Sunday, August 30, 2009

Ten things the "Brady Bunch" need to realize

In anticipation of my "brutha from anutha mutha's" upcoming post on the Second Amendment in his blog, "Motorcycles Have No Doors," I present these Ten Things the "Brady Bunch" Need To Realize. Enjoy!

1. Gun control laws don't work because criminals don't obey the law.
(That's why they're called "criminals.")

2. Criminals prefer their victims unarmed.
(They don't want to get shot any more than you do.)

3. Less guns = more crime. More guns = less crime.
(This is why violent crime drops everywhere that "must-issue" CCW laws and The Castle Doctrine are passed.)

4. Guns cause crime like pencils cause misspelled words.
(Don't blame the tool, blame the man using it.)

5. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
(No slight against the police intended, but that's just the way it is.)

6. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
(Just ask anyone from Canada, England, or Australia.)

7. The old saying, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" is 100% accurate.
(Just ask anyone from Canada, England, or Australia.)

8. The only person who will have a gun in a "gun free zone" will be the bad guy.
(Everyone else will be a victim.)

9. 99% of violent crimes are committed with stolen or "illegal" guns.
("Criminals," remember...)

10. "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED."
(What part of that do you NOT understand?)

IHC

Friday, August 28, 2009

I am SO done with online forums!

Every now and then I get a piece of pretty good advice from my wife that I should listen to and take heed of, and instead of doing that I’ll totally ignore it and go ahead and do what she says I shouldn’t do anyway. And I’ll inevitably pay for it when the advice I’ve ignored turns out to be pretty damned sound.

Such is the case with online forums. To give you a little bit of history, the wife and I got involved in an online motorcycle forum called “V-Twin Forum” waaaaay back when it was a small forum being run by one guy and had less than 2,000 members. It was also called something else that had “Harley-Davidson” in the name but the MoCo sent the owner a letter threatening to sue over the use of the Harley name without permission, so he changed the name. The forum got really popular and literally exploded in membership; about this time I made a comment concerning how bad the drivers were in New Jersey (where I was living at the time), and a friend of my wife’s – whom I never liked from Day 1 but tolerated because he was a friend of my wife’s – went apeshit on me online. Seems that he was from New Jersey and took offense to my calling a spade a spade. It got nasty quick, and ended up with three broken friendships and us leaving the forum.

Right after that we got involved in another forum called “Harley-DavidsonBikers.com,” and after about a year of some pretty good experiences on that forum, that one went south as well. There was this one guy on the forum who claimed to having ridden 125,000 miles on his bike in one year, and I took him to task on it. When I pointed out that in order for this to happen, the guy would have to ride 342 miles per day, every day for a year, I was roundly chastised for my non-belief. There was another guy on the forum at about the same time who flat-out didn’t like me and I didn’t like him, either, so rather than stick around for the abuse we were both going through, my wife and I said the hell with it and left that forum as well. (At this point I must be fair and tell you that there is a forum named “HarleyDavidsonBikers.com," but it is NOT the same forum of which I speak. That one shut down shortly after I left for reasons other than my departure.)

That was pretty much it for my wife and forums, but as for me….well, some things I learn quickly, and some I don’t.

At this point I have to point out that I’ve met some really fantastic folks through online forums, and one of them is one of my closest friends to this day, a guy I’ve ridden to a couple of rallies with, had over to my house twice, gotten drunk with, and just generally had a ball with. You know him as BulldogChief, author of the blog “Motorcycles Have No Doors.” Bulldog is my "brutha from anutha mutha" and the closest thing I have to a real brother, and there isn’t much I wouldn’t do for him. And I know he feels the same way about me, because he’s told me. I met Bulldog on the next forum I got involved in after HDB went south, and together he and I watched that forum self-destruct through no fault of ours or anything we were involved in.

