Credit: Roman Kiko
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
I Never Get Tired Of...
baghead bashing! It's been a while since I've posted one of these; I'd forgotten how it refreshes me.
There, my childen, didn't that just loose you right up and stimulate your individual fredom?
There, my childen, didn't that just loose you right up and stimulate your individual fredom?
Have a little tea with Ted.
Ted Nugent; where do I begin? Where does it end?
Obama is not only spitting on the constitution, but the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, he says It's hard to see the evidence and it's hard to know why he was silent about the unprecedented abuses during the Bush administration, unless we conclude that he's either psychotic, or a lying son of a bitch. The former seems certain, but of course much of it could also be attributable to ignorance. That he believes all Americans are commanded to worship Yahweh alone and keep a Kosher household and that the government is remiss in not enforcing this, can only be attributed to insanity - if indeed he believes or is even aware of anything he says.
I confess that I can't find any way to fit that old Golden Rule thing into the equation but for the fact that he's treating our basic institutions with extreme contempt while asking for something different than a government of laws and not of mobs for himself and his fellow tea heads. He certainly can't be saying that we shouldn't invade other countries or bomb civilians or overthrow elected governments because we don't want it done to us, because his favorite presidents are as famous for it as he is in being silent about them. Again, only rank insanity balances that equation.
he says to Insanity Hannity about the dissenting vote on the Chicago handgun ban. I suppose he thinks Obama appointed those judges and that this hasn't been a contentious issue for a lifetime or two. But who knows what he thinks or if he thinks when he wraps himself in the flag and spews his tea at us. Surely it isn't often or deeply since he claims that Martin Luther King is his mentor and yet he's fond of shooting machine guns in his back yard.
Certainly it's more than hyperbole and more than just ignorance to call the administration a Mao Zedong fan club, certainly it's more than mere hypocrisy to blame Obama for trying to do what FDR did to ease the Depression and to ignore the fact that each and every Republican administration, at least from Reagan onwards, has set new levels of government size, expense, corruption, spending and borrowing while the Democrats haven't. But this is Ted speaking: Ted the flag waving teabagger who claimed to have been clean and sober all his life when talking to the Fox mob but to have dodged the draft by smoking Meth when talking to Rolling Stone -- and then tells us that he was lying to them but telling us the truth.
This is Ted blaming Obama for going after his massive arsenal of weapons when he didn't and the Court for banning them when it didn't. This is Ted telling us he is the will of the people, free elections and a majority vote to the contrary. This is the devil in a cowboy hat. This is horseshit wrapped up in a flag like some foul taco. This is just the failure they warned our founding fathers about.
Indeed, where do we begin with the Ted Nugent story when Ted Nugent himself says he's a liar and an addict and doesn't know MLK from Chuck Manson or Mao Zedong from a wishy washy middle of the road conservative? I don't know. I don't know where the teabag story ends either but it certainly doesn't end in a free, democratic country.
Obama is not only spitting on the constitution, but the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, he says It's hard to see the evidence and it's hard to know why he was silent about the unprecedented abuses during the Bush administration, unless we conclude that he's either psychotic, or a lying son of a bitch. The former seems certain, but of course much of it could also be attributable to ignorance. That he believes all Americans are commanded to worship Yahweh alone and keep a Kosher household and that the government is remiss in not enforcing this, can only be attributed to insanity - if indeed he believes or is even aware of anything he says.
I confess that I can't find any way to fit that old Golden Rule thing into the equation but for the fact that he's treating our basic institutions with extreme contempt while asking for something different than a government of laws and not of mobs for himself and his fellow tea heads. He certainly can't be saying that we shouldn't invade other countries or bomb civilians or overthrow elected governments because we don't want it done to us, because his favorite presidents are as famous for it as he is in being silent about them. Again, only rank insanity balances that equation.
"With the Mao Zedong fan club in the White House, a clueless, rookie president hellbent on spending like a maniac as unprecedented debt piles up all around him, and every other imaginable indicator of an America turned upside-down, it comes as no surprise that this insane level of madness has metastasized into a Supreme Court wherethe Bill of Rights is being trashed by clueless, dangerously insulated old people intentionally disconnected from the real world"
he says to Insanity Hannity about the dissenting vote on the Chicago handgun ban. I suppose he thinks Obama appointed those judges and that this hasn't been a contentious issue for a lifetime or two. But who knows what he thinks or if he thinks when he wraps himself in the flag and spews his tea at us. Surely it isn't often or deeply since he claims that Martin Luther King is his mentor and yet he's fond of shooting machine guns in his back yard.
