Hillary vs the Man-Child

I don't know if you heard, but on September 11, 2012, there was an attack on the Benghazi consulate that killed 4 Americans. Since then, the GOP, who's always been jealous that Bush had his "My Pet Goat" day over a decade ago, has been trying to spin it into some kind of monumental failure of intelligence. They've also been trying to claim that it's evidence of the incompetence of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.

Let’s look at it from a clear-eyed perspective, though. It occurred at the same time as riots across the Middle East, because of the trailer for a film called Innocence of Muslims, which was seen to be blasphemous by followers of Islam.

The timing of the attacks caused some confusion, which the Republicans have been trying to exploit politically ever since.

Secretary Clinton set up an Accountability Review Board to investigate the actions of the various players, and while it pointed out some failures in the process, none of the problems were the fault of the Secretary of State.

Despite the fact that the review had already taken place, the Congressional GOP wanted to waste time holding their own hearings on the attack. Because if there’s one thing that Republicans enjoy, it’s getting to waste their time and other people’s money while getting to act like massive dicks on television. And one of the biggest dicks at the hearing was Rand Paul (whose hair looks suspiciously pubic anyway), who decided that he didn't need to ask questions, he was just going to lecture his betters for just under 2 minutes.

(You have to appreciate how, at right about the 40 second mark, Hillary realized that somebody had pressed his "bag of douche" button, and just closed her notebook, put her chin in her hand with a bored look, and just let him hump her leg until he was done.)



Couple of thoughts on that.

First of all, it isn't the job of the Secretary of State to read every cable from every one of the 285 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic facilities worldwide.

Second... well, let's put it this way.

For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Department’s Worldwide Security Protection program — well below the $2.15  billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administration’s request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012. (Negotiations with the Democrat-controlled Senate restored about $88 million of the administration’s request.) Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans' proposed cuts to her department would be "detrimental to America’s national security" — a charge Republicans rejected.

But really, that's not the best part here. Let's consider just five short sentences from the middle of Little Randi's spew.

"I'm glad that you're accepting responsibility. I think ultimately with your leaving that you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11. And I really mean that. Had I been president and found you did not read the cables from Benghazi and from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it's inexcusable."

Isn't that great? He thinks this is the worst tragedy since the original 9/11. You know, I'm curious how he came to that conclusion. Really. I am.

Is it because it was an attack on an embassy? Well, we've had seven embassies and consulates attacked since 2001.

Was it because four Americans were killed? Well, hell: we lost 4,409 military, 13 DoD civilians and 2 journalists in Iraq since we invaded in 2003; we've lost 2,047 US military personnel, 3 DoD civilians and 27 journalists (of varying nationalities) in Afghanistan since 9/11. And little Randi, who's served a big two years in the Senate, supported the war in Afghanistan and was opposed to withdrawing troops from Iraq.

And bear in mind, Junior said "worst tragedy" - we have to consider hurricanes, fires, floods, shipwrecks, car pileups, school shootings, and cases of horse-induced arson or airborne fire extinguishers.

Had I been president... I would have relieved you of your post

We should just ignore the monumental ego that it takes to cough up a joke like that, and just be thankful that Rand Paul has less chance of getting elected President than his father ever did.

About That Second Amendment

Hello.  It's Green Eagle, the world's most annoying talking parrot.  I've received a very kind invitation to post an occasional bit here at the Swash Zone, presumably motivated by a desire to expand the representatives of the animal kingdom who are featured here.  Many of my posts (well, okay, almost all of them) are the sort of screeching, angry, nearly incomprehensible rants you would expect from a parrot, but I thought I would start off with this one which I wrote a couple of weeks ago, about that currently fashionable topic, "How can we come up with more right wing lies about what the Second Amendment means."  Well, here goes:

As I troll through right wing websites, few things irritate me more than the constant raving by every Conservative, from deranged bloggers to the leaders of the Republican party, about the Constitution and how they are the only people in the country with any respect for it.  This jingoistic nonsense is inevitably paired with a total misrepresentation of what the Constitution really says, or what the founding fathers meant when they put it down on paper.  Partly this is wilful lying to get their way, and partly just ignorant parroting of whatever idiocy some other right winger has said, but it is inevitably a very distressing phenomenon, and never more so than when they spout their distortions about the second amendment.  I want to make an effort to find out what the second amendment is really about.

First of all, let us remember the text:

"A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed..."

