Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA): “The Rights of the few…”

Every Sunday, I DVR the talking head shows.  This week was more arduous than most because we already knew what the topic du show were going to be: Newtown and the horrific event that happened there.  Knowing, too, who was going to be on the shows, I heard exactly what I thought I would – call for increased gun control under the stereotypical Progressive rubrics of “Nobody needs that” and “I don’t know anyone that…” as if on their worldview, only their “acceptable” items should be purchased under some strange definition of “Freedom”.  But that wasn’t the worst of it – my eyes nearly popped when I hear Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA, San Francisco) say the following on “Meet the Press” (emphasis mine):

Is this the way we want America to go?  In other words, the Rights of the few overcome the safety of the Majority?  I don’t think so!  I think America is ready (on her intent to submit a gun control bill on the first day of the next session).

The “Rights of the few” – funny, I always thought that Rights were an innate part of the ALL simply because they are US Citizens.  Perhaps I am just too old school for these fascist Progressives – I do believe in what the Founders wrote that our Rights are given to us by our Creator and Nature’s God and not just a bunch of legislators yammering away.  Sadly, she is from the philosophical Left that only believes that when it is conducive to their argument of the day.

No, Ms. Feinstein, it is NOT the “Rights of the few” –

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Jeanne Shaheen Wants to Ban Guns

Tragedy always attracts a parade of progressive mountebanks, anxious to peddle their faulty wares as cures for what ails us, and US Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D- Utopia) is no different.  In response to the heinous criminal acts perpetrated in Newtown, Connecticut she observed that…

“We need a comprehensive approach that includes improving access to mental health services, better enforcement of our current laws, and we need to get deadly assault weapons off our streets.”

Whatever you do, do not ask Senator Shaheen to describe an ‘Assault weapon’ because I am reasonably certain her talking points palm card did not include that.

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Connecticut And It’s Tough Gun Control Laws

”The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose.”—James Earl Jones The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence rated Connecticut as the fifth toughest state for its gun laws.  The Brady Bunch scores states numerically and … Read more

Progressives truly believe that laws change EVERYONE’s behavior – and ignore everyone’s nature.

What a rather silly notion, Skip.  Why, if Progressives actually believed Law, we Conservatives would never have had a (sad) hoot of a time with Sec. of Treasuery Timothy “Turbo Tax” Geitner, Sec of Labor Hilda Solis, Cabinet wannabe Tom Dashle and the other assorted current denizens of the White House staff who have “under obeyed” well known and understood tax Laws.  All it took, as they derided “the rich for not paying their ‘fair’ share”, was to just not bother to whip out their checkbook or credit card.  Paying THEIR fair share to the Govt that they administer?  Doing the right thing?   Those are just laws for the masses…

..just not for them, the “enlightened” ones.  Or so it seems.

They just don’t get it – people watch so-called leaders.  They look for consistency – will they stay the course or do they fold?  Do they do things and pass laws that are truly for the “common good” (whatever that means anymore) or just for some special interest group?  Do they say one thing to one set of people, and another to yet a different group?  Does their public persona match that of the private one?

Or their morality?  Or how they have changed what sets our public morality?

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Who IS responsible for someone else’s sexual habits?

Dominos PizzaOnce again, we see an employer asking the Right question – and defending his answer in the face of the HHS mandate with a lawsuit.  and this is an employer “of means” (reformmated, emphasis mine):

The founder of Domino’s Pizza is suing the federal government over mandatory contraception coverage in the health care law. Tom Monaghan, a devout Roman Catholic, says abortion and contraception aren’t health care but a “gravely immoral” practice. He filed a lawsuit Friday in federal court. It also lists as a plaintiff Domino’s Farms, a Michigan office park complex that Monaghan owns. Monaghan offers health insurance that excludes contraception and abortion for employees. The new federal law requires employers to offer insurance including contraception coverage, or risk heavy fines.

But Monaghan says the law violates his rights, pointing out that it is not his responsibility to pay for the sexual habits of his employees, and is asking a judge to strike down the mandate. There are similar lawsuits pending nationwide.

Progressives have long pushed their version of communtarianism for years – often, we hear “we’re all in this together” from Obama (as if he has to keep saying it to reassure himself that it is true).  Problem is,

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There’s a coupla reasons this gun grabber petition isn’t going anywhere….

