Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category

Service in the Military is about…Service

Friday, January 25th, 2013

Good of the Service?

One of the most frustrating things revealed about American culture these days could be seen in the wake of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s move to include women in front-line combat.  Media outlets immediately sought out comments particularly from women, and particularly from veterans and current service members. The responses portrayed were almost uniformly positive, but most of the responses I saw or heard in media were entirely vapid.  In local media, one younger man was asked his opinion, and his response was approximately that it’s “a good thing that women will be treated equally.”  Two things about this exercise are particular despicable to me, and I don’t know which is worse:  The degree to which the media helps drive public opinion, or the simple fact that public opinion is so easily driven. To me, it’s obvious that far too many of our citizens no longer think before speaking, because that sort of assessment misses the entire point of military service, and the purpose of the military altogether.  Simply put, service in the military isn’t at all about you.

To those who may be somewhat confused, let me preface the discussion with a few simple facts.  The purpose of the military is to be the war-fighting appendage of the nation, and its role ought to be nothing more or less than to obtain victory in the missions into which the chain-of-command thrusts the services, with the goal of victory at minimal cost.  Victory first, cost minimization second.  Everything else the military does is pointless if it doesn’t accomplish these things, in this order.  We could have a much larger military spending our entire GDP in support of it, but that would defeat the purpose of defending the country, since nobody would have the funds for any other purpose.  Let us admit then that we wish to spend roughly that which it takes in blood and treasure, but no more, in defending the country and carrying out the war-fighting missions of our nation.

Naturally, a military unable to defend the country, or to obtain victory, is pointless in most respects.  If the military force we fund is unable to protect the nation, one must ask: Why fund it at all?  Do we like parades so well that we will support them with hundreds of billions of dollars, in perpetuity, with no hope that the force we’ve built can defend the nation and win its wars?  This would be preposterous, both from an economic and a moral standpoint.  Let us then admit that the first mission of the military, and the most critical end for which it is formed is to fight our battles, win our wars, and to do so while spending as little in blood and treasure as we’re reasonably able.

Having said this, let us examine the notions advanced by the vast bulk of those approving publicly the notion of women in combat as a matter of fairness and equality to women.  Let it be noted at the outset that the purpose of the military is not fairness, and not some contrived notion of radical egalitarianism, but the defense of the nation, and any policy imposed on the force must meet the singular test posed by the premise that the purpose of the military is to win our wars, and to defend our country while exacting the lowest reasonable cost in lives and money.

If a policy is implemented that doesn’t serve that end, or improve that goal, we must ask why our leaders would undertake it.  I would like for one military logistical analyst or one combat veteran to explain how either of the two goals explained above are augmented by including women in front-line combat.  There may be a good deal of emotionally-charged political grandstanding, but the factual answer is that combat effectiveness of units will be degraded by the mass-inclusion of women in combat roles.  You may not like reading these words, but they are no less true for your opposition.

Women do not meet the same rigorous physical standards as men.  Don’t take it from me, but instead take it directly from the Army’s Physical Fitness Test scoring system.  For the purpose of this discussion, I have built a table with data from the scoring tables available elsewhere. This table is a condensed representation of the difference in standards between male and female soldiers, aged 17-21, as currently in use by the United States Army. The Army uses three events to rate the fitness of soldiers, being the push-up, the sit-up, and the two-mile run, performed in that order by official scorekeepers. The first two events are time-limited to two minutes each. I have placed the top and bottom passing scores possible for each sex, in each event. Please direct your attention to this table:

Push-ups
Sit-ups
2-Mile Run
Repetitions
Points
Repetitions
Points
Time
Points
Male Maximum
71
100
78
100
13:00
100
Male Minimum
42
60
53
60
15:54
60
Female Maximum
42
100
78
100
15:36
100
Female Minimum
19
60
53
60
18:54
60

The entire APFT(Army Physical Fitness Test) is based on a minimum passing score of 180, and a maximum of 300 points. In the Army, this has a bearing on promotions particular from E-4 to E-5 and from E-5 to E-6. I would like readers to observe particularly the vast performance disparity in both Push-ups and the 2-Mile run. Notice that the Maximum Score for women is obtained in Push-ups at the minimum passing score for men, and that the Maximum Score in the 2-Mile Run for women is just eighteen seconds faster than the slowest time acceptable for men.

One can argue over how much these differences would matter in support units(although they could, and probably do,) but on the battlefield, and in combat units, this is an unmitigated disaster. What’s worse, the actual difference in the Push-Up event is much greater than these scores reveal, because the average woman is shorter and lighter, both qualities placing the individual at mechanical advantage in the event. A 5’10″ male weighting 170 lbs. will on average find it easier to obtain a high score in the push-up event than a 6’2″ male,perhaps slightly more muscular, but weighing 190 lbs. Due to physiological differences between men and women, these vastly differing standards describe a significant disparity in capacity. We can wonder about how much that might matter in a rear area driving a truck, but in a forward area, heaving 100-lbs 155mm artillery projectiles around, it is bound to be quite inhibiting. Climbing in and out of the foxhole, pulling oneself up over walls and barriers, or having to carry a wounded comrade would quickly expose the difference.

What one cannot seriously argue is that the average woman serving will always obtain the top scores, or that the average man serving will only obtain the bottom.  This disparity describes a vast variance in capability that can be lethal on the battlefield.  It is not to say that there is no variance among men, but it is to say that the difference between the average man in the force and the average woman in the force is certain to be substantial.  Since the military can only make rules that ultimately describe the average, perhaps rewarding those substantially above the mean, while ejecting those well below it, we must deal with the average, but not the exceptions.

The question then becomes:  What does a military combat unit gain and/or lose by including women in direct combat roles?  The simple truth is that in terms of the mission, and the likely costs of achieving it, this is an equation that spells potential or even probable disaster.  The notion being advanced by those who advocate the idea is that the rewards achieved are social and/or individual.  It is said by some that women add something intangible to the force by virtue of their presence, that justifies the additional losses in blood and treasure that their presence will on average impose.  That may seem like a nifty argument unless it’s your blood or your treasure being unnecessarily expended, in which case it’s not such a good idea after all, and all the mystical-sounding social “wisdom” loses its ephemeral sheen.

The other argument is purely individual, and it is made in terms of notions of equality of opportunity.  Let me explain this in simplest terms so that the brutally thoughtless might grasp it:  The Armed Services do not exist to hand out opportunities for self-actualization, career advancement, personal gratification, or anything else of the sort.  One might obtain some or all of those things through military service, but at the very least, this is and ought remain a tertiary concern for the chain of command.  Again, chief concerns must be mission accomplishment and minimal cost, and in that pursuit, the services ought to retain every tool of discrimination at their disposal.

Some will misunderstand my usage of “discrimination” as meaning wanton, arbitrary rejection of some people for irrational cause(s.)  This is not the meaning I intend, instead applying the usage that describes making a rational choice for rational purposes in the manner one shops for automobiles or smart-phones.  In this sense, we all discriminate daily, many times over, and to good effect because it generally results in improved products or services since we will tend to opt for those most likely to satisfy our purposes.

