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Ban High Capacity Magazines? We Can’t Even Ban Pot!

February 8, 2013 by 14 Comments

Gun Control SC Ban High Capacity Magazines? We Cant Even Ban Pot!

The possibility of a federal assault weapons ban in the near future is only there if either the Republicans in the House all get lobotomies now or their constituents do in 2014. But politics aside, why not do something very unusual in these kinds of debates.

Let’s talk about reality.

The fact that we cannot even define an assault weapon is only one of the problems inherent in trying to ban a class of weapon in a nation where the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution.

Now comes the question of so-called high capacity magazines.

Just as we find it hard to ban marijuana—a weed that grows in the wild—we would find it’s very difficult to ban a box with a spring inside.

That, folks, is what a high capacity magazine is.

It would be one thing if a high capacity magazine were some kind of high tech item that takes a rocket scientist to design and a whole factory to build.  But the fact is that any reasonably competent high school shop student could make one in an hour.

Further, there are already millions and millions of them in circulation. Standard issue with the World War Two era M1 was a 15 or 30 round magazine.  There were something like 6.5-million M1 Carbines manufactured during the war and about a million made after the war.  The government sold them to civilian marksmanship programs for something like $20, and there were millions of the magazines made to support them.  And that’s only a single semi-automatic weapon on Senator Dianne Feinstein’s list.

Our experience in banning things has not been stellar.

We turned lots of people into criminals when we banned liquor and completely failed to stop its consumption during prohibition.

Billions are bet on the NFL every Sunday, and only a fraction of that is legal.

We have so many illegal immigrants in the country that, once again, we’re prepared to grant a form of amnesty so we don’t have to be in the unenviable position of deporting 11-million people.

Given this government’s track record, what makes anyone think they would even be remotely successful at banning certain kinds of weapons and their accessories already in mass circulation?

So then, we have politicians—including our own clown prince, Harry Reid—who think we can have something called a “universal background check” prior to anyone buying a gun.

It sounds reasonable.  But, say I have an M1 that I want to sell to my friend.  How is a background check enforceable?  And even if you could figure out a way to make such a thing practical, do you really think a criminal could not gain access to a gun without going through the process?

Here’s a better idea, and I guarantee you it will work.

Pass a law on the state level in each state that the use of a gun in the commission of a felony is an automatic additional 15 years in prison over whatever sentence you get. No exceptions, no discretion.

Criminals may be criminals; but they watch the news on TV, and they read the newspaper.

If they know that using a gun nets them an additional 15 years, they will think more than once before they do.

You’re never going to stop all violent crime; but if you hit them where it hurts, you will certainly cause a major dent.  And it will certainly be more effective, enforceable, and palatable than trying to take a constitutional right away from people which, even if you could get the law passed, would not apply to criminals anyway.

People who want to stop gun violence have their hearts in the right place.  But their brains are several zip codes off.

Photo credit: krazydad / jbum (Creative Commons)

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Oprah And Lance; Why Should We Care?

January 26, 2013 by 7 Comments

Lance Oprah SC Oprah And Lance; Why Should We Care?

Like many folks, I watched Lance Armstrong “confess” to Oprah. For about 20 minutes. It was all the self-serving crapola from both Armstrong and Oprah I could take.

Big deal.

Some months ago, I wrote that Armstrong was being persecuted by the United States Government with $10 million dollars a year of our money.

I was right then, and I’m right now.

Do I care a whit that he used some fancy concoctions to help his endurance?

No.

I also don’t care if Roger Clemons, Mark McGuire, or Sammy Sosa used steroids or if Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb were belligerent drunks. And I still think that Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame.

Frankly, we are way too concerned with what an athlete is willing to do to win.  To put it in perspective, remember that the average life span of an NFL linebacker is 57 years, and nobody complains about that.

And, don’t you find it just a little bit upsetting that the arbiters of what is right and wrong are largely people who never played the game?  Take the Hall of Fame election for baseball.  The election is from members of the Baseball Writer’s Association.  These are largely people who drink their lunch, mostly see life from the left lane, and, again, never played the game.

