Sunday, December 30, 2012
They Want Us Dead!
I sat patiently and waited until all the Newtown massacre
victims were buried. Unlike the crisis
vultures, I wanted to give the families time and room to grieve, and for the
shock to wear off the rest of us. I also
took the opportunity to hear what advocates of gun control (now euphemistically
referred to as gun “safety” – it’s fun watching the proponents have to pause in
mid-sentence to remember to say “safety” instead of “control”) are proposing.
They don’t really want gun control. They want us dead! Since our views don’t coincide with theirs,
they want us killed. Thousands of tweets
and emails poured across the airwaves hoping that the president of the NRA and
all NRA members would be killed, along with other law-abiding gun owners. Members of the chattering class, Hollywood
celebrities, -- oh, and not a single word from the President or his party saying
we need to tone down the rhetoric.
We need to retain the ability to defend ourselves from the crazies! That alone is an excellent reason to pass no more gun restrictions!
We need to retain the ability to defend ourselves from the crazies! That alone is an excellent reason to pass no more gun restrictions!
That also is an excellent reason not to listen to them as
they attempt to tell us what we “need” in terms of weaponry. So many of them – after all this time,
and the two most recent Supreme Court decisions about individuals and the right
of gun ownership – still insist that the 2nd Amendment only protects
hunting rifles and shotguns (at least until they can get hunting
outlawed). Why should we trust them to
make the correct decision about what we “need?”
After all, since they want us dead, why would we blindly accept
their advice on which weapon to choose for self-defense? They don’t think we should be allowed to
defend ourselves, especially if it means one of their “victim” classes might
get killed or injured in the process. In
fact, the UN has recently claimed that self-defense is only a right of nations,
not of individuals!
I’ve read the summary on Senator Feinstein’s web page of the
anti-gun legislation she plans to introduce. It’s full of lists, and bans, and
registration, and taxes, and confiscation.
It’s nothing more than punishment of law-abiding gun-owners for being
law-abiding gun owners. I have a
proposal of my own: point to any single
aspect of her legislation where a criminal would look at it and say, “Oh, my,
I had better comply with that! Otherwise, I might be breaking
the law!”
We had an “assault” weapons ban for 10 years. Statistically, it made no difference in
murder rates or crime rates. It had a
“sunset” provision (something which all legislation should be required to contain). Even though President George W. Bush said he
would sign it, it was not renewed because it was (a) ineffective, and (b)
unpopular.
Despite all the finger-pointing at “assault” weapons, apparently
2,000 of them weren’t considered too dangerous to fall into the hands of
Mexican drug cartels by the Bureaus of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and
Explosives (BATFE) in order to prop up a phony statistic created by the Obama
administration. Yet one of the
provisions of Senator Feinstein’s legislation is to provide massive funding
increases for this corrupt agency, even as the Obama administration still
stonewalls the facts to Congress, and the media is still uninterested in
investigating (it doesn’t fit their narrative).
The anti-gun Left has not learned a thing from history. Passage of alcohol Prohibition led to a massive black
market and gave rise to organized crime. People who would never have become involved in
criminal activities became actively involved in violating liquor laws from
production to transportation to marketing to delivery to consumption. Violence
increased dramatically as criminal elements battled each other over
“turf.” It did not curb alcohol consumption. The War on Drugs gave rise to a massive black
market with international criminal and terrorist elements. It has not reduced the market for illegal
drugs. Restrictions and prohibitions on
gun ownership by law-abiding citizens (Feinstein’s list is long and inclusive)
will lead to the same sort of black markets with the same sort of consequences.
In their rush to use Newtown as the crisis du jour, they
ignore the fact that nearly all mass murders have occurred in the “gun free”
zones they have created. Yet they
propose even more.
They demand that we rely on a heavily-armed paramilitary
constabulary to “protect” us, while ignoring the fact that the Supreme Court
has held that police departments have no duty to respond to calls for
help. When they do respond, they’re
invariably too late. Just ask the 8
victims (if you could) at Westroads Mall in Omaha about the rapid six-minute
response of the police. Just measure the
20 minute response at Sandy Hook in the 20 little lifetimes and six caring
adults it took for them to arrive.
They denigrate the idea that responsible adults with
concealed weapons can make a difference by ignoring the several instances where
they have. In fact, the numbers of
instances where mass murders were committed are about the same as the number of
instances where an armed citizen has stopped mass murders or prevented an
increased death toll.
