Politically-Correct Bullies

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good,
Oh Lord, please, don't let me be misunderstood 
--Please Don't Let me Be Misunderstood, 
The Animals  

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold 
--The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats
___________________

The outrage du jour in the comminteriat is the outed racial bigotry of Los Angles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. Sterling is now doing the requisite penance on his media rounds, insisting he is no racist. 

He is doing the walk of shame because the National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver has moved to force Sterling to sell his NBA franchise. This is all very understandable on one level as Silver and Sterling are both Jewish, and there is nothing that says you are an American patriot if you are Jewish like forsaking one of your brethren (or better, the State of Israel).

Surely we are not a post-racial society. The U.S. is post-Civil Rights and the enforcement of those equalizing statutes, but the law may not operate on our minds -- our preferences and perceptions. While some may feel that an Orwellian sort of mind reaming might help maters, we are not yet there. 

What about Sterling's right to privacy? "Under California law, all parties involved have to consent to the recording of private remarks. Even bigots." 

What we are is a contentious society that knows how to come out slugging. We have our petty social networking platforms on which to disgorge our bile, or in a national publication if we are a bigger dog. The silent majority doesn't participate and just wants chips and dip and to watch a ball game.

The last civil rights frontier is gay rights, and the liberals are coming out slugging, there, too -- as though the enforcement of gay marriage will make our society a more civil one. But we in the United States have a strong division between Church and State, and forcing the Church to perform a rite against its dogma is just wrong.

Of course all should be entitled to a civil union with their beloved, even objektophiles like USAF veteran Erika Eiffel. All people in committed relationship should be afforded the dignity to do so, and to enjoy the respect of their state's rights as a couple; state-recognized civil unions meet that bar.

But pugilist liberals are trying to hose down differences that do not please them, and to force acceptance of said differences. In the case of gay marriage, this would be a rupture of the protection afforded by the Church-State separation, and an enforced annihilation of Church doctrine.

This misbegotten crusading gives them a purpose, and a rationale for hiving at Starbucks amongst their fellows. But this coercion is not in line with our Constitution's First Amendment, and freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The Fifth and 14th Amendments guarantee of equal liberty is only binding on the state and state employees. Constitutionally-speaking, everyone else is free to discriminate.

And for every push, there is a push back. The result is in an even more riven society, one which is already dangerously factionalized. Amongst the latest falls was the forced resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich after it was outed that he contributed $1,000 to a group supporting heterosexual marriage (which is to say, marriage.)

As an aside: Sorry women, but your day of equality has passed. Amusing in a slightly horrific way are the advertisements over the years for various household appliances-as-gifts for the married woman ("There need be no doubt in your mind as to what to give a lady ..."). The June Cleaver-like women are beaming in their cheery half-aprons, ready to do your bidding if you'll only bestow that new chrome appliance upon them.

But wouldn't we be appalled if the woman was black, with a rag tied around her head? The above ads says, "Merry Christmas. I'll be over for breakfast!" Just like that, the house frau is expected to perform. The Equal Rights Amendment could not muster enough votes to pass in 1972, and women still earn 77 cents for every dollar that a man does.

Interestingly, Mrs. Donald Sterling is calling the NBA sexist forcing her forfeiture of her 50% share of the Los Angeles Clippers if her husband does. Her voice as the little lady is very small, and shall be a footnote to history.

Gays are on top now, and our society seems more chastened, or perhaps, more vitiated. Societies behave like metronomes or perhaps, circle games, like Yeats' widening gyre, which eventually breaks apart.

It will all be coming around again, 'til the game stops.

Kansas Preacher Man

 

He who is without sin among you,
let him be the first to throw a stone 
--John 8:7 

A half truth is a whole lie
--Yiddish proverb

 The evil that men do lives after them; 
the good is oft interred with their bones 
--Julius Ceasar (III, ii)
 __________________

We don't know Rev. Fred Phelps from Adam, and do not hawk any particular dogma. But we are interested in the way media presents events.

In our outraged society, the death of Kansas preacher Fred Phelps must call for celebration -- a blot of medieval backwardness has been removed from the planet. Mr. Phelps gained infamy for his pronouncements that the United States' pro-homosexual stance was bringing the wrath of God down upon it, and his protests at military funerals gained him no love from that community of mourners.

A WaPo piece on his death even endeavored to take the high road by suggesting that imminent posts by Facebookers and Twitterers not dance on his grave, as that might be bad form. But what the Post failed to provide readers was a balanced obituary for this easy-to-dislike man, which would have provided real grist for such a request.

Missing was the momentous first half of this attorney-cum-preacher's life, in which he was one of the only private attorney's in early 1960's Kansas who would advocate for the civil rights of its black citizens, and he was successful in a big way. As a Christian, Phelps found racial bias unpalatable and against the word of God. All men are made in God's image; that's what his Good Book said. He could not brook their second-class status, and he moved against prejudice in a meaningful way.