Constructing a fighting force is no different, in fact, but  just as Samsung can’t sue you for discrimination because you opted for Apple’s “iPhone” instead of the former’s “Galaxy,” the military is usually immune from lawsuits by merely stating their decisions in the context of the best interests of the service involved.  What so many people don’t seem to understand is that military service is not an ordinary workplace, to which one can apply at will, and resign at whim.  In the civilian sector, one has every remedy under the sun available if there is irrational discrimination, but under the martial authority that is the military, and as an institution for the nation’s defense, such concepts are foreign and irrelevant.

It highlights the misunderstanding of what military service is, and isn’t.  Too many people in our culture are now possessed of an entitlement mindset, a notion that they too readily apply to the most farcical situation.  There is no entitlement to be an infantry soldier.  You can sign up for the infantry if you like, and if the Army will let you, but if after completing your initial training, the DoD decides that for the moment, they need more cooks, you’d better prepare to learn the ins and outs of a DFAC(Dining Facility – formerly known as the Mess-hall) because irrespective of the MOS(Military Occupational Specialty) for which you enlisted, you serve the needs of the Army first – not your own.

How many very good and able persons have wanted to be pilots in the military only to be told that since their vision requires corrective lenses to be at least 20/20, they are ineligible for that role?  Will the Americans With Disabilities Act now be taken to apply to military service?  There are people advocating such notions already, but what mustn’t be lost in all of this is the reason the military is given extraordinary power to discriminate on the basis of factors that would not be legally acceptable or morally proper in the civilian population:  The function of the military is to keep the rest of us safe.

This is why I am so thoroughly disgusted by the coverage of this change in policy given by the media.  It ignores the fact that this is a politically-based decision that merits no consideration whatever in a professional military.  A professional military would study, objectively – without subservience to politicians’ whims, the impact of replacing approximately half of its combat forces with the average female enlistee.  It would not consider the exceptional few who would describe the upper tail of the bell-curve on physical performance, but instead the median performer.  Under that scrutiny, this entire notion would be abolished in one minute, because it does not serve the interests of the mission, or the minimization of the mission’s costs in blood and treasure.  Our forces must accomplish their missions with as many as possible able to come home alive and in one piece, and that should be the enduring criteria of every person charged with command over troops in combat, from Lieutenant to Commander-in-Chief.

What we must not do is to permit the armed services of the United States to be degraded further in its capabilities for the sake of contrived notions of equality that have no relevance on the battlefield.  We don’t seek equality on the battlefield with our enemies, but instead seek every advantage, as they do.  That’s the nature of war, where a single moment in a single battle can change the fortunes of nations, so that every advantage is precious.  How many advantages do we wish to yield to our present and future enemies in pursuit of a nonsensical notion of equality?  After all, the only real equality that exists on a battlefield is the one obtained in death.

Sadly, if we adopt policies that place more service-members in disadvantageous positions in combat, we will see more equality of the fatal sort too, but that must be the inevitable result when policies are not based on the realities of war, but instead on the basis of the wishes of some impractical, egg-headed “constitutional scholar” in the ivory tower at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and the legion of nit-wits he has convinced to believe that military service is about them.  There’s a reason it’s widely considered a “sacrifice.”  Notions of equality that interfere with or hamper the military’s mission are among the things one voluntarily surrenders.

Editor’s Note: You should not be surprised that this story broke just in time for the Wednesday evening news cycle, because the whole purpose for which this story was pushed to the media at that time was clearly to remove Hillary Clinton’s wretched  testimony in the Senate from the position as top story. This is naturally an important issue, but it is news only in the respect that it’s been pushed to the surface as a way to change the subject.  Period.  Now we’ll argue over this instead of the disgusting dishonesty of Hillary Clinton on behalf of the Obama administration.

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Posted in Activism, Featured, Military Affairs, News, Obama, Politics, Veterans, War | 2 Comments »

Fiasco: Rapper Escorted Out of Pre-Inaugural Event for Criticizing Obama

Monday, January 21st, 2013

Pulled From Stage

Don’t you love the left?  They have such reverence for the First Amendment’s protections of free speech, don’t they?  No, they don’t.  Now some will say that it was in bad form to be an invited performer at the President’s pre-inaugural bash, and then to bash on the the President, and I can’t disagree with any of that, except that these are the people who swear that free speech must be tolerated in every case short of the shouting of “Fire!” in a crowded theater, or anything they consider “hate speech,” or anything else they simply don’t like.  I suppose this performance by rapper Lupe Fiasco must have fallen into the latter categories, because once he started criticizing Obama, the thought police descended on him rapidly.

Check out this video, H/T GatewayPundit:

As you can see in the video, once the rapper proclaims he didn’t vote for Obama, it was time to shut him down.  Naturallyy I won’t be shedding too many tears over Fiasco’s…Fiasco, but that’s because he’s another leftwing imbecile who believes the United States causes all of the terrorism against it.  Yes, his chief complaint with Obama is that he’s not liberal enough, but perhaps by throwing the rapper out, he’ll notice where liberalism always leads.

According to the Daily Caller, after the event, the organizers were contacted and they claimed Fiasco hadn’t been forcibly removed, but that’s just cover.  The video clearly displays the rapper getting “the hook…” I’m not much of a rap fan, but I must admit I liked the part “why I ain’t vote for him…” That’s just a classy line.  Of course, lefties will cheer Fiasco anyway, since he first managed to call Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck “racist.”

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Posted in Featured, Free Speech, Leftist Cabal, Obama, Politics, video | 1 Comment »

Obama Preparing for Second Term Rampage

Monday, January 21st, 2013

Readying His Assault

I hope conservatives are up for a battle, because they’re about to find themselves in one.  President Obama will waste no time attacking Republicans, particularly conservatives, as he intends to go for the throat on guns through a legislative agenda.  As I reported to you earlier, David Plouffe is telling the press that Obama has the votes for some kind of gun control measure in Congress, but if you think that all there is to this is some sort of political prognostication, you’re in for a surprise.  It’s time to get proactive, so I’m going to tell you what I think the Democrats and their leftist cabal intend to do.  You will remember that President Obama said in his speech on “Gun Violence Reduction” that pressure should be put on Congressional members from districts that don’t ordinarily favor such measures. Don’t doubt that this President is now preparing to lay siege to your liberties, and that the next four years will make the last four seem almost pleasant. He’s readying his forces, and they’re now ready to attack.

Let me tell you what I believe they are planning, because the left is nothing if not well-organized and shrewd.  They mean to make it very difficult for your House members to stand, and they intend to make a spectacle wherever they are able.  Between now and whenever the legislation already sitting on Feinstein’s desk is brought to the floor of the House, Obama expects that various members of the Republican caucus in the House will go home at some point to hold town hall meetings with constituents.  Remembering the effectiveness of such events when used against Democrats in 2009, on the subject of Obama-care, you can expect leftist groups to fill these town hall meetings in order to put on embarrassing shows from which the previously steadfast members will quickly retreat to contemplate surrender.

