Richard Feynman: It didn't cross the road to the other side. It actually came back to where it started but was momentarily moving backward in time. .emit ni drawkcab gnivom yliratnemom saw tub detrats ti erehw to kcab emac yllautca tI .edis rehot eht to daor eht ssorc t'ndid tI :namnyeF drahciR
Nicolaus Copernicus: Despite the evidence of your senses, I can show that it is mathematically simpler to describe it as a road passing under the chicken.
Archimedes: Eureka!
Andre Ampere: To keep current on events.
Alexander Graham Bell: To get to the nearest phone.
Werner Heisenberg: If the chicken is moving very fast, you can either observe the chicken or you can measure the chicken, but you cannot do both.
Robert Boyle: The chicken was under pressure to cross the road.
Marie Curie: The chicken was radiant as it crossed the road.
Albert Camus: It doesn't matter; crossing the road has no meaning except to the chicken.
C. J. Doppler: For its effect on passers-by.
Thomas Edison: The chicken found it illuminating.
Stephen Hawking: There exist numerous parallel universes in which the same chicken is in differing stages of crossing the road.
Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your point of view.
Gustav Hertz: Lately, the chicken has been crossing the road with greater frequency.
Galileo: To get a better look at the other side.
Johannes Kepler: The chicken crossed in an arc, not a straight line.
Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road.
Ohm: Because there was less resistance on the other side of the road.
James Watt: To let off steam.
Immanuel Kant: The chicken, being an autonomous being, crossed the road to exercise free will.
Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.
Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes back at you.
(O)CT(O)PUS: A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Why I support gun control
And what kind.
I do after all, even if it's not what you support or any of the loudest activists urge. No I don't share the urge to tilt at the "Weapons of War" windmills provided us by the media and the more gullible gun control advocates who generally use any sad story to go after what they insist is the root of the problem but rarely is. I do support, at least provisionally, some of what the President is supporting.
Yes -- research for one thing, and here's where it's quite appropriate to be angry at the NRA who has opposed all taxpayer funded study of violence with firearms -- because of course any mention of such things; any attempt to find a way to reduce violence is an obvious precursor to the Liberal plot to grab our guns. President Obama has ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies to begin research on gun violence and its effects. The actualization of course depends on Congress which controls the funds and therein lurks the cold, dead, but still active hand of the NRA.
No, I'm not in the NRA camp. I don't think anyone who likes hunting or shooting or owns a gun for legitimate reasons is the 'sick bastard' or deranged potential murderer I've been called any more than I think that anyone who owns a penis is a rapist and child molester and neither does the vast majority of Americans. I'm not going to waste time arguing with such people. I'm just going to look for solutions that work -- like the vast majority of Americans, like the President.
I used to watch Glades, a TV series about Florida Law Enforcement, and was occasionally amused by talk of finding criminals with "unregistered" guns -- amused because of course Florida doesn't register them and forbids keeping lists of who owns them. I've been amused as well by their showing us how the police could enter a serial number into the computer and find an owner. They can't. Why is it that people who cry for more gun control sometimes think we have more than we do? The same reason that many think we have less, I imagine. At any rate there's an instance of ignorance being less than blissful.
If 72% of gun-related homicides for which we know the kind of gun used are committed with handguns, and only 4% with rifles of all kinds, why are we obsessing about "assault rifles?" Perhaps it's another instance of a solution in search of a problem as I hinted at above. Why are we all in a dither about "high capacity" magazines when more concealable, more portable, low capacity magazines can be changed in less than two seconds? Why are we not concentrating on the most frequently used tools? A revolver, usually with five or six shots remains a favorite choice for professional murderers for reasons I won't go into. See above and note well that those least informed often seek solutions that are bound to fail and are as intransigent in promoting them as they are in ignoring a larger view.
At first glance I'm not against some system of being able to trace guns, a paper trail if you will, as we can do with any property that requires a title, with prescription medicine for that matter. It seems compatible with a constitutional right, but we find strong objections in a country with such a long Libertarian history of self re-invention and the ability to shed one's past and most of all the desire for independence and self-reliance. We remember the New Orleans public being disarmed when they most needed a means of self defense. We remember Jim Crow. We remember lots of things and we worry.
I don't necessarily like the idea of my possessions and movements being on record and more than my e-mails or purchases or telephone calls. Most people don't like it, but we don't seem to care as much about being spied on as having our shotgun under surveillance. Let's say that a record of who owns what, might help well enough to keep guns from those with no right to own them that I could support some form of registration if it could be made to work better than any system has been so far. But neither hit-men nor drug dealers are not going to comply, nor tell the truth. People who want to die taking as many innocents with them as possible? They don't care about punishment or registration or anything else the law can do. Like the Sibyl, they want to die.
