Piers Morgan: dont let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

I was going do something on our out of control debt and the "looming" fiscal "cliff" but I was distracted reading this piece written by Piers Morgan of CNN published 12-29. The heading states he may deport himself if "America won't change its crazy gun laws". Now given such a heading filled with hyperbole you can expect the rest of his viewpoint will be littered with more attention whoring exaggerations and boy does he not disappoint. 

He starts out with his experience with guns. This, being a singular event, was a trip to Prague where he and some friends shot targets for a few hours and he said afterwards that the experience "quite demonstrably guns are killing machines".

I find that rather meaningless. For I, have never owned or shot a gun at any point in my life. I grew up in a single parent house with my mother and three sisters. Hunting is something I have never done either. But I don't have to hunt nor own a gun or to even have shot one to know guns are killing machines. After all, I have watched thousands of movies and played call of duty until the wee hours of the night (I’m just sticking with the meme). 

After setting up his "experience" he then proceeds to name drop his relatives who are employed in England with exposure to weapons as some type of twisted street cred:

"Well, I do know a bit about guns, actually. My brother’s a lieutenant colonel in the British Army and has served tours of duty in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. My sister married a colonel who trained Princes William and Harry at Sandhurst. My uncle was a major in the Green Howards."

I find this rather humorous. I have an Aunt & Uncle who both work in one of the biggest state universities in Pennsylvania in science. Both have their PHD's. I have three other Aunts who are teachers. I have a grandmother who retired with an MBA in accounting and a step father who has worked in a foundry for 35 years. I have a brother in law that is a barber. Do you know what i know about what they do?? Jack-shit. I would also find it disrespectful to assume that i know about what they do, in what, conversations over Sunday dinner at Nana & Papa's house? Please. 

 Mr Morgan demonstrates his arrogance and obvious agenda to make the world England when he uses the reasoning for owning the AR-15 Bushmaster (used in Newtown)  

"The only apparent reason anyone seems to offer up is that using such weapons is ‘fun’. One gun-rights guy I interviewed last week even said admiringly that the AR-15 was ‘the Ferrari of guns’."

When you see someone cite "One guy I interviewed" as backing you know to take that not with a grain of salt; but probably a quarry. Because the bullshit meter is broken. And if you say the "only apparent" reason "anyone" seems to offer up is 'fun' without any evidence, it just compounds the fact that you are basically making it up. What’s next, an "anonymous quote" from a “high ranking official” in the NRA doesn't “really like guns”? Wasn’t  'ol Piers an editor at a newspaper one time in England? 

Well, that doesn't surprise me. Have you ever read a newspaper from England? Look at the link for his piece; it’s plastered in 'tabloid-celebrity' nonsense. Hard news does not exist over there. How do I know? The paper 'has ads for other story's'. It 'apparently' must be devoid of hard news because I cant find a paper in England that doesn't cater to 'tabloid-celebrity' nonsense... see this subjective, make it up as see fit game can be fun and effective!

So, we have established Mr. Morgan's experience and his relatives with guns are bunk or meaningless to the discussion and probably just a cheap way to fill a word count commitment. We also know he has no reasons why people own guns, other than he says, they said: 'its fun'. So there is no opposite side in this piece with relative viewpoints, just his opinions.

Pictured in this article is a picture of a gun show. It also has statistics with gun sales exploding after these last few instances. It has a picture of a man at a gun show holding an AR-15. There is also the statistics that Americans own more guns per person than anywhere in the world outside of Yemen. Do you see the link? These gun sales are going to create more crime. But is that really true? 

According to the 1997 Survey of State Prison Inmates, among those possessing a gun, the source of the gun was from -

• a flea market or gun show for fewer than 2%
• a retail store or pawnshop for about 12%
• family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source for 80%     

During the offense that brought those offenders to prison, 15% of State inmates and 13% of Federal inmates carried a handgun, and about 2%, a military-style semiautomatic gun.

This whole piece written by Mr. Morgan is centered on the use of semi-automatic weapons. So we are talking about 2% of felons using these types of guns. Two must be the magic number because only 2% of felons using a gun - get said gun, at a flea market or gun show. Talk about living on the margins? Maybe Mr. Morgan should spend some time in Switzerland where households pack fully automatic rifles and experience less crime than England, where he says there are only 35 deaths per year due to handguns.

