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anomalocaris 24-Feb-13, 20:17 |
 Gun controlHow would you feel if you received a letter from the U.S. Government informing you that because of a physical or mental condition that the government says you have it is proposing to rule that you are incompetent to handle your own financial affairs? Suppose that letter also stated that the government is going to appoint a stranger to handle your affairs for you at your expense? That would certainly be scary enough but it gets worse. What if that letter also stated: “A determination of incompetency will prohibit you from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or ammunition. If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub.L.No. 103-159, as implemented at 18, United States Code 924(a)(2).”? That makes is sound like something right from a documentary on a tyrannical dictatorship somewhere in the world. Yet, as I write this I have a copy of such a letter right in front of me. It is being sent by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of America’s heroes. In my capacity as Executive Director of the United States Justice Foundation (USJF) I have been contacted by some of these veterans and the stories I am getting are appalling. The letter provides no specifics on the reasons for the proposed finding of incompetency; just that is based on a determination by someone in the VA. In every state in the United States no one can be declared incompetent to administer their own affairs without due process of law and that usually requires a judicial hearing with evidence being offered to prove to a judge that the person is indeed incompetent. This is a requirement of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that states that no person shall “… be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law…”. here is link www.mrconservative.com |
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Using Gun Violence to Get Elected By Dan Dagget The most frustrating aspect of the continuing verbal marathon about guns and gun control is that no one is talking about the real cause of our continuing problem with mass, meaningless murder. That means no one is talking about real solutions that will have real results. Instead, we are once again talking about disarming law-abiding citizens, or (more accurately) pushing government deeper into our lives by diluting the only document on the planet -- the U. S. Constitution -- that protects humans from tyranny. Take away guns and you still have violence. But take away our Constitution and you empower tyrants, both illegal and legal, who will have plenty of guns whether they are banned or not. So, why are we spending so much time talking about a non-solution to such a serious problem? One reason is because the liberals who make up our current ruling class, in a very significant way, have caused these senseless tragedies, and they certainly don't want to talk about that. How did liberals cause recent gun massacres? I discussed that in an earlier piece -- "Ban Liberalism Not Guns." Here, however, I want to address a more important topic -- Why liberals aren't interested in real solutions to the problem of senseless, mostly random violence, whether it is perpetrated with a gun or otherwise. In fact, I want to talk about why they aren't interested in any solutions at all. One reason liberals aren't interested in solving problems is because they are so totally invested in using them. Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's first White House Chief of Staff, made that clear when he voiced the cardinal rule of liberalism, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste." How do politicians "never let a crisis go to waste?" They use it to get elected. They use problems of all sorts to get elected by blaming their political opponents for causing the problem and by selling themselves as the saviors of those of us whom they can convince are victims of said problem and of the "villains" whom they say perpetrated it. And once elected, they use this same blame game to get their policies enacted, increase their political power, and enhance their chances of getting re-elected. Before we follow that thread any further, I want to point out that there is another reason the liberal ruling class isn't interested in solutions: They don't have any. In another post made the point that liberals were doomed to selling less (blame, hate, problems) because nothing produces solutions better than free-market capitalism applied by individuals blessed with a high degree of individual political freedom. This system, as devised and utilized in the good ol' USA, has enabled us to achieve a greater and broader prosperity than any other society in human history. As for what I mean by saying "liberals don't have any real solutions... to anything," consider how well they've handled the "War on Poverty" -- nearly $20 trillion spent since LBJ initiated this monstrous government redistribution of wealth in the 1960s, and the administration tells us 1 in 6 are still "in poverty." And how well is the welfare state and income redistribution working for Greece? Spain? The United Kingdom? France's Labor Minister, Michel Sapin, recently described that country as "totally bankrupt." The UK doesn't look for economic recovery until after 2017. How about race relations? The election of Obama in 2008 was supposed to usher in a "postracial era," but today racial polarization is as bad (or worse) than it has ever been. Anyone who opposes Obama on any issue is tagged a racist, an extremist, an enemy. The energy crisis? Can you say Solyndra and wind power? And, in spite of the fact that global warming has been revealed to be a fraud based on trumped up data, liberals keep telling us that there is scientific consensus on the matter except for a few oddballs who ought to be thrown in jail because they are Global Warming "Deniers". Getting back to gun violence... Want to bet that limiting our access to guns will reduce gun violence. It hasn't worked anywhere it has been tried. Because "using" crises is so valuable to the liberal ruling class, even if they had a solution to anything, they wouldn't apply it. After all if your entire political strategy consists of using crises and problems to paint your adversaries as villains and enemies in order to get people to vote for you, the last thing you want to have happen is for a problem to be solved. What's more, because liberals have such a terrible track record at solving anything, if a problem is solved, most likely it will be solved by the opposition, i. e. those pesky free-market capitalists. Then what? What does continuing to elect liberals to run our government get for you and me? First of all it gets us a lot of "solutions" that don't work. Even worse -- it gets us a society that operates