I saw Jim Gray on the Fox News Channel pontificating about a college football player who said that he was duped into thinking he had an internet girlfriend who died.  Now why this is a story is beyond my comprehension since nobody suffered any damages, but let’s get back to Jim Gray.

This was the clown who in game two of the 1999 World Series had the following colloquy with Pete Rose after Rose was named to the Major League Baseball All Century team, an honor which most people with more than 3,000 hits get.

Jim Gray: Pete, let me ask you now. It seems as though there is an opening, the American public is very forgiving. Are you willing to show contrition, admit that you bet on baseball and make some sort of apology to that effect?

Pete Rose: Not at all, Jim. I’m not going to admit to something that didn’t happen. I know you’re getting tired of hearing me say that. But I appreciate the ovation. I appreciate the American fans voting me on the All-Century Team. I’m just a small part of a big deal tonight.

Gray: With the overwhelming evidence in that report, why not make that step. . .

There’s an example of the kind of ‘expert’ who is passing judgment on people who actually played the game. (By the way, Gray also thinks that Bob Costas’ anti gun rant was acceptable, to put him in perspective.)

I’m not a big fan of professional cycling.  I could care less if someone needs an edge to win a race of more than 2,000 miles.  Unless Armstrong had an engine on that bike, my viewpoint is that he won the Tour De France seven times in a row; and nothing, including $10 million a year of our tax dollars going to a private doping police force, is going to change that.

As far as his “defrauding” the Post Office because of their sponsorship, what a load of crap.

His team won; that’s what sponsors pay for in professional sports, end of story.  Except that I don’t believe that any government entity should be spending advertising money on professional sports or subsidizing stadiums.  That includes the NFL, Major League Baseball, and the National Guard’s sponsorship of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s number 88 Sprint Cup car.

The same media that is having a slobbering love affair with our President is way too focused on everything but the game.

As big an animal lover as I am (and a Pit Bull owner at that), I didn’t think it was the NFL’s job to ban Michael Vick back when he got caught running a dog fighting ring.  I think it is the prosecutor’s job to put him in prison so he couldn’t play football.

I didn’t think the NCAA had any business sanctioning Penn State in the very sick Jerry Sandusky affair.  That is the job of the Governor, the courts, and the so-called adult supervision.

I never said Lance Armstrong wasn’t a jerk.  Or that Pete Rose is a prince.

But just as I don’t hold Barbara Streisand’s ludicrous political viewpoints against her skills as a singer, I refuse to judge Lance Armstrong’s athletic career (or Roger Clemons’ or Barry Bonds’) by what he may have ingested before he played the game.

And, frankly, as a sports fan (and recovering sportswriter), I think that the only votes for halls of fame should come from the same fans who make and break the careers of the players.

Now, can we get back to talking about real news?

Photo credit: lwpkommunikacio (Creative Commons)

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Is Mandatory National Service For Kids A Good Idea?

January 22, 2013 by 11 Comments

US Flag 3 SC Is Mandatory National Service For Kids A Good Idea?

Retired General Stanley McChrystal said something on Face the Nation last week which, perhaps, is worth thinking about.

Asked by Bob Schieffer whether we needed a military draft, McChrystal suggested that we did need all young people to do some sort of national service—not necessarily military.

One of his reasons—and this is what caught my attention—was “we’re also a nation which doesn’t get to know each other well.  Someone from one part of an inner city never meets someone from an upper class neighborhood.”

It occurs to me in the context of the ongoing debate about gun violence, parenting, video games, media, etc. that he’s right. I can make a no-cost phone call to London with something I carry in my pocket, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d have to ask my wife what our neighbor’s phone number (or last name) is.

At age 60, looking back on when I was growing up, I participated in activities—as did most of my contemporaries—which made those introductions from neighborhood to neighborhood and socio-economic group to socio-economic group.  It started in the Cub Scouts, continued in the Boy Scouts and, for me, went on to the Civil Air Patrol and then to college. My sisters were all Brownies and Girl Scouts and had much the same experience.

By the time I finished my freshman year at Southern Illinois University, I had indeed met folks from just about every kind of neighborhood (and some of those people are still friends today.)  I didn’t need a class in diversity because I lived it, growing up.