Next stop for me was a very brief stay at "FFMB.com," which lasted about two days. I made a joke about Yankees (not the baseball team) that someone from the North didn’t appreciate, and the membership pounced on me like a pack of wolves on a wounded sheep. Not being one to stay where I’m not wanted, I told ‘em all to go pound sand and left.

Then I got a call from someone I knew from the old HDB website, who invited me to join a new forum he was putting together called “EliteRidingGroup.com.” This was going to be a by-invitation site only, and in order to get in you had to be sponsored by a member of the forum. That was an excellent way to keep the troublemakers and the trolls out, and I must say it worked. I got involved in the forum in a very big way, volunteering for the Membership Committee and helping screen new members. And I gotta say, it worked. We had a simply excellent site going, with about 65 members or so, and it was great! No fights, no back-biting, no trolling, none of the usual crap you find with “open membership” forums.

Then I got wind of something that the founder was up to that was going to involve him circumventing the rules for membership; he was going to bring someone into the forum without having him go through the Membership Committee. I called him on it, and he turned on me like a rabid dog. When I made my last post and said I was leaving the forum, I didn’t air any of the dirty laundry that had piled up between us. All of the arguing we had done was done in a private section of the forum where only the Membership Committee and Admins could see, so when I left it came as a big surprise to everyone. Well, almost everyone.

And it was at that point that I had proven to me just how much some of the member’s words of loyalty were worth. To this day, I have not had one single member of that forum contact me and ask me what happened, or to come back. Not one. But the owner/operator of the site has had a ball slamming me behind my back. Nice guy, huh?

So you’d think I’d learn from this, wouldn’t you? Any rational person would, right? But did I learn? NOOOOOOOOOOO, of course not!

Vowing never to get that heavily involved in any forum ever again, I promptly joined "HarleyDavidsonForum.com" and kept a low profile. I’d check the posts every now and then, make a post here and there, but not really get too involved in it because I didn’t want to go through again what I’d been through before. Two things about this forum struck me right away: the general membership seemed to be a “clique-ish” group, not really rolling out the welcome mat for newcomers, and they had an inordinate amount of people who claimed to be “real bikers.” (Remember my post a while back about “posers” and “rubs?” This is where it came from.)

It wasn’t long before I clashed with the loudest of these “real bikers;” for discussion’s sake, let’s call him “RealBiker.” Anything “RealBiker” doesn’t like, he immediately labels as “GAY.” This includes windshields, electric starters, anything with the “Harley-Davidson” logo on it that isn’t a motorcycle, Starbucks coffee, and the TV show “Sons of Anarchy.” He also says that anyone who isn’t a “real biker” by his criteria is either a “poser” or a “rub.” Of course, he never really said exactly what his criteria was, but I kinda got the idea that if you weren’t able to completely tear your bike down into a pile of individual pieces and then put it back together, you weren’t a “real biker.” The clash we had wasn’t too bad, but it left both of us with a dislike for the other – he disliked me because in his eyes I was a “poser,” and I didn’t like him because he was obnoxious as hell.

That was about 2 months ago, and then last week someone made a post about the show “Sons of Anarchy.” Well, as one would expect, all of the “real bikers” on the forum roundly panned the show, with the loudest and most obnoxious of them being – you guessed it – “RealBiker.” He immediately labeled the show as “GAY,” naturally. I made the only post in which someone had the balls to say they liked the show, and “RealBiker” immediately lit into me. Then, out of nowhere, comes another poster who jumps on me and takes the conversation into a whole different direction. This one, who we’ll call “ArmyPuke,” started an argument with me about military Law Enforcement and civilian Law Enforcement not being the same, and that military cops weren’t “real cops.” Naturally, he was neither; he said he was in the Army “25 years ago,” but wasn’t anymore. Along the way he managed to throw the usual insults at the Air Force that an Army puke throws – kids will be kids, you know – which didn’t help things. But he has never performed a single hour of LE work in either community, so naturally he has NO idea of what he’s talking about.

