Category Archives: Conservativesm

A Treatise on the Second Amendment

Posted on by

An acquaintance of mine, who presently works at an agency I used to work for, posted something on Facebook the other day, one that was so blatant in its inaccuracy that I felt compelled to respond. Later that day, he posted this, an Open Letter to the NRA and said, “HOW ‘BOUT THIS ONE?”

So, here is my response.

A Treatise on the Second Amendment

I will ask a question requiring critical thought at the end regarding this. Be prepared.

Before we begin, let us ask ourselves, “Why is there a Second Amendment in the first place? What and why is it there?”

In order to answer that, we must go and take a look at history. Just about any American child knows that on July 4th, 1776, the American Continental Congress drafted a Declaration of Independence , to declare the American Colonies separate from British rule. Please follow the link to it and refresh yourself of it. Go ahead, I’ll be here when you’re done.

Read it? Good. Now, just because the Colonies said “We’re through with you, Britain!” doesn’t mean that George III gave up right there. No, what ensued was 1,933 days of fighting before Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown and ended the struggle. A new nation was born.

And we all know that George Washington was elected President at this time, and everyone was happy, right? Nope. We had another constitution before our present Constitution, known as the Articles of Confederation. That was created in 1777, ratified in 1781 and replaced by our present Constitution in 1789. The Bill of Rights was proposed as Amendments to the Constitution in 1789 and added in 1791.

Now that we know the book learning, why did our Founding Fathers put those there? Look at what they had been through. They had been oppressed for years by George III, and had fought a War of Independence. These men were determined that their children, and their children’s children should never have to experience what they were forced to undergo.

Now, Just so you know, only one-third of the population actually took up arms against British Rule. One-third was neutral, and the last third were still loyal to the Crown and were known as “Tories.”

There were two basic types of rebels. You had the Regular Army, who were trained, disciplined and were usually paid for their efforts. The other type was the Minutemen, or militia. They were called Minutemen because they could be “ready to fight in a minute.” They kept their musket, powder horn and bag of musket balls hanging from their mantle, ready to fight whatever or whoever threatened the household.

Now, the militia were generally private armies, usually financed by well-to-do individuals. It was also legal, and not unknown in those times, to have private ownership of cannon, otherwise known as artillery. Try buying a 105mm Howitzer today and see how far you get.

The militia were as well armed as the regular soldiers they fought beside and against. The citizen had the current state of the art military equipment.

So, when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were drafted, the Founding Fathers realized that the power and authority of the government came from the consent of the governed. They also realized that governments, without appropriate checks and balances, would become oppressive towards the People, if the People did not have the ability to actively resist the oppression. They wanted to make sure that the Citizens have the ability to band together and fight an oppressive government.

The Second Amendment, therefore, is not about “Sporting,” or “Hunting.” It is about having the ability to tell the government, “No.” Here are the twenty-seven words of the Second Amendment: “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.”

Let’s take a look at that Amendment, and break it down so we can put it together in the way the Founding Fathers intended.

“A well regulated militia” – When the Founding Fathers wrote the term “well regulated,” they meant was “disciplined.” As in being able to use their arms effectively. What does the term “militia” mean? George Mason said this: “I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.”

“…being necessary to the security of a free state…” Our Founding Fathers set us on a path unheard of in their time. A path where the concept was that the government was subservient to the People, not the other way around. The SA stands as a bulwark against the state becoming oppressive towards the people.

“…the right of the people to keep and bear arms…” The term “the people” appears in the First, Second, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments. In each of these, the Founding Fathers meant the individual free person. For those who push for gun control, they try to twist the meaning in the SA to mean the National Guard. Too bad the NG was started over a hundred years after the Constitution.

“…shall not be infringed.” I think this is pretty clear. It means any law that curtails this Right is unconstitutional on its face. Granted, there can be “reasonable” restrictions. Currently, if you have a Felony conviction, or if you have been committed against your will to a mental institution, you are prohibited from owning a firearm. The current laws are not stopping criminals from possessing firearms, so why would more laws, unenforced as the current ones are, change their minds? Laws affect only those who intend on following them. Criminals disobey laws, that’s why they’re criminals!