You would think, given the fact that we all carry Star Trek-style personal communicators these days, which are all capable of talking to anyone, anywhere, anytime that we would communicate with each other.

McChrystal is right.  We don’t.

When I was growing up, we lived in a subdivision.  Everybody knew each other.  The parents knew who their children were playing with.  When somebody new moved into the neighborhood, there was an immediate procession of neighbors to the door of the new folks, introducing themselves.

My late father and my late favorite uncle were known family-wide for talking to anybody about anything almost any place.  My uncle would drive the streets of New York with his windows down so he could start a conversation at red lights and in traffic jams.

Today, these conversations may be carried on by email and text message; but how many face-to-face interactions between people—neighbors even—are there as opposed to back in the 60s and 70s?

It’s a lot easier to do violence to people you don’t have any clue exist in the non-electronic world.  A whack job who communicates with no one gets a gun and kills 20 first graders, and we blame the gun?

Here are some interesting statistics from the Boy Scouts of America:

The number of Scouts nationally was at its peak in the early 1970s, with about 6.5 million. The number of all Scouts as of the end of 2010 was down to about 2.7 million, according to the BSA website.

It’s probably fair to assume that the same sort of declines exist in other youth-oriented groups.

That means that not nearly as many young people are meeting each other in the kind of environment that fosters lifetime relationships between kids of all sorts. For whatever the reason, meeting all kinds of people is no longer cool these days.

Maybe some sort of mandatory national service—military or otherwise—is an, if not the, answer.

Today’s society is a wonderful place for people who don’t like people.  You can communicate all you want without ever actually having to meet anyone.  You can have virtual friends who may or may not actually exist.

Maybe the only way to get people to know other people in today’s society is through some sort of national service which, at least, would have the additional benefit of binding the people to the nation they live in, as McChrystal suggested.

I’m not wild about the idea of allowing the government to become an extended babysitter, but I sure can see the benefits of extending military or civilian service to everybody between the ages of 18 and 20.

At the very least, it might give people from red states and blue states something in common.

And if we’re about to have a “national conversation” about violence, this certainly deserves to be part of the debate.

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Is Obama Black Enough To Call Out Black Parents Like Cosby Did?

January 4, 2013 by 10 Comments

Barack Obama 11 SC Is Obama Black Enough To Call Out Black Parents Like Cosby Did?

The fallout from the Connecticut school shooting and the ludicrous concept that reinstating the so-called assault weapons ban would stop future incidents has occupied this column for the past two weeks.

As I said last week, I hate writing about the same thing two weeks in a row; but this subject is multi-faceted and in areas you would not expect at first blush.

My thought is that the ultimate solution to any social problem is parenting; and to that end, I have a question of President Obama and his wife, who appear to be classic role models as a couple and as parents.

The latest information that the Federal Government has available is that in the black community—which voted 93 percent for Obama in 2012—72.1% of the births in 2008 were to unmarried mothers. That’s up from 37.5% in 1970.

72.1%.  Put another way, that means that roughly 721 out of every 1,000 black kids is raised in a fatherless household.

And it’s not like the rest of the nation has all that much to be proud of.  Hispanics clock in at 53.4% and whites at 35.9%, which are less eye-popping but are still an embarrassment.  In all, it’s a lot of single-parent households raising kids, mostly mothers.

So my question for the President and the First Lady is: “Where are you on this issue?”

Try finding a statement, pre or post his 2008 election from him or her on the issue.

He had plenty to say about gay marriage during the last election campaign.  He was all for that.

But you see the black-on-black crime statistics in places like, say, Chicago, and you have to wonder why America’s first black President has lost his voice.

One possible answer is that while Obama is undeniably black, he doesn’t have the street credibility of being black enough to lecture the black community the way a Bill Cosby did.  And Cosby, when he let loose his rant in 2004, took a huge beating from the black establishment. (He was unimpressed and continued to speak out.)

While Cosby is best known as an entertainer, he happens to have a PhD from UMass in education.  His credentials in the area are certainly the equal of the President’s.