Can we, should we disarm 325 million to prevent 5 or 6 people from running amok with a gun legally or illegally obtained? Good luck selling it and good luck accomplishing it. The only choice is to screen them out, not to simply register their guns or threaten them with fines or punishment. Better look to better background checks. If we can accept that some people should not, do not have the right to keep and bear arms, how can we not accept that we need to find out who they are?
So how can we manage to get significant compliance with registration? We can't without screening out the loose canons with effective, mandatory background checks and the observation that States which do require it tend to have gun-related homicides in excess of States that do not, shows that our current efforts aren't always enough, that off-the-books transfers are far too easy and quite legal in most cases. Making registration work would require that all transfers be done through licensed dealers who must keep records and report to authorities. That's where those background checks come in. Many are surprised that we have them at all, and waiting periods too. Some are surprised that people with no fear of breaking the law by killing aren't afraid to break the law by lying. Make the checks real.
Yes, I advocate background checks and making them more meaningful. As it is, we simply ask people if they're unstable, mentally impaired and under psychiatric care and not surprisingly people who should answer yes, answer no. As intrusive and objectionable as it may sound to make checks more comprehensive, it's necessary if we want to have registration and want it to actually do anything.
It may be hard to prove that such things as we have done so far have indeed made our country safer from gun related violence, but then it's hard to prove to some people that gun-related homicides have declined substantially for 30 years now. Why? Once again, see that solution seeking a problem because when the solution most dearly envisioned is to make all danger disappear at all cost, that cost gets high and people still get killed.
I do keep in mind however, that while any reduction in the death rate we can accomplish under any circumstances may not be dramatic and will not be quick to become observable, that reduction is worthwhile. I also keep in mind that it will not satisfy a great many people. The slow decline of automobile fatalities seems to have pacified us where the slow decline of gun fatalities has not. Any observation of human tendencies has to include the illogical, irrational nature of humans. We will continue to fear the lone madman more than we fear the drug gangs and robbers and other "traditional" killers even though the latter are predominant when it comes to slaughter and the former far less likely to be deterred by anything short of a straight jacket.
That's why I support research, scientific inquiry and honest, continuing, informed discussion even though the NRA deems it useless and dangerous and even though their organized opposition will see it as an excuse to do nothing. I support it because there's ill-understood pathology behind the violence we most fear. I fear it won't happen because both sides are afraid of being argued out of their urges to act now or not to act at all. Any effective effort must come from a middle no one is listening to, from a public that doesn't share the pantheon of bogeymen of either extreme and it must recognize an eternal struggle that can't be legislated away. By all means listen to Law Enforcement people. Many of their opinions may surprise you. Listen to mental health people, look at statistics and listen to firearms experts and lets get down to business.
I do after all, even if it's not what you support or any of the loudest activists urge. No I don't share the urge to tilt at the "Weapons of War" windmills provided us by the media and the more gullible gun control advocates who generally use any sad story to go after what they insist is the root of the problem but rarely is. I do support, at least provisionally, some of what the President is supporting.
• increasing access to mental health services
• lifting restrictions on federally funded research on gun violence
• extending background checks before the purchase of a gun
Yes -- research for one thing, and here's where it's quite appropriate to be angry at the NRA who has opposed all taxpayer funded study of violence with firearms -- because of course any mention of such things; any attempt to find a way to reduce violence is an obvious precursor to the Liberal plot to grab our guns. President Obama has ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies to begin research on gun violence and its effects. The actualization of course depends on Congress which controls the funds and therein lurks the cold, dead, but still active hand of the NRA.
No, I'm not in the NRA camp. I don't think anyone who likes hunting or shooting or owns a gun for legitimate reasons is the 'sick bastard' or deranged potential murderer I've been called any more than I think that anyone who owns a penis is a rapist and child molester and neither does the vast majority of Americans. I'm not going to waste time arguing with such people. I'm just going to look for solutions that work -- like the vast majority of Americans, like the President.
I used to watch Glades, a TV series about Florida Law Enforcement, and was occasionally amused by talk of finding criminals with "unregistered" guns -- amused because of course Florida doesn't register them and forbids keeping lists of who owns them. I've been amused as well by their showing us how the police could enter a serial number into the computer and find an owner. They can't. Why is it that people who cry for more gun control sometimes think we have more than we do? The same reason that many think we have less, I imagine. At any rate there's an instance of ignorance being less than blissful.
