Good or Bad for the Jews

"Good or Bad for the Jews"

Many years ago, and for many years, I would travel to Morocco to visit uncles, cousins, and my paternal grandmother. Some lived in Tangiers;...

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Shootings in Newtown

I have been reluctant to write about the horror in Newtown. What could I possibly contribute to the discussion? Watching, however, the media cover the issue, and the grandstanding by politicians high and low, I might as well add my voice to the mix.

A note of caution. When dealing with events such as the Newtown shootings always remember that much of the initial reporting and analysis will prove wrong, woefully wrong. It can take days or weeks to correct the record; very often it never does, and the first inaccurate reports leave impressions on readers and policy makers.

As a father of four children, I can imagine the pain felt by those parents when notified that a creep with some grievance against the world had murdered their kindergarten-aged children. Nothing anybody says or does will soften that pain. That hard cruel fact comprises one of the points of this post. Let's stop the maudlin rituals such events demand in our age of phony outrage and mass Hallmark card sentimentality: I don't want to sound harsh, but enough with balloons, flowers, ribbons, teddy bears, "heart" signs, and candlelight vigils. Grief is a private affair, particularly when not about some great cause or issue. These kids were not heroes in some ennobling effort; they were little children murdered at school by a degenerate son of an increasingly degenerate culture. Focus on that.

Obama. OK, to my chagrin, he's President, and modern Presidents see themselves as consolers, grief counselors, and dispensers of teary hokum. But this one, really? This one talking about gun violence? This is the President who to make political points against the NRA and those who defend the second amendment had his administration ship thousands of weapons to some of the most violent and best organized criminals on the planet, the Mexican drug cartels. He sought to blame the violence in Mexico on Americans' right to keep and bear arms. The result? At least two dead US agents and hundreds of dead Mexicans, including teenagers and children. Yes, children. Children with parents who grieve as much as the parents in Newtown do. The grieving American parents, however, know that the man responsible for their children's murders is dead; the grieving Mexican parents, on the other hand, know that the man responsible for their children's murders got re-elected to a second term as President of the United States--in large part thanks to the votes of Mexicans in the US. It seems that the lives of Mexicans only count when they emigrate to the US and vote Democrat.

Now we have another outburst of media and elite rage against gun ownership. You all know the stupid and inaccurate things said about guns by people who do not know the difference between automatic and semi-automatic weapons, love to throw about terms such as "Assault Rifle," seem unaware of the voluminous gun legislation already in existence, and want to take guns precisely from the people who do not shoot up malls and schools and do not commit murder. They want vast new powers for the government and a "war on guns," which will prove as successful as the war on alcohol of the 1920s and the current war on drugs. We hear calls for a national discussion on guns and violence. We have had that discussion many times, in fact, have had it on these shores for some 400 years. Americans consistently support the right of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms, a right enshrined in our Bill of Rights. Along with the freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, petition, and to be safe in one's person and property, the right of the citizen to bear arms serves to limit the power of the government. In this nation loyalty to ideas and ideals, comes before loyalty to government, something our elites forget, ignore, or simply do not understand.

Schools. Have you visited a public school lately and seen on what it spends their our money? The typical public school is stuffed with staff, overmanned by counselors of various types, multiple vice-principals, deans, etc. Money gets spent on teacher "planning days" and retreats. Yet schools have no money for trained armed guards? Cut one counselor position and hire a retired or off-duty cop, or a well-trained former MP or SEAL. Is it not possible to control the comings and goings of non-school personnel on campus during school hours? On college campuses put an end to "gun free" zones. Do maniacs intent on mass murder honor signs prohibiting guns?

And what of our great governing cultural elite? Do Hollywood, the media and, of course, the massive liberal assault on traditional institutions and values bear no responsibility for these acts of mass carnage?  The other day my kids had one of the "Batman" movies on Amazon or Netflix. What a dark and degenerate piece of garbage! And that is not the worst. On prime time TV and video games one can watch and interact with a steady succession of scenes portraying for entertainment purposes the most horrid acts imaginable: explicit enactments of murder, rape, and convoluted torture which make you wonder about the mental state of the writers, producers, directors, and actors involved. Relentless hour-after-hour pounding on the brain and imagination of young people by such images must have an effect. I refuse to think otherwise.

Traditional institutions, such as marriage, churches, synagogues, businesses, or old fashioned educational establishments get ridiculed, maligned, and held up as hypocritical centers of oppression and violence. As a result of this concerted assault throughout the Western world, not just in the US, we see hordes of one-parent, poorly educated, deracinated youths with minds full of repellent images and living with no sense of limits or responsibility to others.

We created this world. Our children pay the price.

27 comments:

  1. Well said DiploMad, well said indeed. Is it possible that Exodus 20:5 applies here?

    "You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,"

    I'm thinking maybe so, especially considering the way "Progressive Elements" go out of their way to always drive God out of any discussion.