He said at a dinner to honor the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision: “I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18, and how come you didn’t know that he had a pistol? And where is the father?”

There is no question that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are not the kind of parents Cosby was referring to.

But their silence is deafening.

It is similar to the silence we heard from many American Muslims who, after 9-11, were asked their opinion on radical islamists and answered “It is not for me to judge.”

I don’t know how much impact it would have if President Obama were to come out and say about his own black community what Cosby said, but it could not hurt. In fact, it could only be helpful.

And I’m a believer that even if he reaches just a small part of that constituency, it will have a good long-term effect. Far more effective than his inevitable political loss from an attempt at a gun ban of some sort.

I saw him on TV last weekend, and he told NBC’s David Gregory that he had to do something.

What he didn’t say was that whatever he did would necessarily have any effect.  The calculus seemed to be purely political.

And, of course, the chattering class on Meet the Press still doesn’t understand that one of the exact reasons the Second Amendment exists is to keep the government at arm’s length.  They likely never will.

We can only hope Obama, with no more campaigns ahead of him and no more elections to win, would break out of his political box and suggest to his most loyal constituency that two-parent households work.

Because gun-grabbing doesn’t.

If we’re going to have a “national conversation”, how about we talk about restoring parental responsibility as a concept instead of how we go about taking away a law-abiding citizen’s constitutional rights.

Photo credit: Geoff Livingston (Creative Commons)

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Reinstate 10 Commandments, Not Assault Weapons Ban

December 22, 2012 by 27 Comments

The Ten Commandments SC Reinstate 10 Commandments, Not Assault Weapons Ban

America’s attention was glued on a small town in Connecticut last weekend where a 20 year old kid killed 26 people, including 20 first graders, and then killed himself.  Previously, he had also killed his mother, whose guns he used in the attack.

The facts, as we know them, are these:

The shooter, Adam Lanza, used guns that were purchased legally in a state that has gun laws much more stringent than the national average.

He used a Bushmaster .223 caliber rifle to do most if not all of the killing. It fires the 5.56 millimeter NATO standard round.

The Bushmaster is a rifle that is no more or less functional than most rifles.  Mainstream media types want to call it an “assault weapon”; but the truth is that it is a pale imitation of most firearms worthy of the name.  Certainly not in the class of the military M4 model, which our SEALs used in the bin Laden raid, or the M16, which was standard issue in Viet Nam. The reason it is called a “semi-automatic” firearm is that each time you pull the trigger, as long as there is ammunition in the magazine, a bullet is fired.

It is painted flat black and looks menacing, but the only real thing this firearm has in common with rifles used in military assaults is that it will fire a large number of bullets—the technical terms is that it has a high capacity magazine—without being reloaded. Other than that, it is a civilian imitation of a military rifle which, like any firearm, will kill but is hardly what you want to take to war.

It appears that what happened is that this guy forced his way into the school and shot up two first grade classrooms.

That’s appalling, gruesome, horrific, and evil.

But it is not going to be stopped by passing a law that would remove a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. And, based on Supreme Court rulings in the past five years, that’s not going to happen anyway.

There are three reasons that additional gun laws will not work, despite the entire political class’s chattering for “taking action”.

The first reason is that we already have 200,000,000 guns in this country.  If we can’t deport 12-million illegal immigrants, we certainly could never confiscate 200,000,000 guns, certainly given that the right to bear them is constitutionally protected.  Even if you could waive the Second Amendment, you could not practically carry out the action.

The second reason is contained in the immortal words of Suzanna Gratia Hupp at a Congressional hearing on the assault weapons ban back in the 90s.  After telling the story of her leaving her personal weapon in her car and watching her father get shot to death in a Luby’s Cafeteria in Waco, Texas, she told the congressional committee: “The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting . . . it’s about our rights to protect ourselves from all of you guys up there.”

Over the weekend, I heard people who have probably never held a gun in their lives, much less fired one, ask “why does anyone need an assault weapon?” or “why does anyone need a 30 round magazine?” on the Sunday morning chattering shows.

Two answers.

