Why Do Conservatives Fear Gay Scouts?

With the decision to repeal a discriminating exclusion of homosexuals in the Boy Scouts of America coming up a lot of emotions are running in overdrive. Many people who are gay and straight are currently showing either their support or outrage toward lifting this discriminatory membership policy, which excludes homosexuals (and atheists) from being members of the BSA organization.

The BSA is a great organization that I was once a member of. Around my early freshman year of High School I started to realize that I was gay, and it was around the same time I found out that the BSA discriminates against gays. I felt so ashamed at first, like I had done something wrong, so I quit the scouts. But I also felt so ashamed afterward that I never came out. I was very confused about the way society expected me to be and how I was not meeting up to those standards. My self confidence deteriorated significantly, and my social skills became nearly nonexistent. Not to say that I was the most popular or well liked person in school, but there was most definitely a difference between the ‘Boy Scouts me’ and the ‘after Boy Scouts me’. All because some people decided that homosexuals do not fit the criteria of an organization that promotes good vales and teaches great life lessons. What a fucking shame.

My boyfriend was also a member of the Scouts, and his father was too, as well as a Scoutmaster. He knew he was gay and accepted it at an earlier age than I did. He completed everything the Scouts ask of him in order to obtain his Eagle Badge up to completing his Eagle Project. He came so close to being awarded with his Eagle Badge accomplishment when he told the BSA to fuck off, and that he was gay and that he wanted nothing to do with a discriminatory organization. Wish I had done it that way, but instead I gave into the belief that I was unsuitable to be a Boy Scouts because of who I was. Does anyone have a time machine I could borrow?

Seriously, if I had stayed with the Scouts I would have had much more self confidence in my High School years, plus I would have had more great times with my fellow Scouts, learning new ways to be self sufficient and self reliant, while at the same time having awesome and daring adventures across the United States.

I love the Boy Scouts of America, and I think that they teach young men the skills and values that are useful in nearly every aspect of life.

But the question has to be asked. Why would an organization like this discriminate against homosexuals? And why is it that when people try to put an end to this kind of discrimination that conservatives come out and act like it would be the end of the world?

“Oh my God, we could have gays in the Boy Scouts, Martha!”

Newsflash folks, we already have gays in the Boy Scouts! I was a Boy Scout who is gay; my boyfriend was a Boy Scout who is gay. As far as we know any volunteers we that we knew while we were in Scouts could have been gay.

Just like in the military, the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy was in affect, like majorly. That was good and all, I guess. But what happens to a soldier or a sailor when his commanding officers found out he was actually gay? He was discharged, end of story. And the same thing is happening to good gay men all across the nation. Men who never brought up their sexuality because it had no place in a Scouting or military atmosphere have been persecuted and discharged upon discovery of what they do in their own private time with the ones they are intimate with.

The BSA and proponents of this anti-gay member policy say that if homosexuals are allowed to be members of the BSA that they will be required to talk about sex with our children and make it policy that homosexuality be brought up during Scout meetings. They fear that once homosexuals are allowed in that we will have to explain to our kids that Scoutmaster Rick is gay and that means he likes other men.

But the Scouts have never been about teaching children about sex. It even says so, right in the Scoutmasters Handbook from 1972:

Rule number 1: You do not undertake to instruct Scouts, in any formalized manner, the subject of sex and family life. The reasons are that it is not construed to be Scoutings proper area, and that you are probably not well qualified to do this.

So with this rule being stated, why is it that the BSA has to exclude homosexual members? Do they believe that because they are homosexual they will undoubtedly indoctrinate children and teach them about sex?

The right-wingers make a great point on this too, and that is that Scouting is not about sex. They’re absolutely right, couldn’t agree with them more on that statement. But if that’s the case then why is it that the BSA is discriminating against a group of people because of their sexual preference? If Scouting is not about sex why do they make it an issue to discriminate against a certain group of people because of who they have sex with? Doesn’t that whole line of thought kind of go along the lines of saying, ‘Scouting has everything to do about sex’?

I guess what I am saying here is that homosexuals who want to be members of the BSA never wanted there to be an issue about sex, or their sexuality. They never wanted it to be brought up, nor did they want to bring it up. And why is that? Again, it’s because Scouting is not about sex (says so in the Scoutmaster’s Handbook of 1972), and it is certainly not about your Scoutmaster giving your kids any type of sexual education.

The people who made this issue about sex are the conservatives, mainly the Mormon Church. They are the ones who claimed that homosexuals would HAVE to be appointed to Scoutmaster positions and that they would HAVE to be allowed to talk about sex and sexual orientation. This can’t be further from the truth.

With the presences of homosexuals already in the ranks of the Boy Scouts, don’t you think this would have happened already? Like I said it’s just like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, as long as no one knows you are gay you are fine, so just keep your mouth shut.

Well many people have done that but it backfired on them, big time, and they are released from duty unwarrantedly. There are many men who have been Scoutmasters, who kept their sexual orientation quiet, and did not talk about sex or their own sex life to their troops. But, once someone they knew saw them with another man, or at a gay bar (which makes me wonder why someone who went to a gay bar would try to blackmail someone else who went to a gay bar….politics…) and they get proof then it’s all over. That Scoutmaster is now fired for having a private life, a private life that had nothing to do with Scouting.

This is what is wrong with this whole thing. Not only does it cause young men who believe they are gay to think that they are wrong and sinful but it also persecutes those who worked hard to earn their position, only to have it stripped away from them because of their private life…which by the way, never came up in Scout meetings.

