The Next Generation

Some days it would be better to just stay in bed. Yesterday there was a story in the news about 6 girls in Florida who got pissed at another girl for some perceived insults posted on a MySpace page.

After luring her to one of the girl’s house they proceeded to take turns beating on this girl. She was knocked unconscious, she received a concussion, and evidently one of her eyes was hurt from this beating.

The thing is, they didn’t just beat this girl up, they taunted her to fight back, which she refused to do, while filming the entire episode to post on the internet. They wanted notoriety for this brutal attack.

The 6 girls who did this had planned it well. They knew when the house would be empty, and they had a couple of their boy friends posted outside as lookouts. They are being charged as adults.

While I am glad they are being charged as adults, I have to wonder whose fault this actually is. The answer that comes to me is that it is the liberal mind-set that has brought us to this point. We refuse to allow absolutes in this world because absolutes create barriers. We live in such a nanny state now that barriers to anything are not acceptable.

Moral relativism. I remember hearing that term back in the 1970’s, the 10 Commandments had already been taken out of our schools and many teachers were afraid to read the Bible in class. While I did have a few who did read the Bible to her students every day, most either gave up the practice totally, or changed it to a period of “meditation” instead.

Parents were being hauled in front of judges for abusing their kids for giving them a spanking. They were supposed to appeal to the little tyke’s better instincts instead. What society failed to realize is that kids don’t have a better instinct. Our instincts tell us that whatever we do that is pleasurable and has no consequences must be good. So long as no consequences are imposed on our actions we have no reason to change a behavior.

Oh sure, science knew that, but if we just used “Positive” reinforcement instead of punishment our little darlings would gravitate towards better behavior. Unfortunately, some kids just like the fun of the bad behavior more than the reinforcement. What science forgot is that there is built into all of us a mechanism designed (by God) to help us to learn proper behavior. It is called the ‘Survival Instinct.’ Coupled with pain, the survival instinct will mold our children into fine upstanding citizens.

We need to take our country back! Give our kids a good spanking and help them to become decent citizens of this wonderful nation.

The First Amendment. It’s in there.

Michael Richards – Back in the day, people were not allowed to bring recording devices into a live performance. The performer had rights to his / her material not being distributed without compensation. Evidently, those days are gone as evidenced by the YouTube video of Michael Richards going off on some hecklers at the comedy club where he was performing.

 

Had that been the case here, we would probably never have heard of the incident where Richards went off on a rant calling the hecklers nigger and acting stupid on stage. As it happened though, someone video taped the incident, decided they were offended by what was said, and tried to get some money out of the situation (if not money, at least some notoriety).

 

Was Michael showing good sense in going off on the hecklers? Certainly not. Was it his right to go off on them? It certainly was. Who was hurt by the incident? Michael Richards. He is the only one who was damaged in the least by his words. Were the hecklers hurt? No, they were trying to goad Michael into acting stupid, evidently they were not enjoying his comedy routine, understandable, but does that give them the right to ruin everyone else’s evening by shouting him down? I personally don’t think so, but hecklers have been a part of stand-up since its inception, so maybe my opinion doesn’t carry much weight on this topic.

 

What about the person who video taped the incident? If they were offended, it was their own fault as comedy clubs are a place to expect rude humor and offensive language. They were actually harming Richards by taping the incident. We also have to wonder how much of his act they were taping, were they trying to make money off of his routine by selling bootleg copies of the performance? We will never know the answer to that question, but before throwing Richards under the bus, it is something to consider.

 

Personally, I don’t think that Michael Richards’ type of comedy translates to stand-up well, but that is not for me to say. I do feel that he has been turned into a pariah unfairly by people who weren’t even there.

 

Somehow we managed to go from Michael Richards to Don Imus without batting an eye. Don never even uttered the notorious “N word” in his remarks about the Rutger’s girls basketball team. Don Imus did what he was paid for, and very handsomely at that. He pushed the edge of the envelope.

 

Evidently, the envelope he pushed that morning was on the desk of the self appointed spokesman for blacks everywhere, Al Sharpdon. Al got his posse on the case and managed to bring enough political correct pressure to bear to cause NBC to fire Imus, without cause.

 

Imus had a contract that required him, as a condition of employment to push the edge and be controversial, but pressure from some self-righteous bigot got him fired. Here again, I personally don’t care too much for Don Imus, I don’t care for the edgy humor, but the man has a Constitutional Right to do it so long as he has a platform and a desire to use it.