This must be prevented, but since town hall meetings should happen, there being nothing wrong with that form of communication with constituents, we must flood the meeting places with our own number, and be prepared to loudly jeer any gun-grabbing malcontents.  Most of these members will only take questions from their own district’s constituents, but that won’t stop the left from simply lying about their residency.  While we shouldn’t lie in order to ask questions of congressional members in whose districts we do not live, there is nothing that says we can’t loudly jeer leftist questioners irrespective of their residency.

It’s hard to make a good YouTube moment out of an attempt to ambush some congressional member with some set-up question if the moment it becomes plain what you’re up to, the rest of the crowd loudly voices its disbelief and disapproval.  If you want to know at least part of what Obama’s minions plan, you should expect variations of this sort of thing.  More, your members should be forewarned of this potential and be prepared to answer idiots with the answers they deserve, while remaining respectful and clear-headed about the intent behind the questions.  A community agitator like Obama will never miss an opportunity to make the most of such situations, but being prepared for the onslaught is the best way to blunt its impact.

The other thing we ought to consider, particularly those of you who live in districts where members are so-called “blue dog Democrats” is that you have a similar opportunity.  In fact, there’s nothing that says a Democrat shouldn’t have to answer your pointed questions about a gun control agenda, and if the members’ answers are asinine, there’s no reason they shouldn’t get a verbal dose of your ire.  After the left got pasted with the negative coverage from town-hall meetings in the summer of 2009, they immediately recognized the value of the tactic and began to try to turn tables on the Republicans.  They met with mixed results, but they haven’t given up, and on an issue so fundamental to the political divide in this country, you can bet they will be putting maximum effort into their propaganda operations.  You shouldn’t permit it, and only your presence at such events offers the chance to deny them their propaganda victories.

Expect them to go so far as to haul out children, and tempt you to “boo” little kids asking their congressional members a question about school shootings.  I’m telling you that the left will stoop that far, and if any Republican member thinks he or she may be unable to withstand such tactics, they ought to quit and go home.  Again, the members must be forewarned, and prepared to answer carefully and respectfully, and the way we can blunt such things is not to jeer children who have obviously been put up to this garbage, but to cheer the members who manage to fetch a proper response from the pits of their bellies.

Of course, Obama won’t stop with these sorts of tactics, but given his predilection for conflict engineering, you should expect the worst.  To pretend that liberty is not under siege in America is a dangerous self-delusion we cannot afford, but there is nothing yet etched in stone that demands our capitulation, and it’s time we began to make our presence felt once again.  Obama will not cease, so it must be accepted from this moment forth that we will need to man the ramparts of freedom from now until he leaves office.  We must prepare Republicans for the onslaught lest they surrender liberty on our behalf.

Naturally, gun control is far from all that is on Barack Obama’s agenda, as he is still seeking some kind of comprehensive immigration reform that will doubtless consist of amnesty, however they will disguise it. As you know, he’s already taken a number of measures through the use of executive orders in a constitutionally questionable fashion, but now he wants to cement this into law so that a future President couldn’t just as easily undo it.  For those who come to think of this as one of the issues where Republicans must modify their position in adjustment for changing demographics, I’d beg you to reconsider.  Many of the people presumed to be the target of this legislation are in fact opposed to it.  What conservatives must by now recognize is that attempting to pander on this issue is more likely to lose them support than to gain any.

Once again, the media will be compliant, and since the RINO wing of the party is much in favor of this, there may be no way to stop an aggregation of liberal Republicans and the Democrats in Congress from pushing legislation through in the same manner as the fiscal cliff deal was passed.  As all of this goes on, we’re hurdling toward another moment for choosing, when Republicans will be compelled to decide whether to stand on principle or abandon them over the Debt Ceiling.  There are already many rumblings suggesting the leadership is looking at surrendering on this issue again, and if so, it will mark the death of a viable Republican majority in the House, at least with the current cast of characters.  Obama knows this, and will push the House Republicans to a sudden fracture.

Part of Obama’s tactic is to carry on as if he has every advantage, and to pretend as though he’s winning every argument, but whatever the weak-kneed Republicans in the House may do, you mustn’t concede the point.  If true character is revealed in moments of crisis, may we find the best within us now, for America is slipping into a deepening crisis, but if it is to be saved, it will be done by the tireless exertions of patriots who will not permit themselves to fail.  Obama will now raise the stakes, and we must contest this all the next four years with a resolve that would make our founding fathers proud.   We mustn’t permit the greatest country mankind has ever known to slip easily through our fingers.  It’s for all the marbles now, and anything less than our best effort may well end in disaster.

Obama’s preparing. Are you?

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Posted in Activism, Conservatism, Featured, News, Obama, Politics | 2 Comments »

Obama Confesses Momentary Defeat

Thursday, January 17th, 2013

Sore winner?

It’s true that President Obama didn’t verbally admit defeat as he announced his new measures and legislative agenda on gun violence(a.k.a. Gun Control,) but that is the meaning of his seemingly tepid measures to combat “gun violence.”  If the grotesque spectacle of the President of the United States reading letters allegedly from children isn’t enough, and delivering this while standing in front of children used entirely as a propaganda tool doesn’t go too far, then the idea that he would exploit the tragedies of Newtown, CT, or Aurora, CO as  impetus for these actions should very nearly push you over the edge.  Sadly, all that will be accomplished even if the entire slate of Obama’s proposals are adopted is to cause the number of children killed by mad-men to increase, ultimately leaving more law-abiding Americans less able to defend themselves and their families.  Despite all of this, there is one hopeful sign in today’s actions, or the lack of more overt ones:  The left knows they could not easily win this battle so they’ve chosen not to engage directly, at least for the moment.  This is more back-door action, aimed at a future situation when they hope to be able to confiscate guns at will. This is the sole reason Obama did not press even more tyrannical measures through the use of executive orders.  Today, Obama soundlessly  admitted defeat, for now, but he’ll be back…with a vengeance.

I must also tell you that there are some very insidious provisions hidden in the plain language of his orders, and it’s time for you veterans to wake up and pay attention.  We have long known that the left would like to go after veterans, because they see us as a potential force of resistance to the tyranny they desire.  One of these executive orders requires information sharing among all departments of government, so I want you to know, those of you who are veterans, that if you permit yourself to be classified as having PTSD(Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,) there is a high probability that they will be coming after your guns, or at least your right to procure one, with this set of  executive orders.  I am not suggesting that those with real cases of PTSD shouldn’t seek help, but I am suggesting that those seeking help should go into it with their eyes open. At first glance, the slate of executive orders this President has issued doesn’t seem to be that obnoxious, but I’d ask you to reconsider.  This president has decided that doctors must violate their confidentiality with patients or face potential sanctions or at the very least, civil liability.  These measures really go too far, but since many Americans seem to be accepting that the President is screwing around with their health-care, they probably won’t mind if he gives orders to their doctors.

