So this is where we're at with gun safety/possession/use mentality in this country:
Some govt. officials, such as GA Rep. Paul Broun (another of those healing-arts professionals cum lawmaker), defend the country's gun obsession so "Americans can take up arms against a tyrannical gov't."
(1) Cong. Broun IS the gov't. So he's saying people should be able to take up firearms against him?
(2) He and others of his mind set back members of Congress arming themselves with guns while on the floor of the House of Reps. and Senate. Why? So they can shoot back at Americans who take up arms against a tyrannical gov't? Or perhaps at their "esteemed colleagues" with whom they disagree?
(3) Broun is, no doubt, a "Support Our Troops" cheerleader. But "Our Troops" is the U.S. military that will protect the "tyrannical government" Broun thinks Americans should arm themselves against.
So, while others try to fathom the thinking of the Tucson shooter, I'm trying to fathom the thinking of people like Rep. Broun.
But maybe I'm just too truly conservative to be able to understand such a liberal attitude about gun use in this country.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
More Absurdity
The ‘tyrannical’ government uber gun advocates want to arm themselves against is protected by troops they say Americans should support.
Trying to Make Sense of the Absurd
I felt compelled today to send New York Times columnist Bob Herbert an email in response to his column, "Helplessness in the Face of Madness." www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/opinion/15herbert.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212 Here's what I wrote:
"Below is a letter to my local newspaper in response to your colleague Paul Krugman's Jan. 9 'Climate of Hate' column. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/opinion/10krugman.html?scp=1&sq=Paul%20Krugman&st=Search
Guess it was too politically incorrect, as it was not published. But it certainly does highlight points in your column today, 'Helplessness in the Face of Madness.' Here's my letter:
'No, I wasn’t surprised by Saturday’s massacre in Arizona. (Violence is inevitable in this climate of hate. Jan. 11, 2011) Shocked, but not surprised. I won’t be surprised by the next one, either. Or the one after that. Or the one after that. That’s because they will continue to occur just as surely as nothing ever being done to prevent them will. Just look at this partial record of U.S. shooting sprees in the past decade:
8 dead, 2 wounded—Manchester CN, Aug. 3, 2010
14 dead, 4 wounded—Binghamton NY, April 3, 2009
8 dead—Carthage NC, March 29, 2009
10 dead—rural Alabama, March 10, 2009
5 dead, 18 wounded—DeKalb IL, Feb. 14, 2008
8 dead, 7 wounded—Omaha NE, Dec. 5, 2007
32 dead, 20 wounded—Virginia Tech VA, April 16, 2007
5 dead—Amish school PA, Oct. 2, 2006
9 dead, 7 wounded—Red Lake MN, March 21, 2005
7 dead, 4 wounded—Brookfield WI, March 12, 2005
7 dead—Honolulu HI, Nov. 2, 1999
12 dead—Atlanta GA, July 29, 1999
12 dead, 24 injured—Littleton CO, April 20, 1999
But maybe I’ve blown this all out of proportion. That’s only 137 dead people out of about 120,000—just over one-tenth of 1 percent—of gun-related homicides in the past 10 years. So in the grand scheme of things, Arizona’s death toll really isn’t much of a problem. Is it?'
"What astounds me, Mr. Herbert, is that the lives of 120,000 people murdered by guns in this country every year are worth so much less than the 2,973 killed on 9/11, on which our goverment--with the tacit, if not, overt approval of a huge number of Americans--has spent billions of dollars to avenge and passed laws that restrict our civil liberties far more than any gun-safety laws that would not ban guns, but would provide some sanity to how they are used."
That's the end of my email to Bob Herbert. What I didn't say to him is that I'm still trying to understand is the liberal attitude people who are called conservative have about the legal proliferation of firearms and accessories that are designed for the sole purpose of shooting as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time, and the generosity of people with that liberal attitude who condone and even promote allowing that kind of weaponry to be carried, both openly and under cover, any and everywhere in public settings populated by innocents, children and babies--those very members of society that Americans say are the most precious, that we hold most dear and deserve the greatest protection.