So what are they so afraid of? I have already shown that homosexuals are no more at risk of abusing children than heterosexuals, and I have already shown that homosexuals don’t want to take over and start teaching sex. So why is it that they have such a bug up their ass on this?

Well it goes back to the Christian God and organized religion in general. The Scouts have been hijacked by the Mormon Church, for all intents and purposes. And we all know the Mormon Church’s track record with gay and civil rights. They believe that homosexuality is wrong and against God. And since one of their laws is to, “Do my duty to God,” they believe that gays do not do their duty to God.

OK, being an ex-Boy Scout I know that the BSA allows people of all faiths.

FROM SCOUTING FOR ALL:

“The BSA, therefore, recognizes the religious element in the training of the member, but is absolutely nonsectarian in its attitude toward that religious training.”

Meaning that Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, etc can join the Boy Scouts of America, but what of the homosexual? And the biggest word there is “nonsectarian”, meaning that they will not relate to specific religious sect or political group. So then why are they trying to say that they can’t exclude homosexuals when they don’t relate to any specific religion? And even then, what if a member is homosexual and a Christian? Is it right to cast him out for his sin?

FROM BRIAN GRIFFEN:

“I thought only ‘he without sin shall cast the first Prius.’”

I have tried really hard to discredit many of the claims made by the religious right-wing on this issue in order to restore some type of sanity or rationality. But one voice doesn’t do enough. You need to speak out against this as well whether or not you’re a new reader, older reader, liberal reader, or conservative reader. You should at least look at the argument I’m trying to make and just for once step away from politics, and step away from that ‘I think along the party-lines’ type of rationale and start thinking for yourself a little bit. I mean, really, are homosexuals that much of a threat to society? We’ve been living with them for thousands upon thousands of years, and they are the ones out to destroy the fabric of society?

I had this discussion with my boyfriend and he said that if there existed a type of radar that could locate homosexuals (a gaydar if you will) than we would find homosexuals within every nook and cranny of our society. They are our neighbors, they are our friends, and they’re our cops, firefighters, nurses, doctors, teachers, and politicians. They make up the fabric of society like everyone else does.

Republicans often make the claim that citizens are paranoid, especially with this new gun control debate, and they like to say that people who are against guns just don’t trust their neighbors enough. And this is true to a degree. But can’t the same be said for them? They are happy to say that trust is a huge issue and that there should be more trust toward your fellow American, yet they discriminate against homosexuals teaching their children because they don’t trust them to not abuse children. Isn’t this the same argument?

SOURCES:

HUFF POST: WHAT ARE CONSERVATIVES AFRAID OF

SCOUTING FOR ALL

Presidential Failure! Obama Starts Off Second Term on Wrong Foot

So who heard about what Obama signed just recently? Do you have any ideas? Was it a world peace treaty? Did he sign a bill that made the Federal Reverse illegal, thus eliminating the national debt? No, none of that. What he did was something sinister in my eyes, something that the people who voted him in did not want to see happen.

Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2013, thus continuing to allow indefinite detention of American citizens and the continued operation of Guantanamo Bay. This comes after the President said that he would veto the NDAA bill, leaving some to believe that Obama gave into GOP pressures, especially after the tense fiscal cliff debate which was never solved on time due to some major conflicting politics.

FROM THE ARTICLE:

"President Obama has utterly failed the first test of his second term, even before inauguration day,” American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement. “His signature means indefinite detention without charge or trial, as well as the illegal military commissions, will be extended.”

Can you imagine how pissed off I am right now? Maybe you can’t, because maybe to you this doesn’t matter and you think our President can do no wrong because you’re a Democrat and everything he does is golden. But this isn’t the first time the President has said he was against something or for something than gone completely back on his previous word.

Remember in 2009 when the health care debate was a hot button issue? One of the major talks was about a Public Option for health care which Obama supported during his run for office for the 2008 ticket. While the debate was happening Obama came out and said no to a public option, saying that he never campaigned on that issue and was never one of his causes.

Luckily for us Rachel Maddow from MSNBC remembered exactly what Obama said, she even replayed some of the Obama campaign videos in which he clearly states that he is in favor of a public option. Maddow played this clip repeatedly, but did it make anyone change their minds about the President. No, of course it didn’t. Many people probably don’t even remember it.

The problem with this President is that he gives in too easy, and on top of that he’s just a politician like all of the rest. At the beginning of 2012 Obama was completely against gay marriage, and boom just a few months before the election he says he is in favor of it. If you were ever looking for a quicker way to get the majority of intelligent homosexuals to vote for you that’s the way to do it, and boy did it work out well for him.

But now we have this President who we voted for because we wanted less war, less power to government authorities who can drag us out of our house and lock us up for no reason without a trial, and the closure of the Guantanamo detention center. Did he do any of this? No, instead he signed the bill allowing the government to lock us up indefinitely, and will keep Guantanamo open for an undisclosed amount of time.

Doesn’t this just kind of go to show us something here? First the President wants to take our guns away and now he is backing the NDAA bill, which he wanted us to think he would veto. Hmm, disarm the public then make it legal to detain them for ANY REASON you want.

 Think that the war on drugs is bullshit and are talking shit on it? Pull that asshole out of his house and throw him in a cell.

Think the Administration of this or future White Houses is corrupt? Break that terrorists door down, gag him, and make him disappear.