on the basis of hate and divisiveness. Can you think of anything worse than that? Evidence of this is easy to find -- the movie, Django Unchained, provides an excellent example. So do all the tweets in support of Christopher Dorner, murderer of four in his recent crime spree. And then there are all those episodes of "gun violence." Continuing to elect politicians who have nothing to sell but blame, hate, and "issues" gives us a society in which it pays to invent crises -- so you can blame them on your opponent. Remember acid rain, the ozone hole, the coming ice age, the death of the oceans, OVERPOPULATION!, and on and on. In every case we were told that the only way to avert each of these "crises" was to elect liberals/democrats because the Republicans, free-market capitalists, or America caused them... by creating More. Which brings us to another history lesson. In his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, biologist Paul Ehrlich told us that hundreds of millions of us would die during the 1970s no matter what we did because we had already outstripped the planet's ability to feed us and to supply us with the raw materials necessary to sustain our lifestyle. He also predicted that, by 1985, so many billions would have died that the Earth's population would have shrunk to 1.5 billion. And by 1999, the overconsuming U. S. would suffer such devastating environmental catastrophes that the life expectancy of its citizens would have dropped to 42 years, and its population would be a mere 22.6 million. Instead, in 2013, the population of the world is at 7 billion and growing, the U.S. population is over 300 million, our prosperity is unprecedented (At least it was until we elected the Pelosi Democrats in 2006 and Obama in 2008.), and our life expectancy continues to rise. To underscore how wrong Ehrlich was, many countries now are concerned about underpopulation rather than overpopulation. Why? Because their "Ehrlich scare" birth rates are too low to produce the workers needed to keep their economies running (and to support all those seniors). What saved us from Ehrlich's predictions of doom? The same thing that has saved us from scarcity and adversity so many times -- human ingenuity and initiative applied within the framework of a free-market economy. This reveals what may be the most ironic downside of continuing to elect politicians who have nothing to sell but blame: It gives us a society in which the problem solvers, the tragedy averters, the producers of abundance are villainized. A society in which we regularly vote against the people who can solve the very problems that supposedly plague us. In this upside-down process the people who continually sell us less (liberals/Democrats) end up being the only ones with more -- more money, more power, more everything. Barack Hussein Obama, unsurpassed peddler of "less" is now worth $11.8 million and lives like a king. The best way to wrap this up, I believe, is to restate, in a form simple enough to remember easily, what continuing to elect politicians who have nothing to sell but blame, hate, and less gets us. It gets us a society that operates on the basis of hate, divisiveness, and blame. It gets us a society in which politicians rise to power by inventing crises -- so they can blame them on their opponents and use that blame to get elected. It gets us a country ruled by a government with a vested interest in solutions that don't work. After all, if a problem is solved, politicians can't use it to get elected anymore. In a society of this sort the surest route to power is to cast yourself as a victim. As a victim, you become an asset to the liberal ruling class which can use you to villainize its opponents (because they made you a victim) and attract votes by casting itself as your savior. Last, but not least, electing politicians who trump up problems and use them to get votes by heaping blame and vilification on their opponents gives us a society in which those who truly are able to solve problems, create abundance, and get us out of the mess we're in are invariably cast as villains. www.americanthinker.com |
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changeling 27-Feb-13, 06:34 |
You guys are funny, that little gem just cracked me up. "Murica" springs to mind. |
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change there are NO other documents in the existence of mankind that established a government of the people, for the people, and by the people that expressed the government as having to abide by the rule of law with the overriding concern to be freedom of the people with rights and liberties specified and protected. This was the first such document. |
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changeling 27-Feb-13, 07:22 |
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Change ... |
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dmaestro 27-Feb-13, 09:03 |
In fact the original constitution excluded most of the population and was silent on who could vote, leaving such a critical question up to the whims of states. The only part of government even subject to direct election originally was the House of Representatives. Switzerland has a much older democratic tradition than the USA. Anyone can claim "we the people" but the devil is in the details. Read the original Constitution as it was. |
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dmaestro 27-Feb-13, 09:12 |
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changeling 27-Feb-13, 13:53 |
chaz |
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anomalocaris 27-Feb-13, 14:00 |
DM I consider Aussies to be just as proud of their country as are many other people proud of their countries. I would rather be proud of my country (even to a flaw) then to be a whiny apologist like you. I am proud to be an American, not proud of every single event in our history but what country doesn't have some dark secrets in their past. American exceptionalism is not arrogant fantasy. I feel like its a fact, I don't fault any man or woman for seeing their own country the same way. In fact they should. If you don't love your country then you can always leave. |
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tat3225 27-Feb-13, 18:10 |
Maestro is clearly a gigantic useless moron who needs to be taken out back and have the sh** kicked out of him. Immediately afterwards someone can explain to him that all of the parliamentary governments today exist BECAUSE of the United States. |
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changeling 27-Feb-13, 18:28 |
Simply not true! Nice first sentence though. |
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dmaestro 27-Feb-13, 18:32 |
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musket33r 27-Feb-13, 20:21 |
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