If 72% of gun-related homicides for which we know the kind of gun used are committed with handguns, and only 4% with rifles of all kinds, why are we obsessing about "assault rifles?" Perhaps it's another instance of a solution in search of a problem as I hinted at above. Why are we all in a dither about "high capacity" magazines when more concealable, more portable, low capacity magazines can be changed in less than two seconds? Why are we not concentrating on the most frequently used tools? A revolver, usually with five or six shots remains a favorite choice for professional murderers for reasons I won't go into. See above and note well that those least informed often seek solutions that are bound to fail and are as intransigent in promoting them as they are in ignoring a larger view.
At first glance I'm not against some system of being able to trace guns, a paper trail if you will, as we can do with any property that requires a title, with prescription medicine for that matter. It seems compatible with a constitutional right, but we find strong objections in a country with such a long Libertarian history of self re-invention and the ability to shed one's past and most of all the desire for independence and self-reliance. We remember the New Orleans public being disarmed when they most needed a means of self defense. We remember Jim Crow. We remember lots of things and we worry.
I don't necessarily like the idea of my possessions and movements being on record and more than my e-mails or purchases or telephone calls. Most people don't like it, but we don't seem to care as much about being spied on as having our shotgun under surveillance. Let's say that a record of who owns what, might help well enough to keep guns from those with no right to own them that I could support some form of registration if it could be made to work better than any system has been so far. But neither hit-men nor drug dealers are not going to comply, nor tell the truth. People who want to die taking as many innocents with them as possible? They don't care about punishment or registration or anything else the law can do. Like the Sibyl, they want to die.
Can we, should we disarm 325 million to prevent 5 or 6 people from running amok with a gun legally or illegally obtained? Good luck selling it and good luck accomplishing it. The only choice is to screen them out, not to simply register their guns or threaten them with fines or punishment. Better look to better background checks. If we can accept that some people should not, do not have the right to keep and bear arms, how can we not accept that we need to find out who they are?
So how can we manage to get significant compliance with registration? We can't without screening out the loose canons with effective, mandatory background checks and the observation that States which do require it tend to have gun-related homicides in excess of States that do not, shows that our current efforts aren't always enough, that off-the-books transfers are far too easy and quite legal in most cases. Making registration work would require that all transfers be done through licensed dealers who must keep records and report to authorities. That's where those background checks come in. Many are surprised that we have them at all, and waiting periods too. Some are surprised that people with no fear of breaking the law by killing aren't afraid to break the law by lying. Make the checks real.
Yes, I advocate background checks and making them more meaningful. As it is, we simply ask people if they're unstable, mentally impaired and under psychiatric care and not surprisingly people who should answer yes, answer no. As intrusive and objectionable as it may sound to make checks more comprehensive, it's necessary if we want to have registration and want it to actually do anything.
It may be hard to prove that such things as we have done so far have indeed made our country safer from gun related violence, but then it's hard to prove to some people that gun-related homicides have declined substantially for 30 years now. Why? Once again, see that solution seeking a problem because when the solution most dearly envisioned is to make all danger disappear at all cost, that cost gets high and people still get killed.
I do keep in mind however, that while any reduction in the death rate we can accomplish under any circumstances may not be dramatic and will not be quick to become observable, that reduction is worthwhile. I also keep in mind that it will not satisfy a great many people. The slow decline of automobile fatalities seems to have pacified us where the slow decline of gun fatalities has not. Any observation of human tendencies has to include the illogical, irrational nature of humans. We will continue to fear the lone madman more than we fear the drug gangs and robbers and other "traditional" killers even though the latter are predominant when it comes to slaughter and the former far less likely to be deterred by anything short of a straight jacket.
That's why I support research, scientific inquiry and honest, continuing, informed discussion even though the NRA deems it useless and dangerous and even though their organized opposition will see it as an excuse to do nothing. I support it because there's ill-understood pathology behind the violence we most fear. I fear it won't happen because both sides are afraid of being argued out of their urges to act now or not to act at all. Any effective effort must come from a middle no one is listening to, from a public that doesn't share the pantheon of bogeymen of either extreme and it must recognize an eternal struggle that can't be legislated away. By all means listen to Law Enforcement people. Many of their opinions may surprise you. Listen to mental health people, look at statistics and listen to firearms experts and lets get down to business.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Carry his rape-baby or go to jail.
One of the reasons that the Republicans couldn't win the election in 2012 was that they were continuing to appeal only to the white male demographic.
They didn't bother worrying about hispanic vote: look at their reaction to the Dream Act. Or their "walls, razor wire and armed guards" view of immigration policy. Or the continued push toward "English-only" legislation.
They didn't give a tanned damn about the black vote: check out their full-throated support of George Zimmerman, who apparently felt threatened by the existence of skinny teenagers armed with Skittles. For that matter, note the dog-whistles (and occasional open racism) distributed through their attacks on our first black president.