Don’t agree with the newest law that was passed limiting you’re free speech? Label that douche an anti-patriot socialist and let society shun him.

This is what I’m talking about here, the government’s resistance to its own people. And to think we voted for Obama because we thought he was enlightened and would steer us away from this, but alas we were dead wrong.

The scary thing is that many people who voted for Obama who were against NDAA and indefinite detention and Guantanamo and pretty much all of those things in the PATRIOT ACT which the NDAA will be extending will still be in support of Obama. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that we truly believed that Obama would repair the mistakes that were made by the Bush Administration, but instead he is going to extend those mistakes and just act like he never did it.

Obama even said that he has “reservations” about the NDAA bill, and also said that no one from his administration would ever invoke the indefinite detention part of the bill. But that is just his opinion on the law, not the law. He leaves the door wide open for another administration to interpret the law a different way. What if the next administration will invoke the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial? Does that mean that Obama’s administration is clean of any wrong doing? Oh my god, hell no! You still signed the damn thing into law! You may not use the law you just signed in but who says other people after you won’t? What would you say then, Mr. Obama? “Uh, oh well.”

This is what Obama does into his second term? Is he really going to spit in the faces of those who got him elected by doing exactly what they DIDN’T want him to do?

Still, I think Obama was a better choice than Romney for obvious reasons, but why the hell would we want to vote him in for a second term is he is going to be “Romney Lite”? We didn’t vote for a Republican, we voted for a Democrat, a Democrat who made promises to not be like his opponent but then gets voted in and becomes a carbon copy of what we didn’t want. Hey at least he pretended to be on our side, right?

The reason we are mad about this is mainly because of some of the wording we see here in bills like the NDAA. It basically states that shall the President believe that anything he signs into law is unconstitutional then he can treat it as non-binding. So it basically means that the President can choose what he wants to do whenever he feels it is necessary.

 “I know I said I was against using this law, but I have decided it would be a good idea to use it against this list of people right here. Still, this does not affect the majority of law abiding citizens in America so everyone needs to calm down because this isn’t some indiscriminate search and detain mission…or is it?”

I am pissed. The man I trusted with my country, twice now, has gone across the line this time. All we wanted was for him to do what the people want, and he can’t even do that. This is a democracy, isn’t it? Then why do I not have control over my government? Why is it that I vote in a guy who says he is on my side and then breaks his promises to me? Why did you have to be all sneaky about it and sign it into law when everyone was still rearing over the Sandy Hook events and the fiscal cliff debate? It was almost like one was used for the cover of another, and if this was a plan then it was executed without nearly any hiccups. This is not the man I voted into office, this is some Republican “Body Snatcher” who has hijacked Obama. Damn, if that were only the case.

So what do we do as the American people? I mean, we don’t want this law, do we? If we don’t then why don’t we do something about it, like send letters to him and our representatives? We need to do something. We need to let Obama know that he is OUR President and he does what WE want him to. We did not vote him in to make decisions for us, and this is the message that we need to send to this administration. 

SOURCES:

Huff Post News Article

 The New Turks Video

President Obama's Broken Promises Video

Using Newtown Shooting for Political Purposes? You don’t say!

(Any comments would be much appreciated.)

We are now two days away from Christmas and the people of Newtown Connecticut and the entire nation are still reeling from the horrible tragedies that took place at the Sandy Hook Elementary school. So much has unraveled since that terrifying day when dam Lanza killed twenty-six people before doing himself in, many of those things I have covered here in this blog. But one thing I haven’t been covering as much is the use of the tragedy by politicians for their own purposes. I did say in an earlier blog that we shouldn’t expect too much from politicians as they will only offer us sympathy and promises with no real solutions.

The political tension in the wake of Sandy Hook is rising as Democrats and Republicans are both coming up with their own ideas as to how these tragedies can be prevented and how their own agenda can be furthered. Republicans are saying that armed guards should be present in all schools for protection, while Democrats are saying that gun control laws are too lax and that further regulation of firearms and ammunition is needed.

But this is the perfect time for either party to take a shot at one another as well. In an article I found on Yahoo! News Grover Norquist accuses President Obama and Democrats of using the Newtown tragedy to push their gun control agenda. 

Grover Norquist on ABC accusing Obama and Dems of using Sandy Hook for political purposes

 FROM THE ARTICLE:

"We ought to calm down and not take tragedies like this, crimes like this, and use them for political purposes," Norquist told me on "This Week." "President Obama has been president for four years. If he thought some gun control could solve this problem, he should have been pushing it years ago."

I love that first part of the sentence, "We ought to calm down and not take tragedies like this, crimes like this, and use them for political purposes”, as Norquist himself is actually endorsing an NRA recommendation to place armed guards in our public schools for protection. So who should be calming down? The guys who want to regulate guns more, or the guys who think armed guards should be in every school? In my opinion, both. 

NRA recommends all schools have armed guards.

When you’re anti-something, there is always going to be another side to the issue, a pro-something side, like anti-gun/pro-gun, and people who are anti-gun will call for the amount of guns to be reduced while pro-gun people will call for a proliferation of guns. And after an event like the Sandy Hook shooting the anti-gun folks are going try to make you believe this happened because there are so many guns in the country and they are easily obtainable, while the pro-gun people will try to get you to believe the tragedy happened because there aren’t enough guns.

