the basics of "gun control"

Possibly alternately titled "gun control for dummies" or "simplicity of gun control"

To start, the phrase "gun control" is misleading. Historically, gun control has been associated with attempts to disarm populations. The United States, having the right to keep and bear arms enumerated in the Constitution, has had a harder time disarming their people.

Disarming Americans is complicated by a number of factors. The states would have to all agree at the same time to ignore or rewrite the constitution. Considering that there is a mixture of red and blue states, that has not happened. Additionally, Americans are aware of the fact that their natural right to defend themselves happens to be enumerated in the founding documents of the country.

More to the point, Americans are aware of the OBVIOUS attempts to INFRINGE the natural rights enumerated in the Constitution. Given that, there is national murmuring about what to do should the government turn on its citizens. The general consensus is that military and police would never go along with it and the citizens would be safe from that particular tyranny.

Considering this, there are a few things about gun control that seem to be commonly misunderstood. For one, the militia is not the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. The militia is "the people". Also, the weapons protected by the constitution would be those sufficient for defending a person or the people from threats to themselves or their country.

Of course there are certain shoe horned legislations which ban some of these weapons. Right or wrong, it happened and the people have not found a need to stand up and make an issue of it. That is one of the reasons that political currents push towards further limitations. Politicians understand that their agendas will usually not be realized with one piece of legislations, but rather chipped away over time.

- insert tragedy here: we must ban guns in order to prevent this from happening again.
sadly, this is an opportunistic use of tragedy twisted to attack the innocent by comparing unrelated concepts. this was made obvious in the recent senate hearings and subsequent followup comments by various people iincluding joe biden.

- nobody needs an ar15: the largest problem with this statement is that its not consistent with the subject at hand. there has never been a requirement that a person "need" to exercise a right in order to exercise it. most popularly as of late, Rosa Parks didn't "need" to sit in the front of the bus. in summary, we don't need to need an ar15 in order to have one. the government, if it wishes to take them, does however, "want" to take them away.

- nobody needs more than 7 rounds: this is a recently popularized statement. the biggest problem with this statement is that it falls back to the subjective term "need". who determines need? at what point does a third party defining need become infringement? defense experts, including police and military, have acknowledged that the more rounds available to a defender, the less that defender has to interact with the weapon beyond using it directly for defence.

- assault weapons should not be available to the public: this is the most frustrating argument. weapons are identified with a term easily marketed as FUD to those that have no knowledge on the subject allowing quick uninformed opinions to be formed. The weapons classified as "assault weapons" are so classified based on looks. their function is identical to other semi-automatic weapons, but they "look" scary. More to the point, considering that the 2nd Amendment was for defense against anything, modern weapons were required to provide defense.

Sadly, FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), misinformation, outright lies, and political bullies seem to be twisting an important part of our Constitution against the people.

He's Got A Gun

This phrase holds many meanings.  Depending upon the situation, it can be a good thing, a bad thing, or a simple point of fact.

In a situation where the "he" is a criminal intent upon doing something violent, it has a very negative connotation.  It is a warning cry.  It is an exclamation of distress.

In a situation where help is needed, and somebody able to help has a gun, it is a phrase of hope.

In a situation where somebody is wondering who happens to have a gun nearby, simply out of curiosity, it is an indifferent answer to a request for information.

The simple act of "having a gun" is sometimes misconstrued to be an act of (or at least precursor) to violence.  At some point, society has let itself be programmed to think of guns as evil.  While not all have this opinion, there is significant evidence that large demographics have come to view guns as evil.

This change has caused many to fear guns.  Of course there are many houses with guns behind the door.  In point of fact, I see them all the time.   Some would say that I have become desensitized to their evil simply because I see them so frequently.  However, that is the contrary argument in that it is based on guns actually being evil.  We are actually seeing people being desensitized to the usefulness of guns.  

Nightly, we are faced with television programming (an apt word actually) where guns are either horribly evil devices OR they are salvation when in the hands of government employees.  I find it interesting that we are willingly subjecting ourselves to reeducation about guns.  How can we seriously allow ourselves to be trained to think that guns are bad when citizens have them, but somehow good when a random third party with three letters on their jacket has them?

