A hard-fought right on the Thursday OPEN thread
Plowshare Peace and Justice Center members’ silent vigil outside the Roanoke City Market Building on a recent Saturday | Shot by Dan
“. . . and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
Isaiah 2:3-4
More on this group is here.
January 31, 2013 - 10:00 AM
Flag Burning: Would you stand by and watch, applaud, or rebuke and try to stop it?
Christian Pastor Claims that his penis and semen is with the Holy Spirit and has divine powers and uses this excuse to rape his female church members… And you’d think we had seen it all by now.
http://m24digital.com/en/2013/01/29/pastor-claimed-his-penis-had-been-anointed-with-the-holy-spirit-divine-semen-and-raped-his-faithful/
I’d probably ignore flag burners. It’s their right to do it, but they only get press because people start having a nutty about it and getting up in their business.
River’s Edge is very flooded. Might make a good thread pic.
What kind of flag? A Mexican flag? A rainbow flag?
“Maybelline, honey is that you?”
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/pastor-tip-receipt-155914258.html
Power out again. Car not under water though, could be worse.
Read about the bills Repubs are trying to push through this year. No only are there a huge number of asinine measures that are little more than window dressing, but quite a number of them will expand what right wingers like to call the “nanny state” AND/OR will cost money. But I guess that’s all right with conservatives.
Sorry about your power, Cold, but glad that your car isn’t under water.
Other John, did the storm affect you?
Sandi, I probably would not try to stop it, but I certainly wouldn’t watch and applaud. That includes any flag, Henry.
Ms. Saunders, I have seen that receipt all over most of the sites I go to and that isn’t the first I have heard of that. My wife used to waitress when she was in college and she had a regular that claimed he would give her tip to church on Sundays. Some folks are so incredible…
Also, I would try and stop the flag burning. If I am willing to defend our flag outside of this country, I will damn sure do it inside of our country, too.
I think I would feel bound to try and stop them (which I know if laughable), at the very least speak against it. I would not stand by and watch. I know the SC said it was their right, I just don’t buy it.
On another note, is there any “natural law” that you think trumps our judicial laws? I have been thinking a lot about this during the many thread conversations about guns and I really believe there is a fundamental right to self defense that should allow people, even felons, to keep a gun in their home for self defense. Is that totally crazy considering I do support gun controls and restrictions?
I like it better when things are all neat and nice and right/wrong, good/bad.
Maybe I AM an Authoritarian.
I love you Justin! And please, call me Sandi, we are friends!
Sorry Cold, glad it was not worse for you. It looks really bad in some places.
Interesting, JustinTrue. Burning a flag is as much within the flag burners first amendment rights as putting up a billboard advertising your atheist club is within yours.
A flag is a scrap of fabric. Burning it signifies nothing, and what it represents cannot be burned away. And that goes for any flag. Even the Rainbow one.
Re: Sandi Saunders @ 10:44 am
“Flag Burning: Would you stand by and watch, applaud, or rebuke and try to stop it?”
—————-
Neither!
I support all the rights in the Bill of Rights.
Assuming that you are talking about burning the Flag of my country (the good old USofA) I would be disgusted.
However, I would defend the burners 1A rights to do so, until SCOTUS opines that such acts are not an exersize of the freedom of speech. Ditto flying the flag upside down. The oaths that I took,
“I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
and
“I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” 5 U.S.C. §3331
have no expiration date.
True, as a retired old fart, I no longer hold an “office.” However, I still feel that I am bound by the “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same….” part of both oaths.
Yes, I am an anti-authoritarian — i.e., a small “l” libertarian, leaning toward the Minarchist view with a stronger dose of Geolibertarian thrown in.
I advocate minimizing governmental coercion and I emphasize freedom, liberty, voluntary association, etc. In particular, I advocate a society with significantly less governmental intrusion into the womb, the bedroom, the boardroom, essential freedoms, etc.
However, I am still bound to protect everyone’s Constitutional Rights and essential freedoms, IMHO.
As always YMMV — as that is what a significant part of “essential freedoms” are about.
Obama just shut down his jobs council. Good work, Barack! Perhaps his theory is if you are unemployed you can’t by a gun. 368,000 more people became unemployed last week.
Re: Sandi Saunders @ 12:07 pm
“I have been thinking a lot about this during the many thread conversations about guns and I really believe there is a fundamental right to self defense that should allow people, even felons, to keep a gun in their home for self defense. Is that totally crazy considering I do support gun controls and restrictions?”