So how, you ask, can he make the statement he did, not having the personal experience? He claims to have the agreement of “4 or 5 officers standing around me” while he was at work who agreed with him. Naturally, he never said if any of them – if they did exist at all – had worked in military Law Enforcement.

Hmmmmm, let’s see…..he’s never worked a day of Law Enforcement of either kind in his entire life, he’s unwilling to take the word of someone who has who disagrees with him, but he IS willing to take the word of civilian officers who agree with him.

Is it me, or is there something wrong with the logic here??

My last post to “RealBiker” was to say that he’d completely missed my point, and that I give up. My last post to “ArmyPuke” was to say that we had two choices: we could either continue on and watch it get even uglier than it already was, or we could just agree to disagree and drop it. He chose to continue, making an insulting post, and before I could reply the admins locked the thread.

After I discovered that the thread had been locked, I said to myself, “Screw this! Life’s too short to put up with this crap!” and cleaned out my account. Deleted all of the information in my profile, deleted my avatar, and changed my title to “outta here….” Then I logged out, erased the bookmark from my computer, and went on with my life. I'm going to go back tonight to send a PM to a person I'm trying to hook up with to ride, but after that I have ZERO intentions of ever going back.

In all fairness, I must say this: there are some really good people on that site, with Dave63 being about the best of them. Unfortunately, the assholes outshine the good ones. They always do, unfortunately.

I have also finally learned my lesson. I will never – NEVER – get involved in another online forum again for the rest of my life.

Seems that you can teach an old dog new tricks after all.

IHC

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Second Amendment is a little safer today

I suppose by now that everyone has heard of the death of Teddy Kennedy; if you haven’t, then you must have been living in a cave for the past 24 hours because that’s all you’ve been able to see or hear on the TV. All I can say is, the Second Amendment is a little safer today because one of its most powerful and prolific enemies is no more.

That’s right, I’m not a fan of Teddy Kennedy. I won’t say I hate the man, but I’m definitely not a fan. I’m not going to be a fan of anyone who intends to impose his own ideals and ideas on how I should live my life on me, and I’m damned sure not going to be a fan of someone who’s idea of keeping me “safe” is to deprive me of one of my Constitutional rights – which just also happens to be the second most important right there is. (That’s why they’re numbered the way they are, ya know…a wise bunch, our Founding Fathers.) Somehow, I’ve just never been able to get next to the insane concept that giving up the means to defend myself against the bad guys is going to make me “safer.”

Besides, in my humble opinion, Ted Kennedy’s political career and his life as a free man should have died at Chappaquiddick with Mary Jo Kopekne. Good ol’ Teddy is proof that the rich and politically connected can literally get away with murder – or in Ted’s case, manslaughter. I mean, c’mon…he was drunk when he was driving, he drove his car off a bridge, saved himself while making no effort to save his passenger, called his family instead of the police, went home, slept it off, then got up, showered, shaved, and THEN called the police.

And all he was found guilty of was leaving the scene of an accident.

If you or I had done that, we’d have ended up UNDER the jail. Tell me I’m wrong, I dare ya.

Teddy Kennedy had two lifelong ambitions, and he was a failure at both. One of them was health care, and for him to be a failure at that was truly a shame. Although I disagree with his ideas on how that ambition could be realized, I agree that health care should be a top priority in America. His other ambition, however, was the repeal of the Second Amendment and the total outlawing of private firearms ownership.

And that’s where we part company.

As I said before, I fail to see how any sane, intelligent person could possibly think that giving up your right and abilities to defend yourself from harm will make you safer. This is nothing but absolute lunacy. An unarmed, defenseless person can be best described using one word: PREY.

Teddy Kennedy sought to make the country “safer” by taking away everyone’s ability to defend themselves; in effect, he wanted to make everyone prey for the thugs, robbers, muggers, rapists, and thieves in our nation. To this day I fail to see how a Harvard-educated man can come to such a stupid, inane conclusion.