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  2. Wise commentary, Dip. Thanks.

    Notice how any MSM list of mass murder in the USA avoids any mention of Major Hassan at Fort Hood. That tells you a lot about their political agenda. They're not troubled by murder. They're not even troubled by murder of children, or else they'd demand meaningful change (meaning of the governor and mayor) in Chicago and New Orleans. What they're troubled by is their inability to control the national dialogue about firearms. When they speak of gun control, the emphasis is on control, not guns.

    Finally, they speak little of mental illness and it's part in the shootings in Connecticut. Their emphasis is on the guns, not the psycophathology.

    So the bottom line is the Congress will likely come up with another law. It will not accomplish the change they say they are after, but it will chip away at our right to bear arms.

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    1. Obviously the visceral hatred of guns has nothing to do with reason or logic. It's about getting guns out of the hands of thinking, responsible citizens.

      Criminals, OTH, aren't nearly as much a concern. And sometimes they can even be useful as distractions if one is clever enough to exploit their deadly behavior.

      Delete
  3. Have you all noticed how the Iraqi who tried to blow up a SSI office in a small town here in AZ was never widely reported by the MSM even after it became known that he had been denied a green card at least a year before for terror related activities? He was never deported. He was a convicted felon who none the less had possession of a firearm and over 1000 rounds of ammunition. Thank God he was an idiot as a bomber but obviously this had to be some sort of dry run.

    And this was a spot on piece of commentary btw.

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  4. President George Washington:
    • Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
    • Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance. They are the teeth of the people's liberty.

    EasyOpinions.blogspot.com

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  5. Please don't mention these items. They mean nothing in the greater scheme of things. Continue talking amongst yourselves.

    • A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Miss., was halted by the school's vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck.
    • A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun.
    • A 2002 terrorist attack at an Israeli school was quickly stopped by an armed teacher and a school guard.
    • A 2002 law school shooting in Grundy, Va., came to an abrupt conclusion when students carrying firearms confronted the shooter.
    • A 2007 mall shooting in Ogden, Utah, ended when an armed off-duty police officer intervened.
    • A 2009 workplace shooting in Houston, Texas, was halted by two coworkers who carried concealed handguns.
    • A 2012 church shooting in Aurora, Colo., was stopped by a member of the congregation carrying a gun.
    • At the recent mall shooting in Portland, Ore., the gunman took his own life minutes after being confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon.

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    1. And your point would be? Diplomad supports the Second Amendment as do most of those who comment here. Most of us who comment here would be aware of these as well.

      Delete
    2. Probably inappropriate sarcasm. But sometimes we all need reminders. Goodness knows the lamestream press won't repeat them. Mea culpa if they offend you.

      Delete
    3. No they don't offend me they are in point of fact fact I just couldn't figure out why they would be posted here. I usually pick up on sarcasm quite well but apparently not this time :-)

      Delete
  6. The big problem with mental health is most of the facilities were shut down. In my state the same attorney that made a career out of sueing the Dept. of Corrections routinely took some time off from his bread and butter to go sue the mental hospitals. Basically, since they couldn't afford to be perfect so they were shut down and the mentally ill turned out on the street.

    I'm familiar with that aspect of this worthless POS' work because we had to build or modify a handful of housing units to protect them from the general population or vice versa depending on the security level. I know of a couple other states with the same sorry situation and most likely all the states are in the a similar situation.

    Our mentally ill inmates span the spectrum from the truly violent that need to be secured in a prison like environment to protect the citizenry, to the petty that don't belong in prison. The poor fellow with half a dozen personalities writing from the same checkbook does not have the same problem as the check kiter who hatched a scheme.

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  7. Here's something radical...
    -
    Any person, AND ESPECIALLY JUVENILES, whom have been adjudicated of a violent crime, conspired to commit a violent crime, or been an accomplice to a violent crime shall have as part of their sentence the demand that they 'GO TO CHURCH'. They will keep a chronological dairy of their visits, and then write a report to the court about their experience. Don't know how to write a report? LEARN!!! The church will be an established religion at least 100 years old so that the person cannot run down to the local flavor of the "Westboro Baptist Church", just to claim 'Sentence Fulfilled".
    -
    Any ACLU liberal you may feel free to 'Wet Your Pants' in ...3,...2,...1!!!

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  8. Well, back again to the Diplomad treasure trove of meritricious tomes.

