The collapse of tthis culture is evident

Wrote this a while ago. Just got around to posting.

I saw American Gladiators last night. The program contained phenomenal eye-candy, but the utter uber-jock stupidity sanitized the program of any entertainment value. What a waste.

American Gladiators leaves me cold. The events are like high school phy. ed. on crystal meth. If people want aggressive, confrontational sport, what's wrong with boxing? That UFC stuff is well and good, but I'm not so much enameored with fighting as I am with athleticism and the game of physical chess played between 2 experts.


Of course, boxing is an old sport, so of course the viewing public will have none of it.

Corporations and Government

At times, I wish everyone read Kim du Toit.

"(I bet people would have a completely different attitude towards government spending if they had to do that, rather than having the painless transparency of automatic withholding.) In this way, not only does the corporation do the government’s job of tax collection, but, as the government ultimately has the power of life and death over the corporation, they do a better job of it than the government ever could. "

Any dysfunctional manager can tell you that you can hold on to power much longer if you force underlings to do your unpopular (or hatchet) work.

"The problem is that corporations, in my opinion, are rapidly losing the right to any degree of sympathy from voters. When a company fires an employee for keeping a gun in his car in the company parking lot, a gun which he may need for self-defense on his way to and from his job at the company, why should we not support legislation which strips that piece of “private property rights” away from the company? When a company fires an employee for writing a memo which is not written in bland corporate-speak, but is written instead in plain (not profane) language, why should they not be fined (or sued) for such arbitrary behavior?"

Excellent point. Corp. America makes a foolish move when it forces its employees into the arms of government regulators.

Liberalism is a religion



Which is why it does not matter how many facts you stack up against it. The faithful will not budge. Take this from Michigan:



"Six years after new rules made it much easier to get a license to carry concealed weapons, the number of Michiganders legally packing heat has increased more than six-fold.
But dire predictions about increased violence and bloodshed have largely gone unfulfilled, according to law enforcement officials and, to the extent they can be measured, crime statistics."



Click the link and read the whole article. Violent crime has actually gone down with all those guns on the street. This, however, makes no difference:



"Other opponents remain convinced that it has contributed to an ongoing epidemic of firearms-related death and destruction.


Shikha Hamilton of Grosse Pointe, president of the Michigan chapter of the anti-gun group Million Moms March, said she believes overall gun violence (including suicide and accidental shootings) is up in Michigan since 2001. Many incidents involving CCW permit holders have not been widely reported, she said."



Would homegirl care to cite some sources? Why would the antics of CCW permit holders go unreported? This make no sense at all. What does make sense is to admit that violent crime, as a phenomenon is primarily the result of bad people doing bad things. these people will always be with us, as is evidenced in gun-free Scotland. Other contributers are poverty, drug abuse and dysfunctional families. Very low on the totem pole you will find legal access to firearms.



Shikha Hamilton of Grosse Pointe has found a trendy little socially conscious way to pass her idle hours. Good ffor her. If a bunch of upper-middle class housewives want to sip lattes and wish they lived in Europe, so be it. If her clique didn't carry the threat of restricting my American freedoms, I wouldn't even notice.



Kim du Toit weighed in on this as well.

If you heard the Republican debate...

You would understand why Fred Thompson is, at the same time, the most intellectual and conservative candidate. My jaw drops when I hear various talk radio guys talking about supporting McCain or Romney. Neither are proven conservatives. Both will bring the country 4 more years of that same Washington thing that has a history of being so efficient and effective.

Of the 2, Romney is the most problematic. He's slippery. His attack ads are a sign he's a politician rather than a statesman or a gentleman. If he had something to say, like Fred Thompson, negativity would be unnecessary.

I can't figure out why Fred's campaign doesn't take off.

At all.

Fred Thompson sez:

Second Amendment: A Citizen’s Right By U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, 1/2/2008 7:34:02 PM

Here’s another reason why it’s important that we appoint judges who use the Constitution as more than a set of suggestions. On Nov. 21, 2007, the Supreme Court decided to hear the case of District of Columbia v. Heller.