A lot of opponents to the SA front the argument, “Our Founding Fathers could not conceive of semi-automatic weapons with 30 round magazines.” I only have to point to the First Amendment, when state-of-the-art printing technology was the printing press which was already 300+ years old by that time. The Founding Fathers had no conception of the computer, or the Internet, yet we extend the First Amendment to these things. So, perceptions evolve as technology advances. Remember, the citizen should be as well armed as an individual infantry soldier.

A strawman argument is “firearms are designed to kill.” That is incorrect. Firearms are designed to forcibly eject a projectile at high speed from the muzzle of the barrel in a consistent manner, so the projectile follows a predictable ballistic path. What the person wielding the firearm decides to do with the projectile is up to the person.

In America alone, 4 Billion rounds of ammunition are fired by civilians annually. 99.999%+ of those are used to punch holes in paper targets, bust clays or harvest animals. 0.000125% of those rounds are involved in the death of another human being, if you assume that it takes 10 rounds to kill one person. Over 300 Million firearms are in private hands, and 99.975% of those are used for lawful purposes.

Granted, guns were used in 8,875 homicides in the U.S. in 2010. Gun control advocates like to “enhance” this number by throwing suicides and accidental shootings into that total. I want to say for the record that people who are intent on killing themselves, they will find a way, even if firearms are outlawed. Accidental shootings comprise less than 2% of that total number of homicides, suicides and accidental deaths.

What gun control advocates don’t talk about are the DGU’s, or Defensive Gun Uses. Depending on what study you use, the number varies, but it shows an average of about 1 million DGUs a year. That’s about 112 times a firearm saves a life or prevents a crime for every homicide. In 90%+ of those DGU’s, all the prospective victim had to do was show the firearm. So, are you willing to endure a corresponding 112x rise in crime ? Because a criminal who wants to be armed, will be armed. Bruce Lee couldn’t stand up to five guys armed with 2×4′s, what makes you think you can, unless you have a firearm?

As far as banning certain type of firearms, remember it was the intent of the Founding Fathers that the citizen be as well equipped as the soldier. On this side, you have 15 law enforcement officers, all armed with semi-automatic weapons loaded with 30 round magazines. Over here, you have one citizen defending himself from those 15 armed LEOs with a single shot muzzle loading musket. Not a very equal fight, right? But let the citizen be as well armed as the law enforcement, and things became a little more equal.

Final thought. Critical thinking time. The big test question. Let’s just say, as a mental exercise, the President, Congress and three-fourths of the states pass an Amendment that gets rid of the Second Amendment. Gone. Kaput. Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in. Private ownership of any kind of firearms is outlawed. The American populace is disarmed. Now what?

What stops the government at that point from outlawing free speech? From getting rid of the Fourth Amendment? Or just getting rid of the Constitution entirely, replacing it with a dictatorship? What are you going to do about that? Spit at them? You assemble with your fellow citizens to protest and are gunned down by the government. Slaughtered to a person. Don’t think it can’t happen here. It has happened too many times in history for it not to happen again.

So the next time you want to surrender a right, think about how you might need it in the future. It is so much better to have and not need, than to need and not have. You never think about the oxygen in the air you breathe until it is gone.

 

Read and Heed

Posted on by

Stanislav Mishin on his blog Mat Rodina came up with this excellent piece of history about Russia and the Soviet Union. It is also a warning to all Americans who are idly watching President Obama trying to strip Americans of the RKBA by Executive fiat Order.

Here is the money quote:

Moscow fell, for example, not from a lack of weapons to defend it, but from the lieing guile of the Reds. Ten thousand Reds took Moscow and were opposed only by some few hundreds of officer cadets and their instructors. Even then the battle was fierce and losses high. However, in the city alone, at that time, lived over 30,000 military officers (both active and retired), all with their own issued weapons and ammunition, plus tens of thousands of other citizens who were armed. The Soviets promised to leave them all alone if they did not intervene. They did not and for that were asked afterwards to come register themselves and their weapons: where they were promptly shot. (Emphasis mine)

Here is the lesson:

No it is about power and a total power over the people. There is a lot of desire to bad mouth the Tsar, particularly by the Communists, who claim he was a tyrant, and yet under him we were armed and under the progressives disarmed. Do not be fooled by a belief that progressives, leftists hate guns. Oh, no, they do not. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step of their ideology. They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. They hate guns in those whom they have slated for a barrel to the back of the ear.