To be fair, I’m sure that there’s a lot of good that Teddy was able to accomplish in his 50+ years in the Senate, but I sure am glad that he wasn’t able to accomplish his goals concerning my right to keep and bear arms.

As a very wise man once said a very long time ago, “An armed man is a citizen; an unarmed man is a subject.”

And I ain’t nobody’s “subject.” Not now, not ever.

IHC

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

"Little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous!"

No, this post has nothing to do with "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." (That's the movie that the title of the post came from.) Rather, it has to do with a previous post and the surprises I got from it.

As you may recall, a few days ago I made a post entitled "Fact, Fiction, and the Holy Bible." I knew this was going to be an interesting if not volatile subject to discuss, and I was ready for the discussion to go either way. After all, if you're gonna post your thoughts in a public forum such as this, you have to be ready for any and all responses, right? I was - or so I thought.

I have a Facebook account, and I have that account set up to automatically post these blog entries there. It was on Facebook that I received 99% of the responses to my post. I received the responses that I thought I'd get. I got some very interesting, very educated, and very passionate responses to my opinions, and I respect them all. As I've said before, I don't consider opinions to be "right" or "wrong;" I consider them to be "different." This topic was not the exception to that rule. After reading the responses I received, I don't consider those who hold different opinions from mine as being "wrong;" rather, I just consider them as having a different opinion than mine, and I respect that. I'd like to think that they, in turn, respect my opinions as well. Like I said, I got the responses that I pretty much thought I'd get.

What I didn't count on was having my knowledge and competancies as a former Law Enforcement officer questioned, and I didn't count on being insulted, lectured, and talked down to along the way. I especially didn't count on it coming from a member of my own family.

This really struck a nerve with me for one very simple reason: there have been only two things in my life that I've been really, really good at. Both of them were when I was in the Air Force; one was when I was a Basic Military Training Instructor, and the other was when I was a Law Enforcement Specialist/Supervisor. In both areas, I was among the top 10% of my peers and was recognized as such. Needless to say, I'm very proud of what I did while in the service, and to have my abilities and knowledge in either of those areas questioned really struck a nerve. But I think what made it affect me as much as it did was the source.

At first it angered me, and I mean bad. I was pissed for the better part of two days; after that, I was just insulted and hurt. It bothered me continually every day after the comments were made, and I went over it in my mind again and again, trying to find a way I could resolve the conflict without causing it to get any worse. That has been the prevalent thought in my mind for the past two days - how to resolve the issue without making it worse.

And this morning, while I was conducting the safety walk of my store at 5:30AM, it hit me.

This whole thing started because of a discussion about the Bible, Christianity, and Christians, right? So maybe I needed to take a step back, remember what I've learned from the Bible and Jesus Christ about how to act like a Christian, and do what a good Christian would do. But just what would a good Christian do?

He'd forgive the transgressions against him, that's what.

Duh. Shouldn't have taken me that long to figure it out.

So that's what I decided to do, and I hate to sound corny or "over the top" or anything like that, but as soon as I decided to take that course of action my mind cleared, it stopped bothering me, and I immediately started to feel better - like a weight had been lifted off of me. Seriously.

So I have forgiven the person who laid the insults on me, although until he reads this post he won't realize it. Holding grudges never does any good, and holding on to hostilities and anger only breeds more hostilities and anger. Even though I don't believe 100% of what is in the Bible, I do believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ and in the value of forgiveness.

"Forgive and forget," as the old saying goes. Forgive, absolutely.

But I won't forget. Absolutely.

IHC

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Just when you think you know someone....

...something else pops up to show you that you may not have really known that person as well as you think you did.

No, this isn't going to be a post in which I complain about something gone wrong in the world - although I will admit that I'm seriously pondering a post about NObama's health care plan - but rather, it's a small glimpse at a part of me that very few people know about.