There is no gun training available that makes their use sacred when controlled by the government and evil when controlled by the individual.  The best ATF/FBI/DHS agent in the world is still "following orders" from a third party.  By programming people to think that only the government can be trusted with guns, we are abdicating their use to the oversight of an often unnamed bureaucrat of which we should have no trust.

 

Lets Talk About Gun Control

Gun Control is a hot topic at times.  Certain agendists get terribly excited when there is a tragedy which can be capitalized on in order to trick the unknowing masses into ignorantly jumping on to their bandwagon.

With the proper framing, one can easily be led by emotion to irresponsible conclusions.  A prime example would be the opportunistic abuse of a mass shooting which took over the news media recently.  Rather than understanding what happened and dealing with that, certain groups and politicians have stolen the incident and tailored it to their needs.   Before facts were known, they made up their own.  Before motivations were known, they made up their own.  Unfortunately, many members of the public, to blind and weak to form their own opinions, have glommed on to the agendized version of the story and formed knee jerk opinions.

Sadly, many of these people are unaware of the direction the country would take should their knee jerk reactions become policy.  The generations before them knew what it was like to live in a country without freedom.  Much blood has been shed by those that built this country in order to create the freedom that we have been born into.  This seems to have created an environment where freedom is owed, not preserved.  Our generations are burning through our remaining freedom like a trust fund kid that never had to earn his/her keep.

Not only have we allowed freedom to erode, but we've done it in the name of expedience.  We pretend that packing people into cities like cattle (without opportunity) and increasing the headcount exponentially is somehow only a problem because guns exist.  We have media that reports every time a crime is committed with a firearm, but never when a crime is stopped with one.  We have an anti-firearm indoctrination that says the 2nd amendment was about muskets and hunting rather than preserving the foundation of our country (that the people tell the government what to do, not that the government tells the people what to do).

On the surface, this seems like a mixture of laziness (the government will do it for me) and the indoctrination that we are owed (the government has to take care of me).  The 4th amendment has been eviscerated by Bush and Obama with the Patriot Act (which oddly has nothing to do with anything patriotic.  Presumably this was named "patriot" in an effort to make people ignore the fact that it directly violates the 4th amendment.)  Freedom is fading.  We havn't had to earn it.  We havn't stood up when politicians attack the core of our country.  We have been lazy.  We have become the herd of cattle of which the government has assumed ownership.

Something as simple as this blog is possible only because of the 1st Amendment.  At the rate of which we are losing freedom and control of our Democratic Republic, how long will we even have that?  We are so busy fighting over which letter is better (D or R) that we run in circles while DR railroads us with stupid legislation.  The best thing that could happen to our government would be denying them any authority not specifically allowed in the Constitution.  Imagine if our legislator were required to DO THEIR JOBS as provided by the laws of our country instead of making up new laws to the contrary?

Imagine waking up and finding the average citizen is done letting the media use emotional stories to shape their opinions.  Imagine a country of critical thinkers that can see through the BS of Washington. There needs to be a national dialog.  We need to "Demand A Plan".  Of course, this dialog and resulting plan should be directed at preventing politicians from destroying freedom in exchange for campaign contributions.  

iFtHEN-ThenIf-iFtHEN- IF THEN

World of Ifs.

Ideology is based on core tenets.  Those concepts are either correct or incorrect.  However, they are not usually "provable".  Further, they are generally in contrast with what is considered right or wrong in some other ideology.

In politics, for example, there are numerous ideologies in contention at all times.  Group A is "right" and must enforce their views upon groups B-Z.  logically, groups B though Z can be substituted for A and iterated through for a more expansive, exhaustive, and redundant list of how ideological contention predicated on "right" or "correct" begins to lose it's sure standing as actually being "right" or "correct".

However, the larger point is that they are ALL right when analyzed from a specific perspective and filtered with the word IF.

