Category Archives: Constitution

Exposing The Lies Of The Gun Lobby.

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Since the 1980s, gun lobbyists such as the National Rifle Association have generated a huge number of lies in order to further sales of gun manufacturers. Here are just a few of the lies:

1 – “The 2nd Amendment guarantees the right of all Americans to possess firearms.”

The meaning of 2nd Amendment has been debated for decades.  The exact wording is “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.” Obviously, it ties the right to keep and bear arms to a Militia.

When the 2nd Amendment was ratified in 1791, the US had defeated the British only 8 years earlier. The future of the nation was not assured (the US was nearly defeated and the Capitol occupied in the War of 1812) and the nation’s standing army was small, supplemented by state militias. In order to ensure the nation’s future, it was necessary for the US to enlist help from its citizenry.

It’s difficult to imagine that Congress ever intended the 2nd Amendment as a means to allow the indiscriminate slaughter of our citizens by weapons its representatives could not even imagine.

2 – “The government has no right to limit the number and type of firearms.”

In fact, the federal government has been regulating arms for many decades. The government has banned private ownership of fully-automatic “machine” guns, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, shoulder-fired rockets, surface-to-air missiles, armed military-style aircraft, etc. The 2nd Amendment only mentions “Arms.”

I think we can all agree that it is necessary, for the safety of our citizens, to prevent people from owning nuclear Arms.

3 – “The 2nd Amendment was intended to prevent tyranny by our federal government.”

In a nation with a government of the people, by the people and for the people, this claim seems absurd. However, most of the nation’s founders were opposed to the nation maintaining a standing army. In discussions by the founders leading up to its passage, the focus was on defense of our nation against external foes, i.e. the British.

4 – “Guns are necessary for self-defense.”

I’ve never seen a gun that can stop a bullet.

For all practical purposes, guns are an offensive weapon. Being armed with a handgun does not prevent an armed assailant from robbing or shooting you if the assailant has drawn his gun first. Even if you’re able to draw your weapon, at best, you are likely to be involved in a shootout that will be won by the quickest, most accurate shot. At worst, you’ll endanger innocent bystanders who could be caught in the crossfire.

90 percent of self-defense is having the awareness to avoid dangerous situations before they happen!

5 – “Any form of regulation is the first step in the government taking our guns.”

Nonsense. It won’t and can’t happen without our consent. There are simply too many gun owners for that to happen. And, no, that’s not what happened to Germans when the Nazis took control. Hitler actually relaxed gun control laws passed by the previous government.

6 – “The United Nations is coming to take our guns.”

That has as much credibility as the Mayan Apocalypse! The US helped found the UN. The US is the strongest member of the UN. The US military is more powerful than virtually all of the other member nations’ combined (See #5). And, despite the paranoia being shoveled by the extreme right, the latest UN treaty on arms control does not affect domestic policies. It is intended solely to control illegal arms trade to rogue nations and terrorist groups.

7 – “AR-15s, AK-47s and similar weapons are not assault rifles.”

In reality, the AR-15, AK-47s and many other “tactical” weapons sold to civilians were actually designed for use by the military and law enforcement agencies. The biggest difference between them and military weapons is that they are strictly semi-automatic, which means they fire each time you pull the trigger as compared to fully-automatic weapons which continue to fire as long as you hold the trigger. (In some cases, the fully-automatic feature has simply been disabled and can be restored with an inexpensive kit sold separately.) But there’s not all that much difference in the rate of fire. Even the military discourages fully-automatic fire as it is less accurate and wastes ammunition.

These weapons are not used for hunting. They have only one purpose: killing people.

8 – “Only Democrats and liberals favor gun control.”

I guess that’s true, if you consider Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush to be liberals. Both spoke eloquently in favor of banning the domestic sale of assault rifles. Come to think of it, if these men were running for office today, they would probably be labeled liberals.

NRA Exposed!

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The National Rifle Association began as an organization dedicated to preserving hunting and to support target shooting as a wholesome activity for young people. Its origins go back to a time when our nation was largely rural and hunting was more than a sport. It was a way to put food on the family table.

That NRA no longer exists.

Today’s NRA is merely an ideological lobbying group for gun manufacturers. The NRA’s opposition to a proposed international arms treaty is proof. The United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty is designed to control the illicit trade of small arms to international terrorist groups and drug cartels. The text of the proposed treaty reaffirms the right and responsibility of any State to control the transfer of conventional weapons within its territory.

The treaty would have no affect on the sale of guns in the US or our 2nd Amendment right to own guns.