And going into the home stretch of the election, the GOP seemed to double down on their "War on Women," with lawmakers talking about "legitimate rape" and trying to make it harder for a woman to get a legal medical procedure, than it is for a convicted felon to buy military-grade hardware.
Full disclosure: I am not a big fan of the term "War on Women," but I'm at a loss what else to call it. The opposite of "Women's Lib" would be "Women's Enslavement," but that's a bit hyperbolic, so I'm not going to even touch it. In fact, "War on Anything" is pretty well over-used, because they can be such a convenient shorthand. Will some linguistics major please look into this for me?
In regards to the GOP policy toward women, they have a radical portion of their party who keeps trying to turn back the clock to a mythical Fifties, where the blacks and hispanics were all happy in their low-paying jobs, and the few women in the work force (the ones who weren't staying at home baking) were available to be chased around the desk playing hard-but-not-impossible-to-get.
See, in their views, a Woman's Purpose (subtitle: "Assigned To Her By God") is to be forever in a subservient role, helping Her Man, cleaning, cooking, and procreating. If she gets a job, she's still expected to get home in time to get the kids from daycare and cook dinner. And this is pretty obvious by how they try to legislate.
Hell, at least blacks were considered three-fifths of a person. In some quarters, women are lucky to get that much appreciation today, especially in in the paycheck.
(And I'm not saying that the melanin-enhanced peoples have it much better; I'm just trying to make a rhetorical point here...)
And one of the things they want to avoid is even the possibility that a woman will have control of her own genitals.
Simple logic and actual scientific studies have shown that adequate sex education and access to contraception both decrease abortions (and we even have the actual examples of places like Denmark, where abortion is available, but almost unheard of), but we still have the insane cognitive dissonance of opposition to abortion, and contraception, matched up with support for abstinence-only education.
Which brings us to my own (adopted) state of New Mexico.
Now, I'll admit that I have little or no use for Huffington Post. There are a number of reasons for this, but I'm going to give them credit for one thing: they were the first news outlet to break this one.
A Republican lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill on Wednesday that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial. House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence."Now, since Huffpo broke the story, it's been picked up by other news groups, and the public outcry against this brain-meltingly obvious idiocy has made Representative Brown very sad. She's now trying to explain to everybody how she was being "misrepresented."
Rep. Cathrynn Brown, a Republican from Carlsbad, said Thursday she will revise the bill, which she said was intended to target perpetrators of rape or incest who try to cover their tracks by forcing their victims to have abortions... Although the clause regarding intent would seem to preclude rape victims from being charged, several critics read the bill as possibly including them. Brown said she will clarify the language to remove any ambiguity.Yeah, but while that may be the way she tried to sell it (and I'll give a tip of my hat to Ted for pointing it out to me)... well, in her defense, she's an idiot. Just how often, exactly, does a rapist drag a woman to a doctor to abort his rape-baby? Because, yeah, the way she was selling this to her friends and supporters probably sounded just like that. The version on her own website has been undergoing daily changes since it went up, but has been warm and friendly to the poor beleaguered victim since day one. But the one that was introduced to the state legislature had some... well, let's just call them "inconsistencies" from the story Ms Brown has been trying to sell. See, here's how it was presented:
It then goes on to explain, if you're curious, what crimes will be added (or applied) to everybody involved, with no question about who it is (the rapist, the victim, or the doctor). And that's it. Short, sweet and stupid. So, if you get raped, and then you get an abortion, you go to jail. It's a simple equation. "Ah," but the calm, rational side of you explains, "it's right there in the bill! You have to have 'the intent to prevent the apprehension' of the rapist! Obviously, a victim isn't going to do that, right?" Well, aside from the fact that "calm" and "rational" can rarely be applied to the anti-abortion lobby, let's consider for a minute. There's a term that needs to be applied here: "Thought crime." It's illegal to get an abortion that might tamper with evidence. Unless you can prove that you hadn't intended to tamper with evidence. You have to prove what you'd been thinking about. "But... but... but..." your calm, rational side sputters, not yet willing to give up. "That isn't true! The state has to prove that you were planning to tamper with evidence!" No, afraid not. The state has to prove that you did tamper with evidence, and then show that you might have still harbored feelings for the rapist. (Not hard to do, if it's, say, your dad, or some guy you haven't actively attacked with a knife...) After all, you got the abortion. They can prove that happened. A woman still gets blamed for getting raped if she dresses "too provocatively" or goes to the wrong part of town. We tell women how to avoid getting raped; we don't tell men "don't rape." We just assume that the natural state of man is "rapist." Since he's going to try to have sex regardless of any other factors, it's her job to avoid getting in that position. If you then factor in the concept of "Stockholm Syndrome," please try to explain where this won't go wrong. Women already get accused of fabricating rape charges because they had sex, but then had "second thoughts" the next day. Our society has some seriously messed-up priorities when it comes to rape. _____________ Update (1/28/2013): So, I just corrected the formatting in the text of the bill. I tried to show it the way it was presented on the legislative website (with paragraph B underlined and the rest of it) and just managed to make it invisible. So now it's just shown as text, because some people shouldn't be allowed to use HTML.AN ACT