We shield their names and faces from public scrutiny in court and other official documents and even in news reports. But not from assassins', criminals' and indescriminant shooters' bullets.
"Below is a letter to my local newspaper in response to your colleague Paul Krugman's Jan. 9 'Climate of Hate' column. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/opinion/10krugman.html?scp=1&sq=Paul%20Krugman&st=Search
Guess it was too politically incorrect, as it was not published. But it certainly does highlight points in your column today, 'Helplessness in the Face of Madness.' Here's my letter:
'No, I wasn’t surprised by Saturday’s massacre in Arizona. (Violence is inevitable in this climate of hate. Jan. 11, 2011) Shocked, but not surprised. I won’t be surprised by the next one, either. Or the one after that. Or the one after that. That’s because they will continue to occur just as surely as nothing ever being done to prevent them will. Just look at this partial record of U.S. shooting sprees in the past decade:
8 dead, 2 wounded—Manchester CN, Aug. 3, 2010
14 dead, 4 wounded—Binghamton NY, April 3, 2009
8 dead—Carthage NC, March 29, 2009
10 dead—rural Alabama, March 10, 2009
5 dead, 18 wounded—DeKalb IL, Feb. 14, 2008
8 dead, 7 wounded—Omaha NE, Dec. 5, 2007
32 dead, 20 wounded—Virginia Tech VA, April 16, 2007
5 dead—Amish school PA, Oct. 2, 2006
9 dead, 7 wounded—Red Lake MN, March 21, 2005
7 dead, 4 wounded—Brookfield WI, March 12, 2005
7 dead—Honolulu HI, Nov. 2, 1999
12 dead—Atlanta GA, July 29, 1999
12 dead, 24 injured—Littleton CO, April 20, 1999
But maybe I’ve blown this all out of proportion. That’s only 137 dead people out of about 120,000—just over one-tenth of 1 percent—of gun-related homicides in the past 10 years. So in the grand scheme of things, Arizona’s death toll really isn’t much of a problem. Is it?'
"What astounds me, Mr. Herbert, is that the lives of 120,000 people murdered by guns in this country every year are worth so much less than the 2,973 killed on 9/11, on which our goverment--with the tacit, if not, overt approval of a huge number of Americans--has spent billions of dollars to avenge and passed laws that restrict our civil liberties far more than any gun-safety laws that would not ban guns, but would provide some sanity to how they are used."
That's the end of my email to Bob Herbert. What I didn't say to him is that I'm still trying to understand is the liberal attitude people who are called conservative have about the legal proliferation of firearms and accessories that are designed for the sole purpose of shooting as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time, and the generosity of people with that liberal attitude who condone and even promote allowing that kind of weaponry to be carried, both openly and under cover, any and everywhere in public settings populated by innocents, children and babies--those very members of society that Americans say are the most precious, that we hold most dear and deserve the greatest protection.
We shield their names and faces from public scrutiny in court and other official documents and even in news reports. But not from assassins', criminals' and indescriminant shooters' bullets.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The Religion of Hatred
Hatred has become a religion for some people and entities and, as with other religions, some adherents to act on what gets preached. Free speech is one thing, but people like Palin putting political opponents in gunsite crosshairs and on bullseyes on their websites seem to have no concept of or concern about the responsibility that goes with that freedom or the consequences of their actions and words.
Would that we would all be truly conservative about hatred and hating.
Would that we would all be truly conservative about hatred and hating.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Insanity
Eighteen shot. Six dead, including a 9-year-old child.
Today's tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, reinforces how very, very truly conservative I am about guns. I hear so many reasons why people in the United States should be allowed to carry guns in public. Self protection, to protect our loved ones, to deter criminals (they won't know who has a gun who might shoot them), 2nd Amendment, it's our God-given right. Those are very liberal ideas about guns and when and where they can be taken.
Arizona law allows people to carry guns openly. Yet:
Such thinking is ludicrous. Just how in the midst of a bar row does she think she could have gotten her gun out from where ever she would have been carrying it in time to do anything to help her boyfriend. My guess is that instead of just her boyfriend ending up dead, others -- perhaps including even her -- would have gotton shot, too.