Which I find odd considering this article written in the Wall Street Journal the day after Christmas by Joyce Lee Malcolm, a professor of law at George Mason University Law School - who has written several books on the subject including: "Guns and Violence: The English Experience" 

In this article Ms Joyce points out that: 

"Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time. Moreover, another massacre occurred in June 2010. Derrick Bird, a taxi driver in Cumbria, shot his brother and a colleague then drove off through rural villages killing 12 people and injuring 11 more before killing himself."

 

If that wasn't enough Mr. Morgan points to a recent Gallup poll showing that: "58 per cent of Americans now support new gun-control laws, up from 43 per cent in 2011" He then says "that's a big jump"? 

You think? Does he even understand that his network is one of many that help perpetuate these acts by these deranged nut jobs and fears of the public by sensationalizing them at every waking minute to push their filthy ads? Mr. Morgan even takes aim at video games and movies... does he have no culpability in this? No of course not, because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday. You make the news. You're God. 

Now allow me to weave this all together all nice and tight for you, using Mr. Morgan’s own words:

"This gun debate is an ongoing war of verbal attrition in America – and I’m just the latest target, the advantage to the gun lobbyists being that I’m British, a breed of human being who burned down the White House in 1814 and had to be forcefully deported en masse, as no American will ever be allowed to forget – Special Relationship notwithstanding. It’s no exaggeration to say that America’s unique fondness for guns pretty much got cemented by hatred of us Brits and the War of Independence. But the main reason the more fervent gun-rights activists give is a fear of their own US federal government using its army to impinge on their freedom"

Americans don't hate British citizens or look at them with disdain nor reject them simply because of their birthrights. We do have a problem thou with someone from another country telling us how we should change our laws and be more like the country that we fought from our independence from some 200+ years ago. Americans had to use guns to fight off tyranny in the form of the British government. Now you supported using guns to fight tyranny before:

" I’m not a pacifist. Guns win necessary wars and defeat tyrannical regimes like the Nazis"

I find it ironic you do not see the British government circa 1770 a "tyrannical" government. We agree the Nazi regime was just that. This, being the same Nazi regime that took the US and her (gun loving) involvement to keep England from being bombed into oblivion? You know what they say about history don't you, Mr Morgan? If its written by the victors and while we know who won WW2 and the Revolutionary War; maybe you're in need of a history lesson, chap?

Now i saved the best for last:

"Obama should follow up by launching a Government buy-back for all existing assault weapons in circulation (as worked successfully in Los Angeles last week). I would go further, confiscating the rest and enforcing tough prison sentences on those who still insist on keeping one. He should also significantly increase federal funding for mental health treatment for all Americans who need it."

Piers... lets scrap the history lesson, instead lets do a real quick American Civics primer. "He" is just a President, nothing more than a mouth piece for the corporate elite, like the guy before him and the guy before him and the guy after him and so on and so forth. We may elect lackeys and "yes men" but we don't elect Kings. Here all men are created equal; we don't value one person’s blood more than another.

You claim to "love" this country, despite the fact that it’s obvious you don't understand our financial situation as you are directing for "King Obama" to start "buy backs" and additional spending of revenue via mental health (has he not heard of Obama Care), when we are facing two trillion dollar deficits annually. You don't respect our history or even understand it. You want prisons sentences for people wanting to uphold their Bill of Rights. Your views are based on fringe ideas and failed data from England, the country you left - to obviously pursue something better for you and your family. 


 Let me offer you some parting advice courtesy of one, Mahatma Gandhi:

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."(Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 446 Beacon Press paperback edition)

Drag the waters some more...

Well, it’s been exactly two weeks since the senseless tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. I said to myself as that day unfolded, I would not be a part of the problem anymore. Regardless of how small my voice may be, regardless of how much impact media has or has not on events such as this... I decided that day, no mas.