 

People like Al Sharpdon want to call what Richards and Imus said “hate speech,” and want it prohibited. When we start shredding the Constitution and censoring free speech, Al Sharpdon and his ilk need to beware. His speech is as hateful or more so than anything Richards uttered, and much more hateful than what Imus said.

Free Speech

I guess if you haven’t figured it out yet, I’ll tell you, I’m a conservative. Yep, that’s right, one of those gun totin‘, hate mongers that you hear about on the news. I’m not as far right as some, but far enough to annoy some liberals.

There are a lot of things that bother me about the direction our nation seems to be heading, and it seems that a lot of it stems from this idea of political correctness. As I said in a previous post, we used to have free speech in this country. That speech has been eroded over the years and the rate seems to be accelerating.

Growing up, we learned hymns in church. Hymns like Alas and did my Saviour Bleed, with the verbiage that the writer put in, “Would He devote that sacred head, for such a worm as I.” Words that empathized the vast difference between a Holy God, and sinful man. Check it out now, in a new edition of the hymnal, I assume most any denomination will have the same changes, but now, instead of ‘worm’, it reads ’sinner’. A huge difference? Maybe not, but neither is the difference noticeable when the Colorado river runs it’s normal course through the Grand Canyon, but the canyon itself is evidence of the changes wrought.

We have to apologize and qualify ourselves anytime we use a derogatory word, even if we are trying to chasten someone for using them. We just don’t seem to get it, the words are not bad, they are scratches on paper, dots on a screen, there is nothing inherently wrong with any word. Actions, on the other hand can be very wrong, and we have laws to protect us from the wrong actions of others. We cannot legislate morality, thoughts, or words. Certainly we can legislate actions, that is why you cannot yell ‘fire!’ in a crowded theatre, we also have laws to prevent someone from inciting a riot. In the case of inciting a riot, there has to be intent in order for there to be a crime.

I am amazed when I see a movie on television where the word ‘nigger’ is bleeped out. It wasn’t used out of context, it was used in the way people hear it used everyday on the street, but to be politically correct, it is cut out, even when it is a major plot point. One scene comes immediately to mind from one of the Die Hard movies where our hero, John McCain is taken to Harlem and dropped off wearing nothing but a sandwich board which says “I hate niggers.” The words on the sandwich board were digitally blurred to blot them out.

If it is that offensive, just don’t show the movie for Pete’s sake! The writer and director put that in the movie for a purpose and now they are being censored. I am surprised that they let that pass without a fight. Ooops, I forgot, don’t step on anyone’s toes, don’t be a hate monger. Are we about to start taking words out of the dictionary to keep them from offending someone? That is the next step.

Barack Hussein Obama, a Delicate Flower

It has become a sorry state of affairs when a candidate for the highest office in the land and arguably the world wears his feelings on his sleeves and people in the media tip-toe around him to ensure they don’t hurt his delicate sensibilities.

It is not acceptable to call him by the name his parents gave him because it might have a negative connotation and turn off some potential voters. The main stream media are tripping all over themselves to accommodate his wishes. Anyone who doesn’t follow his wishes in this area is considered to be a hate monger or a racist.

Yesterday, Barack had to come down on his preacher, Jeremiah Wright. I don’t know about anyone else but I wasn’t blown away with his speech. I really didn’t like the way he dissed the founders for not stopping slavery, but that is another issue. He also didn’t distance himself from what Wright was saying, only that he now knew that these things were being said and he didn’t agree with them. That begs the question of why did he stay in this church if the values being espoused were so wrong in his opinion. Why did he not stand up to challenge the pastor’s rhetoric? I just don’t buy it.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Well there is a place now for all of the hate mongering homo phobes in this country. Iran. According to Ahmadinejad, they do not have homosexuals in Iran. What he fails to point out is that they have a tendency to execute them in Iran.

Controversy surrounded Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University yesterday. People all across the nation were divided over his right to be there and speak before the students. Those that cried that it was his right to free speech seem to have forgotten an important detail. The first amendment right that they are trying to confer upon Ahmadinejad is a right guaranteed to citizens of this nation and he has no 1st amendment right to free speech in this country.

It’s funny somehow, we will confer our rights onto those who are not eligible for them and deny them to those that have them by citizenship. Again, we live in a squirrelly world.