—————–
Good for you.
And, IMHO, no it is not crazy — in a perfect world.
OTOH, I still have questions about violent felons. If they are still a danger to society, why are they free? If the are free and not a danger, why not have all their civil rights restored.
Ditto people with mental problems — if they are not a danger to themselves or others. OTOH if they are a danger to themselves or others, why are they not committed to appropriate medical facilities?
I think that these are the right areas for meaningful discussion, compromise, and significant investment and improvement. IMHO, these are the questions that should be on the table.
Debbie, we got lucky. The damage in Fairlawn happened less than a mile from our house, but we had no wind damage to speak of…not even the tarp on our firewood was out of place from the wind yesterday (though by this morning the winds overnight had caused it to lift away partially).
For today, the secondary entrance into our community is completely under water from flooding of the New River…which makes me glad that we live where we do. Some parts of the community may be cut off, actually, because one of the roads parallels a tributary into the river, and it frequently overtops adjacent berms and uses the road as a floodway.
All,
We (the entire extended family) got through the storm fine.
—–
I’ll be out and off line until late Sunday or Monday. So, I’ll not be ignoring any comment directed at me.
—–
Everyone play nice now.
Sandi, once a felon has fulfilled his debt to society, I don’t see how his right to self defense is any less than anyone else’s.
Oh, yeah.
“A state senator in Idaho is expressing her distaste for President Obama’s health care reform law by drawing a comparison between the private insurance companies participating in Obamacare and the “Jews boarding the trains to concentration camps” during the Holocaust.”
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/01/31/1520711/idaho-republican-compares-obamacare-to-the-holocaust/
Sandi, I don’t think that gun ownership for self-defense and some measure of gun control are mutually exclusive. From my reading, the majority of Americans support this. I believe every American has the right to defend their person, family and property, and you don’t need 30 rounds or an AK to do it. Heck, the simple sound of a pump-action shotgun should be enough to scare someone.
Kristen, I don’t see how being violent and disrespectful towards our countries flag has anything to do with the first amendment… they have the freedom to burn my flag, and I have the right to stop them.
I love you too, Sandi! Did you see the article on the waitress that posted the pastor’s receipt? Applebees fired her!!! http://consumerist.com/2013/01/31/waitress-who-posted-no-tip-receipt-from-pastor-customer-fired-from-job/
I really believe there is a fundamental right to self defense that should allow people, even felons, to keep a gun in their home for self defense. Is that totally crazy considering I do support gun controls and restrictions?
Comment by Sandi Saunders — January 31, 2013 @ 12:07 pm
Not crazy; just liberal progressive stupid. Despite knowing the common sense position is right you continue to echo, endorse and promote the liberal position which make zero sense. For example; Feinstein’s bill as written bans any semi-automatic firearm with a grip. There is not a firearm made that does not have a grip or place to grip the tool. The new NY knee jerk law which effectively banned all firearms; even those used by law enforcement.
A positive move from a Repub-dominated committee. Kudos. I hope this bill addressing AEDs and CPR in schools passes.
http://news.fredericksburg.com/on-politics/2013/01/30/gwyneths-law-cpr-bill-passes-through-house-committee/
Sandi: Flag Burning: Would you stand by and watch, applaud, or rebuke and try to stop it?
What Debbie and Dave Hicks said.
What bothers me more is when people fly tattered or dirty US flags, or don’t keep a light on US flags flying at night, or raise and lower the US flag without proper respect. It’s one thing if you’re doing it on purpose but it’s quite another if you claim to “respect” the flag while you show it disrespect through your actions.
Justin, if they buy the flag, it’s not your flag. You have no more right to interfere with their expression of free speech than the vandals who mess with your bulletin boards had a right to do that. It’s been a long time since the USSC ruled that flag burning was considered protected political expression.
I don’t find flag burning nearly as personally offensive as people who put my president’s head on a primate in some cartoon, but fortunately for everyone the first doesn’t worry about personal offense.
That you of all people would take this position is very strange.
Oh man, Justin, the story on Consumerist is GREAT!
UPDATE: The pastor who left the sniveling note unloads to The Smoking Gun: “My heart is really broken. I’ve brought embarrassment to my church and ministry.” (Which has 15 members, btw. I wonder if it’s a tax dodge?)
Gdad, that link of yours. There are no words.