As a fellow human, you cannot grasp the horror those kids and teachers faced on that morning. As a father, I will not even allow myself to even attempt to fathom the emotion of the loss of a child, sitting innocently in a kindergarten class room, counting down the days to Christmas. My heart truly goes out to those families involved. Only a small percentage of us have to bury our own children and for these families to have to do it because of something like this, is truly unspeakable, so I won’t even waste my words to do so any longer.

As soon as this happened everyone (and rightfully so) are looking for answers. Its human nature, we are creatures so dependent on emotion. However, with human nature and emotion come mistakes. The media fans the flames with its inaccurate reporting, hyperbole and this desire to beat the other guy to the punch. It wasn’t even 15 minutes into the breaking news report, not even into the three minutes of rolling ads for boner pills, Forever Lazy's and Pepsi commercials before we seen the graphics up.

Straddled across the screen like some stripper who is about to perform her 17th lap dance of the night (with 24 more to go) the slogan and graphic were dawned. "Tragedy in Newtown" - "Tragedy in Sandy Hook" - "Connecticut school massacre" etc etc etc. Hurricanes, school shootings, dead celebrities, Presidential speeches, court verdicts... yhea, we got a graphic for that.

Who can get there first? Who can take the best photos of the kids coming out, who can get the most exclusive interview with the person closest to the massacre? Get the Aunt of a dead teacher... or how about the step-mother of a child? A survivor?? Now, that is a real prize.

From media sensationalizing comes the blame game. Blame the guns (as if you need a link or a cite for this). Blame the games and the movies. Blame the mental health community or the lack thereof. Blame the devil. Blame Marylin Manson. Oh, wait I'm getting ahead of myself. Nobody listens to Manson' anymore... gonna have to find a new whipping boy in music I suppose. Can we use Eminem?  Even the conspiracy crowd has officially claimed the attack never happened. In fact "them" are said to be all in bed together to take over the world and all of the dead must be living happily ever after at the north pole. Lots of blame - but no solutions.

The truth of the matter will not require a retro fit band-aide that we as Americans like to use for everything. The wound is much larger than that but yet so small at the same time. That's because the wound is us. We as a people are the problem. Individual responsibility is the best cure for any problem we might encounter from mounting fiscal national debt to education failures in our schools to school shootings.

Individual responsibility is hard in this case because we depend on the schools to keep our children safe. And unless your child just so happens to be attending the one school  of a sitting Presidents children, no school is safe from this type of act, as it is, right now.

But do we have to settle for how things are right now? Or should we demand more? Buzzing people in and out of locked schools is a nice idea, but all someone has to do is smash the doors or windows to gain access to hundreds if not thousands of unarmed innocent people. That’s how these turn into bloody massacres. If we can’t turn back the hands of time and (un) invent the gun, the only solution is to fight fire with fire. And do it in every school in America. It’s done in many inner cities already and it’s obviously done for the President. If it’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gander.
 
This however isn’t the topic for those in mass media; instead their focus seems to be centered on the weapons and motives of past killers instead of focusing on protecting future victims. Making guns illegal in any way shape or form will not keep guns out of criminal’s hands. Don't believe me? Tell me.... how’s that "war" on drugs working out for you? A law or ban or restriction only creates a bigger black market and thus only supports more crime and senseless deaths. This is simply supply and demand.  Yet all we hear is  #guncontrolnow. Puzzling, it is, the inability for so many to not grasp simplistic approaches like cause and effect.

Switzerland has some of the highest gun ownership in the world with 45.7 guns per 100 residents yet their gun related crimes are so low they don't even keep records according to a piece written in the BBC last year. And many of these guns are fully automatic military grade rifles (M-57 Assault rifle pictured below). Those type of weapons are already ILLEGAL here and were not used in this case... yet we have a gun problem, and the Swiss do not?

Again, restricting certain guns or outlawing guns all together even will not stop senseless gun violence or school shootings. Only a gun can stop a gun. Kids in a school are locked up sitting ducks, thus security in the form of a regular beat cop should be in place at every school in the country. We put a man on the moon, invented the automobile, invented the computer... yet we cannot protect our children while at school getting their shitty education? And for those of you who say: "what are we supposed to do, put cops in the mall as well"?