Just why Rambo wanna-be's think hauling a gun around with them is going to get the drop on someone else who's packing heat is beyond me. What, our town squares should be OK Corrals?
Just how falacious that kind of thinking is highlighted by an incident near Seattle a little over a year ago in which a single gunman walked into a coffee shop and shot dead four police officers in full uniform, including bullet-proof vests. If a lone gunman can get the drop on four well-trained police officers, and kill them all, what chance is someone hitting a bar for a drink going to have?
Arizona is one of 11 states that have unrestricted open-carry laws. A website promoting open-carry laws in the U.S., http://www.opencarry.org/, says of Arizona:
"Arizona is one of our "Gold Star" open carry states. There is complete state preemption of all firearms laws, open carry is common and law enforcement is well educated as to its legality."
Thanks to liberal court interpretations of and rulings on the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, upwards of 10,000 people in the United States are murdered by guns anually. (That doesn't include accidents or suicides.) That's two thirds of all murders in this country, and most likely a prime reason why our murder rate is more than four times higher than the rates in Canada and the United Kingdom.
I keep looking for the sanity in all of this.
Today's tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, reinforces how very, very truly conservative I am about guns. I hear so many reasons why people in the United States should be allowed to carry guns in public. Self protection, to protect our loved ones, to deter criminals (they won't know who has a gun who might shoot them), 2nd Amendment, it's our God-given right. Those are very liberal ideas about guns and when and where they can be taken.
Arizona law allows people to carry guns openly. Yet:
- Not one person protected him- or herself today against a 22-year-old, reportedly with a criminal history, who reportedly bought a semi-automatic handgun legally, who opened fire on them during a public forum outside of a shopping center.
- Not one person protected the 9-year-old girl, who was surely someone's loved one.
- Not one person protected a U.S. Congresswoman, who, during her recent very tough re-election campaign, got death threats, yet was shot in the head at near point-blank range and now lies in hospitalized in critical condition.
- Not one person kept a federal judge from being shot and killed by the extremist's gunsanity today.
- The gunman was not deterred one whit from drawing his gun and shooting totally unsuspecting members of the public who were just going about their business, without a thought of whether or not they should have been carrying a gun
Such thinking is ludicrous. Just how in the midst of a bar row does she think she could have gotten her gun out from where ever she would have been carrying it in time to do anything to help her boyfriend. My guess is that instead of just her boyfriend ending up dead, others -- perhaps including even her -- would have gotton shot, too.
Just why Rambo wanna-be's think hauling a gun around with them is going to get the drop on someone else who's packing heat is beyond me. What, our town squares should be OK Corrals?
Just how falacious that kind of thinking is highlighted by an incident near Seattle a little over a year ago in which a single gunman walked into a coffee shop and shot dead four police officers in full uniform, including bullet-proof vests. If a lone gunman can get the drop on four well-trained police officers, and kill them all, what chance is someone hitting a bar for a drink going to have?
Arizona is one of 11 states that have unrestricted open-carry laws. A website promoting open-carry laws in the U.S., http://www.opencarry.org/, says of Arizona:
"Arizona is one of our "Gold Star" open carry states. There is complete state preemption of all firearms laws, open carry is common and law enforcement is well educated as to its legality."
Thanks to liberal court interpretations of and rulings on the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, upwards of 10,000 people in the United States are murdered by guns anually. (That doesn't include accidents or suicides.) That's two thirds of all murders in this country, and most likely a prime reason why our murder rate is more than four times higher than the rates in Canada and the United Kingdom.
I keep looking for the sanity in all of this.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
How is Murder conservative?
Yesterday’s assassination of Pakistan’s governor of Punjab Province, Salman Taseer, is another instance of the backwards use of conservative and liberal labels.
Taseer, who opposed Pakistan’s blasphemy laws the country’s military dictator, Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, imposed 30 years ago, is considered in accepted lexicon as “liberal” and is described as publisher of a “liberal” English-language daily newspaper.
In reality, Taseer, like me, was truly conservative and those he opposed and who opposed him are extremely liberal.