Now, I think it is important to understand a little of the context for the inclusion of this amendment.  In England, for many centuries before the American revolution, the right to own handguns was largely limited to the upper classes.  This was justified by the claim that the large landowners also owned the game on their land, and that guns would largely be used for poaching (the idea of some lunatic slaughtering a bunch of first graders never even occurred to them, in what was a much simpler time.)  Here is a statement to this effect by a man by the name of St George Tucker, who was a Federal judge and associate of Thomas Jefferson:

"In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty."

In England, being banned from owning guns was felt by many to be a mark of inferiority, which the new American government, in its zeal to wipe out the privileges of the aristocracy, wanted to prevent.  This is the real motivation for the second amendment; it is virtually totally ignored by the crusaders for "gun rights."

Now, let me move on to dispel some of the patently false claims made by right wingers about the second amendment.  Much of what I am going to cite here comes from Federalist Paper 29, in which Alexander Hamilton explains the rationale for the second amendment. It is short, and I suggest that you read it if you have any fear that I am misrepresenting its contents.

First, and most importantly, Hamilton explains exactly what is meant by the term "well regulated," and who is to do the regulating:

 "It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended with the most beneficial effects, whenever they were called into service for the public defense... This desirable uniformity can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority. It is, therefore, with the most evident propriety, that the plan of the convention proposes to empower the Union "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States...

If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security...If the federal government can command the aid of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment of a different kind of force."

It is the Federal government which is given the task of regulating the militia.  That pretty well leaves out the likes of this guy, a leader in the Arizona militia movement whose main accomplishment consisted in gunning down his own family:

or this one, whose main accomplishment probably consisted in remaining in a vertical position in his chair:

Or this bunch of subhumans, whose preparation for war against the government was so laughable that the Feds just walked away and forgot about the whole thing:

 
 So, sorry, militia guys, border "guards," and "Patriots" everywhere, owning guns and tramping around in the woods in camo gear pretending you are at war does not make you a "well regulated militia."

Of course, the stipulation that the militia be regulated by the Federal government pretty well destroys the argument that militias exist to protect us from the Federal government:

"What reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the particular States are to have the sole and exclusive appointment of the officers? 

...In times of insurrection, or invasion, it would be natural and proper that the militia of a neighboring State should be marched into another, to resist a common enemy, or to guard the republic against the violence of faction or sedition. This was frequently the case, in respect to the first object, in the course of the late war; and this mutual succor is, indeed, a principal end of our political association. If the power of affording it be placed under the direction of the Union, there will be no danger of a supine and listless inattention to the dangers of a neighbor, till its near approach had superadded the incitements of self-preservation to the too feeble impulses of duty and sympathy."  

The militias, regulated by the Federal government, were intended to protect us against insurrection or invasion- the very thing that the alleged militia movement is constantly yearning for.

Now, another argument to be heard on the right is that all Americans should be armed, and that everyone is part of the "militia."  I'm not sure if this is intended merely to increase gun sales, or if it is just one more right wing lunacy, but it clearly doesn't come from the founding fathers:

"...the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need."

Again note that it is the job of the Federal government to select the members of the militia, which is to be a "select corps," not a collection of whatever jackasses can afford a gun and a suit of camo gear.

Now, one final Hamilton quote, from Federalist paper 28:

"When will the time arrive that the federal government can raise and maintain an army capable of erecting a despotism over the great body of the people of an immense empire, who are in a situation, through the medium of their State governments, to take measures for their own defense, with all the celerity, regularity, and system of independent nations? The apprehension may be considered as a disease, for which there can be found no cure in the resources of argument and reasoning."

Well, many of us may very well feel that, two centuries later, the Federal government has indeed reached that point; however, it is clear that the founding fathers regarded the whole notion that militias existed to protect us against the Federal Government as a "disease," as unbelievable as bombs that could destroy whole cities, or guns that shoot dozens of rounds a minute.  

Hamilton continues:

"In reading many of the publications against the Constitution, a man is apt to imagine that he is perusing some ill-written tale or romance, which instead of natural and agreeable images, exhibits to the mind nothing but frightful and distorted shapes --

"Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire";

discoloring and disfiguring whatever it represents, and transforming everything it touches into a monster...

Are suppositions of this sort the sober admonitions of discerning patriots to a discerning people? Or are they the inflammatory ravings of incendiaries or distempered enthusiasts?"

Well, things haven't changed that much, huh?

Of course, given that their whole argument for the existence of unregulated, uncontrolled "militias" is easily refuted by anyone who cares to look at the most pertinent and readily available source of information about the intent of the founding fathers, it will not surprise you to hear that Conservative writing about this subject is filled with numerous grossly distorted or simply made up "quotations" from the founding fathers.  Here are two common examples (this time from the Council of Conservative Citizens, but they can be found all over the wingnut world) of invented remarks:

“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.” – George Washington"

“The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” – Thomas Jefferson"

I repeat: there is not one shred of evidence that Washington or Jefferson ever said any of this. I could give you many more examples of this sort of thing, but I am sure you get the point.