Read it. And open your eyes.

One of millions…

Posted on by

…Not one in a million.

What do I mean? I found this article and this scenario plays out a lot more than a tragedy like Newtown. I am a Life member of the National Rifle Association. I have been since I purchased my first firearm. The one steady part of every issue of the American Rifleman is the page that has 12-15 news article summaries where it made the news that someone successfully used a firearm in self-defense.

I have been a Life member for about 22 years, so that is about 3,168 articles that I have seen. And I guarantee you, for every article that made American Rifleman, there is 1,000 articles that didn’t make the cut. And for each of those, there is another 1,000 “events” that no one knows about, except for the people involved in that.

Millions of times each year, an armed citizen successfully defends themselves and/or innocents from evil people. And Newtown is literally one in a million occurrence. There are hundreds of thousands of schools in this country and tragedies like this occur so infrequently that when they do happen, they splash across the news like a 400 pound man doing a cannonball into a swimming pool.

What you never see in the news is a bad person coming to up to a law-abiding citizen and says “give me your money.” The law-abiding, legally armed citizen pulls their licensed firearm, points it at the bad person and says, “I don’t think so.” At this point, the bad person generally runs away, no shots fired. It doesn’t make the news because really nothing happened.

You should never expect the police to come to your aid in time. Events like this are measured in seconds. It takes minutes for the police to arrive on the scene, and that is after someone calls 911. When your life, or the lives of your family are in danger, what would you rather have, a gun in your hand or the police on the phone? The police are under no legal obligation to protect citizens.

The job of the police is to investigate crimes and make arrests. The police are paid and obligated to enforce all of the laws of the land, not just the ones they like. They will arrest you for some “petty” crime just as fast as they will arrest someone else for assault or murder. The police are not your friends. If you have their attention, they can arrest you for anything they want. I’ll tell you right now, it is impossible to walk down the street, minding your own business and not violate some law or ordinance.

The RKBA is not about hunting. It’s about self-defense from evil people, especially from the government. The Second Amendment protects the other freedoms we enjoy. If the government can take away the Second, what makes you think they won’t take the rest of them away from you?

Yet another tragedy

Posted on by

I have waited until now to comment on the tragedy in Connecticut for several reasons. First, I wanted some facts to come out. The “facts” that came out Friday and Saturday were all wrong. With the 24 hour news cycle, and the up-to-the-second breathless news reporting the media feels they have to provide makes sure of that.

Second, I wanted to see who would stoop to the knee-jerk reaction of “let’s ban the guns,” a modified Godwin’s Law.

What happened is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. Make no mistake about that. It should never have happened. It should have been stopped long before the first bullet was fired. But, how do we do that?

Take a step back with me and look at this objectively. A young man, who as of this moment has some sort of a mental illness. Was he adequately treated for his illness? Was he monitored by professionals? That information may or may not come out in the future. We may never know.

It is a fact that someone like this does not wake up one day and go on such a rampage. There was a long train of events that preceded this and it was a sequential progression. There was a reason and purpose behind his actions. I promise you, no matter how hard you try, you will never fully “make sense” of his reasons. Unless you have personally experienced a mental illness, you will never comprehend it. I can try to explain, but it will still not make sense. In my dark past, I used to have “psychotic breaks” where I would lose at least some touch with reality. That’s what the shrinks say. Experiencing it, the best way I can describe is was that everything came into perfect clarity. You could see connections between things that no one else saw. Everything made perfect sense. And you knew you had to act on it. That’s what I remember from my psychotic breaks.

And he acted on it. With the tools he had on hand. And tragedy ensued.

Before you get all uptight about him using using firearms, There are two instances that I can recall where a man with mental health problems attacked a class of Kindergarteners… with a knife. One was in Japan, where there are virtually no private firearms. So, you use the tools that you have on hand. Banning guns only leads to knife and other hand weapons being used.

Next, the mental health system is currently focused on solving any immediate crisis, rather than the prevention and maintenance that would forestall the crisis situations. But maintenance and control of symptoms, and the effort to control and move beyond the effects of the illness loses out every time to the urgency of the crisis situations.