Despite all of the ginned-up polls suggesting Americans favor stronger gun control, what you will discover is that this issue doesn’t make the top five in importance. More, there is a great gender gap between men and women.  A majority of men oppose the ban of semi-automatic weapons, while nearly two-thirds of women favor that measure.  More important is the assessment of the root cause of guns violence.  As the pie chart below from CNN demonstrates, the availability of guns is seen as the leading cause of gun violence by less than one-fourth of respondents.  Fully three-fourths of respondents attributed gun violence to the influences of the popular culture or to the way parents raise their children.  This is hardly a glowing endorsement of the proposal that limiting firearms, magazines, or bullets will reduce gun violence.

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/pollingcenter/polls/3380

The NRA’s ad attacking President Obama’s hypocrisy would seem to ring true to a larger number of Americans than the intelligentsia inside the DC beltway might otherwise imagine.  In the same round of polls, CNN found that a clear majority of Americans (a larger percentage than re-elected this President,) favor armed guards in schools.  Here’s that pie chart:

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/pollingcenter/polls/3381

In typical Obama fashion, the White House Spokes-Puke Jay Carney responded to the NRA ad, accusing them of attacking the President’s children. Naturally, the Fox News Beltway Boys with Bret Baier but featuring Krauthammer and Williams concluded that the NRA was out of line with the ad, but the NRA didn’t attack the President’s children, nor did they suggest the President’s children should not have protection, but the dunderheads on Fox News seemed oblivious to that fact. Instead, each in turn cravenly conceded to the notion that the NRA’s ad had been ugly.  Apparently, most of the people in the country are inclined to agree with the notion that everybody’s children should have protection at school, as that was the actual point the NRA video was intended to make, along with pointing out the hypocrisy of President Obama. Leave it to Beltway media folk to get this one wrong.

Perhaps the most telling portion of the CNN poll is the question of whether stricter gun control would reduce gun violence. Fully three in five Americans believe stricter gun laws will do nothing to reduce violence, while just thirty-nine percent believe the opposite.  Here’s the chart from CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/pollingcenter/polls/3379

Overall, and owing entirely to the gender gap described above, fifty-five percent of Americans currently favor stronger gun laws.  This CNN chart tells the story, although they admit that this has fallen nearly eight percentage points since immediately after the Newtown shooting:

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/pollingcenter/polls/3377

 

Many will offer that this poll owes to the ignorance of many people who don’t know a semi-automatic from an automatic rifle, and who do not grasp the obvious truth that bad people will do bad things irrespective of the particular weapons they ultimately choose.  If guns aren’t available, they’ll find something else, like fertilizer, and build a bomb, or crash an airplane into a building.  Most Americans remain sensible enough to realize that crazy and/or evil people will always do immense harm when they see an opportunity to do so.

For my part, I take some solace in the fact that Obama didn’t try to impose even more tyrannical things than those already represented by today’s twenty-three executive orders, and you should expect that he will pursue them if he sees a political opening to do so.  Besides, with Boehner running the House, Obama may yet try an end-around and get some of the weak-kneed Republicans in that body to act in conjunction with Democrats, to re-impose a Federal Assault Weapons ban, or impose limits on magazine capacity, but the problem remains that once you get outside the liberal havens represented by the Northeast corridor, the popularity of such proposals drops dramatically, which is why Obama today encouraged people to put pressure on members of Congress outside those safely blue zones.  In truth, the drive for gun control matches in character the national by-county mappings of Obama’s electoral victory, but in fact, it’s not even that strong since some counties that are blue on that map would inevitably express opposition to gun control.

As bad as this has been, and as ridiculous as Obama’s executive orders may be, I want you to understand that if he sees an opening, it will be far, far worse.  It’s also important to remember that he’s going to be applying maximum pressure against even the more conservative members of the House to see what he can get shoved through, since the Senate will undoubtedly do his bidding.  This President hasn’t given up on his desire to disarm Americans, but for the moment, he clearly doesn’t think the political will exists to ram the whole thing through.  If he did, he would have done so, and the battle would look quite different tonight.  What I would urge patriots to do is to avoid complacency, and to keep pressure on their members of the House, and on Republican leadership as well, to oppose more of this gun control agenda that a wide majority of Americans already recognize will have no impact on gun violence.  We need also to get more people who are currently on the fence, or even opposed to consider our arguments.  Maybe you have a few single women in your circle, some of whom buy into this gun-control nonsense.  It’s time to get them to the range, empower them, show them how guns can provide them far more protection than some poor overworked cop who may be dispatched eventually when they call 9-1-1, but who will frequently arrive much too late.

The dirty secret they won’t tell you about is why they go after so-called “assault weapons” when the vast majority of all gun murders are committed with hand-guns is that over the last number of years, women have been arming-up in record numbers.  That’s right, “Julia” is more likely to be packing heat.  Showing more women that they have less to fear from guns than from lacking them in a moment of need should be a priority for all gun-owners.  The more responsible citizens who have guns, train to use them, and are confident and capable in their own defense, the less relevant this nonsensical drive for gun control will become.  There’s simply no better way for a woman to become the physical equal or superior of her attacker than through arms.  There is no means available by which she can more forcefully defend her family than through the disciplined training and use of firearms should the situation call for it.

If you want to know why I believe Obama unintentionally signaled an at least temporary hold on his gun control agenda, it is because he is confronted with these facts.  When CNN’s own polling makes the case so thinly, it’s a good deal worse for their side than their polls are likely to indicate.  A five-point swing nullifies the gun-grabbers edge, and they know it.  As more people lift the veil of ignorance and seek out facts about guns and gun violence, they’re apt to shift more rapidly in many quarters to favor the rational side of this argument.  Part of being a citizen of this great country is making the effort to inform your fellow citizens about pressing facts they may not know. That must be the root of our continuing efforts to stave off future tyrannical actions.  We still don’t know what the moderate Republicans in the House will do if cornered on such legislation, and with Boehner conducting negotiations, we mustn’t let our guard down.  Despotism often takes root when citizens become complacent, and if today’s stage-show with Obama demonstrates anything, it is the fact that we must grow louder, stronger, and more numerous if we are to defend our remaining liberties, never mind take back those already lost.  You can bet that during the immediate future, Obama and his cohorts will be pushing hard to make as much political hay of this latest horrific event as they are able.  If there’s one line we must not let them cross, this is it, and while national sentiments may be their reason for a moment of pause, we must not take that for granted.