And now it’s time to point the fingers in the political world and blame each other for taking political advantage of a horrible occurrence even though both sides are doing the same exact thing.

How can Norqusit come out and accuse Obama and other Democrats for using the Sandy Hook event to push gun control laws when he and Republicans are using the event to push gun proliferation? Norqusit says he thinks Democrats should “calm down” and not turn this into a political hot button and at the same time saying that we need to put armed guards in every school to protect our children. 

Retired marine Staff SGT standing guard at local school

Don’t both of those ideas sound the least bit alarmist to you? I mean, how can we be so fearful as to put armed guards in our schools yet tell others they need to clam down about the ease in which guns are available?  Or vise versa.

The gun control debate itself doesn’t seem to be centered around a all out ban of hand guns or assault weapons, although those ideas are being vocalized by politicians, but rather on the ban of extended magazines and high capacity ammunition clips.

One writer believes that giving up these extended clips is the real solution and that focusing on mental health is just a distraction.

FROM THE ARTICLE:

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said that LaPierre's suggestion that the effect of a violent culture on the mentally ill has contributed to increased gun violence, but she believes that Congress should pursue some gun control measures.

"I am for the banning of the extended magazines and extended clips," Noonan said.

Editor and Publisher of The Nation Katrina vanden Heuvel said that focusing on the mentally ill is a distraction from the issue of gun violence.

"The mental illness argument has been used to evade action," vanden Huevel said. "More guns and bullets, more dead children."

The idea that more bullets and more guns equal more dead children is absolute horse shit. According to this writer the ban of extended mags and high cap clips will reduce the amount of children being shot up in school violence. I hate this argument, because if I was out of my mind and wanted to hurt somebody I DO NOT need either of those extended capacity ammunition clips, PERIOD.

When we look at these shooting incidences we see that they all have one major thing in common; they are all suffering from some type of mental issue or some case of extreme anger in which case therapy or any other type of help was not sought or was not successful. These events don’t just happen at schools either, as proved by the recent shootings at malls and movie theaters by deranged psychopaths who have no sense of wrong or right and simply put are deluded individuals. The excuses, “I wanted to see what would happen” or “I wanted to kill all the phonies” or “I was upset with the way my life was going” or the excuses of people who have little to no moral compass or little to no understanding of the consequences of their actions (unless of course they do understand their consequences in which case they just don’t care or are planning to off themselves anyway at the end of their deed).

I guess what I am saying here is that we shouldn’t get caught up in thinking that only one side of the political spectrum is using this event for political gain. They both are, and it is quite evident that they are.

Norquist was right about one thing though, we do need to calm down, all of us. Those who want guns in our schools for protection and those who wanted to place regulations on firearms. The presences of armed guards in schools won’t limit tragedies, and neither will a ban on high capacity ammunition clips.

If we have armed guards in school surely they may not be able to react quickly enough to each and every instance. The idea that a bad guy with a gun can only be thwarted by a good guy with a gun is pretty accurate, but what if the good guys couldn’t react in time and a few people died?

The ban of high caps won’t do shit. As I said, if I truly wanted to hurt someone I can do it without a lot of ammunition. If Adam Lanza forced his way into Sandy Hook with only one hand gun and a regular capacity ammunition clip he would have STILL KILLED PEOPLE. Sure it may not have been as many, but the deed would still have been done, nothing can stop that. And if an armed guard was on the premises maybe he would have gotten to Adam sooner and only a few people were injured or killed, but still the act was accomplished, people died.

Adam Lanza was in fact a troubled young man. According to reports he hardly spoke to anyone and would rarely if ever look them in the eyes. He was hiding from the world, descending into his basement room where he would hide every day and immerse himself in the fantasies he created that he was more able to cope with. He was truly a young man who was in need of some serious therapy, which his mother tried to provide for him.

There are many people who knew Nancy Lanza that are being quoted in news articles saying that Nancy was trying to find help or Adam, and a conflicting report that she had considered to commit him to a mental institution.

With that being said, why are people trying to say that the mental health argument is just a distraction from the real cause? The real cause IS mental health, and this needs to be addressed in our country.

What I do find funny is that the Republicans are the ones who are really saying that this is an issue of mental health rather than firearms regulation, yet the Republicans are responsible for 4.3 billion dollars worth in cuts for mental health programs.

So yes, this is very much a matter of mental health and it should be treated as such. No need to go into a fear mongering campaign by either trying to reduced or increase the amount of weapons available to the general population. The more people who have healthy minds the less senseless violence will occur. 

SOURCES: 

Yahoo! News Article

Obama Demands Gun Control Debate

(What do you think about the gun control debate after the events in Newtown, Connecticut? Comment below with your thoughts.)

So the war against the Westboro Baptist Church is raging on. The victims of the Sandy Hook shooting are trying to bury their loved ones but are being harassed by the church. Anonymous has been putting on the pressure as their Operation Westboro (#OpWestboro, #OpWBC) is in full swing.

The shootings occurred last Friday in Newtown Connecticut when a crazed gun man named Adam Lanza forced his way into an elementary school where he opened fire and killed twenty children and six adults. Lanza acquired the guns through his mother, who was an avid gun enthusiast, by stealing them from her and killing her with one.

This terrible tragedy has invoked the gun control debate by politicians of course, and President Obama himself is demanding action on gun control by creating a task force. Yes, a task force…but what does that mean exactly?