Certainly it's more than hyperbole and more than just ignorance to call the administration a Mao Zedong fan club, certainly it's more than mere hypocrisy to blame Obama for trying to do what FDR did to ease the Depression and to ignore the fact that each and every Republican administration, at least from Reagan onwards, has set new levels of government size, expense, corruption, spending and borrowing while the Democrats haven't. But this is Ted speaking: Ted the flag waving teabagger who claimed to have been clean and sober all his life when talking to the Fox mob but to have dodged the draft by smoking Meth when talking to Rolling Stone -- and then tells us that he was lying to them but telling us the truth.
This is Ted blaming Obama for going after his massive arsenal of weapons when he didn't and the Court for banning them when it didn't. This is Ted telling us he is the will of the people, free elections and a majority vote to the contrary. This is the devil in a cowboy hat. This is horseshit wrapped up in a flag like some foul taco. This is just the failure they warned our founding fathers about.
Indeed, where do we begin with the Ted Nugent story when Ted Nugent himself says he's a liar and an addict and doesn't know MLK from Chuck Manson or Mao Zedong from a wishy washy middle of the road conservative? I don't know. I don't know where the teabag story ends either but it certainly doesn't end in a free, democratic country.
Monday, July 5, 2010
The Odd Couple
No, not Felix and Oscar, but Joe and John: Lieberman and McCain. Putative Democrat and the Republican quondam candidate. Often appearing to be on the same side, their opinions drive us to confusion and not to any conclusion.
The right wing outrage machine has been like a chorus of vuvuzelas, blaring accusations that the classified rules of engagement instituted by General McChrystal on his own initiative were in fact forced on him by president Obama and his opposition, despite his sworn public testimony to the contrary, was the reason he was relieved of command. I suspect Joe Lieberman agrees, although I know he knows better.
The policy of trying to reduce the heavy civilian casualties so as to give the US less of the appearance of an invading horde bent on its own objectives and with no concern for innocent life or limb, is misguided says Lieberman; as though to say we shouldn't be concerned to appear as liberators with the best interests of Afghanistan at heart. We shouldn't care that people whose children we've cavalierly blown to hell aren't going to try to make our efforts any easier and so he's advising General Petraeus to shoot first and ask questions later. It's hurting our morale, says he as though 9 years of getting nowhere can be blamed on being the kind of nation we're supposed to be and more importantly as though it were president Obama's fault for worrying too much about worthless Muslim lives.
Perhaps John McCain's statement that even another ten years of war may not be too much to ask of our country, fits with Lieberman's disinterest in having the country we tell ourselves we're helping on our side. Ten more years of shooting up innocent families at weddings, on the streets, in their cars and in their homes will likely draw us into many more decades of war, and that McCain thinks this war is self justifying if not actually morally or functionally satisfying is not beyond conjecture. Another ten years, another 3, 4, 5 trillion dollars and who knows how many more dead: economic and moral collapse -- that should make the country crazy and enough to elect another Republican.
Pretty clever, and to think I thought McCain was an idiot.
The right wing outrage machine has been like a chorus of vuvuzelas, blaring accusations that the classified rules of engagement instituted by General McChrystal on his own initiative were in fact forced on him by president Obama and his opposition, despite his sworn public testimony to the contrary, was the reason he was relieved of command. I suspect Joe Lieberman agrees, although I know he knows better.
The policy of trying to reduce the heavy civilian casualties so as to give the US less of the appearance of an invading horde bent on its own objectives and with no concern for innocent life or limb, is misguided says Lieberman; as though to say we shouldn't be concerned to appear as liberators with the best interests of Afghanistan at heart. We shouldn't care that people whose children we've cavalierly blown to hell aren't going to try to make our efforts any easier and so he's advising General Petraeus to shoot first and ask questions later. It's hurting our morale, says he as though 9 years of getting nowhere can be blamed on being the kind of nation we're supposed to be and more importantly as though it were president Obama's fault for worrying too much about worthless Muslim lives.
Perhaps John McCain's statement that even another ten years of war may not be too much to ask of our country, fits with Lieberman's disinterest in having the country we tell ourselves we're helping on our side. Ten more years of shooting up innocent families at weddings, on the streets, in their cars and in their homes will likely draw us into many more decades of war, and that McCain thinks this war is self justifying if not actually morally or functionally satisfying is not beyond conjecture. Another ten years, another 3, 4, 5 trillion dollars and who knows how many more dead: economic and moral collapse -- that should make the country crazy and enough to elect another Republican.