From the article: “The insurance companies are creating their own tombs. Much like the Jews boarding the trains to concentration camps, private insurers are used by the feds to put the system in place because the federal government has no way to set up the exchange.”
what is this i dont even
I really wish politicians would stop appropriating Nazi Germany and the Shoah for their own narrow-minded interests. Because I’m sure all those relatives of mine who were sent from Berlin to Theresienstadt to Auschwitz were just dying to be used in a half-arsed metaphor by a clueless politician concerning private medical insurers.
Every time someone make some stupid statement about Obama being Hitler or “just like the Holocaust” or whatever other nonsense, I want to take that person to the Holocaust Museum in DC and walk them through the shoe room and tell them that no, these aren’t widgets to push around a board, these aren’t bludgeons to prove your political points, these are PEOPLE.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-08-24/lifestyle/35490963_1_american-tourist-shoes-holocaust-memorial-museum
Then again, one could make the same argument re: Sandy Hook, and nobody’s really listening there either.
The weird Manti Te’O hoax story gets even stranger.
Pirengle, +1. Why people find it acceptable to use the Holocaust as their personal analogy for anything they don’t like, I don’t understand. There are almost no genuine analogies to the Holocaust at all, and certainly none to be found in health insurance.
Poor Manti Te’O. I hope his chances in the draft aren’t hurt by this obsessive nutjob.
I think I would feel bound to try and stop them (which I know if laughable), at the very least speak against it. I would not stand by and watch. I know the SC said it was their right, I just don’t buy it.
On another note, is there any “natural law” that you think trumps our judicial laws? I have been thinking a lot about this during the many thread conversations about guns and I really believe there is a fundamental right to self defense that should allow people, even felons, to keep a gun in their home for self defense. Is that totally crazy considering I do support gun controls and restrictions?
I like it better when things are all neat and nice and right/wrong, good/bad.
Maybe I AM an Authoritarian.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — January 31, 2013 @ 12:07 pm
Sandi, no argument at all about the right to self-defense. How one chooses to defend self, family, and property, however, could be problematic. For example, if you choose to booby-trap your house as a means of self-defense, is that okay? I think we are given wide latitude in this area, but it is not always a clean, this is right, this is wrong kind of thing.
As to a difference between natural law and codified law, that line is less obvious. I think of natural law as the right to food and water and safety. The right to think freely. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is maybe the purest form of natural law. But I also think there is a case to be made for natural law to include how we manage our habitat. Fire, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes all take a toll on living things. When we choose to settle in areas susceptible to such natural storms, we make ourselves more vulnerable to the consequences of natural law.
I think humans learned early on that safety in numbers was very effective against the realities of the natural world and other humans. Of course, when we started banding together, it made sense, and still does, to codify laws for the group. We have evolved to the point that the laws put in place by we humans may well overreach.
I really like what Dave Hicks had to say at 1:13 p.m., though I would not identify as a libertarian. If you like black and white, right and wrong, you are probably more authoritarian than not. Me, too. But the fact that we ask questions like this speaks well for our admission that black/white, right/wrong is rarely that neat!
I believe that burning the US flag is protected speech – and though many are offended by the act, it is a fairly common way of protesting. There is no actual harm to the US – simply symbolic – and there are plenty of flags that can replace the “burned” flag.
Many Americans ridicule Muslims who get all bent out of shape when the Koran is burned – and these same Americans claim it is “only” a book – they then should also remember the US flag is only a cloth symbol.
I believe violent felons [murder is a felony, rape is a felony, burglary is a felony, kidnapping is a felony, possessing child pornography is a felony, ...] have given up their right to own a firearm – no “ifs”, “ands: or “buts:.
Which of the above crimes committed by the felon would warrant any reasonable person to allow them to posses a weapon?
Kristen, football players are like CEO’s, as long as they can provide results, someone is going to pay them. It doesn’t matter what type of person they are away from work. Look at Mike Vick or Jamarcus Russel. That being said I don’t think this is really going to hurt him much, if anything I think it should help his endorsement deals because he is pushing the needle and will eventually seem like a symapathetic figure.
I think Te’o's draft status will be hurt much more by his pitiful performance in the national championship game than anything else!
Interesting news about the Cooch…he’s got a new book coming out. It would be fine with me if he sells lots of copies, provided that he matches Romney’s 47% of the vote this fall.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/01/31/1519961/cuccinelli-47-percent-book/
PeterJ, true…given what goes on in pro sports, they should probably be happy he’s not shooting himself in the leg in some nightclub or killing his girlfriend and sticking her in the trunk or whatever.
He could do great ads for Fantasy Football.