RELATING TO CRIMINAL LAW; SPECIFYING PROCURING OF AN ABORTION AS TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE IN CASES OF CRIMINAL SEXUAL PENETRATION OR INCEST. BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO: SECTION 1. Section 30-22-5 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 1963, Chapter 303, Section 22-5, as amended) is amended to read: "30-22-5. TAMPERING WITH EVIDENCE.-- A. Tampering with evidence consists of destroying, changing, hiding, placing or fabricating any physical evidence with intent to prevent the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of any person or to throw suspicion of the commission of a crime upon another. B. Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime. C. Whoever commits tampering with evidence shall be punished as follows:
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Swear Words
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Florida has had its problems forcing school children to publicly swear allegiance to a 'Nation
Under God' every day of the school year, but that abomination isn't enough for the State of Arizona, or at least for their State Legislature. A bill has been introduced requiring that before high school students can be given a diploma, they must swear to God.
"I, _________, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge these duties; So help me God."
Does this bypass the religious test prohibition? Well of course this is a requirement to graduate, or would be if it's passed and not a requirement for office, but is the granting of a diploma the granting of public trust? As it is a requirement for employment in many cases, I would argue that it is and the oath is therefore unconstitutional, but we're talking about Arizona, a place where many Republican citizens are unhappy with that constitution and the Nation it defines, except of course for the guarantees it may make which further their attempts to persecute the freedoms of others and back up their threats with God and Guns.
It makes no provision for non believing people such as I am or for anti-believing people or for Quakers or Mennonites and others whose creeds forbid oaths, to "solemnly affirm" rather than swear, but even if it were amended to that purpose, is an oath taken under duress valid and can one force someone to swear "without any mental reservation?" But we're talking about Arizona where there is a test for looking American and penalties for failing it.
Actually I'm tired as hell of talking about Arizona and its cynical attempts to exclude and persecute all in the name of a Constitution they delight in selectively ignoring. The hell with their nonsense about secession, their legislators have all sworn to uphold the constitution and if they can't do that, revoke their citizenship and deport them.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Both Sides, Now
No, this isn't about Joni Mitchell and I'm not going to talk about bows and flows of angel hair, just about stunning hypocrisy. How many
ice cream castles have been built upon the idea that a fertilized human
egg cell is a human being possessed of human rights? It would be
hypocritical enow that those rights are allowed by Church doctrine to
foetuses when they have been so often denied to adults by religious
authorities, but that's not what this is about. It's about, as I said,
hypocrisy; about arguing both sides when needed to avoid guilt, or at
least to avoid prosecution and penalty.
Catholic Health Initiatives, with assets estimated at around 15 billion dollars, operates a chain of hospitals and as a response to a wrongful death suit involving twin foetuses who died before birth, their attorneys argued that in cases of wrongful death, the term “person” only applies to individuals born alive, and not to those who die in utero, says Raw Story today.
Perhaps that will be a precedent that plagues them in future when they try to argue otherwise according to Roman Catholic doctrine regarding abortion and birth control, but looking at this cloudy argument from both sides now is pretty entertaining, don't you think? And of course we remember all the adages telling us that when they argue principle, what they mean is money.
Feather canyons everywhere, indeed.
Catholic Health Initiatives, with assets estimated at around 15 billion dollars, operates a chain of hospitals and as a response to a wrongful death suit involving twin foetuses who died before birth, their attorneys argued that in cases of wrongful death, the term “person” only applies to individuals born alive, and not to those who die in utero, says Raw Story today.
Perhaps that will be a precedent that plagues them in future when they try to argue otherwise according to Roman Catholic doctrine regarding abortion and birth control, but looking at this cloudy argument from both sides now is pretty entertaining, don't you think? And of course we remember all the adages telling us that when they argue principle, what they mean is money.
Feather canyons everywhere, indeed.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
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.
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.
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 postWe 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.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
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.
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 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.
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.
Monday, January 21, 2013
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.
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.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
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.
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.
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
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.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?
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")
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
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