The oft repeated phrase "if it saves just one life" can rationalize the loss of 2nd Amendment freedoms and rights, but applied to other ideas is unacceptable. The application of scrutiny to depictions of "gun" violence in movies and video games, even "if it saves just one life," won't even be considered because that is an infringement on 1st Amendment rights! I have a lot of other ideas about how to "save just one life" that don't trample anybody's Rights, but because they might be inconvenienced, that's too high a price to pay!
They castigate the suggestions from the executive vice-president of the NRA for well-trained, armed police officers in every public school as “too expensive.” Yet when NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly boasts that they’re doing just that (apparently gun ownership prohibition except by NY elites isn’t enough), they don’t wonder about training so poor that 2 NYPD cops accidently hit 8 innocent bystanders while taking down a perp at 5 yards distance, or why Kelly even still has his job.
They castigate the suggestions from the executive vice-president of the NRA for well-trained, armed police officers in every public school as “too expensive.” Yet when NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly boasts that they’re doing just that (apparently gun ownership prohibition except by NY elites isn’t enough), they don’t wonder about training so poor that 2 NYPD cops accidently hit 8 innocent bystanders while taking down a perp at 5 yards distance, or why Kelly even still has his job.
And then they demand that we surrender our rights and
freedoms. As Benjamin Franklin is
reputed to have said, “Those who would give up liberty for safety, deserve
neither.”
Thursday, December 27, 2012
If the shoe fits . . .
The decision by Susan Rice to withdraw her name from consideration for Secretary of State runs much deeper than her abrasive personality and her being set up as the "fall guy" for the Obama Administration's failure to protect diplomats in Benghazi. There is a readily evident pattern that is a hallmark of this administration and its agitprop mouthpieces.
Within 3 months of Obama's 2008 election, the Department of Homeland Security published a screed declaring that people who disagreed with the administration or exercised their 2nd Amendment rights or were combat veterans as "right-wing extremists" and potential terrorists. The real enemy, they claimed, were domestic terrorists, not radical Islamic fundamentalists who had repeatedly attack US interests and property for the last two decades.
Later, the president and members of his administration went to the Arizona border and claimed that "90% of the assault weapons" being used by Mexican drug cartels could be traced to US gun dealers and that our "lax" gun laws perpetuated their troubles. There again, it was those "right-wing extremists" who were blocking attempts to impose "reasonable" restrictions on law-abiding gun owners.
To back up this phony statistic, the administration initiated "Fast and Furious," a scheme to intentionally allow semi-automatic military-looking guns to be slipped across the border. When several Americans and hundreds of Mexicans died as a result, they obfuscated, delayed, redacted, and eventually covered up their complicity with "executive privilege" to avoid having to turn incriminating documentation over to investigators. Meanwhile, their own internal "investigation" reported, as expected, "Nothing to see here, folks, keep moving." Amazingly, investigative journalists couldn't find any evidence to indicate a manufactured crisis or a coverup!
Whenever "mass shootings" occur, the first people blamed by the agitprop media are those "right-wing extremists" Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and anybody in the Tea Party. An ABC reporter immediately blamed the Aurora shootings on a member of the Tea Party -- wrongly -- whose name he found in the phone book and happened to be the same as the real shooter's name.
When the Benghazi attacks occurred, the "never let a crisis go to waste" arm of the administration immediately blamed an obscure Coptic Christian (read "right-wing extremist") immigrant who had produced an anti-Islamic YouTube video, claiming it had "gone viral" in the Islamofascist world. This "obviously" was the root of the attacks, which grew out of protest riots. The administration immediately sent Ms Rice out with that narrative, even though they knew full well that, based on intelligence, video, and communications traffic, that the "right-wing extremist" video was the culprit, not al-Qaeda operatives.
It wasn't just an affirmation of a possible root cause; it was an emphatic denial of al-Qaeda involvement and a completely baseless claim that the "right-wing extremist" video was not only the catalyst, but the sole fuse that led to the Benghazi powder keg. And the administration continued not only to advocate this premise -- despite the evidence to the contrary that there no were any anti-American protests in Benghazi preceding the attack -- it also endangered other diplomats and State Department personnel elsewhere by continually referring to and publicizing this video to people who might not have been otherwise aware of it, and who didn't really need yet another excuse to hate us.
Never let a crisis go to waste.
