Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for February 03, 2012

One got him! That’s the end of that d-bait.

Still is.

Be careful what you fish for..

Goodnight, all..

Forrest Gump sank a lot of R&D money in his “Bubba Boom Hand Grenades for Ice Fishermen". There was a mix up with the printed instructions. They read:1. Place grenade between legs and pull pin.2. Discard pin 3. Look for place on ice that you want a hole to fish from.4. Count to three using fingers to keep track.5. Run.A Minnesota judge threw out the claims of the families of the victims stating that real men never read instructions.

Better try again. The first one could have just been a fluke.

He fell for that old line again.

Is true – businesses fail – that’s life.

Theoretically, all the idiots should eventually kill themselves off, unless of course the government subsidizes their existence.

The International Court at the Hague has just declared bad puns punishable by long sentences. You are all under arrest and must now read the following long sentence. "I was walking down the street the other day when I ran into Millie Karpinsky, the gal who fancys herself an actress but is really (continued next page)

He’s sinking, all right!!

Brutal, but it works.

I prefer the free market to having my property stolen in the name of rescuing Goldman-Sachs every time they fall under the ice.

OK, my complete avoidance to learning what any of these political labels really means and stands for has caught up with me. I don’t get it. On the other hand I have often observed people ice fishing and wondered how awful their home life must be, since they voluntarily sit on a bucket, in the freezing cold for hours on end.

Again it is proven: Most times, only non-democrats are the punch-lines to most jokes anywhere in a newspaper.

(notice I said, “Most times.”)

I believe they are all ice holes.

I grew up in Minnesota. Ice fishing was a rite of passage (in that if you survived it with all of your fingers intact, you earned the right to do it again the next year). Dogsniff’s right – the main point is to be away from the rest of your family to give you the chance to get stinking drunk. Then, when you drive back home, you stop at 7-11 and buy a pack of frozen fish sticks that you can claim you caught out on the lake.

Hey, you have to have free market capitalism……If you don’t who’s going to finance the socialism? Socialism and free markets are not mutually exclusive. Socialism is a political system, and capitalism is an economic system…every free country in the world uses a combination of the two, and it works out well….It’s intelligent…

Yet again the gene pool is saved by Libertrianism! Yay!!!

Besides if capitalism alone is so good, why don’t we just let the free market defend the country?

To Three Steps and Dogsniff…. Right, OK, backing away verrry slowwwly now.

That’s not libertarian ice fishing. That’s the result of the Pelosi house voting for the ice to be the correct thickness.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/805/did-a-state-legislature-once-pass-a-law-saying-pi-equals-3

Gee if only a government inspector and his ability to determine the exact depth of ice had been there a numbskull without any ability ot determine ice depth would have been available for some other tragedy to be protected from.

I don’t see any problem with the cartoon. If you’re stupid enough to go out on thin ice, you deserve to die (thus improving the gene pool). There’s no reason my tax money should be used to fish the idiots out. But it happens all winter, every winter on the lakes around me — taxpayer-funded firemen risk their lives rescuing people who are too stupid to live. (Apparently there’s such a shortage of people in the world, we have to go to ridiculous lengths to keep the most irresponsible ones alive.)

It’s almost as if the artist thinks this is a bad thing. Perhaps he thinks we should have government certified ice testers certifying each frozen lake and maintaining a constant watch? I find that thought unusual because that runs contrary to the usual tone taken by this comic strip.

two thumbs up!

May I have his rod and tackle box?You can keep the hat!

Libertarians believe in limited laws and enforcing them, unlike the pick a law and cage the citizen, like we do now. most laws are only selectivity enforced under our current government.

Want a ‘Warning, thin ice’ sign? Go to SOVIET RUSSIA!

Obviously unclear on the concept of libertarianism. A libertarian would not wait for a free market or government entity to tell him if the ice were safe. He’d figure it out for himself.

Obviously written for me.

Each person should be allowed to follow their own free will as long as it harms no one else.

Also we should be allowed to fail without a government bailout.

The lead in the toon was a winner of the Darwin Award. It is for someone who improves the gene pool.

And for those who plead for regulation: just how do you propose to regulate ice thickness? Of course that rhetorical question applies to thousands of our already-in-place regulations. And what then? Put a sign up? Just like the one where we say no drugs? No guns? No alcohol?

Communing with the Aquabuddha.

The government current does keep check on the ice conditions of lakes, here in Maine. Not all of them, but the Warden Service and Fish and Game people, inform the public if conditions are good or bad. We see them in the newspapers all the time. This isn’t new. It’s like a weather report for the ice.

Forgot to stay diversified, weight distribution wise.

Wow, time flies. It just seems like yesterday. Where did it go?

This piker will now be “pike poop”.

I think people are missing the point if they think Wiley is advocating for regulation of ice fishing to protect idiots from themselves; the point, I believe, is that Libertarianism is about leaving people free to visit ruin or riches on themselves – or have ruin visited upon them by others in their pursuit of riches. Libertarianism doesn’t protect people from their own bad choices – arguably a good thing; however, nor does it protect them from other’s bad choices. It is survival of the fittest, writ large.It is, of course, something of a non-sequitur to suggest market forces determined the safety of the ice-fishing (or whether the hapless victim got assistance from others). Very apropos for this strip :)

George Monbiot: “But rightwing libertarians do not recognise this conflict. They speak … as if the same freedom affects everybody in the same way. They assert their freedom to pollute, exploit, even – among the gun nuts – to kill, as if these were fundamental human rights. They characterise any attempt to restrain them as tyranny. They refuse to see that there is a clash between the freedom of the pike and the freedom of the minnow.”

I’m a libertarian and I’m not sure whether this is supposed to be funny or insulting…but I agree with Brian Ransom…..anything to strengthen the gene pool.

Oh, man! Now we have to spend taxpayer money on search and rescue to retrieve the body.

Where is the Federal Ice Thickness and Safety Administration when you need them? TANSTAAFL.

Which one? The picnic or the plane?

All my posts with the placid picnic scene were deleted, then I changed to the plane, and some have come back. If you look at your kind comment sending me all kinds of $$ in the “post” on Brevity, you’ll see that the @yourhumbleservant is missing. Unless they have put it back, they have restored some of my comments but not all of them.

BTW, I have not received the promised Brevity $$. Where do I find that post? It’s no good to me in some f₩❂☤ ing field in Kipgower Gate.

I really liked the picnic scene. The plane is OK.

Be interesting to see if this comment makes it. I got one (just one) deleted the other day. I think because I mentioned a brand name, but who knows?

Sorry, not the free market but rather global warming.

Happy 12th anniversary! Keep the strip going! Good Humor!

657261

I guess a joke about Libertarians not including “accountability” among their ideals would be moot at this point. He’s already in deep.

Less fish, more deer.

You mean if you’re not a democrat you’re automatically a “neo-con?” All I want is for democrats to be made fun of as often as non-democrats are. I think all sides are equally full of that brown stinky stuff, but democrats are the only ones who don’t get it pointed out about them frequently.

As opposed to the CommuCrats, I guess: “We’re the government. We know what’s best for you. You’re ALL going to go ice fishing whether you like it or not!”