Contrary to being liberal, Taseer favored the very conservative use the government to impose religious views, practices and restrictions on the country’s population. In this case, Zia’s blasphemy law made insulting Islam punishable by death.
Today’s news reported that “conservative” factions in Pakistan were celebrating Taseer’s death. Rather than “conservative” those factions’ adherents are very liberally advocating the use of violence against those with whom they disagree. Nothing conservative about that.
Taseer’s opponents not only quite liberally imposed their religion on all Pakistanis, they, as seems to be the wont of most religious fundamentalists/extremists, revel in hatred and advocate and the use of force and violence to impose their will and oppose anyone who disagrees with them.
Resorting to violence, in this case murder, seems much more of an insult to Islam – or any other religion – than blaspheme.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Rand Repudiated
Ayn Rand keeps popping up in cultural, political and ideological debate, and these days even more so, thanks to a weird sort of Rand following that has cropped up among tea partiers. Rand was an author and cult-figure who championed unbridled capitalism, celebrated the supremacy of individualism and was an arch enemy of anything resembling socialism.
Rand's most recent biographer was interviewed on Wisconsin Public Radio's "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" on this the second day of 2011, which got me to thinking about her yet again and what I consider the hypocrisies and contradictions of her dogma.
Although she promoted herself as a champion of individual liberties, which today's self-labeled conservatives have liberally adopted as their mantra, and which she made the theme of her writings, she was, in reality, a fraud and the imperial queen of hypocrites.
She held Saturday night indoctrinating salons with her acolytes, which included the future Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, that she ran like the gulags she otherwise demonized and held in contempt. She exercised total control over her adherents down to approving what books they could read, movies they could see and who they could marry. During their Saturday night meetings, they had to raise their hands and wait to be recognized when they wanted to speak. She was, according to her biographer Anne Heller, tyrannical.
Her cult blew up and disintegrated when her longtime lover and ardent supporter, a man 25 years her junior, took another lover and repudiated Rand's repression and flawed ideology.
Like so many religions, Rand's dual ideologies of individualism and objectivism don't hold up to objective scrutiny. The premises and characters she uses in her books to very liberally promote her isms, in fact, actually contradict her overarching gospel.
Rand's most well-known and best-selling books are The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Here is an analysis I did of one of her shorter books, Anthem, a novella about one of the masses who breaks free from the collective where, instead of being able to pursue his own interests and talents, was forced to work as a street sweeper.
While Rand has an interesting premise, I found it fatally flawed in several respects. First, the protagonist, Prometheus, is exalting in the individual, the "I", the Ego (which he makes a sacred word). Yet he decides everything for not only his mate -- including choosing a name for her (Gaea) -- but everyone who chooses to join him.
Prometheus returns to the City to bring those he perceives to be unhappy back with him to the land he found beyond the mountains so they can live in his idea of utopia, which is exactly what the leaders of the City have done to people who live there City.
At least Gaea found her way into the Uncharted Forest by herself and made the decision to go there of her own free will. But those whom Prometheus wants to bring there had the very same opportunity since, as Gaea says, everyone in the City was talking about Prometheus running away and going into the Uncharted Forest, but they did not choose to do so themselves.
Further, those people he brings to live in his utopia will be expected to be self sufficient, the "we" word will be outlawed, ergo, relying on each other and helping each other is out, right? So what happens if (A) the Sad One remains sad, but when no one is makes him work or do anything, he elects to do nothing. Does Prometheus just let him do nothing to help/support himself which, of course, means he will die? Will Prometheus feel no responsibility to try to help the Sad One since he brought him there in the first place? Or (B) what if one of those he brings from the City becomes ill and can't do for himself? Will there be no social conscience or collective effort to provide for him?
Or (C) what if the Gaea’s unborn baby is a girl and, further, what if every child she bears is female That means Prometheus will never father any of the sons he talks about having to help him make his vision a reality. And isn't his idea of enlisting his sons’ help a form of community/socialism? Or (D) what if his sons, were he to have any, don't want to pitch in and help build his wonderful society? What would he do? Force them? Cast them out where they will most likely die?