Yet the NRA is vehemently opposed to the treaty. In an attempt to block it, the NRA leadership has lied to its membership, saying the treaty is a “stealth attempt to circumvent the 2nd Amendment.” The NRA claims that it will result in black-shirted thugs breaking in your doors in order to confiscate your guns. According to NRA leaders, the treaty is the first step in allowing the new black Hitler (Obama) to take away all of your freedoms.

You may ask, “Why would the NRA make such outrageous lies?”

The answer is simple. The proposed treaty could conceivably limit the sale of expensive assault weapons around the globe. Of course, that would be bad for the large gun manufacturers that pay the salaries of NRA leadership.

While that may seem cynical, it’s nothing compared to the arms industry following mass murders in the US. Rather than view events such as Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora, and Newtown as tragedies, the gun industry sees them as opportunities. Each massacre results in dramatic increases in gun sales…particularly for the type of weapons used for the killings.

After Tucson, the sale of 9mm Glock handguns soared. After Aurora, the gun sales in Colorado spiked. And after Newtown, gun sales are off the charts. The makers of high-capacity magazines for AR-15 assault rifles sold 3.5 years worth of clips in just 3 days following the massacre! And in 2012, Ruger broke its annual sales record by early August.

With its sponsors cashing in on every tragedy, is it really any wonder the NRA’s answer to gun violence is for more people to buy guns? With so much money at stake, and so many assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns already in the hands of Americans, any form of common sense gun control will be nothing short of a miracle.

From The Age Of Enlightened Minds To The Age Of Dimwits.

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The so-called Tea Party “Patriots” are fond of comparing themselves to the Founding Fathers in order to promote their self-serving, narrow-minded philosophy. Indeed, they named themselves after those courageous souls who dared to stand up to the British at places such as Boston Harbor, Lexington and Concord.

Yet today’s teabaggers couldn’t be more different from the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

The Founding Fathers were committed to education, to science and reason. By contrast, the Tea Party is committed to superstition, faith and brutish behavior. The Tea Party believes in slashing funding for education. Its followers dismiss science, and they consider those who are well-educated to be anti-American elitists.

According to Jon Meacham’s wonderful biography Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power, Jefferson was an avid student of history and philosophy. He believed that “…reason, not revelation or unquestioned tradition or superstition, deserved pride of place in human affairs.”

Tea Party adherents, on the other hand, reject reason and cling to an inaccurate version of history in order to make our nation fit their narrow-minded ideology. An ideology based on the Articles of Confederation rather than the Constitution which replaced them, and on a plutocratic interpretation of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations that seems to reject government intervention in the free market. Yet many scholars reject that interpretation, pointing to the fact that, time and again, Smith warned of the dangers of businesses forming cabals and monopolies in order to fix the highest price “which can be squeezed out of the buyers.”

In order to realize the best possible future for our nation, who are we to follow? George Washington or Eric Cantor? Benjamin Franklin or Sarah Palin? Thomas Jefferson or Michele Bachmann?

You decide.

Is It Finally Time To Talk About Guns?

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Every time there is a mass shooting, the National Rifle Association, Fox News Channel, right wing radio loudmouths and the GOP say, “Now is not the time to talk about gun control.” They claim that doing so would be disrespectful to the victims.

Seriously? Talking about measures to prevent more victims is disrespectful?

Given that we’ve just experienced yet another mass shooting, this time in an elementary school, I think any reasonable person will now admit that the time to talk about guns is finally here! When small children, teachers and school administrators are targeted, we must finally examine the role of guns in a civilized society.

To start the conversation, allow me to make a few observations:

1 – Outside our military, no one in the US needs a military-style assault rifle. These weapons have no purpose other than to kill people.

2 – Almost no one needs to carry a handgun. Handguns are virtually useless as a means of defense. If an attacker is armed, and has his weapon drawn, it’s already too late to draw your own weapon. Moreover, if you’re carrying a handgun, you may be all too tempted to use it; in a fit of anger; in a personal crisis; or in a moment of fear.

3 – Guns in the home are only useful for defense if they are readily accessible. However, if they are easily available for the adults who own them, they are also available to children in the home.

4 – Guns are far too easily obtained by the criminally insane. Any non-felon can walk into a gun shop and purchase as many guns and as much ammunition as he can afford. The only regulation is that the buyer pass a quick background check. Worse yet, anyone can purchase guns and ammunition at one of thousands of gun shows without any restriction at all! (40 percent of guns are purchased this way.) It’s time to change the gun show exemption.

5 – A national registry of the owners of handguns and assault weapons is not a threat to anyone’s freedom, except those intent on causing harm. There are far too many guns in the hands of US citizens for any “black-shirted anti-second amendment thugs” to take them away from us. The benefits of being able to quickly and easily track guns used in the commission of a crime far outweighs any potential inconvenience to the gun owners.