Well, there you go.  From Antonin Scalia down to the likes of Jim Hoft and Sher Zieve, the right peddles a massive lie about the second amendment.  As usual, they care nothing about the Constitution and the people who wrote it.  They only care about what they want, and their "patriotism" does not extend to showing a shred of respect for what this country is really about.


An addendum:  Here is a most interesting article from Daily Kos  discussing the history of the passage of the second amendment, titled "The Second Amendment Has Nothing to Do with Gun Ownership."  It reveals even more clearly the fraudulent basis of the entire NRA-Republican nonsense about guns.

Pleistocene park?

The resurrection of extinct species is definitely more feasible than interstellar travel and advances in DNA reading and writing technology have advanced a million fold in little more than half a dozen years.  The speed of light is still the speed of light even though the bulk of  Sci Fi writers simply ignore it. We'll certain see such things long before sending a probe to Barnard's star or travel back in time to observe our remote ancestors.

 Harvard professor George Church, pioneer of the Human Genome Project and founder of half a dozen Biotech firms thinks the technology is just about here that enables us to facilitate the "de-extinction" of vanished species -- perhaps not creatures that died out over a million years ago -- you're not going to see a real Jurassic park any time soon unless it contains reverse engineered birds that sort of look like some Dinosaurs, but he thinks we're on the verge of being able to bring back the Neanderthalers.  

He stops short of saying we ought to and of course it's illegal to clone humans in Europe and the US, but he thinks we might learn something important to our own future.  Establishing a group of  our long lost cousins and possible partial ancestors might show us that they were more intelligent, with their bigger brains or perhaps had some talents that we do not and might allow us an increase in human biodiversity.

"it's conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial" said Church to an interviewer from Der Spiegel.

Wayne LaPierre stated yesterday that a study should be initiated to determine the citizenship status of any non-Homo Sapiens clone born in the US or possessions so as to establish a Neanderthaler's right to keep and bear arms other than wooden spears.  Several coaches and athletic associations have expressed interest in any such project, while Tea Party spokesmen have been rather unanimous in objecting to allowing such clones to take 'human' jobs as much as they would welcome them into the party ranks, should their intelligence not be too great.

Cloning humans, or even almost humans is illegal, sure, but America is waiting.

Baby on Board

If all that I read were the sporting goods catalogs that arrive in the mail I would still know something was up.  There are suddenly pages of drum magazines for sale to fit  everything from non-military versions of  long guns to shotguns to semiautomatic pistols.  Drum magazines, you'll remember seeing them on The Untouchables, great round things holding 75 to 100 rounds mounted on the infamous "Chicago Typewriter."   One catalog even features violin and cello cases fitted out to carry them.  Fedora and Zoot Suit sold separately. What you'd need to carry a Glock pistol with a 75 round drum mounted below the grip, I don't know, but it's next to useless as a concealable or even portable weapon. So why this feeding frenzy?  Why just now?  Is there an invasion coming?

Gun shops are getting very crowded again.  There's a large supermarket style one under construction in my area of coastal Florida.  Prices are rising and they can't seem to keep military-looking fake 'assault rifles' on the shelves.  Another catalog features a kit allowing one to bolt together two Ruger 10/22 rifles - the kind of gun some country gentleman might give his son on his 18th birthday into a two barrel, crank operated .22 rimfire Gattling gun, complete with tripod.  Only $397 but you have to supply your own pair of rifles. Their website bears a headline saying they're up to a week behind on shipping orders because of  massive demand.

In barber shops and hardware stores and the Sporting Goods department at the local Wal-Mart, you hear muttering and whispering about "that monkey" and they don't mean Wayne LaPierre.  I heard an octogenarian friend say at dinner the other night "we don't have any freedom any more."  She'd just sold her handgun from the fear that someone would steal it and murder someone and she'd be blamed.  It isn't true of course, I don't think there's any way of tracing guns in Florida, but the fear is on the street and in the retirement homes and the mansions and yachts and trailer parks. That monkey is after our guns.

Yes, it's gun control time again with one side arming themselves for war and the other side howling Gun Control like ragged extras in a  Frankenstein movie.  The President has offered a package of measures designed to calm the hysterical on both sides and  it's not likely to do that, or so I think.  It's the "biggest legislative effort in a generation" says the Huffington Post,  "a bold and potentially historic attempt to stem the increase in mass gun violence."  Lets see what it looks like after passing through the entrails of Congress. Surely some of the proposals were pinned to the coat-tails of  a tragedy like a rider on an unrelated bill: ban the armor piercing ammunition?  Well it's really not that nor are the hollow points we use for hunting "Cop Killer Bullets" either.  How does one argue for meaningful gun control with all that lying going on?