An American Hero

Four Star General David Petraeus, confirmed without dissent by the US Senate to be the coalition commander in Iraq was an American Hero before he came to present his report to the Congress this week. A Soldier who has served with distinction since the days of Viet Nam. After this week, General Petraeus deserves a Purple Heart for the shots he has had to endure from the very people who confirmed him.

Moveon.org labeled him General Betray us in a full page ad published in the New York Times. Where is the humanity in our elected officials? Do they possess any dignity any more? It was always my understanding that the Congress worked for us, the American People. It seems that they are now on the payroll of liberal political action committees. It is certainly not the American People who are pulling the strings of the puppets in Washington.

Thankfully, General Petraeus has the guts and the presence of mind to answer their rants calmly and directly, showing them to be the the fools they are. Meanwhile, Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich has been busy getting face time on television bad-mouthing our presence in Iraq. Well, that is face time on Syrian Television, the only place he can find anyone to give him any on air time.

Along with spending most of their energy bad mouthing our General, they spend their spare time trying to get on Osama’s good side, by pointing out that there just haven’t been enough votes in Congress to get us out of Iraq like he wants.

Bullies

What is it about the Left in this country that makes them want to get cozy with bullies in the world? They act like the kids in school who gladly swapped their lunch money for one more day without an ass whupping. People who are blind to the fact that something far worse than an ass beating is taking place as they are giving up their lunch money. They are losing their freedom.

They might try to argue that they are trying to preserve their freedom by appeasing the bullies of the world, but they can’t seem to step back away from the situation far enough to see that the very act of appeasement is in fact a relinquishment of our sovereignty. When we appease a bully, we are giving him the power to control our life, to dictate policy, and to determine our future.

Bullies are all bluff and bluster. If they can convince one kid on the playground that they will receive a beating if they don’t give in to the bully’s demands, the bully has won. If on the other hand, the bully is challenged when a demand is made, they have lost. President Reagan seemed to understand this intuitively and acted accordingly. He was aware that there was no real substance to the threats of the Soviets.

The Soviets could not possibly keep up with the spending that Reagan was talking about, and if the plans for SDI came to fruition, their entire stockpile of nuclear weapons would be useless against us. We didn’t make threats, we made promises, and historically our promises were kept. Capitalism and a free market wins the Cold War. Yea us!

In our current world of political correctness, we are afraid to be seen as bullies, even by the bullies of the world. We tremble in fear of world opinion and let that fear dictate our policies. We have allowed a handful of extremists to challenge our sovereignty and get away with it. In short, we have allowed the bully to take our lunch money. I for one, want it back!

We have allowed a group of barbaric nomads to challenge us, to sit back in caves and taunt us and our way of life. We have allowed them to use our media, our sense of fair play, and our compassion against us. Meanwhile, they use commercial airplanes full of civilians to destroy our cities and to kill our people. We have allowed them to win. We call them terrorists and the fact that we live in fear gives them the victory. We can change that.

Surgery is not pretty. Anytime a surgeon cuts someone open, for any reason, there is collateral damage. Scar tissue, bruising, loss of blood, there are a myriad of things that happen when a surgeon operates. The purpose of the surgery is not to create collateral damage, but to cut out the diseased tissue, or to repair some defect, but the collateral damage is there as well.

War, like surgery is not pretty either. There will be collateral damage, people will die, others will be hurt, many will lose their homes and property. That is the way war has always been. That is part of what war is, you cannot separate the collateral damage from the intentional damage. All you can do is to try to minimize the collateral while maximizing the intentional.

Our enemy takes a very long look at history. In doing so, they are perfectly happy to sit back and just sting us like some sort of insect. It is time for us to let go with some roach bombs in Iraq, and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, when you set off the roach bomb, the people in the house may suffer ill effects of trying to rid them of the roaches. But the roaches carry disease and they consume and destroy the resources of the household, they must be gotten rid of.

Liberals want to know why we can’t live with these extremists. Why can’t we all just get along? It’s not Osama’s fault that he is a terrorist, it is our fault for not providing for him a nurturing environment in which to spend his youth. It is our fault, and we brought the events of 9/11/01 down upon ourselves by having more than the other people of the world. Naturally they are jealous and rightfully so. There should be no difference between the haves and have-nots in the world.