6 – Dramatically reducing the sale of handguns, assault weapons and large capacity magazines will eventually be rewarded with fewer mass shootings. It may take a while, but it will gradually take these weapons of choice out of the hands of the criminally insane.

As important as reducing the availability of weapons that have no purpose other than to kill people is the need to moderate our national paranoia. Despite claims by the far right, the UN is not going to take away our freedoms. And given our enormous military budget, we have no one to fear but ourselves.

Undermining Democracy.

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For more than 40 years, the Republican Party has been working to undermine our elections.  It first became apparent with the Watergate break-in, which was an obvious attempt to steal an election and subvert our constitution.

But the Republican strategy actually began a few years earlier, when Republican Vice-President Spiro Agnew used his position to create partisan distrust of our news media.  The attack on the media gained steam as ensuing Republican administrations appointed directors to the Federal Communications Commission with instructions to repeal the Fairness Doctrine.

They succeeded in 1987, giving birth to hyper-partisan TV networks such as Fox News Channel and right wing radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh.

In addition, Republicans began a partisan attack on our judicial system.  Once based on merit, the Supreme Court was changed by Reagan, George H. W Bush and George W. Bush when they nominated ideologues such as Thomas and Scalia to make decisions based on conservative “values.”  They were rewarded with Supreme Court rulings that equate money with free speech and corporations with individuals.

Of course, these decisions assured the Republican Party of an overwhelming campaign advantage funded by their multi-national corporate masters.

In the House of Representatives, former Speaker Newt Gingrich began a cleansing of moderate Republicans in order to assure party-line votes on virtually every issue.  And, in the Senate, Republicans began wielding the filibuster in record numbers to force Democratics to gain a super majority on even the most mundane of bills, such as nominations for Treasury, State, EPA, Education, Justice, ATF, and federal judgeships.

In order to win elections, Republicans created divisive issues villifying minorities, immigrants and gays, then loaded the airwaves with negative ads in hopes of disgusting voters, thereby suppressing votes by all but their most right wing base.

When they lost by a landslide in 2008, Republicans tried to convince voters that the elections were stolen without providing a shred of actual evidence.  They then set about creating laws and reducing polling hours to suppress votes in mostly Democratic areas by demanding photo IDs that are sometimes expensive and hard to obtain.

Republicans have tried to bust unions in hopes of ending union campaign contributions to Democratic candidates.  They have tried to defund Planned Parenthood, not just because they disagree with abortion, but because it represents a reliable Democratic voting bloc.  They have also tried to defund public broadcasting in hopes of destroying the last truly independent news network.

Republicans have even defunded education at every level.  After all, an uneducated and uninformed electorate is more easily deceived by Fox News and other Republican-controlled media.

Despite all of this, surveys show that if every eligible voter went to the polls, President Obama and Democrats would win handily.  Let’s make sure enough of these people vote to spoil the Republican strategy.

Time To Call The Churches’ Bluff.

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Since the formation of the Moral Majority in the late seventies, many churches have immersed themselves in politics.  Pastors, particularly evangelical pastors, have implored their flocks to vote for Republicans despite Internal Revenue System rules which prohibit a non-profit 501c3 from engaging in politics at the risk of losing its tax-free status.

Yesterday, pastors across the nation challenged the IRS rules by telling their members how to vote based on the churches’ stances with regard to abortion, gay marriage and other so-called “values” issues.  In other words, they told their members to vote for Romney.

The churches even recorded their political messages with hopes that the IRS will attempt to change their tax status.  Apparently, they believe that any such attempt by the IRS will result in a backlash, unleashing them to take any political stance they want.

The churches consider it a First Amendment issue of free speech.  They assume the conservative Supreme Court will see it their way.  At the very least, they assume a Teapublican-controlled Congress will pass a constitutional amendment in their favor.

However, the issue is not about free speech.  It’s about taxes.

Certainly, pastors and churches have the right to make any political statements they want.  And the IRS has the power to determine their tax status. If pastors want to use their unique status as “spiritual” advisers to engage in partisan politics, they should be held to the same standards as any other Political Action Group.

Liein’ Ryan.

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First, I must credit my friend, Mike Cosentino, for the title.  To my knowledge, he was the first to coin the description of the Teapublican Vice-Presidential candidate.  And Ryan has certainly lived up to the title ever since.  Indeed, his penchant for ignoring the truth was on full display at the Republican National Convention.

For example, Paul Ryan says that his budget plan will “save Medicare.” But in reality, it will leave the next generation of seniors at the mercy of greedy health insurance companies. Ryan says that his budget will cut the deficit. What he doesn’t tell you is that his plan will increase an already bloated defense budget and give large tax cuts to the wealthy while cutting healthcare and food stamps for the poor.