 Really most of these inflammatory lumps of high velocity hyperbole are just that: attempts to emotionalize and to dupe the uninitiated and succeed in polarizing the attempt to do something useful. To me, much of this heated argument  is corrupted by dishonest coinage, invention and the refusal by both sides to examine  the axioms their arguments rely on. GUN CONTROL! and when I ask "what kind?"  The expression I get from either side is the same -- I must be one of them!

Will banning the millions and millions and millions of  guns and accessories now in 150 million private hands  do anything?  By the time anything like another loophole-ridden, designed-to-fail ban hits the streets, the number of these things buried in back yards and hidden behind paneling in basements will have doubled and the ranks of camo-clad, militiamen and survivalists and preppers will have grown further and short of a house to house search of 100 million private residences and storage lockers and bunkers, very little will be done to reduce their numbers.And nice people, ordinary people, educated people, affluent people are buying guns they would have had no interest in -- because Obama's gonna ban them.   The best way to create demand is to ban something.

And if Congress does do it again, and if they suddenly disappear with a wave of the magic wand, will someone still be able to find the hardware to kill a score of innocents?  Could you get drunk in 1929?  Can you get stoned in 2013? Of course.

Have all the miscellaneous and ballyhooed safety regulations done anything?  Mandatory trigger locks, microstamping of firing pins, loaded chamber indicator and magazine disconnect regulations?  No. Has there been an increase in the murder by firearm rate as is being said?  No. It's lower than it was in the 1950's. The fear is oversold.  Much of what is being proposed can be no more effective in protecting school children than those stupid, yellow Baby on Board signs people put on their cars in the '70s.  It's just there for the "I hate guns" people.

I'm still wondering if there has been an increase in mass gun violence or if the handful in the last few years is a statistical blip and the result of the unrelenting "never forget" emotional media coverage  that promotes repeat performances, but that question will never be settled when opinions on both sides are bolstered by selective facts, when the tenets of faith, the proclamations of activists and politicians and lobbyists are taken as axiomatic without question.  

Whatever happens, I doubt my shotgun will be confiscated, nor my Civil War pistols or my Flintlock Rifle. I'm sure I'll still be able to go to the outdoor shooting range and make holes in targets with a .22 pistol  Top Shot will still be on the History Channel and the Biathlon will still be held and Sarah Palin can still hunt for moose. Floridians will still be able to shoot wild hogs and Burmese pythons and out in the bayou, they'll still be able to hunt 'gators with .22 rifles. The fear is oversold.

Whatever happens, much legislation will be designed by people who know dangerously little about firearms and in a state of near hysteria and much will be sabotaged by their opponents terrified of symbolic emasculation and little will change. No one will bother to mention or discuss or factor in the fact that gun violence is still on the decline and that the level of gun control in any particular state or city does not correlate to that decline. It's a battle of preconceived notions and it's all about irrational fear.

Increased penalties and such won't effect anyone bent on committing  suicide and taking a few dozen innocents with him. Banning an auto-loader with a 15 round magazine when Abraham Lincoln's brass bound Henry repeater will fire 16 rounds in 16 seconds will  not make anyone all that much safer and we'll go on banning all kinds of things to "save the children" and setting the stage for a massive Republican victory in 2016.  America loves guns or we wouldn't own 300 million of them. America loves guns the way it loves trucks and football and beer and that's not going to change.

 

Dear Josh

As a side note, I honestly intended to send this out. Unfortunately, I found 6 Joshua Bostons in Kentucky, two of whom were in Louisville, and I don't randomly spam people just because they MIGHT be the right person. If anybody finds an actual physical (or email) address for him, please advise. (Just like in school, be sure to show your work.)

So, just after Christmas, an ex-marine named Joshua Boston posted the following open letter to Dianne Feinstein on CNN's attempt at social media, CNN iReport.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government's right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the same a crime. You ma'am have overstepped a line that is not your domain. I am a Marine Corps Veteran of 8 years, and I will not have some woman who proclaims the evil of an inanimate object, yet carries one, tell me I may not have one.

I am not your subject. I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the flesh and blood of America. I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned. I am an American. You will not tell me that I must register my semi-automatic AR-15 because of the actions of some evil man.

I will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the media and your misinformation campaign against the American public.