Re: Manti Te’o
One thing is for sure, when he gets drafted this year… he is going to have the most epic rookie hazing since Tim Tebow’s Friar Tuck hair cut.
“Every time someone make some stupid statement about Obama being Hitler or “just like the Holocaust” or whatever other nonsense, I want to take that person to the Holocaust Museum in DC and walk them through the shoe room and tell them that no, these aren’t widgets to push around a board, these aren’t bludgeons to prove your political points, these are PEOPLE.”
comment by Pirengle
Thank you, Pirengle. That’s why I feel as fortunate as you must feel to know the names and faces of actual victims off the Shoah. In fact, we lost one just a few days ago, when my sister’s in-law finally passed away in Los Angeles. He was from rural Poland, and survived the camps due to his skill as a tailor, which postponed his destiny, although he nearly starved anyway. He met and married a girl who also survived the camps as a pre-pubescent teen, although starvation permanently changed the color of her eyes. Both of them lost their families. But they had 68 years after the war, building a family and life. Neither knew their exact age, but both were at least in their mid-nineties. She recorded her story for the Shoah Project and spoke at the California Legislature. Now she’s alone, and I ask people to include her in their thoughts and prayers, for she’s known real evil, fascism and tyranny while ignorant people make stupid comparisons to their experience as if they’re not real, and some still with us.
Boycott Applebee’s
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/tipping-pastor-apologizes-687234
My son introduced me to “Te’Oing” recently, which is in line with “Tebowing”. With Te’Oing, you hold out your arm as though it’s around someone else’s shoulders and have your picture taken in various venues.
Rob, that twitch gets a poor girl fired and whines that HER heart is broken?
Don’t be stupid, Applebee’s. Hire her back.
Rob,
The waitress’s firing wasn’t so outrageous IMHO that a boycott is called for. Besides, there are plenty of other reasons not to patronize Applebees. I haven’t been there in years. I prefer to spend my money in places that serve food I like.
The gal who got fired deliberately embarrassed an identifiable customer of the restaurant, and the thing went viral. I understand why they canned her.
More outrageous is the pastor’s note, scribbled on the check. It was as skinflinty as it could be, and she went out of her way with the unkindness. I think the good reverend realizes that now.
She told the Smoking Gun she tithes to her church, which has 15 members. I wonder if she’s deducting those tithes to herself? The whole thing sounds like a tax dodge. I’m tempted to form my own — The Church of the Smoking .357 — John Wilburn, will you donate?
Kristen, re: “my president’s head on a primate”
Did you feel the same about the many cartoons and photos of Bush pictured as a monkey or is your indignation more recently acquired?
(full disclosure: I think the last president that didn’t easily resemble a monkey was Clinton)
Hillary, re: 3:30
I agree and am actually somewhat offended by the act of flag burning, but I understand it is a protected right. Fortunately, we don’t tolerate “death sentences” for such actions like some radical groups/govt’s do regarding the defacing of the koran.
Sadly, our president is supporting the latter behavior by giving f-16’s and tanks to those who support such abusive actions… go figure…
mikeo, I fully admit that the fact that Obama is African American to makes the monkey thing more offensive to me. I was, though, very offended by the movie that posited a Bush assassination. I thought it was horrible and if I had my non-PC-way about things, I’d have stuck the movie makers in jail.
Hillary, what other rights do we forfeit for life after committing a crime? Once our debts to society are paid one way or the other, why aren’t ALL of our rights restored to us?
Rapists are allowed to marry. Child molestors aren’t precluded from procreating. I don’t see how it automatically follows that felons should forever have to be disallowed from owning a weapon.
To me this is strictly academic, as I’m not a big fan of guns anyway. But to be consistent, we have to ask the question.
Warren, my condolences.
My mother’s father left Berlin and emigrated to America with many of his family members while it was still possible to do so. Most of the others who stayed behind perished. He enlisted in the Army, fought in both the European and Pacific theaters, finished school with a doctorate in nuclear physics from Perdue, and served in the National Guard for years after that.
Together we worked on a family tree. I was little when we started, working on one of those elementary school tree-shaped diagrams. I remember sitting down with him and learning this history that seemed part of a nebulous and disconnected past when talked about in school and Sunday school. Over the years, genealogy research led him to family in Germany and Israel, and the repositories at the Holocaust Museum and BYU in Utah. Mine led me to private Appalachian cemeteries and hanging trees, and back corners of one-room libraries and their piles of yellowed newspapers, trying to track down my father’s relatives.