From the Article:

"This time, the words need to lead to action," said Obama, who set a January deadline for the recommendations. He vowed to push for their implementation without delay.

I’m not surprised by this at all. It was my first thought when the shootings occurred that the politicians would be offering us empty promises and sympathy with no solution other than to debate and enact new gun laws. Being an avid proponent of firearms and the 2^nd Amendment I am against this.

Obama says that he is for the 2^nd Amendment, but he does believe that certain gun control laws/restrictions would decrease the amount of shooting deaths in the United States. Even some congress members who are pro gun rights are starting to consider legislation to control firearms. But aren’t firearms already being controlled?

Obama plans to create new gun control policies such as stricter background checks and limit high capacity ammunition clips, but also says that he wants improved focus on mental health as well. Which will actually happen, or come first? I’m sure it will be the stricter gun control laws. Obama’s ‘deadline’ for gun control proposals is January 2013.

The President says he encourages all people from all types of political backgrounds to come together and have these discussions about what type of control should be enacted.

From the Article:

"The fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing," Obama said. "The fact that we can't prevent every act of violence doesn't mean we can't steadily reduce the violence."

I have to say that I’m tired of politicians using every chance they can at furthering their own agenda and not the American citizens who voted them into office

Guns do not kill people, people kill people. And the very fact that politicians are using this event to try to take or curb our usage of firearms just goes to show how afraid they are of the American citizens being armed.

The 2^nd Amendment has some very specific wording:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

A well regulated MILITIA being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. It’s the Militia Vs. The People. It’s not saying “the right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It says THE PEOPLE. And why did the founding fathers write this? Because THE PEOPLE just got done fighting a war, for two years, against a tyrannical state MILITIA, who tried to take their rights and disarm them.

If we are going to talk about things that people kill with lets talk about knives and cars and doctors. I can kill someone just as easily with a car. “But Reno, the government regulates cars and doctors!” Pssh…what’s going to stop me? I don’t have a license or a car, but what’s stopping me from stealing someone else’s car and waiting for children to get out of school so I can run them down? Not some law, that’s for sure.

The fact is that when we talk about these types of tragedies we wonder about how we could have prevented it and the number one thing that comes up all the time is more gun control. But the truth is that these shooters break the laws anyway. In the case of Columbine the shooters, and the person who sold them the guns and ammo, broke the laws already in place. Adam Lanza also broke the law when he STOLE his mother’s guns. Guns which did not belong to him in the first place, and of course maybe if Nancy Lanza kept her guns locked up this would have never happened. But Nancy was an older woman who had an older son, one that should have been able to tell right from wrong and know that it would not be wise of him to touch his mother’s weapons.

Really though, this is just what politicians were waiting for, a moment to bring up the gun control debate again so they can disarm the American people and have nothing to fear anymore. In fact when you think about it by limited guns of banning guns they are actually involving fear within the people of the USA. When ordinary law abiding citizens cannot obtain fire arms that doesn’t mean criminals, people who break the laws, won’t be able to get their hands on them. And when they do they can unleash terror upon ordinary people who will not be packing because they are good citizens who obey the law. The fact is that you can’t stop an insane person from doing insane things with insane laws…that’s insane!

Many people from other countries scoff at us because we Americans clutch our guns so tightly. They scratch their heads and wonder why we cling to such destructive weapons. But they don’t understand simply because they are not Americans. We Americans are rebellious spirits who want our government to know they can’t fuck with us, and the way we do that is by arming ourselves. We fought a war against the British (yeah so what it was over two-hundred years ago) because they tried to force us to borrow money from the British national banking establishment and when we revolted they tried to take our weapons so that we could not put up a fight.

Now yes, that was a long time ago, but that spirit still remains and the idea still remains. We may one day have to do our duty as Americans and arm ourselves to stand up to our own government.

Thomas Jefferson once said that for there to be true freedom an armed rebellion against the government should take place once every twenty years. He also wrote, “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms; let’s signify a few lives lost in a century or two. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants; it is its natural manure.”  

Guns don’t have a brain. They cannot pick themselves up and pull the trigger. Humans do have a brain however, and it is our choices that shape the world around us. Thankfully most of us are sane people and we know right from wrong, but unfortunately some of us are not. It doesn’t take a gun to hurt someone; it takes someone who wants to hurt someone, regardless of how they do it.

A lot of us don’t have much experience with guns. A lot of the exposure to guns we get comes from negative exposure from TV and movie. They strike fear into us, make us think how scary shit is and that any moment now some armed gun man can break into your home and kill you.

Fear is the politician’s companion, with enough fear legislators can walk right into congress and pass all kinds of crazy laws with the necessary steps. Politicians even create the hysteria themselves by passing gun control laws, such as the Brady Bill, which has actually been rather ineffective in keeping guns in the wrong hands.  

One of these crazy laws is the creation of the gun free zone. The gun free zone has to be the biggest pile of shit law I have heard of. Basically if you get caught with a gun while in a gun free zone your fines and punishments are increased. But we look at all of the shootings that have occurred and they all happen in ‘gun free zones’. Sandy Hook Elementary is a gun free zone, so how can this type of tragic event happen in a gun free zone?

If the number of guns in the hands of citizens truly is the problem then why don’t we see this type of violence at NRA conventions or gun shows? Surely, a place like that where tons of people are in possession of tons of guns, there must be hundreds of tragedies at these events, right? Wrong. The number of guns in the hands of the people doesn’t increase the number of violent crimes. The number of guns in the wrong hands DOES increase crime.