We, the people, deserve better than you.
Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua Boston
Cpl, United States Marine Corps
2004-2012

There. Now you have the backstory, in case you missed it.
_____________________

Mr Boston,

You don't know me, but, just like you, I was in the military. Unlike you, I did more than just two tours - I retired after 21 years. On the other hand, I only had two vacations in the Middle East, to your four. So, things even out, I guess.

I read your "open letter" on the CNN website with some interest. I get the general impression that you don't support the idea of gun control: if I'm wrong about that, please tell me.

Oh, and congratulations on learning to use Spellcheck: so many of your fellow lunatics can't manage even that much. But next letter, maybe you should see about getting somebody to help you with the punctuation. I know that's hard for a Marine (or even an ex-Marine), but we all need help sometimes.

I could argue with you on the subject of gun control - it's actually not that difficult to refute every one of the NRA's talking points. The hardest part of the debate is keeping you guys from yelling; you seem to feel that your arguments are more valid when they're louder.

Now, since then, you've become something of an internet celebrity. Your letter has gone viral. You've appeared on Fox News several times, you've been interviewed by Piers Morgan (that one seems particularly popular), and there seem to be people lighting candles and incense under your picture. You're another Internet celebrity. Enjoy it while it lasts, I guess - those 15 minutes die out pretty fast.

I'll tell you the truth, though: I'm not impressed. To be honest, other marines aren't impressed. But I'm not going to try to argue the Second Amendment with you, despite the fact that even the most extreme right-wing Supreme Court justice has said that it's not as all-encompassing as you seem to think.

I could even argue history with you. You seem to ignore the first half of the second amendment, because the full text is "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

See, back then, every town had a militia. Where we've got the National Guard, they had the local militia. And when they said "well-regulated," they meant it. They had volumes of regulations covering the behavior of the militia.

The founders had a simple reason for curbing this right: Quakers and other religious pacifists were opposed to bearing arms, and wished to be exempt from an obligation that could be made incumbent on all male citizens at the time.

When the Second Amendment is discussed today, we tend to think of those “militias” as just a bunch of ordinary guys with guns, empowering themselves to resist authority when and if necessary. Nothing could be further from the founders’ vision.

Militias were tightly controlled organizations legally defined and regulated by the individual colonies before the Revolution and, after independence, by the individual states. Militia laws ran on for pages and were some of the lengthiest pieces of legislation in the statute books. States kept track of who had guns, had the right to inspect them in private homes and could fine citizens for failing to report to a muster.

(Saul Cornell, author of "A Well-Regulated Militia:The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America")

Yeah, but, see, that kind of argument doesn't do much for you. Logic has left the building. The historical reasons for the Second Amendment don't matter so much as your ability to take out your automatic weapons and blow the shit out of everything in the neighborhood, does it?

I just want to point out a couple of little things you should consider, outside of the Freudian glories of firing off your boom-stick.

First off, Senator Feinstein doesn't carry her gun everywhere. She just happens to own one. That's not hypocritical: she isn't trying to ban all guns everywhere - she wants some simple, common-sense laws to be instituted. Are you aware that out of the 23 executive orders the president just signed into law (yes, they're legal and they're constitutional, despite what you'd like to believe), one of them made it legal once again for the CDC to look into gun violence?

Yes, did you know that the NRA had gotten some of their trained Congressional poodles to make it illegal to even examine one of the 15 most common causes of death in the US? That's how afraid they are of reality.

But, of course you'd see Senator Feinstein's actions in the worst possible light: after all, she's a woman, and I hate to break this to you, but you're sexist.

Yeah, I know. You'd like to deny it: either to call it a lie, or to attack the messenger (it's a pretty common tactic: "liberals always call conservatives racist," as if simply denying it makes it less true).

I mean, it's pretty obvious just from your choice of words. "I will not have some woman... tell me I may not have one," or "I am the man who keeps you free... I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned."

Those are your own words. But that's just subtext, so maybe that's too subtle for you. Let's look at some of your other words. "I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government's right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me..."

That's adorable. Paranoid, but adorable. So I suppose that your car doesn't have a license plate, right?

Let me explain what you've done with your idiotic little rant. You made this statement on a nationally-read website. You told the American public that you weren't going to comply with the law. Now, hypothetically, some members of that same public might just work for the government. And they might just file your little letter away for future consideration.

And then, later, a couple of people might just knock on your door. With pictures of you at a shooting range, firing an unlicensed weapon. Since you aren't listed as owning, say, an AR-15, that could very well be considered "probable cause." And then you get a citation: even then, the government would be unlikely to confiscate your guns - they'd just take them as evidence, and you'd end up with a fine.