Contrary to Rand's ideology of individualism and self-sufficiency, far from being self-sufficient and building a house for themselves, Prometheus and Gaea appropriate for themselves an abandoned house they find in their new land, which they assume was built and occupied by someone from the "Unmentionable Times." They also claim for themselves all the furnishings, clothes, jewels, and other riches they find inside. So just because he happens upon this wonderful house and all the riches within, he assumes that entitles him to lay claim to it for himself and not have to share any of it with the people he brings out from the City to live in his new world.
How does that differ from today's rich who are either born or marry into their fortunes, or who think they've succeeded on their own when someone/something has built and finances the infrastructure -- as in the federal government developing the nation's transportation and energy grid -- and created laws and a favorable corporate tax structure that not only benefits their company, but enables CEOs to claim their income as capital gains, thus benefitting from the 15 percent capital gains tax instead of having to pay the 36 percent tax bracket of the top income earners?
Prometheus exalts in "my hands, my spirit, my sky, my forest, this earth of mine." So why is it HIS sky, HIS forest, HIS earth? Is he saying the earth, sky and forest are all his and that no one else is entitled to them or to claim them for themselves?
He says he will neither surrender nor share his treasures and that he owes nothing to his brothers. He talks about his vision for his new world and how everyone he brings out of the City will help make it a reality. That certainly sounds like collectivism to me. Or rather, like the sort of today's corptocracy a la the Koch brothers and the post-Civil War Reconstruction form of sharecropping in which many freed slaves were forced into in order to survive, only to have the landowners either cheat them out of their share or enlist the Ku Klux Klan to attack and chase them away without being able to save or take anything with them.
To me Rand contradicts her own philosophy. The only way her protagonist in Anthem can realize his goals is with the help of others, which is exactly what he supposedly is going to prohibit others from doing for themselves. I would say that from the introduction through the appendices, the book itself is incongruent with the thesis of Rand's purported philosophy and political vision.
Coming forward to today's so-called Libertarians and TPers who decry government and taxes, just like the rest of us these people benefit from the government 24-7, thanks to regulations and services that provide breathable air, potable water, safe food and relatively hazard-free consumer products, as well as government-provided and maintained infrastructure and many, many other things that make life livable and enjoyable without having to pay individually for each and every benefit from our own pockets directly to a private contractor -- even if we had the means to be able to do so.
No, just like Rand, those who tout her precepts call for government cuts that will negatively affect others, not themselves, their economic well being or their privilege and entitlement. It’s a ME, ME, ME philosophy that is antithetical to democracy and the religious teachings so many of the TPers claim to be their faith.
Rand's most recent biographer was interviewed on Wisconsin Public Radio's "To The Best Of Our Knowledge" on this the second day of 2011, which got me to thinking about her yet again and what I consider the hypocrisies and contradictions of her dogma.
Although she promoted herself as a champion of individual liberties, which today's self-labeled conservatives have liberally adopted as their mantra, and which she made the theme of her writings, she was, in reality, a fraud and the imperial queen of hypocrites.
She held Saturday night indoctrinating salons with her acolytes, which included the future Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, that she ran like the gulags she otherwise demonized and held in contempt. She exercised total control over her adherents down to approving what books they could read, movies they could see and who they could marry. During their Saturday night meetings, they had to raise their hands and wait to be recognized when they wanted to speak. She was, according to her biographer Anne Heller, tyrannical.
Her cult blew up and disintegrated when her longtime lover and ardent supporter, a man 25 years her junior, took another lover and repudiated Rand's repression and flawed ideology.
Like so many religions, Rand's dual ideologies of individualism and objectivism don't hold up to objective scrutiny. The premises and characters she uses in her books to very liberally promote her isms, in fact, actually contradict her overarching gospel.
Rand's most well-known and best-selling books are The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Here is an analysis I did of one of her shorter books, Anthem, a novella about one of the masses who breaks free from the collective where, instead of being able to pursue his own interests and talents, was forced to work as a street sweeper.
While Rand has an interesting premise, I found it fatally flawed in several respects. First, the protagonist, Prometheus, is exalting in the individual, the "I", the Ego (which he makes a sacred word). Yet he decides everything for not only his mate -- including choosing a name for her (Gaea) -- but everyone who chooses to join him.