So how do we keep the guns out of the wrong hands? Well with all the gun laws on the books (which exceed over 20,000) you would think that criminals wouldn’t be able to get there hands on firearms. But alas, just like the war one drugs if there is a law against something there is a black market for it.

None of these gun control laws on the books prevented Columbine, and none of them prevented Sandy Hook, and none of the existing laws or future laws will prevent terrible tragedies like this from occurring.

Don’t let the government fool you into giving up your rights because of some crazy kid who misused them. The government can only take away from us what we allow them to. 

(What do you think about the gun control debate after the events in Newtown, Connecticut? Comment below with your thoughts.)

SOURCE:

Yahoo! News Report

Obama Yahoo! News Video

Twitter Tags: #Guncontrol #Obama #Sandyhook #Columbine #WBC #OpWBC #Anonymous

Obama’s Big Bad Benghazi Cover-up

On September 11^th 2012 an armed group of militants attacked a US Diplomatic consulate in Libya which killed four Americans and injured three Americans and seven Libyans. The next day President Obama addressed the people calling it an “outrageous attack.” And then the story was over with and everyone went back on with their lives. Well, not exactly.

Leave it up to the Republicans. John McCain came out blasting President Obama after comments he made at his Rose Garden address. McCain is blaming the Obama Administration of a cover-up in this incident in Benghazi, and rightfully so since Obama never actually told the American people that a diplomatic mission to Libya was attacked.

Wait a second…yes, he did tell the American people that a diplomatic mission in Benghazi was attacked. So wait, I’m confused about this now. What exactly was the cover-up? I’m looking as hard as I can to see it, reading between each line I can, but it is no where to be found. The more I think of it the more it boggles my mind. There was an attack on a US diplomatic mission to Benghazi…four Americans were killed…the next day President Obama spoke about it openly…what did he say?

TRANSCRIPT OF OBAMA SPEECH:

“Yesterday, four of these extraordinary Americans were killed in an attack on our diplomatic post in Benghazi.  Among those killed were our Ambassador, Chris Stevens, as well as Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith.  We are still notifying the families of the others who were killed.  And today, the American people stand united in holding the families of the four Americans in our thoughts and in our prayers.”

…

“It's especially tragic that Chris Stevens died in Benghazi because it is a city that he helped to save.  At the height of the Libyan revolution, Chris led our diplomatic post in Benghazi.  With characteristic skill, courage, and resolve, he built partnerships with Libyan revolutionaries, and helped them as they planned to build a new Libya.  When the Qaddafi regime came to an end, Chris was there to serve as our ambassador to the new Libya, and he worked tirelessly to support this young democracy, and I think both Secretary Clinton and I relied deeply on his knowledge of the situation on the ground there.  He was a role model to all who worked with him and to the young diplomats who aspire to walk in his footsteps.”

…

“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.  Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America.  We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act.  And make no mistake, justice will be done.”

OK yeah so he openly spoke about it, but where the hell is the cover-up part? What are John McCain and the GOP saying about the Obama Administration? As I searched for this answer I found a lovely piece at www.breitbart.com which features quotes from Bret Baier of the Fox News Network. “Oh boy,” I thought.

So it turns out that this cover-up the GOP and right-winged talking heads are going on about is that the attack was actually a terrorist attack and that the President is trying to cover it up. But wait a second…did Obama say “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation”? Is it not clear that he is saying in this very sentence that the attack against US diplomats in Benghazi was in fact a terrorist attack? Not according to Bret Baier of Fox News, no.

As I said, I found this little piece from an article Bret wrote and posted on his own website. If you’re familiar with Faux News you can smell the BS spin job they use to try to say that President Obama is covering up the fact that the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.

FROM THE ARTICLE:

These are two crucial answers in the big picture.  Right after getting out of the Rose Garden, where, according to the second debate and other accounts he definitively called the attack terrorism, Obama is asked point blank about not calling it terrorism. He blinks and does not push back.

Can you smell it? It smells like ‘Pure Grade A 100% Faux News Bullshit’. The spin tactic being used here is so out in the open and overt that a five year old could point it out.

First off, let’s go into this article that I found. It’s actually about Faux News man Bret Baier who says that he has proof that Obama is covering up the fact that the Benghazi attack was actually a terrorist attack. He states that a CBS interview with the President was recorded in October in which this was said:

KROFT: Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word terrorism in connection with the Libya Attack, do you believe that this was a terrorism attack?

OBAMA: Well it’s too early to tell exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans.  And we are going to be working with the Libyan government to make sure that we bring these folks to justice, one way or the other.


He then goes on to say that the recording wasn’t aired for more than six weeks and that they still failed to air the interview even when questions about the incident were being raised during the second presidential debate. As I read, the author states that when asked if the Benghazi attack was in fact a terrorist attack the moderator, Candy Crowley, stepped in and spoke for Obama falsely stating that Obama in fact called it an act of terror on September 12^th 2012 at his Rose Garden interview.

Falsely stated? How did the moderator falsely state that Obama called the act an act of terror when he did in fact say it was an act of terror? The author goes on to make the argument that if this didn’t happen and the moderator didn’t step in and lie for Obama that Romney would have won the debate, and that CBS withheld this interview to assist President Obama cover-up any dishonesty about the attacks and assist him in his reelection campaign.   