Of course, if you still didn't register your weapons, then they would be perfectly within their rights not to release the weapons back into your custody. Which may seem like "confiscation" to you, but it's something that they wouldn't be able to do if you'd just complied with the law.

I'm not saying that this is a likely scenario. I'm just pointing out the obvious flaw in your logic. The most likely way that your stubborn ignorance would turn around to bite you would be if you ended up arrested on, say, drug charges, or suspicion of being a terrorist: some charge that resulted in a search warrant against you.

Licensing your guns doesn't put you on a "confiscation list," despite what you read in The Turner Diaries. It just keeps you from getting further charges filed against you when the guns turn up in your possession.

But mostly, I'd like to thank you. When people see the immediate and illogical overreaction of people like you, to the mere suggestion of guns getting at least as much regulation as a car? It highlights the insanity of certain parts of the American public. And maybe suggests to them that there are some people who probably shouldn't be allowed access to firearms. People like you, Josh.

So thanks for your efforts to get some common-sense gun laws put into place.

Bill Minnich
TSgt, United States Air Force
1983-2004

Let's Celebrate MLK Jr. Sunday and the Second Inauguration of BHO

Greetings to all. Lot's of reasons to celebrate this weekend. The most important being freedom. May we always remain a free and united people. I guess it has been four years since I created what I consider to be my greatest blog post to date on the Dog Report, entitled Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Blogging. The excitement of four years ago has not diminished in any way for true believers. There is much to do and many bridges to build, but we can again unite as a nation and push forward into a brighter future for all citizens. Had a wonderful time in church this morning. I coaxed my old pipe organ into something resembling a gospel organ sound and actually cut loose fairly respectably on We Shall Overcome. I thought it would be fun to check the WNYC website for news this morning. Happily, I stumbled upon this amazing series of never-before-released radio interviews with Dr. King recorded in 1961. You will find synopses of the four interviews which inform the listening. I am listening to the first interview as I type. It is deeply personal and very biographical in an important way to anyone who cares about the modern history of our republic. Enjoy. And soldier on for justice brothers and sisters. We are climbing Jacob's ladder.

Winning the messaging wars

Our Republican friends seem to be fond of bumper-sticker ideology. Well, let's give them simple statements, and use their own catch phrases against them.

Here's my current favorite. Feel free to spread it as far as you can.

Copy it and post it on Facebook. I'm not proud. Go crazy. Take credit for it yourself, if you want. I'd just like to see it out there.

GUNZ AND KULTURE

By (O)CT(O)PUS

Years ago, I was researching delusional thoughts for a paper on psychotic disorders. Where do delusional thoughts come from? Are there patterns or archetypes? Should all killing rampages be considered copycat crimes?  Or something else?

We find examples of delusional thinking across a range of psychological disorders - dissociative, bipolar, personality, and psychotic disorders, as examples. Delusions are often expressions of inner conflicts, drives, memories, and feelings. For lack of a better expression, I call these “cultural artifacts” because they rise to the surface from the Spirtius Mundi of culture and infuse the mind.  Delusional thoughts take many forms: Astral entities, historical events or persons, personifications of painful emotions or traumatic memories, revenge personae, or voices in the head – all born of our culture and made manifest in shocking crimes.

Every massacre demands an explanation. Law enforcement will gather evidence and assign motives to explain the unexplainable; the public wants answers; and parents seek reassurance.  Every night on cable news, talking-head gasbags will assault our senses as competing stakeholders weave false hypotheses and self-serving narratives. Perpetrators rarely live to disclose their delusions in detail; they take their secrets to the grave.

If you accept this concept of delusions as cultural artifacts, then perhaps you might approach from a different perspective the murderous rampages that continue to confound and mystify us.

Perhaps there are other artifacts less visible to us. How does social stress correlate with violent crime? How do we quantify and measure alienation and depersonalization - the kinds of torments that find a path of least resistance in the delusional mind?  Recently, one of our readers named democommie commented:

Poverty does not cause crime; it breeds despair. Mental illness does not cause crime; it removes inhibitions and the ability to control dark impulses. Guns do not cause crime; they enable people who despair … to attain, if only for a moment, a feeling of control, of superiority over others. That the feelings of control and superiority often result in the taking of other's property, dignity, safety and, far too often, their lives is not the result that they dreamed of. It is the stuff of nightmares.

The incidence of mental illness is constant across various population groups – as constant as background radiation in the Universe. The rate of violent crime in the mentally ill population equals the rate of violent crime in the general population. Yet, America has a far higher prevalence rate of violent crime across all population groups compared with other nations.  Why?  Gun merchants offer easier access to arms. Simulated violence in games and entertainment provide scripts for delusional reenactment. Desperation drives motive. These are cultural artifacts.