You may call him a demogogue, but this was a man of action and not solely words who behaved in accordance with his beliefs. According to his moral guidebook, marriage was between men and women, and recent moves to force gay marriage in church were an an abomination. He didn't create his viewpoint, but was guided by the Christian rulebook, a book which has provided the foundation for many of our laws. Playing by those rules, his positions were consonant throughout his public life. 

Gay rights is the cause du jour -- the last frontier of the civil rights movement -- and this time, Phelps was on the wrong side of public opinion. Monster (on gay marriage) / savior (black civil rights). Demagogue / demigod. Like Ella Fitzgerald sang, " 'taint what you do, it's the way that you do it," and Phelps' approach was far from politic.

However, it is futility to expect the State to attempt to coerce the Church to believe otherwise on the gay marriage issue. Our Founders were wise enough to separate the two spheres. But separation does not imply smashing the institution. We are not Communistic, and those who would condemn religionists are as intolerant as those they would condemn. Live and let live is the ideal.

The whole truth of the man's life is complex, not so easily dismissed in a 120 character tweeted diatribe. Had the Post presented a complete obituary, they would have to forgo their saintliness, and we would have to forgo our desire for outrage and easily understood stories.

Complexities require thought.

Scattershot

This is the argument of a totalitarian. 
You can't know what we're doing to protect you, 
even if we're doing it to you, 
because then we can't protect you 
and you will be killed by bad people 
and it will be your own fault 
--Should Auld Civil Liberties Be Forgot, 
Charles Pierce 

What a wonder is a gun
What a versatile invention!
First of all, when you've a gun-
Everybody pays attention 
--Gun Song, Assassins soundtrack

 They who can give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety,
deserve neither liberty nor safety 
--Benjamin Franklin
 ________________

Along with death and taxes, gambling remains Big Business in the United States.

As the mega-million dollar state lotteries roll on despite the player's incredibly slim odds of winning, this metaphor seems right for a society that accepts odds of thousand-to-one of winning. The  
Lotto Mentality was the impetus behind entering the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) and drives much of our legislation, including our gun laws.  We buy Lotto tickets, fight wars and legislate with only the slightest chance of winning.

Betting on a legal solution to our domestic violence issue is as losing a proposition as is buying a Florida Lottery ticket.  It is a response to the cry to "do something", but it is as well thought out as an grade school teacher denying the entire class recess because someone threw a spitball. (This is not to dismiss a spree killing as being akin to such a classroom transgression, but to compare the punishment of all for the crime of one.)

We fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and call it a war while in reality it is nothing but controlled bully behavior, asserting our military dominance under the pretense of caring about their welfare.  In reality, we occupy their country because they are the enemy.

The same bullying is conducted in the United States towards its own citizens, when Ranger feels like the enemy because he believes he has the right to own weapons, including those that would be carried by a law enforcement officer.  If a government does not trust its citizenry, then it is an adversary, and is not by, of and for the people; the people are not the enemy.

Gun ownership will not protect our democracy; then again, neither will anything else, to include myriad technologies.  It is the hallmark of a cosseted democratic society to believe that we can be protected.

Did Jose Padilla think that he would be thrown in a brig, devoid of all rights of citizenship? Did "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh expect to bear the barbaric treatment thrown his way? Did Bradley Manning expect two years in prison before even being tried for an offense?  What were the odds?

Will guns make us free?  Probably not, but they are an indicator of the health of our freedoms and our status as free citizens versus subjects of our elected government.  It is ironic that so many argue for the continued abridgement of our civil rights, as though a bloated entity will be a better controller of our behavior than each of us may be himself.

Killing is wrong, whatever the source.  Handguns and assault rifles are but a piddling threat compared to what can be done in the name of the government.  Ranger for one does not fear the governed.  The abrogation of gun rights once accorded to the governed rarely bodes well for those so deprived.  Consider how the Holocaust might have played out had the slaughtered had access to small arms -- think about the doomed Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Back to the Lotto: You can play and not win, or you can not play and not win; either way, you're a loser.  If my government does not trust me, I have lost the most important measure of citizenship.

Winning $530 million off a $1 ticket will not compensate for that loss.

Violence is Here to Stay

--Lisa and Paul

_______________________

[Ranger has lots of meaty posts regarding recent events ... but as we're on the road for the holidays, posts will be meted out in a helter-skelter manner.]

Today, we enjoyed lunch with Ranger's friend Paul Longgrear and he shared his thoughts on the most recent shocking (sadly, no) school shooting.  What follows are Paul's written thoughts on the matter:

The evil, demonic-inspired massacre at the Newtown elementary school is a terrible thing, but we can prevent it from happening ever again.

