Dakota Beacon

Another First Amendment case.  What will it mean for our freedom to make movies and see them?  What might it portend in view of the candidacy of Pete Buttegieg?

The controversy, today, is about semi-automatic rifles. It is a dishonest controversy. The great majority of rifles made today are semi-automatic. “Semi-automatic” simply means that the rifle cocks itself. The enemies of the first amendment, however, try to spread two misunderstandings:
1. that “semi-automatic” means fully automatic, like a submachine gun; and
2. that “semi-automatic” rifles are only fearsome war weapons without legitimate civilian purposes.

The naked truth is that the proponents of gun legislation are simply city slickers who just do not like fire arms, or ignorant people who want to limit rifles to the technology of 1919.

Is polyamory the secret to overcoming the “patriarchal oppression” of marriage? Dr. Joseph Horton begs the contrary. Analyzing the practical consequences of polyamory’s promise of non-exclusive, interconnected networks of romance, Horton observes that “the suggestion that polyamory be considered normal portends a seismic cultural shift … Normalizing relationship limitlessness will in the end be limiting.”

There is a reason why loony left environmentalists are laughed at. They brought it on themselves with their foolish proposals to “save the planet.” What used to be known as “conservation” is now a weird and wild playground of the absurd and irrational.

A few representative stories drawn from many, many examples illustrate the silliness of their premise. The British Broadcasting Corporation reported that professor emeritus Stephen Salter of the University of Edinburgh wants to replicate the effects of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, Philippines, to study the effects of global warming. His idea is to spray massive amounts of sea salt into the atmosphere using wind-powered pumps on ships. The salt would reflect the sun’s rays back into space and thus lower the global temperature. Brilliant! And what happens when salt rain falls on arable land? Crop failure anyone?

It's beginning to look a lot like China.

THE 2017-19 ND BUDGET CYCLE; A RECESSION MAY HIT; ND PRISON SYSTEM IS BULGINHG; NOT A PROBLEM?; CHASE IRON EYES; DOPS AND DONT'S; WHO IS THE OLDEST PERSON IN ND?; PEGGY LEE; THE MINOT DAILY NEWS WAS "VERY EXCITED"; TAKE NO CHANCES; THE OMAR DRIP, DRIP, DRIP; DRIP BECOMES A TORRENT; A RASH OF SUICIDES; DAKTOIDS

The City of Grand Forks is considering providing clean needles for drug addicts.  What could possibly go wrong?

It starte with raw fear.  The knock on the door in the midle of the night.  The "social credit score" which strips you of the right to travel, to have a job, to go to school, to buy things you need.  Then it takes away your right to assemble or to speak.  Eventually you are nothing but an organ farm, kept alive only to supply vital organs to the marketplace.   But before that first step, the authorities take away your guns and your right to self defense.  When it reaches the end game, it looks like this.

The First Amendment is baked in the cake.

Dan Wos of Gun Owners of America has an urgent message.

We've all heard the expression, "There oughta be a law!"  whenever something seems unfair or amiss in our lives.  Usually that is the last thing that there "oughta" be!

A stimulating e-mail from an old friend last week inspired me. He cited various quotations of famous men. How wonderfully conversant these quotes were to my way of thinking. They recalled old-school values and a heritage spanning centuries.

I began my own search for quotations. The following is a selection of a few of the many aphorisms worth reciting. Anyone can find gratification and affirmation by noodling around the internet. Suggested sites include brainyquote.com, rightwingnews.com, quoteload.com, and refseek.com.

            Insights from our Founding Fathers include:

It might seem to some of us that our governor and our president are just a little to sanguine about our Bill of Rights - our due process is at stake and these guys are pretty off-hand about its importance in every aspect of American life.

"Our main agenda is to have ALL guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn't matter if you have to distort facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed."

We are inundated with con jobs - people who call and try to steal your bank account, websites and smartphone games that mine data.  There is really no end.  But perhaps the most costly con game around is the green one.

MORE DAPL; THE ND SOYBEAN PROCESSORS; FEUD OVER; THE GRAND FARM INITIATVE; DICKINSON STATE UNIVERSITY IS SHIFTING; ROOFLESS GARAGE; FLARING RECORD; WELFARE FRAUD; TWO SIDES OF THE RIVER; PEAS & CORN; THE LATE JIM GRAHAM; EMBEZZLER MEETS PONZI ARTIST; REP. ILHAN OMAR

Are the CDC and the FDA lying to us?

We aren't the only ones in trouble.

Another kid, another cause

In 2018 Trump told the UN, “[S]overeign and independent nations are the only vehicles where freedom has ever survived and democracy has ever endured…so we must protect our sovereignty and our cherished independence above all…We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.” In rejecting globalism and emphasizing Make America Great Again, President Trump has upset more apple carts than can be counted.