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Posted in Activism, Gun Rights, News, Obama, Politics | 4 Comments »

NRA Video Slams Obama Hypocrisy

Wednesday, January 16th, 2013

There’s not much one can add to the simplicity of this message. Barack Obama’s children go to school and enjoy the protection of armed guards. Why should your kids have any less? This video courtesy of the National Rifle Association’s NRA Stand and Fight website:

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Posted in Featured, Gun Rights, News, Obama, Politics, video | 1 Comment »

Convicting the Innocent in Lieu of the Guilty

Sunday, January 13th, 2013

Franklin’s Proposal

Barack Obama and the forces of the left want to deprive me of my rights.  Naturally, they want to strip you of your as well.  In that sense, let us admit that they are equal opportunity despots.  There’s a problem, however, and it’s simply this: I have committed no crime and no tort, and I have harmed no other living person, and after nearly half a century on the planet, and with nearly thirty years bearing arms, both privately and on behalf of my country, there are no innocent victims littering a bloody trail behind me.  Obama and his minions would have you believe that their intention is to reduce gun violence, but that’s simply not true.  The real intention is to punish the innocent, and to reward the guilty, but decent Americans who abide the law should have the clarity of conscience to reject the charge and to demand that the Obama administration prove our guilt before depriving us of our liberties.  You see, that’s how it is supposed to work:  The Constitution accords us each due process of law before our rights may be suspended, violated or infringed. Rather than confront the real problem, the gun-grabbers are building sentiment for punishing the innocent in lieu of the guilty.

There is no such notion in American law as a collectivized guilt to be shared between the innocent as well as the guilty.  Both our civil and criminal legal systems are based in individualized concepts of justice. The Fifth Amendment as well as the Second guarantee that neither Obama nor Congress can take our guns simply because they concoct a figment of law in order to compel you. The Fifth Amendment’s text explains the context in which your rights may be suspended or violated:

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.“(Emphasis added)

The relevant portions of this amendment make it plain that I am entitled to due process of law, and that due process is every bit as much an individual right as any other guaranteed by the constitution, although the government has gotten in the habit of pretending otherwise.  I have a right to my arms, to bear them, and to maintain them in perpetuity without governmental interference, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment.  So long as that Amendment remains in force, in order to strip me of that right, the government must first accuse me of a crime, convince a jury of my guilt, and sentence me accordingly.  I have the right to have my day in court, present a defense, and provide exculpatory evidence on my behalf.  Leftists like to pretend that when Congress passes a law and the President signs it, or he enacts new regulations or dicta, this is all the due process to which individuals are entitled, but this is not the case particularly when we are talking about rights explicitly enumerated in the Constitution.   The due process clause clearly applies to individuals.  The text makes that fact plain, since it is written with a singular pronoun:  In describing the “person” who shall have due process of law,  it says: “himself.” One needn’t be a constitutional attorney or a Supreme Court justice to recognize the plain language of the constitution and to understand its meaning.

On this basis, I wish then to know when each of us will be charged in some manner, according to some law, on the basis of which Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and their host of Marxist brethren will present indictments against each of us.  I want to know the charges against me.  I want to know what is my alleged guilt so that I may be deprived of my explicit liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution.  Passing a law to outlaw this gun or that magazine, subsequently accusing me of violating it, does not pass the constitutional stricture against post facto law, in the first instance, nor is such a law an individualized process.  It is instead mass punishment.  Mass punishment of any sort violates all the principles of the constitution, and yet what Obama and his goons would have you believe is that we must be deprived of so-called “Assault Weapons” on the basis of a collective guilt for the actions of a few criminals who have committed horrendous acts, to which we have no relationship.

Still others like Governor Cuomo pretend that the number of rounds we can have ought to be limited, but as one combat veteran explained to me when I was a young private in the Army, “You won’t know how much ammunition you’ll need until the firefight is over.”  This is undeniably true, and I was reminded of it when a caller to Mark Levin’s show made much the same point.  You don’t know how many bad guys you’ll face, or how they will be armed.  Andrew Cuomo screaming at the top of his lungs about whether hunters have a legitimate need for magazines that hold more than ten rounds is a farce, because the Second amendment has absolutely nothing to do with hunting.  Do hunters enjoy the protections of the Second Amendment?  Certainly, but they are not the object of the Second Amendment, otherwise we would see an amendment elsewhere defining a “right to hunt.”  This illusion the gun-grabbers want you to stumble over is a nonsensical argument because the founders did not enshrine the right to keep and bear arms in the US Constitution so their heirs could shoot deer, or wild turkeys, or ducks.  They ratified it as a protection against governmental tyranny.

Now we are confronted with a President who wishes to deprive us of our right to keep and bear arms.  He presents no charges against any of us, and he offers no evidence in substantiation of the non-existent charges.  Instead, he plans to act with despotic discretion in the matter.  I have been charged with no crime, and knowing the character of my average reader, they haven’t been charged with a crime, yet this President intends to punish us just as surely as any convicted felon in acting to deprive us of our rights.  This is the sort of thing one sees in any growing tyranny, where laws and dicta are written to prevent crimes that may well never be committed by people who may well never have conceived of committing them.  Vice President Biden offered that if so few as one life is saved by the actions they will take, it will have been worth it.  If that is now to be the argument in favor of banning guns, let us apply it equally to every issue.  How many lives will be needlessly ended under Obamacare?  How many children are aborted each day?  How many doctors make errors each day?  How many people are killed in motor vehicle accidents, or are trampled by cattle, or are struck by lightning?  Using such a fraudulent rationale, one must construct an endless list of things to be banned.

We must ban knives because if only one life is saved, it is worth it.  We must ban doctors, because if even one life is saved, we have done something heroic.  We must ban cars altogether, because if even one life is saved…  We can go on ad nauseum, but ultimately, what the left will reveal if they don’t know you’re paying attention is that if it were up to them, they would ban people.  The left now enacts laws, and too often, the so-called moderate Republicans go along, and the object of these laws is inevitably to punish you for being alive.  If you use gasoline, you must be punished.  If you use paper, you must be punished. If you use water, air, or anything at all, you must be punished.  Only when you are reduced to the level of a slave does the punishment diminish in its frequency and severity.

The entire argument being advanced by leftists is that all we who own weapons are guilty each and every time some lunatic commits a heinous act of violence against his fellow men.  It’s largely based on a fear-mongering argument contrived to make people believe that there is something inherently evil about the instrument, and therefore necessarily evil about all those who would possess them.  This is roughly as sensible an argument as the idea that because some people drive drunk, we should therefore do away with the motor vehicle, or because some Islamic supremacist nuts flew four airplanes into buildings and a fourth into the ground, jetliners should now be banned in the name of the public safety.  By this sort of disconnected anti-reasoning, we should blame Wilbur and Orville Wright for 9/11.

I reject such reasoning, as I reject the authority of all those who would advance it.  Law-abiding Americans are not even distantly responsible for the actions of the shooters who perpetrate these crimes, any more than they are responsible for the hundreds of murders on the streets of Chicago.  Taking away my guns or the guns of other law-abiding Americans will do nothing to reduce the actions of murderous predators, but more than that, nobody has made a valid charge against them.  What is being done in this instance is a travesty, with leftist activists making sure the crisis presented by the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut doesn’t “go to waste.”  Americans should incensed at the notion that the actions of a handful of monsters somehow conveys guilt upon the rest of us, yet that is the basis of the emotionalized appeal being pushed by the anti-Second Amendment crowd.