Pretty clever, and to think I thought McCain was an idiot.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Something Bursts Forth
From Whiskey River via my friend John Simpson:
Cutting Loose
for James Dickey
Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.
Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past trouble.
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past trouble.
Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path — but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here on earth, again and again.
always bar the path — but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here on earth, again and again.
******************************
And, of course, I thought of all of us at The Swash Zone. May we find the song.
Why I hate the World Cup
For the same reason I dislike the Olympics, of course and I dislike the Olympics for the same reasons I dislike McDonalds and Coca Cola and Nike and all the other rapacious multinational corporations that milk humanity like a herd of cattle while pretending it's a noble endeavour. Hosting this event costs huge amounts of money and it doesn't necessarily repay the investment, at least not to those out of whose hide it comes. With the hordes of foreign visitors being herded away from local vendors selling local food and African products; with long-time venues for those vendors being reserved for large, foreign sponsors, McDonalds and Coke will get the lion's share and the locals will have to forage like jackals for the leavings.
Will South Africa be a better place for South Africans after the noise stops and the clean-up begins? Does history hinge on whether or not a bunch of ball kickers from the Netherlands beat their counterparts from Uruguay and will international relations be more peaceful or tolerant because of anything that happens here? Will any of it matter ten minutes after it's all over? I have a hard time believing that the health or the wealth or the education of South Africans will see a benefit commensurate with all the noise and expense. Even the infernal Vuvuzelas are made in China.
It's true, I have little taste for watching men running around kicking things or for the feral screams of crazed viewers blowing into noisemakers as though anything happening in the arena was of any consequence whatever unless it was to the already huge profits of Nike or the sellers of beer and cigarettes -- or plastic horns. I have a greater distaste for the mass purveyors of opiates, even the real and quiet ones.
Panis et circenses, bread and circuses; it's a tried and true way to calm the animals in the feed lots and holding pens; to pacify the proletarii and the slaves while the emperors and the senators grew fatter. Gooooooooooooooal!
Will South Africa be a better place for South Africans after the noise stops and the clean-up begins? Does history hinge on whether or not a bunch of ball kickers from the Netherlands beat their counterparts from Uruguay and will international relations be more peaceful or tolerant because of anything that happens here? Will any of it matter ten minutes after it's all over? I have a hard time believing that the health or the wealth or the education of South Africans will see a benefit commensurate with all the noise and expense. Even the infernal Vuvuzelas are made in China.
It's true, I have little taste for watching men running around kicking things or for the feral screams of crazed viewers blowing into noisemakers as though anything happening in the arena was of any consequence whatever unless it was to the already huge profits of Nike or the sellers of beer and cigarettes -- or plastic horns. I have a greater distaste for the mass purveyors of opiates, even the real and quiet ones.
Panis et circenses, bread and circuses; it's a tried and true way to calm the animals in the feed lots and holding pens; to pacify the proletarii and the slaves while the emperors and the senators grew fatter. Gooooooooooooooal!
Friday, July 2, 2010
OCTOPUS’ MOST AMAZING SEAFOOD CHOWDER (A SECRET RECIPE)
(Click on image to enlarge.)
Your faithful cephalopod should have posted this recipe a few days ago to give you ample time to shop for the holiday weekend. Better late than never, as human folks say. All told, this recipe is expensive and will set you back a few (s)quid but is well worth it. Why not enjoy a seafood feast now while supplies last (before BP and other slagging indicators deprive you of the pleasure).
Ingredients:
1/2 pound bacon
1/2 cup butter (or margarine)
2 cups chopped onions
2 cans chicken stock
2 cups chopped celery
2 medium carrots – chopped (alternate: red and yellow peppers)
3 medium potatoes – diced (or 2 cans of cooked potatoes that don’t mush like fresh potatoes)
3 teaspoons Old Bay Seafood seasoning
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
4 cups whole milk
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 pound fresh cod or haddock – cut into bite size pieces
6 ounces (or more) fresh crabmeat
3 cans baby clams (if you don’t like clams, substitute with 16 ounces of crab chunks)
1 pound medium size shrimp
1 cup (8 ounces) lobster chunks
Method to my madness:
1 - Cut bacon into 3/8 pieces and slowly fry until crisp. Drain on paper and set aside.