The adage of unintended consequences is also contributes to situations like this. All these mass shootings have one common denominator: Columbine, Virginia Tech, Newtown, Nickel Mines, PA., and so on. They are all “gun free zones.” Large groups of people, who have been intentionally disarmed, all in the name of “safety.” Perfect targets, because they can’t fight back.

And in just about all of the mass shootings I can think of, the shooter generally took their own lives, once armed opposition appeared on scene.

So, what are the solutions? More guns, less guns, lock up the mentally ill, or something else?

I think the most important factor is mental health services. If a person exhibits mental health symptoms, treating that before it becomes a crisis might stop at least some of these before they get to the point of violence. The shooter of Gabbie Giffords had a long history of uncontrolled mental illness, and his family begged time and again to get help for him. It never came until he ended in prison.

Abolishment of the “gun free zone” would be of great help. Eliminate the killing fields. Enable law-abiding citizens to protect themselves. The police can’t be everywhere, nor do they have an obligation to protect the citizenry. Don’t believe me? Check out South v Maryland (US Supreme Court, 1856) and go from there.

And before you start talking about the abolishment of the Second Amendment, the RKBA is not about hunting. It’s about the citizenry having the ability to overthrow an oppressive government. Citizens are armed. Subjects are disarmed.

The bottom line: You can’t prevent everything. There is only so much you can do to thwart evil people. You can only be prepared to adequately deal with such a situation when it does happen.

I don’t know what to do

Posted on by

I am disappointed. With Obama’s win last night, he now is totally unaccountable to the American People. He was raised by 60′s radicals, taught politics The Chicago Way, and has been doing his best to enact that radical agenda. His deficits have spent more than all of the prior Presidents combined. His anti-domestic energy policies have just about ruined coal in this country. Our airports are miniature police states, staffed with capricious bullies.

I was going to put down for the record where we were 4 years ago, and again today, but it really doesn’t matter. He can’t run for office again, so like I said, there is no holding him to account for just exactly how he will ruin this country.

America rests on three boxes. The Soap Box, the Ballot Box and the Cartridge Box. The first two failed yesterday. I only hope we don’t have to open the third before Obama is out of office. Our country was founded on armed revolution. I sincerely hope and pray that we do not experience a time where the People are compelled en masse to rise up and restart our government.

It seems that the Liberal ploy of “Bread and Circuses” has hypnotized the American People.

Please, pray with me that the United States does not lose her status as that shining city on the hill, where all who follow the rules are welcomed, and all have the same chance to succeed.

5 Days to go

Posted on by

Like the title says, 5 days to go before Election Day.

The question is, do we re-elect a 60′s radical Socialist who is incompetent, or do we toss him out and elect someone who espouses conservative principles?

The fact remains, I want you to vote. While I do care who you vote for, I want you to make your voice heard. The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open, and this is the day you get to do it.

Please vote.

Honor the Fallen, Part II

Posted on by

I hate that it has been from Memorial Day to Patriots day that I have made a post. Every hour of my life has been full with something. And there are still things left to do.

Today we honor those who were killed this day by radical Islam. Buildings fell on this day, eleven years ago. Today, a new building is being built. A ship sails the seas today, with the steel from the WTC in its keel.

The bad news is, today we are very close to that precipice of becoming a police state. All in the name of “security.” The TSA is expanding its reach, training the public to obey without question. They engage in actions that do not increase “security,” and being vindictive bullies when the People rightfully say “NO!”

I fear for my country, especially if the current administration is re-elected for another four years.

Book Review

Posted on by

I don’t get to read books that often. I have a bunch on my iPad, but they are more or less reference works.

This book, however, was recommended by a Masonic Brother. He said he couldn’t explain the book, I would have to read it myself and draw my own conclusions.

The book, The Harbinger, draws some chilling parallels between ancient Israel and today’s United States.

The story itself is probably fictional, but what they talk about in the pages of the book are the exact opposite. The facts are clear, verifiable, and speak loudly to how we got to where we at this moment, and where we are likely to head if we as a nation don’t change our ways.

Up until September 11th, we had a divine hedge of protection protecting our country from those who would do us harm. That protection is there no more, as a warning for us to turn not to our own devices, but to turn back to God.

I don’t want to give up too much of the book, but the major events of the past few years have occurred in such a timing that it can’t be an accident. There are too many coincidences for it to be a coincidence, do you understand?