Prometheus returns to the City to bring those he perceives to be unhappy back with him to the land he found beyond the mountains so they can live in his idea of utopia, which is exactly what the leaders of the City have done to people who live there City.
At least Gaea found her way into the Uncharted Forest by herself and made the decision to go there of her own free will. But those whom Prometheus wants to bring there had the very same opportunity since, as Gaea says, everyone in the City was talking about Prometheus running away and going into the Uncharted Forest, but they did not choose to do so themselves.
Further, those people he brings to live in his utopia will be expected to be self sufficient, the "we" word will be outlawed, ergo, relying on each other and helping each other is out, right? So what happens if (A) the Sad One remains sad, but when no one is makes him work or do anything, he elects to do nothing. Does Prometheus just let him do nothing to help/support himself which, of course, means he will die? Will Prometheus feel no responsibility to try to help the Sad One since he brought him there in the first place? Or (B) what if one of those he brings from the City becomes ill and can't do for himself? Will there be no social conscience or collective effort to provide for him?
Or (C) what if the Gaea’s unborn baby is a girl and, further, what if every child she bears is female That means Prometheus will never father any of the sons he talks about having to help him make his vision a reality. And isn't his idea of enlisting his sons’ help a form of community/socialism? Or (D) what if his sons, were he to have any, don't want to pitch in and help build his wonderful society? What would he do? Force them? Cast them out where they will most likely die?
Contrary to Rand's ideology of individualism and self-sufficiency, far from being self-sufficient and building a house for themselves, Prometheus and Gaea appropriate for themselves an abandoned house they find in their new land, which they assume was built and occupied by someone from the "Unmentionable Times." They also claim for themselves all the furnishings, clothes, jewels, and other riches they find inside. So just because he happens upon this wonderful house and all the riches within, he assumes that entitles him to lay claim to it for himself and not have to share any of it with the people he brings out from the City to live in his new world.
How does that differ from today's rich who are either born or marry into their fortunes, or who think they've succeeded on their own when someone/something has built and finances the infrastructure -- as in the federal government developing the nation's transportation and energy grid -- and created laws and a favorable corporate tax structure that not only benefits their company, but enables CEOs to claim their income as capital gains, thus benefitting from the 15 percent capital gains tax instead of having to pay the 36 percent tax bracket of the top income earners?
Prometheus exalts in "my hands, my spirit, my sky, my forest, this earth of mine." So why is it HIS sky, HIS forest, HIS earth? Is he saying the earth, sky and forest are all his and that no one else is entitled to them or to claim them for themselves?
He says he will neither surrender nor share his treasures and that he owes nothing to his brothers. He talks about his vision for his new world and how everyone he brings out of the City will help make it a reality. That certainly sounds like collectivism to me. Or rather, like the sort of today's corptocracy a la the Koch brothers and the post-Civil War Reconstruction form of sharecropping in which many freed slaves were forced into in order to survive, only to have the landowners either cheat them out of their share or enlist the Ku Klux Klan to attack and chase them away without being able to save or take anything with them.
To me Rand contradicts her own philosophy. The only way her protagonist in Anthem can realize his goals is with the help of others, which is exactly what he supposedly is going to prohibit others from doing for themselves. I would say that from the introduction through the appendices, the book itself is incongruent with the thesis of Rand's purported philosophy and political vision.
Coming forward to today's so-called Libertarians and TPers who decry government and taxes, just like the rest of us these people benefit from the government 24-7, thanks to regulations and services that provide breathable air, potable water, safe food and relatively hazard-free consumer products, as well as government-provided and maintained infrastructure and many, many other things that make life livable and enjoyable without having to pay individually for each and every benefit from our own pockets directly to a private contractor -- even if we had the means to be able to do so.
No, just like Rand, those who tout her precepts call for government cuts that will negatively affect others, not themselves, their economic well being or their privilege and entitlement. It’s a ME, ME, ME philosophy that is antithetical to democracy and the religious teachings so many of the TPers claim to be their faith.
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