First, I have an absolute right to protect myself, my family, and my property.  I live in a fairly rural area.  It might be awhile in the case of a home invasion before the “authorities” show up.  An AR15 with a 30-round clip is certainly not out of line in those circumstances as a defensive weapon. It would certainly be an equalizer.

Second, if only the government has such weapons, who will defend us from the government?  When the Second Amendment was written, our founding fathers had just won a bloody war with the British.  They understood that a government could easily become one of tyranny.  If that government knew that the people could fight back, they might be less motivated to become tyrants.

The third reason that additional gun laws would not prevent the sort of violence we saw last week is that we always want someone to blame when something this horrific and logically inexplicable happens.

Here’s an idea.

How about we go back to teaching our kids the 10 Commandments?

As a group of laws, they are simple, logical, and make sense.  The truth is that if everybody were as good a parent as President Obama and his wife appear to be, the number of these incidents would be much fewer.

Somewhere along the line in the last 40 years, parents started doing less parenting.  If we teach kids that killing each other is bad, maybe they’ll get the message.  Or is parental responsibility so 20th century that it no longer makes any difference?

Reporters covering the President reported over the weekend that he had said that Friday was the worst day of his Presidency.  If that is the case, than my respect for him has just increased markedly.  Because, while I disagree with him on most everything political, I think he may well get that only better parenting will solve this sort of violence in the long run.

Or, to put it as one of our founding fathers, Ben Franklin, did, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Photo credit: Gerry Dincher (Creative Commons)

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Like Butch And Sundance, Let’s Jump Over That Cliff

December 12, 2012 by 3 Comments

Financial cliff SC Like Butch and Sundance, Lets Jump Over That Cliff

Let’s talk about the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

It was a deal put originally together, by Barack Obama and a GOP House, that was considered to be so awful that surely both sides would blink and come up with a better deal before the tax cuts from the Bush administration and the payroll tax cut from Obama’s first term expire and an across the board spending cut that includes the Department of Defense kicks in.

The President and the chattering media class thinks that he has the upper hand because the public will blame the Republican House of Representatives if nothing happens.

And the Republicans, having just had Barack Obama open a can of Whupass on them in the last election, almost believe that.

So, Obama is saying no deal unless we tax the crap out of the rich and basically leave current spending where it is.

And, not surprisingly, given the institutional lack of backbone in Washington, many Republicans are talking about raising taxes to go along with Obama.

Nobody on the GOP side seems to be asking a very legitimate question:

Exactly what would happen if they simply do nothing?

True, for a few weeks, Obama will browbeat them.  And equally true, the media will also hammer them.

On the Jewish holiday of Passover, the text of the symbolic meal, the Seder, asks a Hebrew question. Transliterated, it is: “ma nishtana halaila hazeh?”, which in English means: Why is this night different from all other nights?

The Republicans in Congress need to ask themselves “ma nishtana halaila hazeh?”

Why is what would happen if they do nothing different from what always happens?

The truth is that they’re going to get hammered by both Obama and the media anyway; but if they do nothing, Obama has to live with an across the board spending cut that they would never, ever get any other way.

Sure, taxes would also go up; but the combination would put us on a path to fiscal sanity.

And there would probably be no need for a standoff on a debt ceiling increase because the combination of taxes and immediate spending cuts would remove the necessity for an increase.

Out here in the high desert, we don’t know much about economics.  We don’t work for Goldman Sachs, and we don’t have degrees in economics from Johns Hopkins University (unlike, say, Tim Geithner.)

But we did watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969, so we understand a little about jumping off of cliffs. And we think that if the Republicans in Congress would just stick to their guns, they’ll get their spending cuts; and Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid will ultimately get the grief for the tax increases and any economic fallout from the jump.

Can John Boehner really look us in the eye and tell us with a straight face that the Pentagon cannot do with a mere $478.1 BILLION in 2013, saving the taxpayers $47.3-BILLION out of their base budget?

Let’s stop kidding each other.  As important as we think defense is as a line item, we can probably squeeze a 9% budget savings out of it.  Like Butch and Sundance, we’ll probably land safely.