What really hit me between the eyes like a hammer was the fact that September 11th’s Ground Zero is the exact same ground Ground Zero where our country was initially dedicated to God, and when that hedge of protection came to be around us. Cryptic? Not really, not to anyone who has studied history.

This book will drive you to your knees. Not in any physical sense, but after reading it, you will feel the urge to get straight with God. Not only for yourself and family, but for our country as a whole. Things have to change substantially for us to get back onto the path God wants us to be on. It will take a maximum effort from all of us to turn this Ship of State. I don’t know if it’s too late for anything, if we can stave off Judgement for the short term, or we can avert it totally.

The signs are there, loud and clear, if you know what to look for. After reading this book, you will know what to look for.

Million, Billion, Trillion

Posted on by

I found this video, and I wanted to share. For all of those who think we should get the rich to “pay their fair share,” here is a great video on just how far eating the rich will get us, and if we did, the aftermath of it all.

Did you pay attention to the numbers? After taking most, if not all of the capital of this country, we paid for one years worth of Federal operations. And we wrecked any chance we had to do it the following year by doing just what Liberals wanted, eating the rich.

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

 

PIPA and SOPA

Posted on by

There are two bills in congress right now that must be stopped. PIPA (Protect IP Act) in the Senate, and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in the house.

These bills can (and knowing Obama/Congress, will) censor the Internet, something explicitly they are not supposed to do by the Constitution.

While the supporters of the bills say “that will never happen,” all we have to do is look at the history of our government and see that when they give themselves power over something, they take it and use that power.

Contact your congressman/senator and tell them you are opposed to these bills. Here are the websites for the House and Senate. Follow the links to your representative’s webpage. Call, email, fax or all three.

The object of a citizen is to keep his mouth open. I highly suggest you do that in this case. The consequences of not doing so are dire indeed.

I told you about this two years ago!

Posted on by

All I can say about the OWS and all of the other Occupy movements, Cloward-Piven is winning. Who are Cloward and Piven? Why, two Liberals who came up with a way to crash the American economy. I wrote about this two years ago. Here is the proof.

These Occupy movements are starting to strangle the budgets of the cities they are “occupying.” Extra police, clean up, and all of the other things are adding up and they are getting ready to collapse the cities. Once 4 or 5 cites have devolved into chaos caused by these “useful idiots,” Obama can order martial law and then all bets are off. He gets his wish and becomes Dictator-for-life. America becomes a third-world country and not only the US, but the world will be finished.

This must be stopped. Our future depends on it.

The “Workers Paradise” is going down the tubes

Posted on by

It seems that the “Workers Paradise” of Zuccotti Park is not quite all it’s cracked up to be.

“Professional homeless” (their words, not mine) have been invading the OWS camp to partake of the wonderful food. So, whatever happened to Lenin’s words? “From each, according to their means, to each according to their needs,” or something like that. Turning away the homeless to soup kitchens or just feeding them PB&J is not very nice.

Just another part of the hypocrisy that is exhibited by the OWS crowd every day. You mean the homeless can’t get the same nice food that everyone else gets? Nice treatment of those who need it the most.

Just as a side note, Tea Party organizations in some cities like Atlanta have sent letters to their mayors demanding the same treatment as the Occupy movements in their cities. I mean, there are no permits for the gathering, no permits pulled or fees paid to squat on the parks. The Tea Party wants nothing more than equal treatment under the law, which is what this country was founded on. Will they get it? Probably not, but it will expose those in office as the hypocrites they are.

This list goes on, and on about how the Tea Party are “violent subversives,” but the (armed) Tea Party people hold peaceful demonstrations, all within the law and do not squat and set up camp in public parks. You don’t see clashes with the police, rapes (yes, women are leaving the OWS encampment because of the rapes) or other disruptions of the peace found at the various Occupy places across the country.

And yet the OWS is being compared to the Tea Party. It’s kind of like comparing Rush Limbaugh to Air America. That dog won’t hunt.

Fisking Occupy Memphis

Posted on by

I found this on the Occupy Memphis website. I wanted a good laugh, so I thought I’d tear it apart. Here we go:

We are Occupy Memphis. We stand with the Occupy Wall Street Movement and all other nonviolent democratic uprisings around the world.