Here is the White House petition that the “Security and Safety comes before Freedom” gun-grabbers have put up:

The goal of this petition is to force the Obama Administration to produce legislation that limits access to guns. While a national dialogue is critical, laws are the only means in which we can reduce the number of people murdered in gun related deaths.

Powerful lobbying groups allow the ownership of guns to reach beyond the Constitution’s intended purpose of the right to bear arms. Therefore, Congress must act on what is stated law, and face the reality that access to firearms reaches beyond what the Second Amendment intends to achieve.

The signatures on this petition represent a collective demand for a bipartisan discussion resulting in a set of laws that regulates how a citizen obtains a gun.

  • “ the only means in which we can reduce the number of people murdered in gun related deaths” – Really?  That presumes that the only thing that can be done is to establish more and more laws – external governance.  Why is it that the real underlying cause is the Culture (under Progressive manipulation) has been a desensitizing towards the value of a human life?  Are they saying inculcating a real reverence for life, strengthening the internal values, is a worse way to solve the problem?  Or does that interfere with that other Progressive value – killing of unborn babies upon demand?

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If the Political Class is terrified by a lobby group, we know their priorities are screwed up

On the Piers Morgan show was an exchange with the Congressional Progressive Caucus member, Nadler (D-NY):

REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: What are we most angry about? It’s that every poll shows that by massive majorities, Americans agree with what you just said. Yet we have a lobby, the leadership of the NRA, who function as enablers of mass murder. And that’s what they are. They’re enablers of mass murder, because they terrify the class of political people. And even though polling shows that most NRA members would support reasonable gun controls, every time someone proposes it, they come in. They lie. They say they will take your guns away. And they stop any kind of legislation to prevent that.

First, I want to see that poll of NRA members and what they agreed to what ‘reasonable’ is defined as.  Certainly, keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill and deranged  and of those of violent felons is a given.  But many gun owners DO believe that there are those, such as Nadler himself and certainly Nanny NYC Mayor Bloomberg would have no problem in taking each and every gun and bullet if ever given the slightest chance.

But I really chuckled at “They’re enablers of mass murder, because they terrify the class of political people“.  What is that phrase again by John Basil Barnhill?  Ah yes:

“Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.”

Perfect –

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Notable Quote – Don Boudreax

On commenting upon De Tocqueville’s The Old Regime and the French Revolution (emphasis mine) By the time their ancient love of freedom reawakened in the hearts of the French, they had already been inoculated with a set of ideas as regards the way the country should be governed that were not merely hard to reconcile … Read more

Why not the teachers?

Fox News Sunday:

On the program earlier, Illinois Democrat senator Dick Durbin argued that arming school employees would be the wrong way to tackle the matter.

“I honestly think that that argument just doesn’t hold water,” Durbin said, “When you think about it, are we talking about arming teachers, arming principals? Is that going to make us a safer America? I don’t think so. Too many people are harmed by firearms, their own firearms, accidentally misused or turned on them.”

Well, we’ve armed pilots on planes, to good effect in the skies (along with air marshalls, and no one is complaining that they are armed).  Sometimes, when I used to fly often, it was easy to pick out the A.M. as they joked and talked too much with the flight crew and if they stood just right, you could see they were carrying.  If I could do it, so could the bad guys.  Thus, the pilots are the last line of defense against evil.

Durbin has no basis to assert what he does – he doesn’t know that it wouldn’t make schools safer.  In the first few moments of a tragedy like CT, people are going to get hurt and, unfortunately, die.  But given some short amount of time (as the national average is about 23 minutes for law enforcement to arrive), those willing to be trained and willing to be that ‘go to” person could stop others from being involved in that tragedy.

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Notable Quote – William Burroughs

“After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.” – William S. Burroughs, author Isn’t that always the way – punish the innocent?   (H/T: Instapundit)

Sadness – of many things

As I remarked to TMEW as we went out for a quick bite to eat “This is not a problem with guns.  This is a problem with morality and culture if everything we are hearing is true”.

And we have to remember – we don’t know all the details.  We do know that Adam Lanza was a troubled young adult.  We know that the guns were owned by his mom whom he shot at their home in the face.  What evil must have been present in his heart, or conditioned by our culture, that he felt he could take out his anger, his evilness, perhaps a sense of having been wronged in some fashion, to have executed every innocent 4 & 5 year olds in her class?  Complete innocents at the mercy of a deranged person – for who can kill mere children except for a deranged defective person?