So here it is: I'm a closet lover of old movies. I don't mean old, old movies, like "Casablanca" or "Citizen Kane" or movies like that. Nah, not quite that old, although those movies are certainly great ones. I'm an admirer of movies from the early to mid 1960s, and since that was 40-odd years ago, in The Book of Craig that makes them old movies. And out of this genre, my four favorites are as follows, in no particular order: "Patton," (no surprise there, for anyone who knows me even the slightest bit) "Von Ryan's Express," "The Sand Pebbles," and the topic of today's post, "The Blue Max."

For anyone who hasn't seen it, a brief synopsis: George Peppard plays a German World War I fighter pilot named Lieutenant Bruno Stachel who starts out the war as a lowly infantryman. He makes it into the German Flying Corps and is assigned to a squadron, where he quickly becomes the #2 ace in the squadron. He is instantly enamored by two things: Germany's highest decoration for valor, oddly enough a French decoration called Pour le Merite or the "Blue Max" (because the medal is a blue enamel variation of a maltese cross), and the Countess Katie Von Klugermann, the mistress of the #1 ace in the squadron, who just happens to be played by Ursula Andress.

Oh, did I mention that not only is the Countess the wife of the area commanding general, but she is also the aunt by marriage of Stachel's rival, Lieutenant Willie Von Klugermann? You know, the guy she's having an affair with? Nothing like keeping it in the family.

The movie is fascinating in several aspects. During his quest to win the Blue Max - which you can only get by shooting down 20 enemy planes - it shows the gradual transformation of Lt. Stachel from a wet behind the ears novice pilot to a ruthless, cold-blooded killer who strives to be the absolute best at what he does - in and out of bed. Aside from setting his sights on the Blue Max, after some provocation from his rival, Lt. Von Klugermann, he also sets his sights on the Countess. Klugermann sums up Stachel's quests by comparing them to finding a bottle of champagne of 1903 vintage - "You'll find it hard to get." Of course Stachel gets both. Wouldn't be much point to him not getting them, would it?

What fascinates me about this movie - aside from the top-notch acting, the stunning locations and the absolutely magnificent real-life arial combat scenes filmed with real airplanes and none of today's computer generated crap - is the comparisons between the classes that takes place as an integral part of the movie, and Stachel's fight to overcome his family lineage which is anything but impressive and impress those of the "upper class" who are looking down their noses at him.

Which is just about everybody.

You see, it's like this: in World War I, the German Officer Corps was made up of the elite of Germany and Prussia. To get into the German Officer Corps in that time, you had to be wealthy, sophisticated, educated, and most of all, rich. If you didn't have a baron or two in your family tree, you stood little chance of ever getting in. The German Officer Corps of World War I was dedicated to fighting the war with honor and chivalry, the last war in which such values were ever applied. They were fighting to win, naturally, but they were determined to do it with honor.

Stachel did two things to alienate himself from the other officers in his unit, neither of them his fault. The first was his family - his father didn't own land, wasn't a baron, wasn't educated or rich, but was the manager of a small inn. When he reports in to his unit and his new commanding officer asks him about his family - "Who are your people?" - in front of the other officers, Stachel tells him this and earns the instant ridicule of the rest of the officers.

The second thing he did started out innocently enough, but turned tragic in more ways than one. In his first dogfight, he shot down an enemy plane but the downing wasn't witnessed by anyone, so it wasn't "confirmed" which means he didn't get credit for it. When he complains about it to his commander he's told, "It's a cruel world, Stachel." On his next mission, he and Willie Klugermann go out to shoot down an observation ballon. Stachel ends up capturing a two-seater British observation plane in the bargain, having killed the back-seat gunner during the fight. He wants credit for this kill and is determined to make a point, so he signals the pilot of the British plane to turn around and fly towards the German lines. Stachel is going to force the plane to land at the German airfield, proving his point to everyone in his squadron. An excellent plan which should do the trick, right? I mean, even Willie is impressed at what Stachel is doing.