Ryan has lied so much and so often, he couldn’t even tell the truth about his only marathon time.

Prior to the convention, Ryan condemned Congressman Todd Akin’s remarks on “legitmate” rape as offensive. Yet Ryan co-sponsored a bill with Akin that would ban all abortions except for pregnancies that resulted from “forcible” rape.  In other words, you would be denied an abortion unless you could show that you had been bruised and beaten sufficiently in an attempt to fight off the attacker.

Moreover, Akin and Ryan co-sponsored a “personhood” bill that would give fetuses all of the rights and protections of the First Amendment thereby outlawing all abortions, even in vitro fertilization. And lest you think Aikin and Ryan are alone in their extreme beliefs, the GOP adopted a platform that would ban all abortions. No exceptions.

Of all the liars in the Republican Party, Paul Ryan is one of the most prolific. By himself, he could easily provide enough material to fill a second volume of the Teapublican Book of Lies.

Let’s Help Texas Secede.

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On several occasions, Texas Gov. Rick Perry suggested that the Republic of Texas might secede from the United States.  He meant it as a threat, but after first ridiculing the idea, I’ve come to embrace it.

Let’s consider the benefits.

If Texas, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee (Yes, I know this isn’t all of the original Confederacy, but the others have better embraced their statehood.) were allowed to secede, the level of education in the US would improve overnight.  At the same time, the number of impoverished would plummet.  We would also improve the United States’ international rankings with regard to incarceration and capital punishment.

Moreover, the US would dramatically reduce the number of assault rifles and handguns within its borders.  We would rid ourselves of the evangelical crackpots on the Texas school board responsible for rewriting textbooks to whitewash history.  We would improve the percentage of our population with health insurance. And since most of the Tea Party crackpots in Congress come from the former Confederacy, the level of political discourse would likely improve.

I know this plan seems radical, but I think it best.  Many of the former Confederate states have long been openly hostile to the federal government, even threatening to “exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.”  In Arizona, there are legislative bills calling for state sovereignty of national parks and all federal lands.  And many of these states have refused to accept the legitimacy of the Affordable Care Act despite a Supreme Court ruling.

For the states that do secede, they finally could have the theocratic government they seem to so desire.  They could completely ignore science.  They would no longer have to accept the billions in federal money that have been thrust upon them to provide food and medicine for their poor.  And unless they continue their hostility to foreign visitors, they could replace Mexico and Jamaica as warm weather destinations for US tourists.

Of course, the plan is not without downsides.  We would have to move many of our military bases to Union states.  Football could suffer without Texas and Florida athletes, but since we already embrace foreign nationals for basketball and baseball, we could make accommodation for football players.  We would lose much of the domestic oil production and refineries, but all of that oil and gas is sold on world markets, anyway.  And since I live in Arizona, I’d have to sell my home at a loss in order to move back to the US.

Nevertheless, I encourage you to give my plan serious thought.  If you do, I’m confident you’ll see that the many benefits outweigh the negatives.

For Sale: USA, Highest Bidder Takes All.

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This past week, it was announced that Teapublican Super Pacs will spend more than $3 billion on attack ads.  Likely, there will be nearly a billion more spent by the campaigns for Teapublican candidates.

Also in the news this week, was the John Edwards verdict and mistrial over the alleged misspending of money for a 2008 campaign at a time when contributions were limited to $2,500 from any single contributor.

The juxtaposition of the two stories should tell you everything you need to know about the impact of the Supreme Court’s misguided decisions equating money with free speech and corporations with individuals.

Thanks to the Court’s five conservative justices, this election may very well go to the highest bidders.  The Koch brothers, John Paulson, Bill Marriott, Richard Marriott, Julian Robertson, Ken Griffin, and Jim Davis each have donated $1,000,000 or more to Mitt Romney’s campaign.  In addition, the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson have donated untold millions to Super Pacs dedicated to attacking President Obama.

Of course, they don’t expect anything in return…nooooo!  Why would anyone think that?

If, like me, you believe individual voters should decide elections.  Not corporations and billionaires.  If you think that elections should be determined by the quality of ideas.  Not the quantity of contributions.  Then let’s overrule the Court.  Help restore our democracy by signing the petition at www.MoveToAmend.org.

In The Words Of A Founding Father…

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For those who demand that the US pass a so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” banning gay and lesbian marriage; For those who demand that the government intervene in the relationship between a woman and her doctor for fear that she might take a contraceptive or consider an abortion; For those who demand that the US be declared a Christian nation; For those who demand that our schools teach Chrisitian values to students; For those who believe that a failure to follow the commandments of the Bible will result in the collapse of our nation, consider this:

In Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson outlined his views which led to the separation of church and state: “The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit.  We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.  But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god.  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. … Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error.”