The left pretends to adore the first Amendment, particularly those parts pertaining to freedom of speech, yet they would insist, one mustn’t permit people to yell “fire” in a crowded theater, and to that extent we are able to agree.  For reasons entirely their own, they are unable to see that in order to prevent the yelling of “fire” in a crowded theater, we do not gag people before they enter.  We do not place this prior restraint upon speech because there is a presumption of innocence, and yet this is precisely the thing they refuse to presume on the part of law-abiding citizens who own guns.  Just as with the First Amendment, we do not punish or impede people in advance, but instead seek justice when they commit such a crime, so should it be for every other right of free people that might be abused.  I will not accept a guilt I had not earned, and neither should any other American.

It is for these reasons that I have resolved that neither Barack Obama nor future politicians shall be permitted to have my guns.  If they insist, I will resist them, and they will be compelled to choose whether to murder me, or to relent in their outrageous punishment levied against a man who is peaceful, and who had committed no crime, or otherwise harmed another soul.  Benjamin Franklin had wanted the Great Seal of the United States to include the motto: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”  If we are to be confronted with tyrants, may we be faithfully obedient to Franklin’s proposition.

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Posted in Activism, Featured, Gun Rights, News, Obama, Politics | 4 Comments »

Note to Obama: America Hasn’t Fallen Short – You Have

Saturday, January 12th, 2013

Blaming America First

This President possesses a peculiar penchant for knocking his own country and countrymen.  In his statement during a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, he explained how America had fallen short of its ideals in Afghanistan, but I wonder about the meaning and the relevance of this claim.  After all, who has been at the helm of American efforts in Afghanistan (or anywhere else) these last four year?  The other problem with his statement is that he references ideals.  I have serious doubts that he’s acquainted with the ideals of America, as evidenced by his repeated attacks on liberty.  No, when he says America has “fallen short,” what he means is that you and I have fallen short, or that our troops have fallen short, but the punishing truth is that the only manner in which the American people may have fallen short had been in missing the opportunity to eject him from office.  To the degree America may have failed in its engagements anywhere around the globe, the truth is quite easy to observe:  Mr. Obama, America has not fallen short.  You have!

To suggest that our oft-deployed troops who spend more time in foreign pest-holes than they do at home have in any measure failed is to ignore both the scale of their mission and the limitations placed upon them by their Commander-in-Chief.  In Afghanistan particularly, our troops are saddled with the grim task of pacifying a region that is inherently unsuited to that end, while looking nervously over their shoulders to see if our alleged ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ in the Afghan Army will open fire on them from behind.  The Chain of Command has created rules of engagement that are so patently absurd that our soldiers must now fear both to follow them or not follow them, because to follow them can be a suicidal act, and to not follow them can result in punitive legal action against them.

Of course, before we descend even to the nuts-and-bolts of a particular policy, we must examine what Mr. Obama considers the “ideal.”  For most Americans, the ideal in Afghanistan is to exterminate the terrorists, and to gain victory by totally annihilating the people who together with al Qaeda fashioned the capacity to attack the United States on 9/11, and in other places and times.  That’s the American ideal.  Obama’s ideal in Afghanistan is something else altogether, and it’s patently clear that it’s an end never to be achieved:  To make peace with an intractable enemy whose only wish and desire is to kill us, even if they must strap bombs on their own children to do so.  Obama’s notion of the ideal is in conflict with what America is and has been all through its nearly two-and-one-half centuries long history, requiring America to volunteer as a sacrificial lamb for those who want to kill it anyway.

To make friends of enemies that hate you is an impossibility.  We did not seek to make friends of the Germans or the Italians or Japanese in WWII.  Only after pounding them into complete submission did we seek to make peace, but even then, we did not make peace with those who had been conducting the ideology driving the conflict on their side.  We merely asserted that they would now be in full compliance with our will, or we would pummel them into dust, resuming the combat against them.  This is the American ideal of how a war is to be conducted, because the American ideal recognizes the sad realities of war, and the sickening aggregation of human frailties that leads inevitably to them.

Mr. Obama does not adopt the American ideal for war-making, or near as this writer can discern, much of anything else.  If America has fallen short of his ideals, that may be just as well because his ideals are not attainable on this Earth.  His ideals lead to the construction of walls, and the building of gulags, and to the unemployment and welfare lines.  His ideals end with an unarmed citizenry unable to oppose a growing, oppressive state.  Those will be your choices if you are to be governed by the ideals of Mr. Obama and his henchmen.  It is not possible to attain the Utopia he has imagined in his narrow mind, but he doesn’t care how great will be the human carnage left in his wake because he sees those things as “bumps in the road,” much as Mayor Bloomberg now suggests that if his new pain medication regulations in New York cause some unnecessary pain to patients, they must simply suck it up.

Imagine living your entire life dominated by these people, who disregard the torments they inflict on your lives with a shrug.  Given a chance, that will be the nature of our existence, but for our soldiers toiling away in kill-zones like Afghanistan, this is already the case.  There, Obama’s ideals have obtained the condition to which we might all look forward under the next four years of his so-called “leadership.”  There is death everywhere, and behind every corner lurks another killer who is sheltered by rules of engagement that permit him to slip away again, unharmed, and free to work his terror against you.  Famine and human need are monumental, but no amount of distributing goods and services can satisfy the want.  Afghanistan is a grim disaster in human terms, on all sides of the battle, and all is being directed and managed from the office of the “idealist” at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington DC.

For the President of the United States to stand before the world and proclaim that America has “fallen short” of ideals that he has constructed within the narrow confines of his skull is not to impeach America, but instead to admit that his own ideals are unattainable on this Earth.  Our soldiers have not failed this President, but he has failed them, and awfully so.  Soon, this same despotic mind will tell us, the American people, how we have failed to live up to the twisted ideals with which he has been inculcated and indoctrinated by such thoroughly bent minds as those of Bill Ayers and Frank Marshall Davis. The truth is that on our current course, America will soon resemble Afghanistan in both imitation and mockery of Obama’s bloody “ideal.”

The American people are as fallible as any other, but it takes a peculiarly wretched mind to lead us to the disasters we now endure both at home and abroad.  In this moment, and in this speech lies a grave confession for all those with the courage to recognize it: Barack Obama has established a bizarre and twisted ideal that is unattainable, but he now blames America for failing to reach it.  You see, in his view, the ideal is wonderful, but it is only your human failings that prevent you from meeting the challenge.  As a narcissist, in his view, there is nothing wrong with the ideal to which he adheres, but only with you (and America) for failing to approach it.  In his view, it is you who fail to perfect yourselves, but not his failure for expecting compliance with an ideal that would require you to drink his preferred flavor of the same deadly koolaid.  This false attribution of guilt is the hallmark of statists, seeking always to blame their victims for the vast failures they have initiated.  The truth is something else, and it’s simply this:  Barack Obama’s vision has fallen short of America’s ideals, and the sooner we re-establish them, the sooner our long national nightmare will come to an end, because unlike his, they are attainable on this Earth.

It’s not America, Mr. Obama.  It’s you.