We are here to denounce the control of our government by the 1%. We the People have a right to govern ourselves; that right has been usurped by corporations, big banks, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and the wealthiest 1% of our population. These elites put profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality.

They say we have a budget crisis, but what we have is a priority crisis. They say we have a fiscal deficit, but what we have is a deficit of democracy. They have taken our silence for consent, but no more.

We are seniors, teachers, small business owners, clergy, and union members. We are clerks, firefighters, nurses, police, and immigrants. We are service workers, veterans, entrepreneurs, students, the unemployed, and recipients of Social Security benefits.

We are mothers, fathers, children, grandparents, friends, and neighbors. We are those who do all the work and keep this society running. We are you and you are one of us. We are the 99%. We are here to peacefully Occupy Memphis until our demands are heard.

All well and good. We just heard your demands. Does that mean you’ll go away now? ;-)

We demand that Wall Street be held accountable for its role in the destruction of the global financial system.

We demand that the 1% pay their fair share of taxes, that all tax loopholes benefiting the super-rich are closed, and that those who try to skirt our country’s tax laws are tried and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

You don’t specify what “their fair share” is. The top 1% of taxpayers already pays 38% of the total personal tax revenues. So, as I always ask (and never get an answer) WHAT IS THE “FAIR SHARE” of that 1%?

As far as those who skirt our countries tax laws and are not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, those are the people in power under your illustrious President Obama. You elected him, I didn’t.

We demand that corporations not be afforded the same First Amendment rights as individuals; that corporations not be allowed to influence elections through campaign contributions.

That is a slippery slope that I don’t want to go down. Curtailing somebody’s First Amendment rights today, no matter whom and how specific you want to get, will lead to everybody losing their rights tomorrow. Look at just about every set of laws there is on the books. Compare when they were started, and where they are now. DUI laws, Income tax, the list goes on. The term is “mission creep.”

How exactly do corporations “influence” elections through campaign contributions? By allowing candidates to run ads to press their view in 15 second soundbites and attack ads, wearing them into your brain, that’s how. Now, if you actually HAD an independent thought process, you would pay attention to what the candidate meant, not just what he says. You would do some research and look at their plans they want to enact if elected.

We demand equal treatment from our justice system at all levels and at every stage, from investigations, through trials and sentencing, regardless of race or social class.

A laudable goal. I wish that could happen as well. But when 50% of the crime is black-on-black, and 65% of the crime is black-on-white, and most of those blacks are poor, what do you mean, “regardless of race or social class?” Should we let a certain percentage of blacks go just because they are black and/or are poor?

We demand that our government recognize healthcare as a basic human right. It is shameful that our city’s infant mortality rate is higher than in many developing countries.

Healthcare is NOT a basic human right. It takes a person 10 years and over $100,000 to learn to be a medical doctor. He is going to want to be compensated appropriately for the effort he put into becoming a doctor. If you decide he “makes too much” and he only deserves to be paid as much as a plumber, then he will become a plumber instead of a doctor. If you have no doctors, how will you have healthcare?

One of my medications costs about $35 a pill. And that is cheap compared to other medications. These miracle drugs need to recoup the R&D costs needed to develop and test the medications. That’s why one of my pills costs almost $35 each, and the generics runs about $2-4 each.

We demand an end to Tennessee’s regressive labor laws, such as right-to-work and at-will employment, which keep us in poverty. We demand an ordinance mandating that no city services can be privatized; any outsourced services should be brought back in-house.

How do these “keep us in poverty?” There are two reasons why you are fired from a job. One is that the company can no longer afford to support the position, and thereby eliminate it, and the other reason is to fire you because you’re not doing the work, or you’ve messed up and violated company policy.

If you force employers to keep sub-performing people employed, then businesses won’t hire new people unless they are sure of the person, and that growth of the company will support the position. Also, if you force employers to keep too many positions that they cannot support, the entire company may have to close, throwing everybody out of work. A good example is the Memphis police department recently, either everybody takes a $30 a week cut, or a lot of officers lose their jobs entirely. If you had to make a choice, which one would you pick, $30 a week cut, or no job at all?

We demand affordable and fair housing for all and that Wells Fargo be held accountable for its racist, predatory lending practices in Memphis.