So here is the spin. Obama says in his Rose Garden interview that “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation,” essential labeling the attack as a terror attack. It’s not so much because he said it was an act of terror but because he can’t prove it’s an act of terror, and the GOP is using this as an excuse to call into question the credibility of the Obama Administration. Merely because there are different people with different opinions on what actually happened in Benghazi the right-wing political machine is using the incident to call the Obama Administration into question about an alleged cover-up on whether or not the attack was terrorist in nature or not. If Obama says in a speech that terror will never shake our resolve than isn’t it clear he is just covering his ass on both sides of the spectrum? Can’t he think to himself, “Well we don’t know if this is a terror attack yet, but either way terror will not shake us”? I am wouldn’t that be a very poignant thing to say to keep our spirits up? No, instead the GOP wants to try to call Obama a liar because there were conflicting reports on whether or not it was a terrorist attack and because he didn’t have to answer his question at the debate.

But the truth is simple, if Obama had come out during the debate and said, “Yes, terrorists did in fact attack a US Diplomatic mission to Benghazi” the Romney campaign would have turned right around and said, “See? There was a terrorist attack on Americans in Benghazi and Obama never saved them. He is weak against terror.” This is just another use of political spin and word play and they know it.

Word play and semantics are being used here heavily and lets face it they are simple tactics to use and they work for any argument you are in. You just have to change a word or the meaning or a word to make your argument. It’s not ‘Gun Control’ it’s ‘Preventative measures against violent crimes’, it’s not a ‘job’ it’s a ‘career’, don’t say the word ‘compromise’, don’t say ‘capitalism’ say ‘free economic market’, don’t say ‘taxes the rich’ say ‘takes from the rich’, they are not ‘middle class’ they are ‘hardworking tax payers’, ‘government spending’ is ‘waste’, ‘entrepreneur’ is ‘job creator’. And in this case we can also define what these are based on who is currently in office, Republican or Democrat.

And in this case of the Benghazi Terror Attack Cover-up the word terrorism is now redefined. You see if Bush were in office this case would be easy, it would be an act of terror, plain and simple, no need for investigation. Why? Because it happened to Americans in a foreign country, the attackers were Muslim (or possibly Muslim) and it happened AFTER 9/11/01. See that? Those are the ingredients for terror under Bush's watch. But the Republicans are willing to change their view when it's a Democrat in office. Now the definition has changed and we should investigate this to see if it was a terror attack, because terror attacks are so deeply thought out and largely complex and don't require just a few Americans to die by the hands of foreigners in a land where maybe there are terrorists. You see now for a terror attack to be considered a terror attack one needs to form a terror group and intentionally attack American interests.

So as you can see, he Republicans have a back up plan for just in case not all of their criterion are met for a terrorist attack. See if there is no terror group that comes out and takes responsibility the right-wingers can say, “Oh see this doesn't fit the bill of what we know as a terror attack. This Benghazi thing was just some protest that went violent and unfortunately some Americans got caught up in it and were killed.” And BOOM, just like that Obama’s image is changed. He isn’t a guy who is weak on terror, he’s a liar who called a protest riot a terrorist attack. And how can the American people trust a president who can't tell the difference between a protest riot and a terrorist attack?

As usual I had a hard time wondering what the right-wingers are trying to get at. Are they trying to say that Obama is covering up the fact the the Benghazi attack was a terrorist attack, or are they are calling him a liar for calling it an attack. They can go either way with this issue and like all politics it is bunk. We shouldn't be worrying about whether or not it's a terrorist act by a politicians definition or not
  Let’s take time to step away from the TV for a moment and make our own decision without some talking head political pundit or politician. Lets think about the word terror and what it means, because in my view any act of violence is an act or terror. Violence is terrible, terrifying, and for lack of a better word, terror. Terror has no exact definition unless the word is being used for political gain. War is terror, being mugged is terror, flying a plane into a building is terror, and getting caught up in a violent riot is terror. It’s not that complicated folks, all of these things are terror so don't let the right-wing media change your view on what terror actually is. 


SOURCES: 

www.breitbart.com Proof Obama Refused to Call Benghazi Terror CBS Covered-Up

President Obama's Rose Garden Speech (VIDEO)

President Obama's Rose Garden Speech (TRANSCRIPT)

Re-Election 2012 Rant

I have to admit that November 6^th was a very scary day for me. November 6^th was the day we either progressed as a nation and moved forward or set back the clock fifty or so years back into the past. No, November 6^th was not the day that Marty McFly came to us in a silver Delorian as prophesied to either take us “Back to the Future” or leave us stranded in 1955. It was Election Day 2012 and as a nation we all came together and voted on a multitude of issues including the big one, who would be our president. This was scary of course because for the presidential race we had to choose from a man we have known for four years that we sort of like (but lets be honest he hasn’t made us too happy lately), and a man who believes that his underwear is magic.

I was sitting in front of my computer all day anxiously awaiting the results, counting down each electoral vote as our county’s fate hanged in the balance of each one. Imagine the horror, I thought, the horror of a Romney America. Roe V. Wade over-turned, gay rights ignored (same-sex marriage federally banned, the reinstatement of DADT), civil rights trampled, women being on the bottom rung of corporate America, creationism being taught in public schools as science, religious zealotries, etc. It was very scary to think of and my heart pounded the whole night.