2 – Melt butter in a large saucepan, add onions and celery (and chopped peppers), and cook over low heat until tender.
3 - Mix Old Bay spice and flour to about half the milk. Add to saucepan (above) and sauté.
3- Add chicken broth, carrots, and black pepper. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 5 to 6 minutes.
4 – Add diced potatoes and simmer until carrots and potatoes are tender.
5 – Add fish and simmer for a minute or two.
6 – Add crabmeat. Stir in the remaining milk and simmer until the mixture begins to thicken.
IF MAKING A DAY AHEAD OF TIME, STOP HERE AND REFRIGERATE OVERNIGHT.
7 – Reheat the previously prepared saucepan. Stir in the clams (if using), shrimp, and lobster. Taste and adjust seasoning.
8 – Ladle into cups or bowls and sprinkle with crisp bacon chips.
Notes: Overnight refrigeration lets the flavors blend. Honorary cephalopods never overcook the shrimp. When shopping, select only white crabmeat (and save the grey matter for blogging). If dietary restrictions apply, substitute margarine for butter and reduce the amount of salt. Serves 10 people or less (usually much less).
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The Best News I've Had All Day
Patricia Murphy of The Capitolist, reports that Senator Lindsey Graham is the New Maverick in Congress. The man's accent makes this S. Carolinian crazy and don't get me started on the haircut, but I'm really grateful that somebody in The Palmetto State occasionally backs the POTUS--it's a miracle, when it happens, but I'll take it! Especially when he pronounces the demise of the Tea Party: "The problem with the Tea Party, I think it's just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out." Lindsey, my main man!
Compared to most of the quotable moments that come out of the state, Graham will sometimes sound like an intelligent guy; so, how come on the gay subject he sounds as dumb as Jake Knotts?
Come on, Lindsey. Be a real maverick and ignore stuff like this.
Compared to most of the quotable moments that come out of the state, Graham will sometimes sound like an intelligent guy; so, how come on the gay subject he sounds as dumb as Jake Knotts?
"I know it's really gonna upset a lot of gay men -- I'm sure hundreds of 'em are gonna be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge -- but I ain't available. I ain't gay. Sorry."I don't get it. He knowed how to talk real good t'other day with Elena Kagan, and he dumbs down on affectional orientation. It's not a new rumor, by the way; calling a politician gay is a frequently used ploy in SC--they're pretty sophomoric that way. And Graham's response, in which he dignifies the accusation as only a South Carolinian can, indicates that he takes that old tactic way too seriously when it's applied to him.
Come on, Lindsey. Be a real maverick and ignore stuff like this.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
“It Is What It Is”: Why So Few Americans Follow Soccer
Whenever the subject of soccer comes up – usually around World Cup time – one is sure to be treated to a Snark Parade on all sides. Some Americans brusquely dismiss the game as frustrating, slow-paced and boring to watch, while Europeans and others counter that Americans are too [insert your favorite cosmopolitan putdown here] to appreciate the game’s virtues: unless there’s lots of scoring and/or violence, they insist, Americans can’t fix their attention on a game. The one thing I can’t recall having read about the matter is the most obvious: the good old US & A has long been saturated with a variety of sports and just doesn’t find it a worthwhile proposition to get passionate about another one. We already have baseball, football, basketball, tennis, and golf (along with a few others – auto racing, horse racing, etc.), each with lots of participants and followers. Soccer is more popular than it used to be, but it isn’t now and, as far as I can opine, probably won’t become as mainstream as the others.
And this is where the unflattering (if unfair) characterization of the game as boring comes into play: soccer might catch on better in a saturated field of games if it were more fast-paced and less grounded in the perpetual spectacle of watching each team frustrate the other’s efforts. It’s a hard sell, in other words – not something you’d expect to catch on like wildfire with people who already have lots of faster-paced options to which their sensibilities are attuned. My own attempts to watch a few soccer games are probably typical of American attitudes: I appreciated the athletic skill involved in the matches, but just couldn’t get into them enough to make a habit of following the sport. I prefer basketball and baseball when I’m in the mood to watch a game, which isn’t often – I usually just watch the playoffs and finals of those two sports.