I am not absolving Wells Fargo, but if you are too stupid to read the paperwork, and understand what it says and its ramifications, then you shouldn’t purchase a home. The fault lies on both sides of the table. But the federal government also deserves some blame as well. If the Feds hadn’t mandated that more people own homes, the banks wouldn’t have underwritten the risky loans they did, causing the housing crisis.

We demand that those Memphians who experienced foreclosures due to the illegal activities of banks and other financial institutions be adequately compensated and their debt forgiven.

Like I said above, the banks were mandated into making the loans. Does this mean I can be “adequately compensated” and I get my home loan forgiven as well? Woo Hoo! I mean, I was responsible and didn’t buy a $200,000 home with an interest only, variable rate balloon mortgage on my salary.

We demand that the city use our money for education and public services rather than corporate incentives and tax freezes for companies like Bass Pro or Electrolux. Memphis gives away more public dollars in corporate welfare than any other city in the state, yet our unemployment rate is at 12.1%.

The Memphis City Schools budget before the merger was about $960 Million a year. Considering that only 70% of kids graduate from MCS, and 60% of those who did graduate couldn’t read their own diplomas, just how much more money do you want to throw down that rathole? With Memphis being 53% black, and most of them are illiterate or functionally illiterate, what else do you think the result of our unemployment rate would be? Imagine our unemployment numbers if companies like Bass Pro and Electrolux didn’t come here because of the tax breaks. That would mean fewer jobs, and more unemployment.

We demand a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Our concerns will be addressed. Our demands will be met. We will not be discouraged. We will not be intimidated. We will not be ignored. We are the 99%.

You got the government you wanted, because you elected the people you wanted. Steve Cohen is the U.S. Representative to Memphis because he promised to bring home “our share” of Federal dollars instead of being fiscally responsible by getting the government to spend only what it has instead of borrowing against our grandchildren’s future. Obama is President because he promised to “spread the wealth” around by redistributing it. In three years, he’s managed to spend $9 Trillion that we didn’t have, and he’s not slowing down.

The nice thing about the First Amendment is you have the right and freedom to stand on a soapbox with your bullhorn and say whatever you want. However, there is no guarantee that anybody has to listen to what you have to say. You can say that you are “the 99%” all day, but either I’m part of the 1% or you’re not “the 99%”

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Occupy Wall Street

Posted on by

I wanted to weigh in on this subject. My feelings and thoughts have finally come to a head.

It seems to me that this “movement” is nothing more than a disorganized mob. They can’t agree on a common message, they have no significant reason to protest, except to protest itself. It stated on Wall Street, where the protesters purchase products from companies traded on Wall Street, if they have a 401(k), it is most likely invested in that very same Wall Street. The ignorance and hypocrisy is blinding.

The reason for this post is the following two photographs. I don’t know their names, but let’s call them Ashley and Karen.

Ashley looks like she came into a comfortable amount of money because of the hard work of her parents. She is calling for her to be taxed more. “She is the 1%, and she stands with the 99%.”

Next comes Karen. She has dire medical and financial problems. I am not going to get into the complexities of medical insurance here. Just the fact that she doesn’t have, and is very likely never to have medical insurance.

I would now like to introduce them to each other. Ashley, meet Karen. Karen, Ashley.

I would then say, “Ashley, if you want to help other people, here is a person that will gladly take any money you want to give her because it will keep her alive.”

Why give money to the Government for “redistribution” when 83% gets absorbed into the government for overhead? Ashley could give $275,000 to Obama, who would let only $47,000 actually make it to a person or persons. Or, she could give all of it to Karen, who would be able to use 100% of it.

Besides, when Ashley calls for takes to go up on “her,” she is also calling for taxes to be raised on many other people as well. Ashley, if you want to pay more to the government, please, write a check and send it in. I’m sure they will cash it. BUT DON’T GET MY TAXES RAISED WHILE YOU’RE AT IT. You may be swimming in money, but I’m not.

Liberals. Bah. The view that government can be the parent to everybody is not what this country was founded on. Stand up on your own. Take what comes your way, good and bad. If you get knocked down, stand up and try again, and again, and again until you win. That’s what America was founded on. That’s what made America great. These Liberals want to tear that ideal down. I don’t know why, no Liberal has ever been able to hold a coherent conversation with me. When faced with facts, they start screaming epithets and attack me rather than calmly debate the facts.