Am I angry about all those dead kids? Yes, and I want a real solution.  The question is, do we want to prevent the next occurrence?  Do we want to protect innocent children and their caregivers?  Do we want them to come home unscathed at the day's end, or do we want to keep an assault rifle out of the hands of an evil nutcase?  The two are not commensurate; the first is almost 100% doable; the latter is not.  While the matter is juggled as a political hot potato, more lives hang in the balance.

In the 1950's and 60's Muslim terrorists targeted Israeli schools and children on field trips.  Yet it has been almost 40 years since the last school massacre at Ma'alot.  The Israeli's attacked the problem, not the origin of the problem. Israel saw the problem as endangered children, not assault rifles in the hands of their enemies.  

They fenced in their schools and stationed armed guards at the gates.  It is embarrassing that we do not have a politician to front this immediate solution.  The guards could be trained soldiers in civilian clothing.  It is not an impossible solution, and is one fairly quickly emplaced.


Pragmatism demands we decide: Do we love our political agenda more than we love the immediate preservation of life?  We can play politics with guns, or protect our children.  We have never been able to ban drugs, so why think we can ban anything?  You can criminalize it, but once people are dead, you cannot make them undead (no matter how many zombie films you watch.)

If you are in the first camp, brace yourself for the consequences of your inaction: decades of violence while "assault" weapons (possibly) work their way out of the system due to obsolescence.

If you want your children safe, petition you elected representatives and declare that you want their schools protected.

--Paul Longgrear, Col. USARMY (ret'd)

addendum:  Paul proposes stationing armed guards outside the school at the exterior entrances. He does not propose placing armed guards in school. LF
_______________

Ranger would add:

We already have metal detectors at most schools, but they are worthless once someone breaches the detector.  We also have Officer Friendlies on the school campus, so the idea of police has already been integrated into the culture.

The next logical step (which does not encroach upon our civil rights but DOES protect our right to self preservation) would be to secure the entrances to schools with an armed guard, either at the entrance or at a remote post.  The logical personnel for this position would be retired military veterans or Homeland security personnel.

Take some HSA personnel out of the airports and put them on-task to do a necessary job -- protecting Americans from their own.  This is the real and present danger ... not frisking citizens who might be carrying more than 3 ounces of shampoo or handing out Ziploc baggies.

The War to End Them All

--Anzac Day

Liberty has never come from the government.
Liberty has always come from the subjects
of the government.
The history of liberty is a history of resistance.
The history of liberty is a history
of the limitation of governmental power,
not the increase of it
--Woodrow Wilson

We'd fight and never lose
Those were the days
Oh, yes, those were the days
--Those Were the Days, My Friend,
Mary Hopkin
___________________

There was a time the United States used to fight wars and at least pretend that they were being fought to put an end to wars.

World War I -- that was The War to End All Wars. It was certainly savage enough and meaningless enough to earn that title, but it did not work. It has been hypothesized that some countries grew sick enough of the carnage after WWI, due to their proximity or profound losses, that it did put an end to their war lust. But the U.S. was not one of those countries.

Just 92 years and at least a million casualties later and the U.S. now gladly accepts the concept of a long war that even might be an endless one. Now we fight not to achieve a goal, but to keep the restless natives in check. For their part, the indigenous will do their best to fill their roles, too.

Remember when Congress declared war? Now we accept generational war commitments which fly in the face of the previous "get in and get out" once the objective is filled ethos. America is no longer a refuge against the ravages of war.

Republicans actually fought in wars back then (and not just Academy graduates.) There were active isolationists, too, who touted an "America first" platform. Reserve forces, including the National Guard, were adjunct forces, rather than additional professional deployable assets. Our military was actually a combat force defending the shores of America rather than the back streets of Mogadishu, Baghdad, Kabul or Kandahar.

Remember when threats were quantifiable and the National Intelligence Estimates were based upon concepts like capabilities and intent of hostile forces? The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) were oriented towards defeating enemy states rather than nebulous undefined individual non-state threats.

Being a citizen meant having in alienable civil rights, back then, too.

Freedom Riders

Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs -- "Security comes first"
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse
--The Trouble With Normal, Bruce Cockburn
_____________________

Ranger is still discombobulated from the Veterans Day effluent, which gave a tiny up to all things war. Every newspaper I read had an article to the effect that our troops are fighting for our freedom, liberty and our very way of life.

This hogwash beats me down. There is no way the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is about our freedoms, rights or way of life (unless one is speaking about their corrosion.) The terrorists -- whomever they may be -- may be able to cut off our oil flow or even knock down the World Trade Center, but they can never take away my rights and liberties.

Only my country can do that to me. Our sacrosanct rights are precious but are only as strong as the covenant in which they appear (The Constitution). Sans that legal document, there really are no divine rights, which is why it must be so fiercely protected.

To the degree that my country encroaches upon my constitutional rights, the terrorists win.