Let there be no doubt. Easy access to arms correlates with higher incidence rates of violent crime, and America leads the world.  The U.S. has 50% of all guns in circulation worldwide and 30 times the murder rate compared with other industrialized nations. Undeniably, gun culture is the vestigial relic of a frontier mentality deeply imbedded in the American mythos. Cowboys and guns are cultural artifacts.

Reductio ad absurdum. After a weeklong silence following the Sandy Hook massacre, Wayne LaPierre of the NRA responded with this prescription: Fight fire with more firepower; place armed guards in every school; arm the good guys to neutralize the bad guys.  More guns!  Turn America into an armed fortress with self-appointed militias and vigilantes in every city and town.

LaPierre offers not an imaginary dystopia but a real one – like a bad Mad Max movie – creeping into our lives. Is the ubiquity of guns an acceptable vision for our children and future generations? If you understand the pervasive impact of “cultural artifacts” on people, then LaPierre’s prescription for fighting fire with firepower is akin to pouring gasoline on a raging inferno.

During my parenthood years, I tried to teach my children the relationship between responsibility and freedom. Responsibility earns trust and confidence; the penalty for misconduct is more parental supervision and less independence. A reasonable proposition for raising children, I thought. Yet, ours is a society that fails to understand this relationship.  Every public controversy, every perceived loss of freedom (whether imagined or real) represents a failure of responsibility.

Which is worse: A crazed gunman who kills 20 children at a clip?  Or junk food merchants who consign  children to lives of obesity and diabetes? Or designers of video games who market violence to children and call it entertainment? Or arms dealers selling automatic weapons that appeal, not to legitimate sports enthusiasts, but to adult children reared on action toys - who project their self-image of manhood through the barrel of a gun? Or reckless speculators who game investment markets and leave millions of lives in financial ruin? Or a corporate CEO who orders massive layoffs - casting entire families into panic and debt - then rewards himself with a million dollar bonus. Crimes of violence against people committed in the name of easy money, fast money, and free enterprise - these have become cultural artifacts.

How often have we heard people in the news disclaim or dismiss a public controversy with: “No laws were broken.” And how often have we thought: The word ‘legal’ is not necessarily synonymous with the word 'ethical.' Legal acts, all too often considered irresponsible and reprehensible, have become cultural artifacts.

What preoccupies our thoughts in this forum? We write about chicanery and corruption, inequality and injustice, abuse of our public institutions, the lies and deceptions of persons who aspire to positions of power and authority over us; of town hall hooligans, legislative gridlock and deadlock, and a public held hostage by political hacks and henchmen.  How often have we felt bullied and abused!  These too are cultural artifacts.

We may talk about the dangers of easy access to automatic weapons; about loopholes in our system of background checks and bullet holes in our mental health establishment; about the subliminal influence of violence as entertainment; about competing ideas of gun ownership versus public safety. These controversies, grave as they are, overlook other urgent questions:

How will more guns or less guns serve us when “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold?” Have we fostered a culture of remorseless and ruthless sociopathy?  Are incidents of gun violence signs and symptoms of a culture in crisis?

We equate freedom with excess and excess with freedom. We enable overindulgence without self-restraint.  We practice brinksmanship but not citizenship. With each passing year, we drive all standards of civility, community and accountability further into the wilderness. National conversations turn fractious and fragmented; not even the high ideals of secular democracy bind us together.  We covet freedom but spurn responsibility.  Perhaps the worst monsters of society mirror the accelerated grimace of a culture grown monstrous.

Let’s talk about the cultural artifacts that crash in the mind. Perhaps we should start this debate at the beginning by reaffirming those values of a democratic republic whose mission and purpose is to secure “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The price of civilization is never cheap. We demand the rights and privileges of full membership, but refuse to pay our dues.

The N-Word Debate Resurrected

I have no problem with Quentin Tarantino's use of the word nigger in his film, Django Unchained. As he has said, it's accurate usage for the historical period of the film. I also don't have a problem with his usage at the Golden Globes. It really is about context. He didn't call anyone a nigger; he made an observation about its usage.

(Note: I'm breaking my own rule in this post in using the word nigger instead of the euphemism, n-word. I think that it's time for me to take away the power of the word in my life.)

However, I do take issue with the prevalent mythology that black people use the word nigger all the time. I'm black and 57 years old. I don't know all black people but I know a lot of black people. NONE of the black people that I know typically use nigger as a greeting or in general conversation.

The arguments that I read from white people who feel put upon because they can't use the word is that black rappers say it all the time! I don't know any rappers, but I don't count entertainers looking to make a dollar as the standard by which I live.