When our enemy hears such drivel, they have to hold onto their turbans they are laughing so hard. Their plans are working. Their enemy is fighting itself, they can sit back and just keep things stirred up while making plans for a new strike. We need to stop this and get on with the business of killing our enemy. Yes, killing him. That is what his intentions are for us, and if we do not utterly destroy him, that is what he will end up accomplishing.

We need to stop pussyfooting around with these barbarians, and start destroying them. Destroy their will to fight. If we cannot do that, we must totally destroy them. They are very aware of our limitations, the self imposed rules that we play war with. They do not have a concept of our capabilities. We need to become as ruthless as they are, anytime a rule is written that limits what we can or cannot do in war, we are tying our hands. We cannot have our soldiers fighting in fetters.

These extremists have declared total war on us, and have vowed to destroy us and our society. That is their announced game plan. We can believe it or not, but the thing is, if that is what they have declared, we need to act in accordance with their declaration, and destroy them. They must go in fear of the United States, they must tremble at the thought of American forces coming after them. In short, we must terrorize the terrorists.

When we clear a town of terrorists, decapitate them and pile their skulls on the side of the road leading into the town. We are fighting with an enemy that is not afraid to die, but there are things that they fear. We should be using the things our enemy fears against them. How about something simple, taking our ammunition and changing it from full metal jacket to jacketed hollow points, with the hollow filled with gel-caps of pork fat. Let these extremists know, that if they are shot and killed by one of our troops, the last thing they touch before they die is fat from an unclean animal. We have to use their fears against them.

When they are captured, let’s worry less about their treatment and more about their cooperation. They wear no uniform, they are working to kill us, any privileges they get should be earned. No books, no prayer rugs, no special diets, and no media coverage. They should not be able to get out until hostilities have ceased, if then. We need to remember that these are the people, bullies if you will, who kidnap civilians then torture and murder them. These are the same people who take planes and passengers and crash them into skyscrapers. They deserve nothing, and I would prefer it if that was what they received.

Political Correctness and the Speech Police

I remember a time before the Speech Police were formed. A time when a person could say anything they wanted, just about anywhere they wanted. Oh sure, you couldn’t yell Fire! in a movie theater, but this was also back in the day when common sense was a lot more common than it is now.

Back in the day, you could call someone a nigger, spic, wop, kike, cracker, faggot, or queer. Really anything you wanted to call them. You might get the bat crap beat out of you, but it was still your choice. You also had the choice to avoid situations where you were apt to be called a name that you didn’t like. It wasn’t always possible, but for the most part you could manage it.

People used to have enough sense to not go somewhere that would create a confrontation, or at least know that if they did, they might be offended. That’s not to say it is right to call people names, but our nation was founded on the principle that we have the RIGHT to do so if we choose.

Where does the media get off trying to tell me that something is ‘hate speech’ ? Hasn’t anyone read Orwell’s 1984? Americans are being stripped of their right to free speech incrementally and quietly. We blow up at a comedian for screaming nigger at some hecklers, we blacklist him and label him a racist.

We take a shock jock who doesn’t even say one of the previously listed terms above and get him fired from a national network because of his insensitive and racists remarks. This was exactly what his contract required of him, to create controversy. Obviously it hit someone the wrong way.

It is not even considered politically correct these days to call an illegal alien by that term, they must now be termed ‘undocumented workers.’ When will the BS stop and people wake up to the fact that they are losing their very freedom?

Every time there is someone upset about the words of another we all want to jump on the bandwagon with Al Sharpdon and Jesse Jackson to stop this vile racism. If Michael Richards said something to offend someone, let him apologize to them, not the American People at virtual gunpoint by the media and the Justice Brothers.

By the same token, Don Imus may have needed to apologize to the Rutger’s Girls Basketball team, but that is all who needed an apology. Sure it should have been public, after all, the comment was made on the air, but should he have lost his job? I don’t think so.

We have recently had a situation here in Memphis, TN where some people were fired from the community theater for using a hangman’s noose in the backstage area for whatever it is that they use ropes for. An employee, far too young to have ever even witnessed a lynching, was offended by the sight of the noose and complained. It would seem to me that if anything was called for, it would be to call the alleged offenders into the office and suggest they use a different type knot in the future. But instead, they are labeled racists and fired.

I guess by the same token, since I am a white male who lives in the south, I should be able to force Sunshine and Nabisco to change their saltines to read something other than cracker, because I find that term offensive.

Folks, we live in a squirrelly world!