I have also been to Whitwell, a tiny Tennessee town that is home to a railroad car used to transport prisoners to the camps. The documentary Paper Clips describes a school class project to visualize the victims of the Shoah using tangible paper clips, as well as how the railroad car got to Whitwell. It’s hard to find but it’s well worth viewing. (I got to thinking about this because one of the teachers, a soft-spoken Southern man, describes how the project caused him to speak up against his own family’s racist beliefs and he started to choke up with tears–and I did too. To me, if we can relate these events to our own lives and and discover meaning, then the events will not repeat as long as we deeply understand them.)
Comment by Hillary — January 31, 2013 @ 3:30 pm. Good post. And pass the matches, becuase they day they make it illegal is the first time I’ll burn one.
Also, that Plowshare group in the photo are good folks. There’s easily more than 100 members in the local area, all very diverse, but every one of them in favor of ending our country’s endless war machine.
OJ, I’m glad you didn’t suffer any damage, glad for you too, Dave Hicks.
Kristen, re” Obama is African American”
I appreciate your comment, but when does this racial thing end?
I did not agree with many of Clinton’s policies (heck, I did not agree with much of Bush either), but it was never a “racial” thing… it was politics…
I don’t understand why so many liberals wanted to make it something it is not…
Didn’t MLK (the republican) say it’s the “content of character.. not color of skin”?
I debated with many of my friends in ’08 on “policy only”, just to be put aside by the exuberance of the time, and I came to understand it.
But all that should be over now. Why cant we examine someone by their “character/politics” as opposed to their “color”?
Look rationally at our economy, at what is happening overseas…
I could care less if our president was white, black, purple or orange… we are in deep …problems…
A “leader” leads…
Kristen
Non-violent felons [drunk driving, drug offenses] should be able to have their rights restored. Violent felons, IMO, have given up the right to be trusted in society with a weapon, therefore this class of felons shouldn’t get their gun rights automatically restored.
Sex offenders stay on the Sex Offender Registry for their lifetime. Why? Because the recidivism of this population is high. Listing a sex offender – even after they have done their “time” – is a protective measure for the communities in which they will live, and it’s good public policy – not a punitive measure. I feel the same about violent felons not owning a weapon – this is not a punitive measure, but a recognition of
the prodigious,human and social costs of gun violence and the reality of criminal recidivism,
Should there be a path to “redemption”?
Federal law states that if a felon has his or her civil rights restored by the state in which he or she was convicted of the felony, then that felon may become eligible to carry a gun, subject, of course, to any state law restrictions on felons possessing guns.
There goes mikeO, claiming the Republican mantle for a man who denied he was a Republican (or, a Democrat). Golly, I thought that was Leon’s game.
Pirengle and Warren, excellent posts, I am proud to know you both and appreciate what you continue to add to this blog. Thank you for what you shared with us. Such flippant use of such real horror only shows how shallow and ignorant people who want to be “leaders” really are.
Mike O, anyone who cannot see the racism towards Obama, and why it rankles, is simply in denial, or not honest.
Thanks for the answers to my queries folks. I am struggling with both issues and I appreciate your input and POV.
Comment by Kristen — January 31, 2013 @ 12:53 pm
Kristen, you got me on this one… I have served in the military, and I have had close friends fight and die in Afghanistan and Iraq, so seeing a symbol like our Nations Flag being burned in a hateful manner does get to me a lot… well depending on the day I guess.
All I can honestly say is that if I were to ever encounter someone burning our flag, I hope that I would be mindful of their rights to burn the flag that I and so many others protected, and mindful of their rights to do so in a “peaceful” manner if possible. I hope that I would just hold a peaceful demonstration of my own. A peaceful counter-protest.
I HOPE I could do that. I hope that I would look at my children and understand that they need me more as a father and don’t do anything stupid.
So, in the meantime how do you feel about folks burning bibles, or a Koran? What if they stood outside of churches and mosques and burned these books? Would you say that is right? Let me say this before the crazies jump in. I DO NOT support violence or destruction of religious property or books. Books are great for our species regardless of the subject.
I am with Dan on this one. I have been boycotting Apple bee’s for years, but its because their food sucks, and their beer is way overpriced.
I hope the waitress gets another job at a privately owned establishment where the food tastes great and a classier crowd comes in and appreciates what she does.