Black people do not run around greeting each other with the word as a rule. Among many black people, it is not considered a polite term to simply use in greeting.

What I don't understand is why under normal circumstances a white person would desire to say nigger. What's the point? If you really hold no racist feelings, then why on earth would you want to use such a vile and demeaning term? Is it some cheap thrill?

If you are engaged in a discussion where you need to say nigger, then I have no issue with that. However, it would come across as less offensive if you simply said n-word. What most black people object to is the use of the term nigger to define us. You can't call me a nigger and argue that you have a right to do so because it's not fair that only black people can say it. I just don't buy that white people are really that stupid or naive.

I have no problem with using the word in context to describe some historical application of the term. However, I don't find myself in circumstances where there is a need for the use of nigger as a rule. I can't help but wonder just when it is that white people find such a pressing need to say nigger that we're still having this ludicrous discussion about the alleged unfairness of white people not being able to freely use the word.

The Island

The Dhammapada speaks of creating for oneself -- by virtue of some deep virtue -- an island that no tide or flood can overwhelm. I've longed to be frozen in a  Gauguin paradise,  where summer years and summer women smile forever.  I've never found it to be possible, having been born as a straw in the torrent, having spent my life in a river of human madness, wasting my decades in a rage for calm and tranquility that  I've only momentarily tasted; storing away and fondling such moments in  furtive contemplation, as objects in a private gallery.

Life is not too much with me, the passions of people are: the mad velocity of  man, the fury, the sound, the howling, hurtling seething frenzy. It's hardly a secret that the recent explosion surrounding madmen with guns has dropped me into the hopeless, boiling depths of misanthropy, like a stone tossed in a witch's kettle which none of my toil and trouble can cool, but really that's what human events are, have been, will be like: a ferment, a boiling fed by unexamined fire and stirred by secret spoons to some unknown purpose -- or worse, to no purpose at all. So will it always be and we either simmer in the pot or dip our ladles as our situations have determined. Man is not a rational animal and any urge to be a pair of giant claws is only a latent vision of our essential nature.


 A January morning is gilding the treetops near and far into the infinite distance and the dew still glistens on the patio screens. I take my warm cup of hand picked, hand roasted, hand ground coffee from some remote village in Papua New Guinea outside into the creamy fragrant air to examine my bonsai. Lemons and Oranges hang from the gravid trees like Christmas ornaments, the Poinsettia bushes glare like retreating tail lights, a new day's worth of yellow Hibiscus flowers beckons. The forever forest of  white mangrove, mahogany, Sabal palm and buttonwood stretches to the end of the world.  It's still too early for the sea breeze but the soft roar of surf is always audible at this time of year when the scream of insects and birds is at a minimum. Shall I lounge in the hammock reading? Perhaps it will grow too warm.

86 new e-mails after the spam filter disposes of the worst, a smallish crop.  All kinds of breathless announcements of things Obama, the media, the NRA, the Tea Party or the Liberals don't want me to know. Protect the children, Protect your rights, Ban the Guns, Tax the Rich, buy some guns, weekend Ammo blowout!  Lose 30 pounds by next week with the miracle berry. Contribute NOW! before it's too late! The fiscal apocalypse is coming.  Pssssst -- want a date?

Headlines: 1800 burglaries in this mostly rural county in 2012. Eight in my neighborhood this week, one armed home invasion -- shots were fired. We need to buy guns.  We need to ban guns. We need and need and need and it's their fault and we need it now.

10 miles away, where the country road crosses the Turnpike, the big pickups with the off-road suspension are pushing the Jags and leased Bentlys from their tasks of  snobbing at the KIAs and Hyundaes and the Luxo-Utility egoboxes are trying to intimidate everyone, assaulting rear bumpers like Chrome plated rapists while they stumble over their own tires trying to keep any fast vehicles from passing them before they get to the entrance ramp where their entrance will be blocked by countless angry machines trying to get past each other at 95 on their mad diurnal migration down to Palm Beach or Boca or Lauderdale.

Worn out, sunburned, dented fender, busted window; peasant, poseur and ponce. Pasted with bumper stickers:
Change You Can Step in , 
Save the Turtles, 
Jesus is Lord.  
The End of an Era
Ron Jon Surf Shop - Coco Beach
 
Wage earners, payment makers, inflated egos intent on arriving at their appointed places of deflation and cringing conformity -- and before that other son of a bitch does -- screaming, screaming, screaming radios cursing the Right and cursing the Left, big rigs cursing the four-wheelers, country boys cursing the yuppies. Rush hour rodents, their tails on fire. Next performance at 4:00 PM.

Out at the St Lucie inlet, the tide is coming in.