The most obvious example would be pro life vs pro choice.

IF life begins at conception, then pro life is correct.  pro choice simply has no argument that choice displaces killing.

IF life begins at the first breath, then pro choice is correct in that there is no life to kill, hence the fetus is simply an extension of the bearers body.

Nearly every political point that is used to divide the population in argument is based on an IF.  We even vote under the assumption that IF this election is fair, my vote will be counted.  Further, we vote with the presumption that IF this candidate gets elected, he/she will or will not generate some specific change or stability.

However, people seldom consider that IF the thing that they base their assumption on is incorrect, that they are promoting a false cause.  To this point, we are all subject becoming the "sheep" or "useful idiots" of those that provide said information.

Consider how many opinions are dictated, directly or otherwise, by various media.  In the most popular case, "Mainstream Media" feeds populations with specific information at a specific pace.  To a growing extent, alternate media feeds populations with information contrary to mainstream.  More often than not, those bits of information are inconsistent with each other.

Which is right?  How can we know?  Simply put, those with power and influence do have the ability to rewrite history.  The average person will never be truly "in the know" and will react and respond to those things in media which resonate with them.  Every person on this planet is subjected to information that cannot be personally verified each day.  Every person on this planet makes some sort of decision about those bits of information.  We chose to make them true or false.

Furthermore, debating is not about finding the truth.  Debate is about beating your opponent with words and ideas with no regard to fact.  Debate winners are often supporting the fact of weaker stance with better performance.

The next time we stand up and claim to know something, we should realize that we do not honestly know enough truth about the situation to know anything.  Our knowledge is predicated upon the IF that we base out truth...

Tea Party Racism

Definition
rac·ism [rey-siz-uhm] noun
1.
a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races  determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race  is superior and has the right to rule others.
2.
a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3.
hatred or intolerance of another race  or other races.

Definition (Obama/Pelosi media era)
1.
Using race to marginalized or vilify dissenting opinions.

--

Nancy Pelosi is a racist.  There was an old while lady in one picture holding a racist sign.  Nancy Pelosi is anold white lady.  Coincidence?

Obama is also a racist.  There have been pictures of well dressed men of color at Tea Party events.  Therefore, all well dressed men of color are racist.

--

The sad fact happens to be that racism is not isolated to men and women that love their country.  There are many people of many races that can be called racist.  The attempt to marginalize common sense (ie: the ability to use a calculator) with name calling is an age old tactic of those that have no ability to support their position.

--

Somehow slavery keeps being brought up as if the Tea Party is a family reunion of the descendants of southern slave owners.  Of course, everyone forgets that there is a big monument in DC (Lincoln Memorial) with a giant statue of a descendant of a slave owning family in the ... wait for it ... "North".  It would seem that "The South" wasn't the only place where human beings were bought and sold as property.

It is also somehow forgotten that Africans were knee deep in harvesting fresh crops of slaves for sell to the Americas.  More to the point, it is forgotten that slavery was not invented when the Declaration of Independence was written.  Most seem to forget that slavery predates the United States, hence The South, by ... pretty much the birth of man.  All known civilizations in history have practiced slavery.

The North can put a button on it's vest saying they stopped before the south did.  However, it cannot accurately assert that The South would have slavery today were it not for the Civil War.  While it sped up the process, slavery in The South would not be an aspect of 2011 life.

There is no excuse for enslaving human beings.  It doesn't matter if the slaves are the same race, same tribe, different race, or different tribe.  The United States learned that lesson.  However, we have allowed the media and "race pimps" to profiteer from that time in history.  We've allowed politicians to use racism as a blank check on those that disagree.

I've yet to meet a person who can trace their family tree back to a slave owner.  The most likely candidates for that particular genealogy would be elected officials in the Democratic and Republican party.  The average "white guy" that is called a racist does not come from an affluent family with historical ties to slavery.  However, that guy is the one being called a racist.  His only sins are 1. being white 2. being able to use a calculator. 3. pointing out that a political movement is a lie.