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Posted in Featured, Foreign Policy, News, Obama, Politics, War | 2 Comments »

Combating Ignorance About Guns

Sunday, January 6th, 2013

He’s Coming for Yours…

One of the things that causes me the most consternation about the entire argument over gun control is how so many people who express opinions on the matter exhibit a complete lack of knowledge on the instruments at the center of the discussion.  More, it’s frustrating to realize that among all the voices chiming-in, there are a great number who have no idea why it is that we have the Second Amendment, or what all the fuss is about.  To them, it’s a simple matter: Collect up all the guns and the problem is solved.  Sadly, simplistic views like this aren’t very likely to bear fruit, and there is good reason to be skeptical about those who express them.  After all, before launching into a tirade against guns, or anything else for that matter, one ought to know a bit about the subject matter, but it seems to have become the fashion in America to speak with conviction on issues about which one may know precisely nothing.  This article is an attempt to lift the veil of ignorance that seems to shroud so much of the public discourse, and while my readers may know much of this material, I have no doubt but that there are millions who might benefit from the information contained.

The first thing that every person ought to know about guns is that many things have been mislabeled by politicians so as to more easily sway the ignorant.  Understanding what is and what isn’t true about guns first requires learning what they are, how they function, and what the different types of guns are, as well as their uses.  One often hears politicians talking about “fully automatic” weapons.  This is by itself a misnomer, because I’ve not seen a weapons system that is fully automatic outside of military applications, for instance like the Phalanx Close-In Weapon System used in our Navy.   That is a system that once turned on, automatically aims and fire projectiles at targets without any further human intervention.  You would not be able to contain one of these even in a fairly large garage, so let’s dispense with the nonsense about “fully automatic weapons.”

In practical terms, however, when most people talk about fully automatic weapons, what they are describing is a gun that will continue to fire one cartridge after the next by merely squeezing and holding the trigger.  I am always perplexed when media outlets describe a shooting with a semi-automatic weapon as “spraying the room with bullets,” since “spraying”  implies a continuous stream.  If the trigger is being re-pulled with each round, there is no “spraying” involved.  “Peppering” is a better descriptor, but naturally, the media blows everything out of proportion.  They may share an anti-gun agenda, but I believe another explanation is that most people in the media are equally ignorant about guns. Only with automatic weapons is something remotely like “spraying” possible.  Automatics are very rare in fact, and have been strictly licensed for decades.  There is a great deal of paperwork and taxation and licensing fees involved in maintaining an automatic weapon.

In stark contrast, what is generally regarded as a semi-automatic weapon requires an additional pull of the trigger for each round to be sent down-range.  The confusion arises because there are any number of guns that look just like their automatic cousins, but are instead purely semi-automatic weapons.  What most people know as the AR-15 is simply the semi-automatic cousin of the fully automatic M-16 rifle, first tested and fielded by the Army in the 1960s.  This family of rifles has been through several stages of development, and there’s no denying that they even share many common parts, but I can most thoroughly assure readers that an off-the-shelf AR-15 is not an automatic, and is not capable of “spraying” anything in the sense of a fully automatic M-16.  An M-16 has a maximum cyclic rate of around 700 rounds per minute.  This assumes you could feed it a continuous stream of ammunition, and that the barrel would not bow like a banana from the heat well before a full minute had elapsed.

A semi-automatic is in fact a self-loader, or an auto-loader, in that when you squeeze off one round, the rifle will by a combination of spent propellant gases and mechanical action eject the spent cartridge and reload the next round, provided one is available.  One must release and again squeeze the trigger to fire the next round and send it down range.  Military rifles like the M-16 have a select-fire feature that permits the user to place the weapon in automatic or semi-automatic mode.  Civilian rifles like the AR-15 do not have the automatic setting, and can only fire in semi-automatic mode.

The same thing is true of the much-discussed AK-47.  There are as many versions of this rifle in the world as there are manufacturers, plus some, but those legally imported into the US are all of the semi-automatic variety.  In fact, while it is theoretically possible to convert many of these rifles to fully automatic function, the jail time one would incur for having done so is hardly worth the trouble of modifying one, and depending on which model and so forth, you may have some substantial but delicate machining ahead of you.  It’s simply not worth it, either in terms of any perceived benefit, or in terms of the probable criminal liabilities.  In all the hundreds upon hundreds of gun-owners I know and have known, I’ve never known so much as one willing to entertain the idea.  We rational gun-owners enjoy our right to keep and bear arms far too much to put it all at risk over something so foolishly wasteful.

One of the questions I am asked by people who aren’t aware of the reasons for the so-called “Assault Weapons Ban” of 1994  given the differences in function between an automatic weapon and a semi-automatic weapon is why it was that such weapons were ever banned at all.  The answer is purely political.  So-called “Assault Weapons” merely look menacing, and as we should all know by now, politics is frequently all about perceptions.  If you want proof, consider one of the features banned in that law: The Bayonet Lug.  A bayonet lug is a machined block or other appendage on a rifle that permits the mounting of a bayonet.  I have never heard of a single person committing a crime with a bayonet attached to an “assault rifle,” and yet we are told that this is a feature that makes them more dangerous.  I don’t have any statistics to back this up, but given what I know about the world in which I live, I am willing to bet that more people are killed by meteorites hitting them in the head than have been killed by a madman with a fixed bayonet.

Since this is the case, one must ask what rational purpose there is to this classification of so-called “assault weapons.”  The answer is that all of the criteria are purely cosmetic.  Much is made of the question of magazine capacity, but frankly, this is a lot of steam.  Take your average Glock 17, a weapon that is fairly common, and sadly has been used in a number of the high profile crimes of which we’re all aware.  There are those who, apart from simply calling for an outright ban, want to restrict the number of rounds one can store in a magazine to just ten.  I say “just 10,” but 10 shots are plenty in the hands of a practiced shooter, because if you’ll head over to Youtube, you can watch videos of competitive shooters who are able to change magazines and resume fire in less than one second.   In other words, any perceived hitch in reload time is very minimal for somebody who is well-practiced.  On the other hand, for those less-experienced shooters who may simply be trying to fend off some home-invader(s,) a magazine change could take several seconds, costing them time and permitting the assailant(s) to close the ground between them.  Having a higher-capacity magazine is a distinct advantage for the less-than-expert home-defender, because having nearly twice the rounds on tap probably increases their chance of successfully defending their home particularly against multiple assailants.

The point is, however, that with practice, the difference between two ten-round magazines and one seventeen-round magazine is negligible.   Some will ask: “But what about Assault Rifles? Surely their magazines cannot be changed so quickly!” Really?  Try this video.  As you can plainly see, magazine changes, no matter how frequent, are of little consequence to somebody trained to shoot.  There are those who will say “But that proves our point about semi-automatics.”  Not really.  Watch this gentleman firing and reloading his revolver.  As you can see, there’s nothing about this that would suggest that some of the most horrific shootings we’ve witnessed over the years would have been even slightly different in terms of the results by eliminating semi-automatics. Perhaps this will lead you to believe that I’ve made the case against all semi-automatics, but before you jump to conclusions, take a look at this video of a seventy year-old bolt-action rifle.