Thanks, Debbie. We have a hill adjacent to the house that shields us pretty well from winds from the west, so we rarely get significant wind speeds or damage at the house…and we sit a good 100 feet above the New River, on a slight ridge, so flooding is a moot point as well. Good geography and a little bit of luck…which I’ll gladly accept.
“I hope the waitress gets another job at a privately owned establishment where the food tastes great and a classier crowd comes in and appreciates what she does.”
–Comment by Justin True
Yes, but please post more snide and insulting notes from cheapskate customers. Only, crop off their names and don’t reveal your establishment.
So Kristen, what is the point of doing background checks if you think violent felons should be able to have guns?
To Anyone: How do I change the logo/picture window on my posts?
Dave Gresham,
Go to gravatar.com, log in with the email address you use on this site, then upload the image of your choice. That’s all there is to it. It’ll automatically repopulate all of your comments with that image.
Wow Dan! Are you aware of their terms of service? Very hostile stuff. It basically says, in summary, that anything I post becomes THEIR property. What is worse, they reserve the right to edit or modify anything I post, yet still put my name on it! No thanks. I’d rather keep the ugly yellow smudge the system assigned me. Do you know of another service that doesn’t require such hostile terms?
Dave, those sound a lot like the terms of service on this blog! (I don’t edit reader comments, though). They cannot get into your comments on my blog. “Anything you post” refers to anything you’d upload with them.
The only thing you’d upload to gravatar.com is a little image. It can be your own, or something distinctive you snatch off Wikimedia Commons.
Check your email. I just snatched/altered an image for you. Anything is better than the yellow blob!
Dave, I’ve had one for years. The picture you upload becomes their property, not the individual posts.
So Buffett buys the Greensboro paper, the RT has a higher circulation with no daily competition. Dollar to a doughnut it’s on the block, too.
Dan, been keeping up with what some are doing in this AB waitress situation… I think this is a great idea!
http://imgur.com/8gl8YdB
I hear you, Art Hill. I don’t have any kind of inside track on this, btw.
Dan the employees are often the last to know when a business is sold (or any other large scale shake up is in the works). Rumors usually abound, though, and they are often true. Years ago, layoff rumors were flying where I worked at that time. Management denied the rumors. One Friday about 6 p.m., I saw some of the managers leaving a meeting room with stacks of personnel jackets. Massive layoffs followed, but they denied there was anything in the works right to the end. Then they wondered why no one trusted them. Hmm…
I don’t know, Chuck, but that’s not really my problem. I don’t buy the entire “I am Constitutionally entitled to keep an armory in my basement for self defense” argument anyway. But once you’ve decided that you’re going to preclude one group from that constiutional protection, you’ve already signed on to a version of gun control. You’re already on that slippery slope.
Justin, that is hysterical.
Stay tuned for a “Caption This!” post based on Justin’s link, coming up at noon!
Dan, I have a feeling someone might say this…
http://25.media.tumblr.com/c0ed311cfaa7245274c30ebc704db42b/tumblr_mgnorcsuKt1r7gbhio1_500.jpg
LOL
I have been busy working on my next CD so have not read all the post. But The Feel Good Tour wants to thank Polly Branch of the Plowshare in helping us get ready for our March 20th concert. There will be two songwriters, one is a 2 time Grammy award winning artist.
Our thanks to Plowshare Peace Center!
Speaking of Buffett, the Greensboro paper misspelled his name in the headline of its story about the purchase. Groan.
Well Kristen, you may not “buy” that people have the right to keep “an armory”, but the SCOTUS recognizes a right to defense and to individual gun ownership. Fortunately for women everywhere, your logic isn’t law. IF it were just think of how they would be affected by the people who didn’t “buy” the right to have an abortion on demand.
The point is, your arguments are contradictory. I think you may trying to make some kind of zero-sum point using reverse psychology, but it the argument really misses the point. You seem to be arguing on the one hand that rights are not absolute and can be subject to reasonable and prudent regulations, unless you are a convicted violent felon. Then your rights become absolute and not subject to regulation. And all the while, posing this in the face of cries for more widespread and stringent background checks. Interesting.
“Well Kristen, you may not “buy” that people have the right to keep “an armory”, but the SCOTUS recognizes a right to defense and to individual gun ownership.”
The two halves of this sentence bear no relationship to one another.
Rights are not immutable or absolute and you obviously agree with that, as demonstrated by your enthusiasm for denying felons some of those rights. But denying felons gun ownership is just one of many “common sense” approaches we’re going to see implemented in an effort to curb gun violence. Hopefully you’ll be as enthusiastic about those!