Six plaintiffs from Washington, D.C. challenged the provisions of the D.C. Code that prohibited them from owning or carrying a handgun. They argued that the rules were an unconstitutional abridgment of their Second Amendment rights. The Second Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, provides, “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.”

The District argued, as many gun-control advocates do, that these words only guarantee a collective “right” to bear arms while serving the government. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected this approach and instead adopted an “individual rights” view of the Second Amendment. The D.C. Circuit is far from alone. The Fifth Circuit and many leading legal scholars, including the self-acknowledged liberal Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, have also come to adopt such an individual rights view.
I’ve always understood the Second Amendment to mean what it says—it guarantees a citizen the right to “keep and bear” firearms, and that’s why I’ve been supportive of the National Rifle Association’s efforts to have the DC law overturned.

In general, lawful gun ownership is a pretty simple matter. The Founders established gun-owner rights so that citizens would possess and be able to exercise the universal right of self-defense. Guns enable their owners to protect themselves from robbery and assault more successfully and more safely than they otherwise would be able to. The danger of laws like the D.C. handgun ban is that they limit the availability of legal guns to people who want to use them for legitimate reasons, such as self-defense (let alone hunting, sport shooting, collecting), while doing nothing to prevent criminals from acquiring guns.

The D.C. handgun ban, like all handgun bans is necessarily ineffectual. It takes the guns that would be used for self protection out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, while doing practically nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining guns to use to commit crimes. Even the federal judges in the D.C. case knew about the flourishing black market for guns in our nation’s capital that leaves the criminals armed and the law-abiding defenseless. This is unacceptable.

The Second Amendment does more than guarantee to all Americans an unalienable right to defend one’s self. William Blackstone, the 18th century English legal commentator whose works were well-read and relied on by the Framers of our Constitution, observed that the right to keep and bear firearms arises from “the natural right of resistance and self-preservation.” This view, reflected in the Second Amendment, promotes both self-defense and liberty. It is not surprising then that the generation that had thrown off the yoke of British tyranny less than a decade earlier included the Second Amendment in the Constitution and meant for it to enable the people to protect themselves and their liberties.

You can’t always predict what the Supreme Court will do, but in the case of Heller and Washington, DC’s gun ban, officials in the District of Columbia would have been better off expending their efforts and resources in pursuit of those who commit crimes against innocent people rather than in seeking to keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens who would use them only to protect themselves and their families. And that is why appointing judges who apply the text of the Constitution and not their own policy preferences is so important.

Reflections on this Iowa nonsense:

Huckabee:
I'm not in love with Huckabee. Is this because he's a religious man? Perhaps. You see, America's got some pretty recent experience with an "evangelical" president and it makes us hesitate. Don't get me wrong, I realize religion can be a good thing, but in this country, many of those who wear religion on their sleeves do it for show. I see this in politics and I see it in my everyday life.

I would have preferred a Fred Thompson victory, but since Huckabee isn't a liberal Republican, I still see his victory as a good thing.

Clinton:
Iowa may not be smart enough to choose Fred Thompson, but they're smart enough to see through shrill Hillary.

Obama:
He's the man to beat. The DFL would be wise to choose him.

Romney:
He's too bland, metro and liberal. He should just become a Democrat or team up with John Edwards to form the Handsome Party.

Thompson:
I'm still pullin' for ya, buddy. You're starting to scare me, though. Thompson is the thinking man's conservative.

4 years ago in Iowa

Howard Dean destroyed himself, and I don't know why. Watch the video and ask yourself if that's really what crazy looks like. I don't think it looks crazy. It think it looks like passion and saw nothing wrong with it. I don't think the rest of the county would have lifted an eyebrow either, but the media used it to kill Dean. Fortunately the media wasn't allowed to pick the president in the end.

Just wanted to point that out.