    Diplomad, your scribing is truly a treasure, and to contribute my two cents worth, here is a sample of what makes guns valuable to have around freely, and even what a single good Marine can to today, like they did against the muslims of tripoli and the barbary coast pirates, just after we were a country, and before we could be of offense to any idiot muslims. It is in their texts, why they must hate us and all else forever. So about guns, here is the source.
    http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/how-to-stop-the-slaughter-of-the-innocents/
    Jack

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  9. The sheer ignorance about weaponry demonstrated by these shrill gun control demagogues disgusts me. I'm a grandma who's never owned a gun in my life, but even I know the difference between an automatic and semi-automatic weapon. I figured out long ago that this "assault weapon" designation denotes nothing specific other that the long gun happens to be a civilian-type gun that's in the military arsenal or holds more than 10 rounds. These military knock-offs are popular, because they look sporty and kind of cool. The true lethality of the weapon has nothing to do with this really, because a 12 gauge shotgun packs a bigger punch, right or wrong? Automatic weapons require a special federal license already, a lengthy background check and haven't been used in any of these school shootings. Semi-automatic weapons still require one trigger pull per shot, but the weapon chambers the next round. How any of this matters about gun control when this killer stole the guns from the legal gun owner and murdered her in cold blood still eludes me, but hey Juan Williams on Fox News cleared it all up for me when he was confronted with facts about guns. He said, "I don't care, we need to do something!" And so is the road to hell paved with "good" intentions....... the federal government doing something "for the children" again.
    -libertybelle

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  10. I for one am sick of these raving leftists constantly decry the "American Gun Culture." How many of these shooters grew up in families where guns were a regular part of life? How many of them were regularly taken to the range and taught to shoot safely and responsibly, to clean and store their firearms and respect them for the powerful tools they are? How many went hunting, fishing, camping on a regular basis? As far as I can tell, that number is zero. These shootings are not coming from the America's Gun Culture.

    Most of these kids seem to come from financially comfortable, suburban communities with at least one professional parent. I bet their fathers did not spend much time with them at all. Most of them seem to have been socially awkward kids who became "Emos" (what we called "Goths" when I was in high school 20 years ago). Mopey, weepy, shaggy hair, baggy clothes, "life is....pain..." types. And many of them are cowards--I've noticed that at least half of them seem to kill until they meet resistance, and then immediately cap themselves without fighting it out. They're not afraid of death, but they ARE afraid of pain. Or maybe what they're most afraid of is being held accountable for their actions.

    These kids are products of the left, in so very many ways.

    --ACCO

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  11. Three times in my life, my carry weapon saved me and/or my family.

    Once was at a rest stop on I-5 up near Redding, Ca. where 4 bikers were rather insistent that they be given a ride to Sacramento, and we all had to go with them...

    Twice while walking with my wife on remote logging roads in Oregon.

    Only ONE of those times did I have to pull the weapon, the other 2 times, the fact that these "good people" could see my holstered firearm, caused them to "re-evaluate their intentions"

    You will NEVER convince me that firearms are bad.

    EVER.

    They are only only a tool, to be used when appropriate.

    Nor will you ever read of such confrontations, so any data available is skewed. In other words, you don't hear about crimes that didn't ever happen due to a responsible gun owner having control of a situation.

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  12. Republics historically devolve into dictatorships. The Left has long had the goal of hurrying that process along and establishing a totalitarian tyranny in this country. Mao had a point when he said that political power comes from the barrel of a gun. That kind of power in the hands of ordinary people is anathema to their ideology and an impediment to their schemes. In order to reduce a free people to slavery by the state they must be rendered powerless through disarmament, one way or another. The American people are the largest body of people under arms in the world. It is for that reason that our government saw the need to purchase 750,000,000 rounds of 5.56 hollow point and another 450,000,000 hollow point rounds in other calibers. They only hope it is enough.

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  13. One of the most clear minded responses I have read to the Newtown tradgedy. Well said, Diplomad.

    I have to imagine Obama is licking his chops at the thought of at least one, if not two SCOTUS appointments over the next four years. A court tilted to the left would make the process of disarming us that much easier.

    From my cold, dead hands. Go ahead and try.....

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  14. "The relentless hour-upon-hour pounding on the brain and imagination of young people by such images must have an effect."

    Of course it does. The next time someone tells you that television does no such thing, ask them why then does anyone advertise on television? If television has no such an effect, why are corporations spending billions of dollars every year on advertising? Why do political campaigns spend millions on attack ads? Why bother, unless you intend to have an effect and you know television has that effect? As for video games, especially the violent ones, the notion that they have no effect can be refuted by anyone who takes the time to watch a gang of teenagers playing them.

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  15. This following article makes much more sense than the concept of any gun being to blame ever:

    http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/psych-meds-linked-to-90-of-school-shootings/

    Why is this above connection not being made the number one focus, followed by the number two focus, the anger, sociopathy in America, and the violent TV and particularly computer and web simulation game culture, even on a few reality shows.