In short, those that dismiss the Tea Party with name calling should probably wonder why they do so.  They might find that they "heard it on tv".  Abdicating all of your decision making to mass media is essentially what people refer to as "drinking the Kool-Aid"...

Tent City

The land of the free and the home of the brave. Out of the houses and into the tents.

The American dream has not been so long forgotten that we forget growing up in a country where a good work ethic and some drive meant you could achieve home ownership. Paying attention to your monthly expenses, saving for a rainy day, and making sure to work hard was all it took. However, those days are either gone or on hiatus.

For decades people have been hard working responsible individuals that paid their bills on time, saved for the future, and contributed back to society. However, our current economy does not pay them the respect that their responsible nature deserves. Obviously I'm not referring to individuals that expect to be taken care of.

There is a common story across our once great nation. People that have earned, invested, saved, and WORKED for whatever they had are suddenly finding themselves with nothing. Retirement plans are emptied to pay mortgages, basic necessities, repairs, and other bills. Jobs disappear and the savings soon disappear also. Within a couple of years, people that were once thriving members of society are reduced to bankruptcy, no health insurance, no job, no money, and no help.

These people are sometimes willing to sign up for Unemployment or some other form of welfare. They have often paid into it for decades without once utilizing it. However, the sad truth is that these people played it safe and lost. They paid their bills on time. They worked every day. They saved for a rainy day. They planned for the future. Then, they lost their income, were not able to get jobs, and have utilized all of those resources they planned for so well.

Meanwhile, the government continues to dig the economy into a deeper hole with no end in sight. To those that once said "We have determined that your entire system sucks", maybe you were on to something...

Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy Theory

These days, political discussions quickly boil down to facts vs fiction. Unfortunately, there is no obvious ownership of the facts. Are the "crackpots" telling the truth or making up elaborate scenarios based in wild imagination? Is the government telling the truth or making up some sanitized theory of convenient plausibility?

Emotions get out of control when topics such as 9/11/01, OKC, Waco, Ruby Ridge, or JFK come up. There are those that blindly believe anything the news reports. There are those that believe any rumor that disagrees with the mainstream news. There are also people that support and believe in both sides that either love or hate conspiracy theory.

However, one wonders who benefits from conspiracy theory. Some claim that the theories are created as a subversive mechanism to make people question the government. Some claim that they are natural phenomenon created by years of government secrecy. Some even claim that these conspiracy theories are needed by the government in order to cloud the issue when they do have something to hide.

Unfortunately, there is no easy or obvious answer. There are people that profit from conspiracy theory. There are people that wish to promote distrust in the government. Also, the prolific nature of conspiracy theory does give a significant amount of plausible deniability to the government in that they can dismiss any fact or story as "false" by lumping it in with other things that have been coined "conspiracy theory".

That being said, any three of the above cases can be made with significant plausibility. Was Ruby Ridge an example of bad cops killing witnesses when their operation went bad? Was OKC a failed plot by the FBI to "save the day"? Was 911 an attempt to garner support for the war on terror or to make a leaseholder rich? Was the banking crisis created in an attempt to destabilize the economy and collapse the middle class?

We are unfortunately drawn into a world of "IFs". The support or detraction of any theory boils down to "IF" this is true or "IF" that is false. The items in question are almost always just out of reach. The information could be classified. If there is information that is classified, then only those with access to that information will ever know the truth. (assuming that classified information is accurate in the first place.) While National Security is an important reason to keep some secrets, it is also an aspect of the information haves and have nots.

In a situation where one party to a discussion has access to some earthshaking revelation that makes everything clear and the other does not, they are NOT free to share the information. While they may find it frustrating that somebody "doesn't get it", the other person is just as frustrated that "maybe", "somewhere", exists something that answers the missing "IF".

Even if granted that information, they would likely view it with suspicion as the creator of the information is only as factual as "they" or "them", whoever "they" actually are.

In short, conspiracy theory is a great tool for a government to use to separate the info-haves and info-have nots thus propagating the long standing unknowing that allows a government to function in secret 99% of the time.