But thankfully the American people can be trusted to know what is best for themselves and they have voted to keep Obama in office for another four years essentially saying, “we don’t want a religious fanatic in the white house, thank you.” When I saw the electoral votes for Obama when he won I was relieved at first, and then I thought to myself, “Don’t fuck it up, man. We’re counting on you.”

But truth be told not too much has been happening with Obama as president. We all voted for him in 2008 with high hopes and dreams because we thought he was pro gay marriage and pro universal healthcare and that he would pull us out of all conflicts. When he was elected he really pissed us off big time, enough for liberal commentator Rachel Maddow to take shots at him on her show on MSNBC back in 2009 when he said that he did not campaign on a public option for healthcare. Maddow went right to the video clips of him doing what; campaigning on a public option for healthcare. As far as gay rights go…well we must have had pied eyed dreams of the future that blinded us because Obama said back in 2008 that he was against gay marriage. I guess we just really wanted a democrat in office so badly that we were willing to make up stories in our mind (Yes, the 8 years spent with George W. Bush was enough to drive us that crazy). And sure, Obama did propose a plan to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but it really wasn’t what a lot of us were thinking. But then again none of us regular folk can truly understand the complexities of withdrawing an entire military operation out of two counties, so who are we to judge? But then there is Libya. Who said Obama was against conflict? Did we have any right to be there? No. Why we were there beats the hell out of me.

Obama sure played his cards right politically though. When it came time he told all of us that he had a sudden change in heart and decided that homosexuals should have the right to marry one another and put his support into same-sex marriage. BOOM. If he didn’t have the gay vote then, he had it after saying that, and just months before the election too. He really started to do a lot more things once it got closer to election time, but lets remember that there are a lot of other tasks that the president completes on a daily basis that we really just don’t know about.

Mitt Romney would have certainly set this country back fifty years. No need for Marty McFly’s time traveling Delorian, Mitt Romney would have done it for us himself and with our own money too. Which is great really that is if you’re an out of touch, uneducated religious jerk that wants to go back to the days when homosexuals were unheard of or were arrested for public displays of affection, you think that life is just like “Leave it to Beaver”, and before America stopped being a “Christian Nation”. Back to the days where it was ok to look the other way and act like nothing else ever happened, boys only liked girls, Americans could never be wrong, women stayed at home and cooked and cleaned, and it was socially acceptable to call a black man a nigger, to his face, then order him to do something for you.

Here is why I don’t like Mitt Romney: Mitt Romney is in fact a religious zealot, as are most Mormons, he is against gay marriage and women’s rights because he believes they go against God’s wishes and thus those ideas unprogressive and in actuality set us back. That is how he would like us to see things, and by God he sure is going to make sure we do them, otherwise God’s actions against us as a nation (or him) may be severe.

Many years ago after the Mormon religion settled in Utah it was petitioning the US government to join the Union; however this never happened right away as the US government did not want Utah in the Union because the territory was being run as a theocracy, which obviously goes against what America actually stands for. Now imagine one of these people as President of the United States and think of what they would do. These people are so hell bent on making others follow suit to them the last thing they need is a man in their congregation who is president of the nation.

Romney actually believes in this Mormon dogma and even believes that the underwear he wears under his suit is actually more effective than a suit of armor and will protect him. This is another reason why a Romney presidency scares the hell out of me. I think this country needs a leader who is rational, not one who believes his underwear is magic and has the blessing of God himself.

When it comes to religion and the nation what would Romney have done to us in the long run? We would become a theocracy very quickly and I believe that hatred toward other religious groups within our own nation would grow as our own president tells the world that we are a Christian nation and we follow the only true religion, and all other religions are false, essentially persecuting all other religions. That right there is enough for some other religiously fanatic countries to want to terrorize us even more, but Romney would use that to his advantage saying, “See all these other people are trying to persecute us, we must fight back!” This religious dogma has to go.

Then there is the all too familiar argument that Obama is actually a radical Muslim and that he is trying to change the very foundation of America. But how is he trying to do that? Has he made any speeches decreeing that the country is a Muslim nation? What has Obama done that would prove these people like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck correct? How is Obamacare or gay marriage or civil rights or equal pay and fair taxes a socialist plot to take over the country? People like to say that Obama has made sweeping reforms to this nation which have completely change us but what are those reforms and how are they changing us? When did these things happen and can any of these people actually cite one of these happenings? When we have a new president changes are always made. Do you think in 1990 we were the same country we were back in 1950? Hell no. Democrats and republicans alike have changed and shaped this country far beyond what it used to be, and each time it happens there is always someone on the opposing side saying, “Oh my God, he’s changing the very fabric of our society!” The reason it’s a big deal now though is because our president isn’t just any man, oh no. He’s a black man, and his father was from Kenya, and he was born somewhere other than mainland America, and when he was a child he went to a Madrassa (Muslim school), and the number one reason he isn’t just any man is simply because of his name: Barrack Hussein Obama.

I’m glad that the people of this nation are awake enough to see this, because this recent election really showed how Americans are starting to pay attention that they know what direction this country needs to go in. Romney said that the only reason Obama won was because of the gifts he gave to certain constituents like young and minority voters. What gifts? Oh I know what gifts Mr. Romney means, he means human rights, equal opportunity for all and a place to live where I don’t have to be harassed and told how to live by religious zealots.

I don’t think Obama is doing a great job, nor has he made me really happy with the way he has been playing politics. But I can say this, he is much better than Romney. Wow, I really hope for our country’s sake that the Republican Party gets back in touch with reality.