    The problem is always motivation, mental state and anger control, along with disturbing and disturbed, schizophrenic, imaginary states of mind. It is never guns, magazines, automobiles, swords, slingshots, clubs, knives, explosives, whatever is handy, as a tool of harm.

    Jack

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  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  17. Ann Coulter has a great column up on the number of times that mass murder has been prevented by civilians with guns. She also debunks a Mother Jones article which attempts to show, by cooking the books, that civilians never stopped a massacre.

    In a nonsense "study" going around the Internet right now, Mother Jones magazine claims to have produced its own study of all public shootings in the last 30 years and concludes: "In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun."
    ..,.
    The magazine reaches its conclusion by simply excluding all cases where an armed civilian stopped the shooter: They looked only at public shootings where four or more people were killed, i.e., the ones where the shooter wasn't stopped.

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    1. My guess is - Mummy Jones just used the FBI database - FBI defines "mass killings" by there being four killed. Pearl Mississippi for instance wouldn't be in the database 'cause Vice Principle Myrick got to his .45 before the twerp killed more than two.

      Same goes for the incident at The Appalachia School of Law - the students got to their guns before FBI's stats would've met the requirements.

      Here's a link to the pertinent database - check for yourself:

      http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-offense-data

      Arkie

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  18. Great post Diplomad.

    We're beginning "our conversation" nowabouts here in Arkansas.

    http://ozarksfirst.com/fulltext?nxd_id=743642

    Arkie

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  19. We have already won!
    Obama and his administration have PUBLICLY AND AS A MATTER OF OFFICIAL STATE POLICY have acknowledged our premise that the Second Amendments means exactly what we say it means.

    This administration is giving (at taxpayer expense) fully automatic weapons, grenades, missiles, rockets, tanks, mines, artillery, and all other weapons of war to CIVILIANS to resist and overthrow their tyrannical governments. Syria. Libya. Iraq. Countries throughout the middle east.
    We should hold them the standard they so widely and proudly proclaim.
    Each and every argument we make in support of our Constitucional Right to keep and bear arms is upheld by this administration as good, decent, and humanitarian. They willfully expand it in other countries to weapons we do not even request!
    We need to publicly castigate every official, journalist and politician who would deprive us of our God given rights while using our tax dollars to ensure those rights for foreigners.
    They are asking for the forceful disarment of American citizens ( including veterans and service members who have sworn and honored an oath to the Constitution!) while arming Al Qaeda, the muslim brotherhood and all manner of islamic jihadists whose publicly sworn objective is our death and eradication.
    We must DEMAND the same for ourselves.
    Hammer this point home at all times!
    The "Discussion" is truly over.

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  20. I'd normally not do such a thing as I'd prefer as much anonymity as is possible (circumstances personal situation please understand). What I mean specifically, is linking to other blogs.

    I'm gonna just drop in where (I'm pretty sure the mentioned commentor is a fellow I'm "familiar with" - only 'cause the handle's the same, it's this time of year, and the fellow knows some of the blogs I read.

    This link just goes to the post which refers to the comment, the post on which it appears must be scrolled down to. Unlike Diplomad's excellent site - there are many and varied sorts of "viewpoints" - but I'd add, I'm generally of the opinion, debate when honest and forthright is good.

    If any of Dip's commentors do read the full thread referred to - it goes pretty long:

    http://malcolmpollack.com/2012/12/21/yes-a-bulwark-against-tyranny/

    Arkie

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  21. After posting the above, I pasted the link into startpage (some other search engine might provide direct results) anyway, the post to which I referred may be found here:

    http://malcolmpollack.com/

    Title/postdate and time:

    Yes, A Bulwark Against Tyranny - 12/21/2012-12:43PM

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  22. The United States is far from being a "righteous" nation. Many people do not realize how much we as a nation oppress the poor, weak, homeless, and strangers among us. Additionally, most Americans are willfully ignorant to the oppression we cause overseas in poor nations with our consumeristic, capitalistic, and wealthy lifestyles.Many of our laws are set up to favor the middle and upper classes and oppress the lower and homeless classes in the United States. I believe our nation is very guilty of the Old Testament prophetic charges against nations who oppress the poor and orphaned. Having worked for years with homeless children and youth (most of whom are homeless because they were abandoned or abused severely), I have seen the way our nation's laws oppress them.medico en linea doctor en linea psicólogo en linea veterinario en linea abogado en linea abogado España abogado chile abogado costa rica psiquiatra en linea mecanico en lineaFor example, it is illegal in many US cities to be homeless. This means, as a homeless person, you can be arrested for any reason anywhere, simply because you have no home address. This gives businesses and anyone the right to call the police and have a homeless person removed or arrested simply for being somewhere they don't want them to be (even because you don't like how they smell!). This includes all public and private places. Most middle and upper class folks have absolutely no sense of their human rights being taken away to such a radical degree...they can't even fathom it.

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