You’ll hear some Generals and Admirals and civilian defense contractor executives scream to high heaven; but, like Sundance, they’ll just have to learn to swim quickly.

Same for Medicare doctor reimbursements.

Maybe it will finally force us to look at our healthcare system with an eye to actually reducing costs as opposed to merely bloviating about it.

Think of it as being put on a forced diet.

As for the tax increases, Obama will find that Americans are a whole lot smarter than he gives them credit for; and behavior will start changing immediately to blunt them.  Accountants will reach out to help anybody who will listen to them, and so will the big tax preparation firms.  Nobody will get gouged too hard or for too long.

The lasting legacy will be the spending cuts and the fact that all future spending bills will have to originate in the House.  And the House will control the rest of Obama’s term, for better or worse.

So, let’s jump.  If the fall doesn’t kill us, we’ll probably escape.

Photo credit: healthreformexplained.com/fiscal-cliff/

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Costas, Whitlock Gun Comments Were Simply Ludicrous

December 7, 2012 by 6 Comments

Bob Costas CC wfuv1 Costas, Whitlock Gun Comments Were Simply Ludicrous

I’m not going to pile on Bob Costas for his ludicrous anti-gun comments on last Sunday night’s NBC Game of the Week.

I’m also not going to pile on Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock for writing part of what Costas said, which was equally ludicrous.

Here is the news from Arrowhead Stadium last Sunday that was important:

Kansas City 27, Carolina 21.

That’s what millions of NFL fans tuned in to see on Sunday.

Costas’ flaming lib position in the wake of a tragic murder-suicide that left Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, dead and their three month old child, Zoey, parentless was simply not appropriate to the game.

He’s certainly entitled to his opinion as is Whitlock, however wrong they might be.

And they are.

Costas’ speaking role at Mickey Mantle’s funeral must have gone to his head.  Maybe he thought of himself as America’s sports healer-in-chief.  He’s not.

Bob Costas is a gifted sports broadcaster.  He has a rare ability to both explain the game to people and not seem condescending in the process.  He also has a wonderful sense of history and proportion, none of which were on display at the halftime of the NBC broadcast on Sunday.

Let me put this in perspective.

I have a friend who is both a big liberal and a big NASCAR fan.

He thinks of Dale Earnhardt as a departed God and Richard Petty as a living religious figure.  The Billy Graham of speed.  He thinks of the infield at Talladega as the Holyland.  And he voted, twice, for Barack Obama.

When he tunes in for a race, he wants to know if Dale Junior’s engine will blow up, if Jeff Gordon is history as a contender, and if Mark Martin is really going to retire this year. The last thing he wants to hear is a conservative rant from Fox announcer Darrell Waltrip about politics and how they affect the individuals in the sport. And, I agree.

I also think it fair to make the comparison to the NFL.

It’s a game.  The altercation between Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend was tragic, and it was news.  It was news that had absolutely nothing, let me repeat that, NOTHING to do with gun control. Or the NFL.

Yet Costas was motivated to say the following:

Our current gun culture. . . ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy.  Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding . . . here, wrote Jason Whitlock, is what I believe: if Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.

Costas may be a great sportscaster; but as a political analyst, he’s no better or different than Chris Matthews.

The fact is we have no idea why Belcher snapped and killed the mother of his child before killing himself.

If a gun had not been available, it is nonsense to think he wouldn’t have committed the homicide some other way.  He shot her nine times, which indicates that he could have stabbed her in a rage or snapped her neck.

To blithely say that if Belcher did not possess a gun he and his girlfriend would be alive is to ignore reality.

And, frankly, for Whitlock to say that the National Rifle Association is the new Ku Klux Klan is pretty arrogant in view of the fact that if we do have a “gun culture”, it seems to be centered in the inner city and promoted by mostly black gang-bangers. Don’t blame white America for that, big guy.

If you don’t want people to kill each other with guns, then convince them not to kill each other.  Because if you could or would be successful at removing guns from this society, you would then have to remove baseball bats as well.