The answer is simply, no. Because if we focus on individual responsibility (including but not limited to) on things like more concealed weapons permits for those that qualify; the coverage and overlap would police itself. If you put a gun in every school office in the country it would save more lives than it would ever take by just their presence alone. Not to mention, probably foil many attacks from happening in the first place. As time goes on, we are seeing battle lines drawn between people who want choice and freedom while others want to be directed and told what to think, what to believe and when to do it. Lets not let the second amendment be another victim when in reality its the only solution. We have too many Indians, we need more chiefs.

The token FEMA "critique starlet" (Dr Paul) takes his final bow.

As we all know by now, unfortunately, we had another unexpected natural disaster last week, this time in a vast multi-state reach, covering much of the Midwest and into parts of Tennessee. This was a deadly storm that took many lives resulting in tear jerking tragedies. Like this heart wrenching story, where a 15^th month old survived the initial trauma from being thrown by a twister into a nearby field. Her entire family perished that day; both parents and two siblings. Sadly, she suffered the same fate just a few days later. Or like this 36-year old mother, who lost both of her legs; in order to protect her children.

The economic impact of this storm will be in the hundreds of millions, if not approaching the billion dollar range when its all said and done. This will require all hands on deck including those at FEMA. With that said, it appears, like every Tornado and Hurricane season, a reporter (or I should say reporters), tap Congressman Dr Ron Paul on the shoulder to ask him his view on the role of government in the event of natural disasters. This is by no accident.

Dr Paul's response was already prerecorded and written on their notepad, all the crossing of the t’s and dotting of the I’s was already done. That is because Dr Paul’s consistency, can and will always allow, a lazy reporter to get a cheap story that will attract buzz, with little effort in terms of leg work. All they need him to do is go on record and their story is complete, a Presidential candidate says something off the beaten path; It’s a win-win for the reporter and his publisher.

Here is the problem with this.

Does Ron Paul believe FEMA should exist? No.
Does he believe in the federal government having a hands on role in natural disasters? No. 
Is FEMA one of the worst bureaucracies in government in terms of lack of accountability and waste? YES. 

Why does Dr Paul feel this way? Its because the constitution doesn’t specifically allow for it to be funded… period. It’s that simple. So why do they cherry pick this story? Because, asking him what role we have in building up an empire then the subsequent invading of other country’s or allowing the FED Reserve to manipulate interest rates, creating bubbles, isn’t a story. Even though the amount of wealth, blood and treasure those “programs” waste are astronomically higher and oh yeah; neither are written in the constitution either (sorry neo-conservatives, what we have isn’t a defense, its clearly offense).

Now, as Ron Paul has said many times, he has a prioritized pecking order in which he would see programs and departments eliminated and/or trimmed down; specifically aiming at the most costly and unconstitutional programs or agencies we have. Do you know where FEMA would rank on that list?

First, you would have to look to see where FEMA's budget comes from and that would be none other then Homeland Security. How fitting, an agency that was created in 2002 overseeing another program that was initially funded and created in 1979. Hardly constitutional and it fits the exact model and voting record of the self described “defender of the constitution”, but I don’t want to defeat my own point before I have even made it, so I will ignore that tidbit.

Last year, FEMA spent about 13 Billion dollars. That is a big number but it terms of our budget? Is it? It is roughly 0.003% of our budget. I would assume clearly, Dr Paul would look elsewhere for the cuts. Why not start with the national debt? Sure, we couldn’t pay off the 15 Trillion, but what about that 250 Billion interest payment on that debt? Imagine the savings if we actually started to balance the budget annually?

Why not defense? The funding for defense, as I have reported numerous times, is outright offensive and hardly a defense department. Its become a slush fund for big business and a "global force for good", their words, not mine. There is not any justification i can understand in fighting rouge terrorists who claim no allegiance to any nation on principal, let alone for the amount we have spent, and to boot - in this economic environment. The Department of Defense’s base budget has increased 81% nominally and 43% inflation adjusted since 9-11. Throw in the Nuclear budget, and that spending itself has increased 21% (inflation adjusted) since 9-11.