Europeans and others outside the USA grow up watching and playing soccer – I get the sense that it’s their main game and that they don’t have as many major sports as we do. The Brits have rugby and tennis, but mostly they’re soccer fanatics, right? It’s probably similar with a lot of other countries: for them, soccer is the sport. So of course Euros and Africans and Latin Americans are going to develop a feeling for the finer points of the game, and will perhaps draw a life lesson from the showcasing of frustration built into a typical 0-0 or 1-0 match where we Americanos only see paint drying or milk turning sour. We don’t have the intimate, youth-up connection to soccer that they do, so it makes sense that we don’t appreciate it and don’t see why we should bother learning to appreciate it, either. The game isn’t deeply rooted in our consciousness, and I doubt that its popularity with recent immigrants and their kids is enough of a phenomenon to tip the scales in its favor nationwide. It will probably always seem somewhat of an implant here, and any national interest occasional. Perhaps over decades that will change -- one cannot know for certain, of course.
In sum, there’s no need for all the snark on either side: the game is a fine one, and it’s neither inferior nor superior to American sports; people outside the USA aren’t fools for following it with a passion, and Americans aren’t grands imbéciles for not much caring about it. The whole situation, as participants in those ridiculous post-game press conferences say when they have nothing to say, “is what it is.”
And this is where the unflattering (if unfair) characterization of the game as boring comes into play: soccer might catch on better in a saturated field of games if it were more fast-paced and less grounded in the perpetual spectacle of watching each team frustrate the other’s efforts. It’s a hard sell, in other words – not something you’d expect to catch on like wildfire with people who already have lots of faster-paced options to which their sensibilities are attuned. My own attempts to watch a few soccer games are probably typical of American attitudes: I appreciated the athletic skill involved in the matches, but just couldn’t get into them enough to make a habit of following the sport. I prefer basketball and baseball when I’m in the mood to watch a game, which isn’t often – I usually just watch the playoffs and finals of those two sports.
Europeans and others outside the USA grow up watching and playing soccer – I get the sense that it’s their main game and that they don’t have as many major sports as we do. The Brits have rugby and tennis, but mostly they’re soccer fanatics, right? It’s probably similar with a lot of other countries: for them, soccer is the sport. So of course Euros and Africans and Latin Americans are going to develop a feeling for the finer points of the game, and will perhaps draw a life lesson from the showcasing of frustration built into a typical 0-0 or 1-0 match where we Americanos only see paint drying or milk turning sour. We don’t have the intimate, youth-up connection to soccer that they do, so it makes sense that we don’t appreciate it and don’t see why we should bother learning to appreciate it, either. The game isn’t deeply rooted in our consciousness, and I doubt that its popularity with recent immigrants and their kids is enough of a phenomenon to tip the scales in its favor nationwide. It will probably always seem somewhat of an implant here, and any national interest occasional. Perhaps over decades that will change -- one cannot know for certain, of course.
In sum, there’s no need for all the snark on either side: the game is a fine one, and it’s neither inferior nor superior to American sports; people outside the USA aren’t fools for following it with a passion, and Americans aren’t grands imbéciles for not much caring about it. The whole situation, as participants in those ridiculous post-game press conferences say when they have nothing to say, “is what it is.”
Monday, June 28, 2010
The Constitution comes to Chicago
"Liberal anti-gun groups are already fuming" says Raw Story's report of the Supreme Court's decision that the Second Amendment constitutes a restraint on State and local government's ability to abridge the right to keep and bear arms.
I don't know about the authoritarians we keep insisting on calling "liberals," but I'm starting to give off some steam here myself. If there is in fact a long term drop in gun ownership, it's a surprise to me, seeing as there are lines outside of gun shops and sales of guns and ammunition are booming. Prices of ammunition are soaring. If the domestic arms industry is suffering, the lawsuits by cities like Chicago are certainly part of it and the ability of foreign makers to sell more cheaply has hurt every American industry.
If these long standing blanket handgun bans have made the few cities that enacted them safer, it's never shown up in any statistics that I've seen. In fact as gun laws have liberalized nationwide, gun related crimes have decreased.
Yes, I've seen the posters, heard the slogans, listened to the blather: show me the numbers. I suggest that just as there was a lot of sound and fury and learned diatribes about the bloodbath that would follow the demise of the National Speed Limit, the facts contradicted that idiot's tale quickly and continue to do so. Facts however, are the enemy of zealots; whether they're anti scary-thing activists or the profiteers who perpetuate the War on Drugs that never worked and which has been responsible for the majority of violent murders.