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Preparedness Is Not Political Or Even Conservative; It’s Smart

November 16, 2012 by 8 Comments

Hurricane SC Preparedness Is Not Political Or Even Conservative; Its Smart

The coverage of “Super Storm Sandy” has been incredibly overblown as you would expect from a storm that hit New York which, even in this day of the internet, fancies itself as the communications capital of the world.

And, if you live in places like Reno, Oklahoma City, Peoria, or Alamogordo, you have to chuckle a bit when you hear New Yorkers complaining about the government’s response to a storm.

We all would have some advice for them.

Get over it.

You live on a bunch of islands at or below sea level exposed to the Atlantic Ocean, and you honestly think you are not exposed to the elements?

Immediately after Hurricane Katrina leveled parts of New Orleans, we heard the same crap from people who live below sea level and whose state government wouldn’t let the Federal Government in until it was too late.  We had the same advice for them.  Sue God.

In case you have not figured this out, it is NOT the government’s job to save you from stupidity and a lack of preparedness.

And if you go through your life waiting for the Federal government—or any government for that matter—to bail you out, you will be waiting for a very long time.

FEMA’s real job is to help you with the paperwork.

It’s a government agency that is, like most government agencies, not capable of doing much else because it is a government agency.

Back when I was a teenaged cadet in the Civil Air Patrol (45 years ago), when the Mississippi flooded every spring, we went up state and filled sandbags.  No TV coverage or whining residents of Moline, Illinois.  Just volunteers doing what volunteers do.

Today, they don’t do that.

Today, we have unionized government employees who resent volunteers.

It is NOT the job of government to be a substitute for your lack of planning and preparedness.  In this nation, we have large groups of people who would be willing—more than willing—to volunteer their time, expertise, and money to help folks who get caught in an emergency.  We have churches, non government organizations like the Red Cross, and just plain folks.

But we have a government that almost discourages volunteerism under the guise that somehow, agencies like FEMA are up to the job.

Here’s a better idea.

Prepare yourself.

It makes sense to have a plan for natural disasters.  And it’s not that difficult.  And—contrary to the thinking of certain government officials—preparing for the worst doesn’t make you a subversive or even a conservative.  It makes you smart.

Keeping some non-perishable food, some potable water, an alternate power source, and an escape route makes a lot of sense depending upon where you live.

No government agency will do that for you, but you can do it yourself fairly easily.

This isn’t a political statement.

This is a statement of reality.

No matter how much you might wish that our government was all-encompassing and all-competent, the truth is that it is not. And, if it were, you would have NO liberty.

It is incapable of bailing you out of a natural disaster (and many other kinds of disasters), and you will be sadly disappointed if you allow yourself to be lulled into thinking otherwise.  In fact, you will look and sound just like the New Yorkers who are now living in their cars.

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What I Took Away From The Election…

November 7, 2012 by 12 Comments

Spirit Of Obama Class Warfare SC What I took away From The Election...

Class warfare works.

Or, as Bill O’Reilly said during the Fox News election pre-game show, “50% of America wants ‘stuff’ and Barack Obama will give them ‘stuff’”.

Republicans and conservatives didn’t factor in the resentment towards the big banks which the “folks”, as O’Reilly calls them, have.

In retrospect, it’s understandable.

The financial system has always been rigged against the little guy. And, by the way, it’s not like Barack Obama and his ilk aren’t whores for Wall Street as well. They just articulated their indignation better.

The truth is that banks like Goldman Sachs have always found ways to make money from little guys. The trick has always been, in the past, to not rub their noses in it.

The minute the government bailed out American Insurance Group (AIG) and, by extension, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and their buddies, everybody who lost their house or knows somebody who did or lost their job decided they, too, were entitled to the same kind of welfare.

So, Mitt Romney was right.

By default, he had lost the 47% of the country who pay no taxes.

That’s a hard start to overcome, no matter how decent a guy you are and no matter how much sense you make as a businessman.

So, where are we now?

We have a President who is just as incompetent today as he was last week. I still don’t believe he is some kind of an evil genius who would enslave us. But his incompetence will severely limit the progress this nation can make.

The social agenda he would like to see will fail under its own weight.

A $16-trillion debt will stop a whole lot of new spending all by itself.