Imagine the savings if we knocked those back to the 2001 levels or at least cut them in half? Or, what about the 1.3 Trillion spent in endless wars in the Middle East? Surly we could find savings there. We are talking about saving TRILLIONS, not to mention lives on both sides and actually using our defense to I don’t know, maybe even defending our own borders? Now that is a novel approach, eh? Using the National Guard to actually guard the nation, as opposed to fighting wars across the globe? Who knows, maybe even providing assistance, logistics and overall support for natural disasters would be available??

Quit these wars, bring the troops home. Let them spend their money here. Let’s have a real stimulus package. We are up to our ears in debt. Trillions and trillions of dollars and no end in sight for these wars. Then we could take care of our people. Matter of fact, I have even proposed on many of these programs that I don’t fully endorse because technically they are not permissible under the constitution. But taking care of sick people and the elderly and children I have nothing against that… IF YOU CUT THE SPENDING. - Ron Paul

Those are places where Ron Paul would start. Even though FEMA is one of the worst bureaucracies in terms of waste and inefficiency, its small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, it would not be a top priority. Cutting FEMA or asking about the role of food stamps surly create emotional responses, but in reality these issues are not what is draining us. In a vacuum, those are philosophical questions that would make an interesting debate… but we are living in a time where the stakes couldn’t be higher as we fight to remain solvent, vacuum type thinking is irrelevant. We need solutions to problems and until we start asking the right questions, we will never have those debates; thus we will never fix the real problems.

"Republicans are starting to realize you cant say “oh, lets cut money for food stamps but not the food stamps for the military industrial complex” because its just not going to work. - Ron Paul

So, the next time a reporter wants to tap Dr Paul on the shoulder for a quick story when hurricane or tornado season comes around, he wont be around. He is retiring form congress at 76 years old. He, as I write this, is well behind on Super Tuesday; thus he will not be our next President. They will have to find someone else to do the work for them. Maybe, they could go out and do actual reporting. Cover the minutes from the FED meetings. Maybe go out and find Stephanie Decker, the mother who lost her legs and bring her story to the masses. Or maybe seek out these heroes from Branson Missouri, who risked their lives in order to save others in the face of a deadly tornado or the hundreds of others  if not thousands from this past week who saved lives.

There are plenty of stories waiting to be told, they just need to be reported. If that’s not juicy enough, cover the destruction of our dollar and our nation through crony capitalism, fractional reserve banking and a debt driven economy that results in war and more spending (debt) to finance it. That, however, may not make it past their publisher or editors desk. We can’t have people actually learning how bad off things really are, now can we?

Yawn...another war on concept announced: The "war on women".

I was emailed a link the other day from a friend of mine who frequents the Huffington Post. Him being a self described Marxist and uber liberal and myself as a Libertarian; we do share some commonalities on various points of view across the political spectrum.

So, it’s only natural that abortion is a topic we speak of from time to time. Now, my personal view of abortion is different from my political view of abortion; I am pro life. However, I wouldn’t dream of making that choice for another through legislation (or at gunpoint i.e. the State).

With that said, this article she forwarded was written by a Nancy Keenan, President of NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) Pro choice America. Quite the mouthful it is, no doubt. Its important to note the name: “Pro choice America” after the acronym “NARAL” for later in this exercise.

NARAL was formed in the late 60’s and had a lot to do with the woman’s movement regarding the right to choose. Of course on January 22, 1973, Roe v Wade gave the woman the right to choose and the rest is history as we have had no encroachments on the legislation since. I applaud the activism and rightfully so, a woman’s choice is just that. Right after the decision on that fateful day in January is where it gets sticky for this author.

Being that abortion laws were in fact repealed thus eliminating the use for half of the acronym in NARAL; those on the board of NARAL decided to keep the “N” for National and shit can the rest. So they replaced ‘Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws’ with ‘Abortion Rights Action League’. Trouble is abortion rights were already secure… so 20+ years later they became ‘National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League - Pro choice America’. This constant reshuffling of the deck basically sums up the message, that you’re no longer relevant… but I have no problem with organizations collectively standing up for things they think are important.

Where I do have a problem is with the hyperbole used by this organization and others like it to inflame fires that don’t exist (non-profit or not). Its simply a distraction from much more pressing issues. To illustrate this point lets look at the first few paragraphs of this piece with my comments after each paragraph.