Fonte concludes by giving a thumbs up to President Trump and his administration. “For decades conservative thinking has ignored the globalist challenge. The good news is that the Trump Administration is taking the conflict between democratic sovereignty and global governance seriously.”

Europe places itself on the altar of Mother Earth

SPORTS BETTING; TRIBAL CONCERNS; T. ROOSEVELT LIBRARY; AG CASH RECEIPTS; DAKOTA DIFFERENCES; THE ND HIGHWAY PATROL; CORRECTION; HOPES IN JAMESTOWN; CONGRESSIONAL CONTRATIANS; A STANDING ROCK OFFICIAL; BE CAREFUL ABOUT FREE STUFF; CLOSING THE CIRCLE; DICKINSON HIGH SCHOOL; DAKTOIDS

Being simultaneously comical and tragic, perhaps nothing reflects our descent into Idiocracy more than millennials who’ll insist their misspellings of words are correct. Just yesterday I read an eyebrow-raising story about this that was quite timely, as I’d experienced millennial spelling moronity just the day prior.

What the Left does want to do is use the El Paso tragedy to remove any remaining stumbling blocks to its immigrationist endeavors. Liberals now want “invasion” (and even “illegal alien”) considered a racist term. This is nothing new, either, as the Left has already tried to demonize things such as “Build that wall!” chants and “MAGA” hats. The idea is that anything rhetorically effective for conservatives — anything that could possibly influence people — should be labeled racist and thus be out of bounds. (By the way, would this include anti-immigrationist remarks such as “Europe belongs to the Europeans,” uttered last year by infamous “white supremacist” the Dalai Lama?) Hey, the side that defines the vocabulary of a debate wins the debate.

This is why all of us — President Trump, you and I — should double down. We are being invaded. The problem isn’t those of us who warn about it, but the people making it happen.

Everyone has rhetoric. And if leftists can tell their lies, can’t we at least tell the truth?

Here is the issue. Who controls knowledge and the way we think? A few decades ago this question might have been a non sequitur, a very illogical query indeed. Today, in view of the technological upheaval brought on by Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google this question poses a very real concern. The effect produces a culture of misinformation that winnows away at contemplation, introspection, and independent thinking. The artificial culture created reduces individuality and independence. The threat is a form of social engineering guiding product users to the “correct” beliefs. George Orwell could not have scripted it better.

DRUGS, DRUGS, DRUGS; SOMETHING IS GOIN ON; BURGUM'S POLL; THE DAKOTA UNEMPLOYMENT RATE; COUNTERINTUITIVE; LIFE IN SMALL TOWNS; SMALL TOWN GROCERIES; PERKINS RESTAURANTS; IMMIGRATION; A SOMALI CITIZEN; TOO MANY APARTMENTS IN FARGO; WHITING PETROLEUM; "NO. 1 UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE"; MIKE JACOBS; DAKTOIDS

With leftists seeking to blame the El Paso shooting on President Trump, guns, white people and whatever other boogieman will help score political points, a simple fact should be understood:

Murder is a Democrat thing.

We can start with the striking statistic that 68 percent of all homicides occur in just certain parts of 5 percent of America's counties — and all, or virtually all, of these are Democrat areas.

When President Trump and Speaker Pelosi quietly reached a budget deal on July 22, did you miss the debt-ceiling, government shutdown spectacle? Dr. Mark Hendrickson recognizes that this act of fiscal bipartisanship isn’t the sign of mending America’s broken political fences; it’s President Trump’s pragmatism. Ultimately, “One needs to choose which battles to fight,” and, according to Hendrickson, now isn’t the time to rock the bankruptcy boat.

Why not just talk straight? Why not “tell it like it is?” Consciously or unconsciously we like to play with words. We evade coyly, speak obliquely, and toy with our language.

An idiom is a word or phrase where the meaning may or may not be guessed from its component words. It is “raining cats and dogs” or “we see the light.” A euphemism, on the other hand, is a type of idiom used to say something unpleasant, rude, or just too direct to mention specifically. Euphemisms evade plain speaking. Euphemisms substitute a mild, indirect, or vague term for one considered harsh, blunt, or offensive. They replace taboo or uncouth expressions with other less coarse terms. They can make a harsh reality appear natural or normal.

In the El Paso shooting’s wake, evident is the same wash-rinse-repeat pattern. There are the inevitable calls for gun control by demagogues concerned only about people control, those who put the onus on whites when most mass shooters are non-white, and propagandists who blame the “Right” when most violence originates with the “Left.” It’s quite tiresome, really. In truth, the main underlying cause of increased mass-murder events — and so much evil in general — is a severe philosophical/spiritual malaise besetting our nation.

Were gun control the remedy here, mass shootings would be rare. Not only were there fewer firearm laws many decades ago, but in 1940s and ‘50s New York City, boys would often take guns on the subway because they had rifle clubs at school. So is access to firearms really the problem’s root cause?