63 to 30

It has been a difficult week. For me and for the whole country.  I have been in bed for several days nursing a bad cold. Yesterday morning when I got on the computer I saw that I was getting a blog hit every ten seconds or so. I investigated and my surmise was correct. Crooks and Liars had picked up the last post and ran it on the Round Up and I got a thousand or so extra hits. I appreciate the mention very much and hope that the new visitors enjoyed the piece as well. It was also cool that Blast friend Mike Finnigan got a link right ahead of me for his Phantom Blues Band's nomination for this year's Blues Music Award. Mike is the originator of the Round Up, a great musician and a great guy.

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When I first heard about yesterday's tragedy, I felt terrible of course, how could you not? We had a similar attempted school shooting in Carlsbad last year and they are starting to happen with alarming regularity. You have to wonder about the sort of psyche that targets innocent children. Then I thought, a few things can be predicted with certainty. Some goofball preacher will blame it on taking god out of the schools, the gun lobby will say that the answer is more guns and superior firepower, we need to militarize our campuses and arm all the teachers, the NRA will say that we need to go after criminals and leave law abiding citizens alone, others will immediately call for stronger gun possession laws, yada, yada. The predictions were of course validated within hours.

The problem with the "go after criminals" argument is in these types of Columbine/Seattle/Denver/ Connecticut situations, while the killings are certainly criminal acts, the perpetrators have clean records before they engage in these psychotic, homicidal actions. They seem to be mostly cut out of the same cloth, whacked out loners, usually unfamiliar with their innocent victims, desensitized to the pain that they cause, and playing out some comic book villain role. The man in Seattle was heard to say, I am the shooter, as if he was living in a dark, role playing game. The Denver shooter was inhabiting his own Joker parallel universe.

We have so much violent imagery pumped into our over stimulated and over sugared brains and unfortunately there will always be unhinged people who go haywire and act out in these horrible ways. People lose the ability to comprehend where the fantasy begins and the reality ends.

I think that the answer is an assault weapons ban, see no need for them whatsoever. Unfortunately the tea party types who feel that they are going to arm themselves with machine guns to protect themselves from their evil marxist government are going to fight tooth and nail to keep that from happening.

I am a gun owner, a responsible gun owner and have never felt that I could not do an adequate job protecting myself and family with my pistols and shotgun. We need to get assault weapons off the street.

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The most optimistic numbers I have heard of late came from all places, George Will. Speaking on ABC, he noted that opposition to gay marriage is literally dying.

"This decision by the Supreme Court came 31 days after an Election Day in which three states for the first time endorsed same-sex marriage at the ballot box —never happened before—Maine, Maryland, and the state of Washington.
Now, the question is, how will that influence the court? It could make them say it’s not necessary for us to go here. They don’t want to do what they did with abortion. The country was having a constructive accommodation on abortion, liberalizing abortion laws. The court yanked the subject out of democratic discourse and embittered the argument. They may say we don’t want to do that, we can just let the democracy take care of this.
On the other hand, they could say it’s now safe to look at this because there is something like an emerging consensus. Quite literally, the opposition to gay marriage is dying. It’s old people."

A recent Politico poll shows that 63 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds backed gay marriage while 30 percent of seniors supported it. Pew shows similar gains in support, looking at the issue on a more regional basis.

I was tooling around cyberspace last night when I across several quotes, quite vile really, by the much loved twentieth century lion, Sir Winston Churchill.

“I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.” (To the Peel Commission 1937)

I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes... Statement as president of the Air Council, War Office Departmental Minute (1919-05-12).

This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States)... this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire."
Writing on 'Zionism versus Bolshevism' in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 1920

I was intrigued and wondered about similarly held views of our own past American leaders. I  found plenty of similar quotes, many more than is necessary to post here.

''I think one man is just as good as another so long as he's not a nigger or a Chinaman. Uncle Will says that the Lord made a white from dust, a black from mud, then He threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman.'' Harry Truman, 1913

“I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and  political equality of the white and black races—that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes.” Abraham Lincoln, 1858

''Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind....Some day we will realize that the prime duty, the inescapable duty of the good citizens of the right type is to leave his or her blood behind him in the world; and that we have no business to permit the perpetuation of citizens of the wrong type.'' Theodore Roosevelt, 1913

"This is a country for white men, and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men." Andrew Johnson, 1866

” The second point that is coming out – coming back and saying black Americans aren’t as good as black Africans – most of them, basically are just out of the tree’s. Now, lets face it, they are.” Richard Nixon, 1971

I have seen other horrific quotes regarding Native Americans, from Lincoln, Jefferson and Mark Twain. One day it's the Irish, the jews, native americans, catholics, gays, the "uncivilized tribes." Everybody takes their turn on the griddle.

I guess my point is that young people eventually see there way through their parents' hatreds and prejudices. This is why, with the backdrop of a Scalia bemoaning the fact that laws can no longer be fashioned to comport with his moral view and that legalizing homosexual behavior is akin to legalizing murder, reductio absurdo, things are changing. Given time and with enough liberal and good people speaking out against the entrenched hatreds and prejudices, the kids see through it.

That's why the archaic persecution of gays has run its course. Maybe Obama sees the writing on the wall with his recent statements that going after pot smokers is not on his front burner. The tides of history are against him. History moves slowly but eventually the young people suss it all out.

Even George Will can see it. Thanks, kids!