Search This Blog

Friday, December 28, 2012

These are my emoticons dammit and screw you if you don't like 'em...

/.   - skeptical                                         "I don't think we should drive."

).  - watchful                                           "Keep your eyes on the road!"

(.  -wistful                                             "I wish we could find a restroom!"

°!* - drunk                                               "I peed in your flowers? Heh heh. I mean...sorry"

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Is our future paved with the gravestones of our children?

Yesterday, 14 December 2012, twenty of our republic's children and seven of our adults lay down their lives while innocently pursuing their dreams. Days after a shooting spree in my former hometown of Portland, Oregon, we have yet another tragedy, made worse by the fact that it took lives so young and precious. Occurring only eleven days from our highest holiday, this event will likely darken the season's skies for their loved ones eternally. 

No sense can be made of this or the other heinous crimes committed by deranged gunmen, but the overarching cause behind them is like a flare warning us that it will be repeated until guns are out of reach of those who would use them for such as these.

What possesses a group of so-called responsible adults to claim after these tragedies that guns are not responsible for them? What illogic manifests that says no to reform of our gun laws? What would happen if this crowd lost children of their own in this manner? One could safely wager that they would want to find the guilty, but less certain is that they would search the one place they might find them: The mirror.

I wish this crime on no one, not even them. Yet, I hold them at least in part responsible. It's one thing to claim that only the deranged commit these murders, but it's yet another altogether to leave the weapons used available to the killers.

I fear that failure to pursue gun law reform leaves us little hope of a future not paved with the gravestones of our children.

If Not Now, When?

In the 1980s, Mothers Against Drunk Driving took on the establishment, and entrenched established ideas, to make our highways safer. They fought an uphill battle which they ultimately won.

We're faced with a dilemma: Do we allow an outdated constitutional right to trump public safety? The Founding Fathers could not foresee how our republic's education system has evolved into schools with hundreds or thousands of students, the rise of weaponry that will hold and fire hundreds of rounds per minute, or the foundation and continuance of an organization whose existence triumphs violence through its cryptic mission.

The NRA purports to uphold the Second Amendment in its honest intent, but the Founding Fathers would have come down on the side of What's Best for the Republic rather than an anachronistic idealism, it seems clear.

Yes, it will require vigorous debate. Yes, honest citizens should be allowed to keep and bear arms. But no, assault weapons have no place in the hands of teens, the deranged, pure criminals, or anyone whose right and role in our society doesn't demand their mindful ownership.

Haven't we learned our lesson just in this one year alone? I fear that if we haven't, we deserve what we've wrought.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Further proof why we need an 'Initiative, Referendum, and Recall' process nationally

The media has taken to making this seem like it's both sides who can't agree on a budget deal. Let's be clear - it's not. It's one side that won't budge or compromise. It's the Republicans. And the real reason most of them won't is because of the traitor Grover Norquist's treasonous anti-tax pledge. 

Senior, old-line conservatives have come forward and called the pledge foul, yet the GOP leadership, too far mired in this morass of their own making, refuse to compromise. Lump Boehner, Cantor and McConnell in with Norquist as traitors.

These people give us a perfect reason to consider the 'Initiative, Referendum and Recall' process so that, in the future, when they try to do something as puerile and pointless as cause the nation to lose its credit rating status or default on debt payments, or simply hijack the political process, they'll find themselves being UN-ELECTED pretty damned fast.