And, just for good measure, nothing much is going to happen from a legislative front because the American voters wisely left a Republican House of Representatives intact, thus insuring at least two years of gridlock.

Unless Obama decides he really wants to work with the Republican House and our idiot water boy Harry Reid does the same, nothing good is going to come out of Washington for at least two years and probably four.

Since Reid said that he, himself, would make sure that a President Romney could not work with Senate Democrats, we cannot imagine that he will work with the Republican House.

So, your taxes will rise, the defense budget will be drastically cut, and inflation will run rampant because these clowns are too incompetent to do anything else.

The only way out is for Obama to show something he has only talked about in four years—leadership.

In order to do so, he would have to look his constituencies in the eye and say that nobody—especially the big banks—are getting “stuff”. And that also includes unions, individuals, anybody. Because we simply cannot afford it.

Also, Obama has to do something about what is going to be a bigger and bigger issue as time goes on—energy independence.

He needs to tell the folks who would like to see us not drive cars that their vision is insane and that we are going to drill and build pipelines. $3.50 a gallon gas is a tax on everyone who wants “stuff” from the government. The best “stuff” Obama could deliver would be energy independence from the Arab Middle East.

If he chooses to continue in a second term the way he conducted his first, than his victory will be a pyrrhic one.

Mitt Romney fought a good fight. He lost. He would make a good Secretary of the Treasury or Secretary of Commerce. That would probably never happen; but given Obama’s current level of incompetence, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for him to consider.

Photo credit: terrellaftermath

 

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If Obama Really Wants A Fight, He’ll Get One

November 4, 2012 by 64 Comments

Obama The View Eye Candy SC If Obama Really Wants A Fight, Hell Get One

Last week, I wrote my once-every-election-cycle editorial suggesting that the Republic will survive even the re-election of Barack Hussein Obama.

I got many emails and comments from people who are of the apparently genuine opinion that it will not and that Obama is the tip of a spear to take over the nation’s government, possibly in a violent manner.

Let’s assume for a minute that is true.  And I still do not believe that it is.

It is still not gonna happen.

It won’t happen for a number of reasons, but the biggest is that the vast majority of Americans—yes, Richard Nixon’s “silent majority”—would fight back.

Barack Obama may not be afraid of the everyday citizens who may have voted for him, but the actual people who would be called upon to fire on their fellow citizens in such a situation are, simply put, a lot smarter.

If you think that any President has the ability to make our military use force against our own citizens, think back to May 4, 1970 when some National Guard troops at Ken State University fired on and killed some students who were protesting the war in Vietnam.

It was the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency.

And believe me, Richard Nixon on his worst day had a much better grasp of how to run a government than Obama and his peeps would have on their best day.

The chances of a majority of our military supporting an order from the likes of a Barack Obama to use lethal force on their fellow citizens are not very good.

And if they did, all it would take is one Kent State incident to start a civil war.

Remember, in 1970, we didn’t have geosynchronous satellites, 500 TV channels, the internet, or, for the most part, email.

It was a cover photo of Newsweek that caused all hell to break loose.

The news cycles ran seven days, not seven hours.

What keeps our government from doing what many of those who commented on last week’s column suspect Obama is up to, is the same thing that stopped us from having a nuclear war with the former Soviet Union.  Mutually assured destruction.

It is axiomatic that he who ignores history is condemned to repeat it.

I’m not saying that an attempt on our freedoms cannot occur.  In some respects, it happens every day.

What I’m saying is that as long as we all stand vigilant, it can never succeed.

I’m not making light of your concerns.

I’m merely pointing out that the very fact you have those concerns make it very unlikely that the likes of a Barack Obama could “fundamentally transform” America.

Throughout history, the American people have proven they will only put up with so much.

That kept Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter in line.  We survived them.

Obama, as I have previously pointed out, is hardly central casting for the Manchurian Candidate.

He’s arrogant, ignorant, and incompetent.  Worse, he surrounds himself with like people.

Not only will the Republic survive him; it will shrug his efforts off like it has throughout history.

And if that doesn’t work, well, this nation was started in a revolution.  And like I said, he who ignores history is condemned to repeat it.

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