EDITORIAL
People are upset that the Senate has tabled a bill to ban AR-15s, even though they were the weapon of choice at Highland Park, Uvalde, and Buffalo.
That doesn’t disappoint me; it doesn’t even surprise me. What does is that so very many people continue to miss the most obvious point of all.
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We’re in the situation we’re in because people are ignorant and easily deluded. I refer to rampage shooters and terrorists both, exploited and manipulated into committing their ghastly acts, as well as to you the reader. It’s an unpleasant truth, but in order to combat it, we’ve prepared a short summary of some history that everyone really ought to know. The diligent reader may learn how they are being manipulated and by whom — and perhaps even do a little independent thinking.
It’s a bit of a reach, I know, but I have faith in you.
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Not far from the Georgia-South Carolina border, surrounded by chicken barns and overgrown fields, stood a monument to hope, a set of granite guidestones commissioned at the height of the Cold War with a message to humanity’s survivors should they wish to rebuild.
It’s gone now.
(more…)There’s a Jimmy Carter quote floating around the Internet. At least, it purports to be a quote; I can’t find any source for it, but it’s fairly popular these days. It goes like this:
We cannot be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of the weapons of war.
I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment. And, since selling guns is the more profitable of the two options, I say we pick that one. Someone’s got to, after all (more…)
The Syrian Civil War has been characterized by the United Nations as the “great humanitarian crisis of our age”. A nation of twenty million, Syria has lost twenty percent of its population, most of whom have fled as international refugees. On the other hand, over a hundred thousand foreign militants have gone there to fight, and the armed forces of a dozen nations have deployed in what has become one of the biggest proxy wars in all of history.
And it’s nearly over. (more…)
Those who read my articles surely know by now I tilt at windmills on the Internet. Most people in my circle of acquaintance see the inhumanity and incivility and they just accept it; they say, “What do you expect? It’s the Internet.” And they let it go.
I could, I suppose, but I’ve long believed that we all have a duty to improve the world around us if we can; that an accumulation of small good deeds and kindnesses is the only bulwark we can raise against that genuine evil (more…)
It’s getting so I hate to turn on the news. I physically cringe. Bear with me here.
Here’s a quick recap: There was a shooting yesterday, a man I think can best be described as a domestic terrorist plinking away at a Congressional charity baseball team at practice. There was a horrific fire at a London apartment highrise where, apparently, the sprinklers malfunctioned and dozens of people were killed. (It’s been called “corporate manslaughter”.) Congress approved a multibillion dollar arms sale to Qatar, a nation presently (more…)
(NOTE: This article is being written in advance of the new Executive Order designed to function in place of that order of 27 January which has been partially blocked by the 9th Circuit. It is designed to be predictive in nature. When the new order finally is released, expect to see this updated with comparisons, but I’ll try to leave my predictions intact so you can see how smart I am — or how foolish, just as the case may be. The new order has now been released; comparisons are in a separate section at the end of the article.)
One week after taking office, President Trump released an executive order banning travel to this country on certain passports. I’ve written extensively on the pros and cons of accepting refugees, on the ways the ban went horribly wrong and why, and on the justifications for that ban. Combining that with the decision of the 9th Circuit to block some of its implementation, we should be easily able to predict what’s about to get ordered. (more…)
We’ve heard the jokes; we’ve seen the memes. Kellyanne Conway is now a national laughing stock. Which happens, so big whoop, right?
For those few of you who may have missed this story, CNN published the best account I can find — not snarky, not snotty at all, which is worthy of note as they tend to give Conway a hard time whenever they can.
If you don’t (more…)
I’ll admit, for a few minutes yesterday, I was getting very worried about whether or not we were about to go conquer Iran.
Bear in mind, if we ever do go in, it’ll probably be a Friday afternoon (more…)
The Not Fake News 
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