  • I hear journalists nowadays long for the days that “our shared” news was presented by the same kind of newscasters / newspapers.  I grew up in that time.  Shared values.
  • I hear from historians of a time when our outlook as a society was more homogenous – we shared similar values.  I grew up in that time. .  Shared values.
  • I heard from older family members that our social order was that of Civil Society – that social mores kept people “in line” without the need for external governance.  Shared values.
  • I heard and saw that self-restraint and self-sacrifice were of high social values – a more polite society was a given.  Shared values.
  • I heard and saw that the rules were the rules – present, reliable, knowable and enforced.  Shared values.
  • I heard that people that were a danger to us and to themselves used to be kept out of normal society – to protect us against them.

Times have changed.  I blame the 60s.  I blame my generation for deciding it knew better than all other generations combined….without their experience, knowledge, or wisdom.  Such hubris

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im41 has some rules for Bloggers to defeat Libs

He asked a number of bloggers what they believe the “rules” are to help recover what happened in November and in the culture in general.  Here are a few of them:

Of course: Andrew Breitbart:  War!

Atlas Shrugs: A complete reevaluation of the opposition strategy is needed. The Republicans have failed. The Republican Party has failed…..

Moonbattery:  Be relentless. Liberalism is like rust; it never stops corroding every aspect of society. That’s we why can never stop fighting it…

(It’s BigFurHat) – There is no denying that American culture is on the decline. Most people. left and right, agree. Where we split politically is which way the finger of blame points. I think it’s important to be able to lay all societal ills at the feet of progressivism, where it rightly belongs…

(Zilla of the Resistance) – Don’t be afraid. Just tell the truth as you know it to be, because if you are thinking it the odds are that someone else is also thinking it and wishing someone would say it, so say it…

Tim will love this one:

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Liberal Policies and Culture Increased Newtown Death Toll

What horrible events occurred today! The parents and Newtown Connecticut community must be wondering if they can endure the pain. Obviously our hearts go out to the families and community.

Already leftists are crying for more gun control. A rational person would look at the number of murders in Washington, DC or New York City or Chicago with their strict anti-gun laws and wonder why anyone thinks more gun control would have helped. It is amazing that almost all mass murders happen in “gun free zones”. Apparently murders don’t care about breaking into the gun free zones, who could have imagined that?

There are two nearly universal laws regarding guns. First, when danger strikes and seconds count, the police are minutes away. Second, criminals will always be able to get guns. The only real question is whether innocent people might be armed and able to defend themselves? Studies show that when the answer is no, there will be more crime and more deaths, and when the answer is yes, there is less crime and fewer deaths.

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A Common Thread

“Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.” —Robert Kennedy

In the wake of this recent horrible tragedy in Newtown Connecticut, the anti-gun grabbers wasted no time coming right out of the block to renew the arguments for taking away our gun rights. While First Responders were still on the scene, the anti-gun left

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A Review Of Simpler Notions

“I suppose if you look back to your early childhood you accept everything people tell you, and that includes a heavy dose of irrationality – you’re told about tooth fairies and Father Christmas and things.” —Richard Dawkins In a simple sort of way, Archie gets it.

What Poland can teach the U.S.

Did you know that Poland is “the only country in the European Union to avoid recession in 2009 and has been the fastest-growing EU economy since”? Wanna know why?

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Guess the USDA doesn’t like contrarian points of view left in comments on their blog

USDA: Americans aren’t doing what they’re told

Well, that was the headline of a post over at the Washington Examiner.  Any combination of a Federal agency and words intimating that our Overlords ain’t happy with what their subjects are doing with “their” suggestions ABSOLUTELY gets my attention:

When Americans go to the grocery store, they rarely do what they are told by federal nutrition guidelines, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

“Many of our diets aren’t what they should be,” Richard Volpe, part of the USDA’s Economic Research Service, wrote today. “Americans eat fewer fruits and vegetables than Federal nutrition guidance recommends, and we over-consume fats, added sugars, and refined grains.”

So I went on over to read the whole thing.  I learned that they can be snippy (emphasis mine), so in the end, I was snippy back:

Many of our diets aren’t what they should be. Americans eat fewer fruits and vegetables than Federal nutrition guidance recommends, and we over-consume fats, added sugars, and refined grains. Health professionals warn us that the less-healthful food choices are showing up on our waistlines and in our health, contributing to increasing cases of overweight and obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. Knowing how far we stray from good dietary patterns, and whether the diets of certain segments of the population are more misaligned, can help in designing more effective programs and consumer education.

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