What nobody seems willing to discuss is how often firearms are used in the defense of innocence against the insane or malignant people who manage to get their hands on them.  In one recent case, an off-duty Sheriff’s Deputy in San Antonio, TX prevented what could well have turned into another theater shooting by engaging a suspect who ran into a theater shooting.  This story received virtually no press coverage, but once again, what is demonstrated is how guns can and are frequently the instruments of salvation for the innocent.  Just days ago, a woman in Georgia shot an intruder who had broken into her home.  She hid with her children in the crawl-space, but when the thug came into view, she unloaded on him.  There won’t be a widespread push to get this into widespread circulation, either.

Just as our society is beginning to break down, and you may find yourself more frequently needing the defensive capacity of firearms, the Obama administration is trying to fast-track legislation to ban them.  This is another example of how the emotions of Americans are used against them by shrewd politicians who take advantage routinely of crises to advance what is nothing more than a political agenda.  It does nothing to change the reality that there are some sick and evil people who will make use of whatever weapon is available to do some of the most horrific things.  As Charles Krauthammer recently explained on FoxNews, the real problem is that we have made it nearly impossible to get a troubled person committed for psychiatric treatment.  That was true with the individual who carried out the massacre at the Sandy Hook elementary school, and it was undoubtedly true of many others.

Given enough time and opportunity, the insane and the evil will find ways to turn almost anything into a deadly instrument of mass murder, whether it’s a handgun or a fertilizer bomb or a Boeing airliner.  None of that changes the fact that one’s 2nd Amendment rights are not subject to popular vote.  None of that changes the purpose of the 2nd Amendment.  The founders, in their wisdom, understood that one might well have need to defend himself, and that police would not always be available to respond in time to prevent a crazy or a villain from doing their absolute worst.  At the recent school shooting, this was clearly the case, since by the time the police arrived on scene, the killer had taken his own life, and there was no exchange of gunfire with police.  In fact, given the circumstances, the killer could have used ‘slow’ revolvers to equally tragic effect, and nothing about the outcome would have changed.

The purpose of our 2nd Amendment is to afford you the possibility of repelling attackers, and dealing with insane and evil people who prey upon their fellow man.  They understood that there would always be good cause for self-defense, and given their recent experiences, they also understood all too well that some times, the evil and the crazy act from behind the shield of official power.  One would think that somebody would eventually consider the death tolls governments have inflicted on their own people over the last century, but somehow this death toll, numbering in the tens or hundreds of millions always manages to escape notice.  No other sort of institution has inflicted that sort of carnage whether private or individual, and yet we have some number of people who suffer under the delusion that governments are to be trusted as the sole armed defender in a given society.    I saw an interesting image on Twitter Saturday being re-tweeted around and what it said was that “a movie about a society in which only police and military are armed has been made,” and when you click into the picture, you see a scene of execution and the title of the movie:  Schindler’s List.

If this doesn’t make plain the truth of the matter, I don’t think you’re willing to be convinced of the truth.  Some people choose ignorance because it’s more comforting than actual knowledge, or because it permits them to take up the support of evil while pretending not to have known better.  Either way, readers should understand that there can be no rational argument for stripping the hundreds of millions of guns from the American people for the purposes of crime prevention.  The truth is that guns are simply an instrument like any other, and as long as there is man, there will be senseless violent murders, whether guns are available or not.  The only thing achieved by banning firearms is to leave millions of Americans virtually defenseless, and that’s immoral.  Instead of going after the crazies, the politicians are using this as an opportunity to go after the rights of law-abiding citizens, and for all the reasons you can already guess, you have every reason and right to resist it.  Ignorance should no longer be an excuse.  Those who advocate the banning of firearms are simply damning many more innocent Americans to deaths from which they might have protected themselves.  So much then for “good intentions.”

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Posted in Crime, Featured, Gun Rights, Obama, Politics | 4 Comments »

Video Flashback: Thomas Sowell Compares Derrick Bell to Adolph Hitler

Thursday, March 8th, 2012

Thomas Sowell

Breitbart has managed to dig up a small segment from C-Span2′s Book TV, in which Thomas Sowell is asked about Derrick Bell by interviewer Brian Lamb on the question of what sort of ideology Derrick Bell was pushing at the time.  The interview is from May, 1990, when Bell was using his radical approach of protest and occupy to try to force the administration of Harvard University to hire a professor based on whether that professor accepts the ideological viewpoints of Bell, at the time, a tenured professor at Harvard Law.  This is a stunning interview, inasmuch as Sowell was will to go so far as to compare Bell to Hitler.  If you’re familiar with Dr. Sowell, you’ll know that he doesn’t throw such comparisons around in jest, or thoughtlessly.

Here’s the video:

I think this demonstrates that even as early as 1990, in the same time-frame in which Bell was Barack Obama’s mentor, Bell’s Critical Race Theory wasn’t considered merely controversial, but radical, and this is the ideology Barack Obama was recommending when he embraced Bell, saying:

“Open your hearts and open your minds to the words of Prof. Derrick Bell.” -Barack Obama(Video Here)

To pretend that Derrick Bell wasn’t a radical, or that the philosophy of law he professed wasn’t controversial is a ridiculous position, but since the unveiling of the Obama-Bell video Wednesday evening, the media has been doing all it can to downplay its importance. In this case, Sowell was condemning Bell’s ideological bigotry, that demanded a complete agreement among faculty and students. This should be interesting because at the time, he was one of Obama’s mentors.

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Posted in Barack Obama, Bigotry, Media, News, Obama, Politics, Video | 8 Comments »

What the Breitbart Video Reveals

Thursday, March 8th, 2012

On Wednesday evening, Breitbart.com revealed a video on Hannity that provides clear proof of Barack Obama’s radical ties.  In this case, the radical in question is Professor Derrick Bell, who was the first African-American to obtain tenure as a Law Professor at Harvard University.  He was also a radical, and ideological model for Barack Obama.  The most important thing to note may be that the video was hidden through the 2008 presidential campaign so that Barack Obama would never be called to answer for the association with Prof. Bell.  The reason they wanted to hide it is clear:  It shows a warm embrace between an acolyte and a mentor, the former showing his love and devotion to the latter.

Here’s a clip from Breitbart:

This video is just the first installment of what promises to be a heavy season of vetting for Mr. Obama if Breitbart’s crew is able to pull this off in the wake of Andrew Breitbart’s death.  So far, Joel Pollak and the rest of the staff writers have been churning out work with a remorselessly driven, dedicated fervor.  I think Andrew Breitbart assembled one of the best outfits in the business, despite critics who have tried everything possible to discredit the organization.  I expect it will worsen.  In this case, BuzzFeed actually released a highly-edited version of the video hours ahead of the release, all to give a chance to cause it to be covered differently than it might have been.  It was a way of trying to soften its impact.

This is hardly the last bit of video we will see from Breitbart.com in vetting Barack Obama.  Andrew may be gone, but his fighting spirit lives on in all the wonderful folks there who seek to bring you all the important news few outlets in the mainstream media will cover.

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Posted in Barack Obama, Election 2012, Media, News, Obama, Video | 3 Comments »