Kort Explores conundrums of the human condition

"We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore."
Mark Twain

"The essence of all slavery consists in taking the produce of another's labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded on ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live on."
Leo Tolstoy (1891)

There were great expectations on both sides of the rusted wreckage of the once menacing iron curtain when the Soviet Union finally collapsed. Even with the flow of goods and services extracted from its former satellites cut off, Russia remained a large nation rich with natural resources, an educated population, an established industrial infrastructure, and millions of potential consumers hungry for modern consumer goods. Western businessmen practically drooled over the vast untapped opportunities for the creation of new markets and economic growth. The future looked bright.

Japan is often used as an example of the "benefits" of firearm prohibitions. But I think there is a factor in the Japanese situation that is underappreciated in the west. The Japanese have in effect franchised both the commission and control of crime to their own version of the mafia, the Yakuza. Organized crime is such an accepted part of Japanese life that both business and government routinely pay the extortion demanded for protection for nearly any undertaking. Extortion payments are even recognized as a legitimate business expense.

Japan today seeks to demonize America for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The mayor of Nagasaki publicly declared that the American bombing of that city should be ranked with the Nazi holocaust as a crime against humanity. Revisionist novels in which the heroic Japanese win WWII and conquer America fill the Japanese best seller lists. The Japanese continue to deny the appalling truth that legions of women from conquered countries were forced into service as sexual slaves for the perverted pleasures of the Japanese military.

No paper promises can ever truly secure anyone's rights. Our human and civil rights are only as strong as our willingness and ability to physically defend them. Those who give up or are stripped of their individual rights to bear arms soon lose all of their rights.

"When our party had only 7 members, we had 2 goals. First, to be an ideological party. And second, to be a Party of Power. The one and only Power in Germany."

"The masses will always believe a big lie rather than a small one."

"Only terror can smash terror."

Adolf Hitler, Nazi Party member #7
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"If I could speak English, I could conquer England in a year."

"We go into battle as though in God's service, with our obedient children and faithful wives before our eyes. We cry revenge for our violated earth for which our enemies will perish."