Show me the effectiveness of the Chicago or Washington DC handgun bans. Show me that these cities have been any safer than cities without them. Tell me I'm part of a gun lobby, tell me I'm trying to dismantle gun laws -- it may convince the choir you preach to, but you certainly are stretching the truth with the intent to deceive. Nothing less than dismantling all gun laws? Hell no, I don't want minors to own guns. I don't want to remove most of the restrictions on where you can carry them, where you can display them openly how you can transport them and certainly not on where and when you can use them. Call me cynical, but in the years since you told me someone was going to "shoot the Avon Lady " if we allowed someone to shoot an armed home invader, invasions have decreased and the Avon lady is still alive and well. It's all been a pack of lies you told to generate revenue and get votes -- and sorry, if you're attacking my freedom, you're sure as hell not a Liberal and if you disagree, you don't speak English very well either. Call me cynical, but it's you willing to ignore the constitution for your own ends, not me.
Since the handgun ban never had any effect on the gangsters who use handguns in crimes, except to make burglars a bit bolder, restoration of rights to home defense just isn't going to create that bloodbath, but proof of failure has always been seen as evidence for success and a demand for continuation of policy by authoritarians.
"People will die because of this decision" says Washington, DC's Violence Policy Center, but the question is really about how many died because of the blanket ban on hand gun ownership, isn't it? Perhaps since suicide is the leading cause of handgun death, some will choose Beretta over barbiturates or the window or driving the wrong way on the expressway.
"It is a victory only for the gun lobby and America's fading firearms industry. The inevitable tide of frivolous pro-gun litigation destined to follow will force cities, counties, and states to expend scarce resources to defend longstanding, effective public safety laws. The gun lobby and gunmakers are seeking nothing less than the complete dismantling of our nation’s gun laws in a cynical effort to try and stem the long-term drop in gun ownership and save the dwindling gun industry."
I don't know about the authoritarians we keep insisting on calling "liberals," but I'm starting to give off some steam here myself. If there is in fact a long term drop in gun ownership, it's a surprise to me, seeing as there are lines outside of gun shops and sales of guns and ammunition are booming. Prices of ammunition are soaring. If the domestic arms industry is suffering, the lawsuits by cities like Chicago are certainly part of it and the ability of foreign makers to sell more cheaply has hurt every American industry.
If these long standing blanket handgun bans have made the few cities that enacted them safer, it's never shown up in any statistics that I've seen. In fact as gun laws have liberalized nationwide, gun related crimes have decreased.
Yes, I've seen the posters, heard the slogans, listened to the blather: show me the numbers. I suggest that just as there was a lot of sound and fury and learned diatribes about the bloodbath that would follow the demise of the National Speed Limit, the facts contradicted that idiot's tale quickly and continue to do so. Facts however, are the enemy of zealots; whether they're anti scary-thing activists or the profiteers who perpetuate the War on Drugs that never worked and which has been responsible for the majority of violent murders.
Show me the effectiveness of the Chicago or Washington DC handgun bans. Show me that these cities have been any safer than cities without them. Tell me I'm part of a gun lobby, tell me I'm trying to dismantle gun laws -- it may convince the choir you preach to, but you certainly are stretching the truth with the intent to deceive. Nothing less than dismantling all gun laws? Hell no, I don't want minors to own guns. I don't want to remove most of the restrictions on where you can carry them, where you can display them openly how you can transport them and certainly not on where and when you can use them. Call me cynical, but in the years since you told me someone was going to "shoot the Avon Lady " if we allowed someone to shoot an armed home invader, invasions have decreased and the Avon lady is still alive and well. It's all been a pack of lies you told to generate revenue and get votes -- and sorry, if you're attacking my freedom, you're sure as hell not a Liberal and if you disagree, you don't speak English very well either. Call me cynical, but it's you willing to ignore the constitution for your own ends, not me.
" We know the facts prove the opposite and that areas of the country with the highest concentration of gun ownership also have the highest rates of gun death"34,000 gun deaths? What about the fact that 83% of the gun deaths in households containing guns are suicides. Why aren't you mentioning that most of the 'people who will die' if Chicagoans can keep a gun at home are just as likely to have died otherwise. Why is that a danger to me or you? Perhaps the incomplete facts support the argument, but the complete facts suggest that banning rope or prescription pain killers or alcohol or windows that open or razor blades will be as stupid an exercise and of course none of those can protect your life, now can they?
Since the handgun ban never had any effect on the gangsters who use handguns in crimes, except to make burglars a bit bolder, restoration of rights to home defense just isn't going to create that bloodbath, but proof of failure has always been seen as evidence for success and a demand for continuation of policy by authoritarians.
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