2011 was the year of the War on Women. Anti-choice politicians ignored the American people's call to focus on jobs and the economy, and instead made attacking a woman's right to make personal, private medical decisions one of their "highest legislative priorities."  

“2011 was the year of the War on Women” is complete nonsense. Much like the war on drugs or the war on poverty or the war on terror or hunger etc etc etc… etc. This type of language is used to instantly garner support to eradicate a perceived threat to an enemy that cannot ever lose. Thus the funding is always needed, and that is the point.  

The U.S. House of Representatives held more choice-related votes in 2011 than in any year since 2000, and states enacted 69 anti-choice measures -- one shy of the record number set in 1999. In the more than 30 years I've spent defending a woman's right to choose, I can't recall a time when politicians have been more out of touch with our nation's values and priorities. And we're not out of the woods yet. The very same politicians behind the War on Women are ready to resume the legislative attacks in 2012 here in Washington, D.C. and in state legislatures throughout the country.

2011 was the year of the “War on women” yet by this authors own statistics, the years 2000 and 1999 were more egregious… wouldn’t at least one of those two years been the War on Women? Then the author says “I can't recall a time when politicians have been more out of touch” and I hate to beat a dead horse but again, 1999 and 2000 were worse, so…? Lastly, to my point about using specific monikers to evoke passion to defeat a concept that will never lose thus creating endless needs for funding and job security for staff isn’t this following quote indicative of that?

The very same politicians behind the War on Women are ready to resume the legislative attacks in 2012

I had posted a much more condensed version of this rant on the Huffington Post but my comment never made it out of the “pending remarks”. I guess they missed it?

Ron Paul has mass appeal amongst Islam. 2.5 (people) say so.

Interesting story i seen on Huffington Post yesterday pertaining to Dr Ron Paul attracting Muslim support, or as the articles headline points out:

Muslims Say Ron Paul Is Their Kind Of Republican

Now this was not a piece written by the Huff-Post, but rather by a reporter from Religion News Service named Omar Sacirbey, who covers Islam for the organization. It was a story written around the opinions of three people who were presented to be of Islamic faith. One was a convert to Islam in her 50's named Adolf (no joke) and the other two were:

An 18 year old who said he like Paul because "is the only candidate willing to get tough with Israel." Now that was the authors viewpoint of this 18 year old, those were never his words in the report.

The other, was a man named Rizwan Kadir, a financial consultant in suburban Chicago who voted for Obama (imagine that) in '08 but who now say's he is "very disappointed." Just not enough to give up his support for Obama this year... at least not yet: "If it came down to him and Obama, I don't know," Kadir said.

Nowhere in this piece was anything (statistically speaking) that would indicate Muslim support for Dr Paul is of anything of significance. Maybe there is such support; you just wouldn't know it from this report. The problem is, if its just three people giving thier viewpoints and/or "four 'Muslims for Ron Paul' Facebook pages" or if one of those 3 people aren't even sure they will be VOTING FOR DR PAUL... its not an accurate depiction of the title. In fact, i don't know how a middle school newspaper could approve this of being newsworthy... but there you have it.

Obvious question is, why? Could it be Dr Ron Paul's Foreign Policies are quite controversial in Conservative ranks? Could it be an overwhelming majority of Republican candidates support a war with Iran? Could it be the uneasy topic of Muslim and terrorism and how many US citizens automatically correlate the two? Could it be the crack pot crazy uncle Ron is attracting the gutter once again, like the storm-fronters and 9-11 inside job camp? We have seen this narrative before and the more it goes on the more desperate those drumming up this hogwash look.

I for one, have no issue with Muslim Americans supporting Dr Paul. In fact, I welcome it. Liberty and freedom appeal to all demographics and Muslims that want the same should vote for Dr Paul because he represents just that. However, this tells the reader nothing about this. The Huffington makes no secret of where they butter they're bread. For a website and news-source that has more left turns than Talladega in early May... i find it curious the lengths they too have gone to drive "the agenda". Makes you have to say, hmmm?

The 1% Are Afraid of Ron Paul

What a difference four years makes?