Disagree with the administration? Right-wing extremist!
Support the 2nd Amendment? Right-wing extremist!
Concerned about out-of-control spending with no budget? Right-wing extremist!
Question the administration's role in "Fast and Furious?" Right-wing extremist!
Concerned about the massive expansion of the federal government? Right-wing extremist!
Mass shootings in gun-free zones? Right-wing extremists!
Opposed to tax increases? Right-wing extremists!
Benghazi attack? Right-wing extremists!
Susan Rice was foolish enough to allow herself to be manipulated by the "crisis managers" in the administration. The pattern is so blatantly obvious that she couldn't help but see it, except for the "progressive' blinders she wore. As a result, she became a willing accomplice, and further endangered American lives and property by her pronouncements and prolonged refusal to admit the truth. No person who is so ready to blame Americans for the ills of the world is qualified to represent the American people and their interests as Secretary of State.
Within 3 months of Obama's 2008 election, the Department of Homeland Security published a screed declaring that people who disagreed with the administration or exercised their 2nd Amendment rights or were combat veterans as "right-wing extremists" and potential terrorists. The real enemy, they claimed, were domestic terrorists, not radical Islamic fundamentalists who had repeatedly attack US interests and property for the last two decades.
Later, the president and members of his administration went to the Arizona border and claimed that "90% of the assault weapons" being used by Mexican drug cartels could be traced to US gun dealers and that our "lax" gun laws perpetuated their troubles. There again, it was those "right-wing extremists" who were blocking attempts to impose "reasonable" restrictions on law-abiding gun owners.
To back up this phony statistic, the administration initiated "Fast and Furious," a scheme to intentionally allow semi-automatic military-looking guns to be slipped across the border. When several Americans and hundreds of Mexicans died as a result, they obfuscated, delayed, redacted, and eventually covered up their complicity with "executive privilege" to avoid having to turn incriminating documentation over to investigators. Meanwhile, their own internal "investigation" reported, as expected, "Nothing to see here, folks, keep moving." Amazingly, investigative journalists couldn't find any evidence to indicate a manufactured crisis or a coverup!
Whenever "mass shootings" occur, the first people blamed by the agitprop media are those "right-wing extremists" Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and anybody in the Tea Party. An ABC reporter immediately blamed the Aurora shootings on a member of the Tea Party -- wrongly -- whose name he found in the phone book and happened to be the same as the real shooter's name.
When the Benghazi attacks occurred, the "never let a crisis go to waste" arm of the administration immediately blamed an obscure Coptic Christian (read "right-wing extremist") immigrant who had produced an anti-Islamic YouTube video, claiming it had "gone viral" in the Islamofascist world. This "obviously" was the root of the attacks, which grew out of protest riots. The administration immediately sent Ms Rice out with that narrative, even though they knew full well that, based on intelligence, video, and communications traffic, that the "right-wing extremist" video was the culprit, not al-Qaeda operatives.
It wasn't just an affirmation of a possible root cause; it was an emphatic denial of al-Qaeda involvement and a completely baseless claim that the "right-wing extremist" video was not only the catalyst, but the sole fuse that led to the Benghazi powder keg. And the administration continued not only to advocate this premise -- despite the evidence to the contrary that there no were any anti-American protests in Benghazi preceding the attack -- it also endangered other diplomats and State Department personnel elsewhere by continually referring to and publicizing this video to people who might not have been otherwise aware of it, and who didn't really need yet another excuse to hate us.
Never let a crisis go to waste.
Disagree with the administration? Right-wing extremist!
Support the 2nd Amendment? Right-wing extremist!
Concerned about out-of-control spending with no budget? Right-wing extremist!
Question the administration's role in "Fast and Furious?" Right-wing extremist!
Concerned about the massive expansion of the federal government? Right-wing extremist!
Mass shootings in gun-free zones? Right-wing extremists!
Opposed to tax increases? Right-wing extremists!
Benghazi attack? Right-wing extremists!
Susan Rice was foolish enough to allow herself to be manipulated by the "crisis managers" in the administration. The pattern is so blatantly obvious that she couldn't help but see it, except for the "progressive' blinders she wore. As a result, she became a willing accomplice, and further endangered American lives and property by her pronouncements and prolonged refusal to admit the truth. No person who is so ready to blame Americans for the ills of the world is qualified to represent the American people and their interests as Secretary of State.
