Just a quick note as I prepare for a few days of travel.
Strikes me that whenever we have an incident of the sort that struck our fellow citizens in Boston, conservatives should immediately raise a hue-and-cry and demand that the police and other authorities check on the whereabouts and alibi of Obama's friend Bill Ayers.
Where was Bill Ayers during the Boston Marathon? I would hope that conservatives would immediately insist on asking where Ayers was and, at a minimum, what he thinks about the bombing.
Re the Senate vote that shot down the silly and ultimately destructive gun legislation amendment being proposed by Toomey and Manchin. Glad to see that it did not get the required 60 votes, but sad to see that we have to accept as a victory one in which the majority of Senators voted to violate at least the spirit if not the letter of the Second Amendment. Anybody surprised that McCain voted for it? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?
I hope this will kill the rest of the gun legislation now before the Senate.
Troubling how our basic freedoms can hang on the votes of a handful of legislators. I hope voters next year will remember which ones voted to encroach on our freedoms.
Safe travels. Hope you are going someplace fun and relaxing. As for McCain-those of us in Az just need to vote the old buzzard out.
ReplyDeleteVegas, off to Vegas. There is a Republican party event there.
DeleteJust make sure you do it in the Primary so we don't end up with a Hard Lefty in place of the squishy lefty.
DeleteDip: Re our Constitutional liberties hanging on the whims of a few legislators--
ReplyDeleteSince you are someone who is both well-educated (as opposed to merely schooled) and well-traveled, do you think that it just may be the case that governments are always representative of the governed, whether they're designed that way or not? If you have a country of petty tyrants, it will be ruled by petty tyrants. If you have a country of petty, sleazy people, it will be governed by petty, sleazy people. If you have a country of thoughtful, industrious people, it will be governed by thoughtful, industrious people. If the people are ever out to flout authority, cut corners, and disregard the rights of others, you'll have anarchy.
This is a conclusion I reached after a lifetime of reading, schooling, living abroad, and teaching. This is also why, when I consider that what I'm supposed to teach in my current incarnation as a public high school social studies teacher, I often see myself as a professional swindler of the young rather than as a teacher. My current job, according to leaders in my profession and the layers of bureaucracy that we have willingly placed over ourselves, is to create a kind of industrious, self-important (oops! self-esteeming), none-too-curious, expert test-taking kind of animal. While we're told we're supposed to encourage deeper and more critical thinking, we're surrounded on every side by entrenched Party Lines (I won't dignify them with the term orthodoxies). While we're at it, anything that cannot be either eaten, played with, or copulated with is urinated on in the name of being "advanced", "up-to-date", etc. It also doesn't help that my profession is dominated by people who, as children, never played any game other than House.
Shluffing the bulk of our population through the sort of shop I'm now in has probably given us a people who think they're independent and courageous, but are in fact complete and utter conformists, ready to be swayed at a moment's notice by an authoritative-sounding voice. Hence, is it any wonder that we're now governed by representatives who are easily swayed, and ready to sacrifice liberty to get security, while setting up institutions that give us neither?
Yes, a host of people from the European Calvinists of the 16th and 17th century (and, ultimately, the prophets of Israel behind them) to James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton gave us a marvelous, wonderful Constitution. Clearly, it is the culmination of a process of seeking to avoid tyranny, and develop institutions that might make it less possible. And how America lucked out (or was blessed by a merciful Providence?) in having Washington as our first President, whose refusal to serve more than two terms reflected an actual desire to see the Constitution work! Unfortunately, we're now the products of a far different history--one that thinks liberty has failed us by failing to give us Utopia (which, few people realize, is just Greek for "nowhere").
Kepha
Deleteno doubt true. I told people after his first election that Obama was God's judgement on this country and after the second election I told those same people that there was no hope for this country as we had elected exactly the kind of leadership we wanted. "We" don't want a moral country or leadership.
Well, Jib, maybe the two of us have to get together some day and read the book of Lamentations. That's honestly how I feel at times.
DeleteAlright here's my conspiracy theory of the year. Boston: I think the Syrians did it. We're backing some odd birds against him and he's been threatening us about it. Syrian agents pull off a bombing with means and methods of Al Queda at a high profile event. Sends a message to Obama, turns public support away from whoever our allies are, and increases public dissension here. If true, the Administration would REALLY try to bottle the truth up on this one.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been following Pat Toomey closely, but I know his name from his association with the Club for Growth.
ReplyDeleteWhy is he getting off-topic and doing gun control stuff?
Heavily dilutes my desire to support him.
Makes me wonder a bit about the Club for Growth. Did I misjudge them? Did they misjudge him?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Toomey
http://www.clubforgrowth.org/aboutus/
If you want to have a truly great time in Vegas with Republicans block out all things Kerry and those who supported him in his life's dream of being SOS.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it about Obama that inspires home grown terrorists? As far as we know Bill Ayers was the first to be inspired by Obama. Now we have a new one, Tsarnaev, raised in American since around 2003.
ReplyDeleteTsarnaev has a twitter feed saying thanks to Obama for making something possible.
The question needs to be asked to him. He inspires terrorists, why?
If there was a GOP'er in the Oval office with terrorists as friends, holy hell, from the Democrats as Journalists would be unleashed 24x7.
Ayers et al. came way before The Dear Golfer, ie. 60s-70s. It is rather The Dear Golfer who was inspired by Ayers.
Delete