Except that as the three planes approach the field and are getting ready to land, the British gunner proves that he isn't dead by going for his machine gun to start shooting at Stachel. Stachel has no choice but to shoot instead, and he shoots down the British plane right there over the field, killing both the gunner AND the pilot, who is basically helpless.

And in the German code of honor, you didn't kill helpless people. You can imagine how this all goes down with his squadron mates, who are left with the impression that Stachel brought the plane all the way back to their airfield to shoot it down where there would be plenty of witnesses to confirm it. After Stachel lands and his commander starts berating him for what he's done, in a fit of anger Stachel stalks over to the British plane, cuts out the registration number from the fuselage, stalks over to his commander and tosses the canvas square down on the ground in front of him. "Confirmed!" he states. "It's a cruel world, Herr Hauptmann, you said it yourself!" And then he stalks away, leaving his squadron mates looking after him in stunned disbelief.

That's about all of the plot that I want to give away, just in case anyone reading this has a mind to go rent the movie and watch it. I will tell you that watching the study in the classes, Stachel's fight to win approval, and his transformation as a fighter pilot and all of the subplots going on at the same time make this a simply fascinating movie. As I said before, the arial combat scenes are nothing short of magnificent, and Ursula Andress isn't too hard on the eyes, either.

A word of advice, though - if you're going to rent the movie, make sure you get the widescreen version. This movie, as in all movies, loses so much in the "pan and scan" technique used to make a movie fit into the dimensions of a television screen. I have the movie on VHS and am now looking for a DVD copy of it in widescreen, because you know what? Aside from the very first time I saw this movie in a theatre in Highland Springs, Virginia in the mid-'60's, I've never seen it in widescreen.

Something else you didn't know.

IHC

Friday, August 14, 2009

Fact, Fiction, and the Holy Bible

I can think of a few people who are gonna be kinda upset with me after reading this, but as I've said before, anything that is on my mind for more than a few days winds up here. Call it a kind of catharsis if you will; all I know is that after I put my thoughts down here, the thoughts leave my mind and that's that. And what I'm gonna write about tonight - and this is BEFORE I go sailing with my old friend, Sailor Jerry - is sure to ruffle a few feathers and surprise a few people.

Oh, and Sailor Jerry is my favorite brand of spiced Navy rum, by the way.

OK, enough of the small talk. Let's get down to business.

By the title of today's writings, I guess you've figured out that I'm gonna talk about the Holy Bible. IMHO, the Holy Bible is one of the two most mis-interpreted and mis-read writings in the history of mankind. (The other one is the United States Constitution, if you must know.) It is my opinion that no other published book of writings has had the impact on the worldwide population as the Holy Bible; the Constitution comes in a poor second. The Bible has been the source of inspiration and salvation for untold millions of people, yet it has also been the source of several of the longest and most fruitless wars in the history of mankind. (Of course, I'm talking about the Crusades here.)

And the thing about it all that strikes me the most is that all of the tales told in the various books of the Bible are nothing more than word of mouth! There is not one physical piece of proof that ANYTHING in the Bible actually took place, yet this book remains the driving force behind one of the largest religions in the world.

Let's get a few things straight right now: yes, I believe in God. Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ. Yes, I believe in a "life after death" (although not knowing what that life is gonna be like scares the living crap outta me at times). All three of these things are taught in the Bible. But after that.....

I guess it's because of my lifelong career in Law Enforcement/Security that makes me the way I am, but I have a strong belief in physical evidence. The sad fact of life is that people lie. Period. Every single one of us drawing a breath today has, at least once in our life, told a serious lie to someone else for one reason or another. We're human, after all. Tell me I'm wrong and I'll call you a liar.

Physical evidence doesn't lie. Ever. It can't. Physical evidence is proof that something happened, and that it happened in a certain way. Physical evidence can be manipulated by man, but the evidence itself doesn't lie. Period.

We know that dinosaurs existed. We have proof - they're called "fossils."

