to copy others’ ideas in a free society. Copyright is something a bit narrower. Trickier.

This fight over the satirical use of a Trickster figure may turn out to be a legal and cultural landmark. “Fair use” could come to mean what Mr. Cernovich’s lawyer argues, ideas “memed into the public domain.”

Meanwhile, to the many causes of Hillary Clinton’s cruel fate in 2016, we can add a cartoon frog.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Categories
meme too much government

Freedom, not Force

Categories
folly ideological culture media and media people meme national politics & policies

CNN, You’ve Been Trolled

The Cable News Network, known popularly and un- as CNN — and satirically as the “Clinton News Network” and “Fake News” — so hysterically hates the president that it has become completely unhinged.

Well, unhinged from decency and journalistic standards, anyway.

The latest slips downward? 

First, some pseudonymous guy* on Reddit created a little gif** that placed a CNN-​logo on the head of a wrestler whom Donald Trump “took down” in some weird bit of nonsense publicity the entertainer-​entrepreneur was prone to, pre-​presidency. Trump then retweeted a version of the gif, calling CNN (once again) “fake news.” This made CNN look silly,*** so CNN tracked the originator down and pressured him to make a humiliating apology — for it and other, more tasteless contributions. He deleted most of what he had done on Reddit.

CNN looks petty: a bully. And clueless about the free-​for-​all that is the Internet. 

The Twitterverse erupted against the news outfit.

This went super-​viral on July 4, the same day that CNN tried to humiliate Mr. Trump by tweeting a quote from Abraham Lincoln: “Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe.” 

How apt!

And yet … Lincoln did not say it. Not exactly. The “fake news” network faked a presidential quote.

CNN apparently doesn’t understand that responding to trolls feeds the trolls and makes you look bad, to boot.

I suppose you could blame Trump for all this. His ridiculous tweets and whoppers have so corrupted the culture that his enemies (CNN being the obvious media leader) have adopted his methods.

But I won’t. Not this time.

Just blame the people at CNN.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* He referred to himself as a “shitposter,” which is what satirists and trolls on the Web are called.

** A “gif” is an image file, and has been around since the beginning of the World Wide Web. Nowadays, when we talk about “gifs” we usually are referring to brief animated gifs.

*** Frankly, it made the president look silly, too.


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CNN, Trump, meme

 

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meme

A simple question…

Government is a dangerous servant… as the American left has recently discovered.