We believe that Jesus Christ existed, yet we have no proof.

Scientists tell us that life started out as a single cell organism which, over a period of billions of years, evolved into man as we know it today. (My only question is, where did that first single cell organism come from?) I'm not so sure I believe that.

The Bible tells us that God created man out of the earth, and that he created woman out of man's rib. I'm not so sure I believe that, either.

The Bible tells us that God destroyed the Earth with a great flood in order to start over again, after telling Noah to gather two of every living creature - male and female, of course - and put them on a boat to save them. The Bible even gives the dimensions of the Ark that Noah was ordered to build.

Somehow, I just don't see Noah ever being able to build a boat big enough to get every single living species of animal and insect on it, nor can I imagine him and his family surviving the trip.

I also don't go along with the story of the Tower of Babel and that being the source of all the different languages throughout the world. I just don't go along with that. I think language, like everything else, just evolved differently in different parts of the world.

These are the two most prevalent things that come to mind when I start thinking about the Bible, the stories in it, and whether or not they're true. (We won't even talk about Noah living to be more than 900 years old. Yeah, I know, they measured time differently in those days! Crap.) Do I believe the stories in the Bible? Not all of them, no. I also don't know where life started, how life started, or how it will end. Mankind's life, that is - not mine. I believe the Lord has already decided on the day and hour of my death, and I'm just going through the days until I get there. As for mankind in general, hell, I don't know, but I don't think it's gonna be anything like Revelations says it's gonna be.

But putting all of this aside, I absolutely do with all my heart and the thing we call a soul believe in God, His power, and Jesus Christ. I absolutely believe in a life after death, although I don't believe that you have to jump through all of the hoops here on Earth that some religions say you do in order to "be saved." I know life came from somewhere; I just don't know where or how. And really, when you get down to it, it's not all that important that I do. All I need to know is that there is a God, He is watching out over us, there is a life after death, and I don't have to earn my way into His domain which we call Heaven. My simple belief in Him is enough.

As for not having any physical evidence to back up these beliefs...well, that's why they call it "faith."

IHC

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Racism is alive and well, and living in Washington DC

Why do I say this? Simple: Judge Sotomayor has been approved for appointment to the United States Supreme Court, and will be sworn in today.

Let me get something straight with whomever may be reading this right now: I have no problem with the fact that she’s a woman, nor do I have any problem with the fact that she’s Latino. Neither of those items interest me in the least. I do, however, have a problem with her legislative decisions in the past, specifically the one she made in regards to the racial discrimination suit filed by the firefighters that was in the news recently. I also have a problem with her past statements concerning gun control – she’s anti-gun, in case you didn’t know.

But the biggest problem I have with her stems from her “wise Latino woman” statement, and the way in which it was played down and then roundly ignored by the liberal press and all of the Democrats in Washington, including The Great Pretender.

Let’s face facts, people – had a WHITE MAN made a statement such as that, the blacks, Latinos, Mexicans, gays, one-eyed pirates and any other “minority” group out there would have lined up to publicly castrate the man, with the Democrats in Washington standing there handing out the dull, rusty knives. The NAACP would be howling at the top of their lungs, in chorus with the ACLU, both screaming about the rampant and obvious racism which was the obvious basis for such a racist statement.

Tell me I’m wrong. I dare ya.

But none of that happened. Every minority group out there played down and then totally ignored the racist comment that Sotomayor made, and only ONE senator in Congress said anything about it – and then the asshole turned around and voted for her! (Sadly, this congressman is Linsey Graham, who happens to be from my state, and whom I will NOT be voting for again in the next Congressional elections next year.) The questioning of this woman was sadly inefficient considering the racist statement she made and the past decisions she made, and when the final votes came around the Congress voted basically along party lines – and the first racist Latino woman was approved for appointment to the US Supreme Court.

I am thoroughly disgusted at the free ride that this woman was given by the members of Congress in general and the liberal press in particular. I am also thoroughly disgusted at the now-proven fact that our elected officials in Washington have given credence to the incorrect and unjust assumption that only a white man can be a racist. Look up the term “racist” in the dictionary, people, and tell me that the definition given there supports this. I dare ya.

This is a sad day for America. It damn sure isn't the “great leap forward” that The Great Pretender seems to think it will be.

IHC

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Two phrases that can't be used in the same sentence

And those two phrases are “common sense” and “gun laws.”

Earlier this week I took part in a discussion following a post by my “brutha from anutha mutha,” Bulldog, in his blog “Motorcycles Have No Doors.” During the course of this discussion, one of the participants used the phrase “common sense” several times while discussing guns, gun laws, gun control, and the like. Of course, that got me to thinking about it, and anything that I find myself thinking about for more than 24 hours is invariably gonna end up here.

And so here it is.

I firmly believe that the phrases “common sense” and “gun laws” cannot be used in the same sentence, and here’s why. Common sense, with a few notable exceptions, varies from person to person, the reason being that most examples of "common sense" are nothing more than someone's OPINION. What may be “common sense” to one person may be total lunacy to another.

Allow me to demonstrate.

“Common sense” tells you that if you place your unguarded, unprotected hand over an open flame, you’re going to get burned. Common sense, right?

“Common sense” tells you that if you toss a lighted cigarette into an open container of gasoline, there’s gonna be an explosion. Common sense, right?

“Common sense” tells you that if you sneak up behind a bull and poke him in the ass with a sharp stick, you’re gonna get the crap gored out of you when the bull catches you. Common sense, right?

All of these examples of “common sense” share one trait, one thing, which secures them as bona-fide, irrefutable examples of “common sense.” That one thing is that the result of an individual’s actions in each of these examples absolutely will have a predictable result that will be the exact same no matter who is involved, because said result is a fact and not an opinion or a point of view.

Not so when you talk about gun laws and gun control.

The Brady Bunch and the morons in the Clinton Administration from the 1990’s used the phrase “common sense” when they shoved the Brady Bill through Congress. They said that “common sense” dictated that there was no need for a pistol to be outfitted with a magazine capable of holding more than ten rounds. “Common sense” said that any rifle with a bayonet lug was an “assault weapon” (more on that term later in another post), and that no citizen had any need to own such a weapon. “Common sense” said that any rifle or shotgun with a pistol grip was an “assault weapon,” and no citizen had any need to own such a weapon.

All of these examples lauded as being “common sense” were nothing more than opinions masquerading as “common sense.” The people behind this fraud have the ultimate goal of the total elimination of all weapons in private ownership in America, and they will do anything they can to accomplish this goal. This group of people have learned that the facts about the impact of private weapon ownership and the resulting decrease on violent crime do not support their goals, so they twist facts and use phrases like “common sense” to persuade the uneducated portion of the general public into believing their bullshit opinions.

Trust me, ANY legislation that is passed under the guise of “common sense” legislation is nothing but pure bullshit, a piece of useless feel-good legislation that actually does nothing to reduce crime or make the people safer but is actually someone else’s OPINION in disguise, and is being used as part of a long-running plan to eliminate our Second Amendment rights.

Want some facts for you? Okay, here’s some.

FACT: Violent crime has DECREASED since the Brady Bill was allowed to expire, because more law-abiding citizens are legally carrying weapons.

FACT: Violent crime has DECREASED in all states that have enacted a “must issue” law regarding concealed weapon permits for the same reason. Criminals don't wanna get shot any more than you do.

FACT: The states and cities in our nation that have stringent gun control laws and that do not allow or severely restrict issuance of concealed carry permits have the highest incidents of violent crime in the nation. Washington, DC, which until recently had the most stringent anti-gun legislation on the books, has the highest murder rate in the nation.

Looking at the facts stated above, “common sense” tells you that more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens means less crime.

But that’s just my OPINION.

IHC