Racist Or Stupid?

Unbelievable.  So post Emmy showcare, people have taken to Twitter to complain about the tribute to Robin Williams with references that he is a racist.

how is Robin racist you ask?  Well he does what many refer to as a racist impression of a Muslim woman in Iran asking for help.

Ummm....have you looked at the Middle East of late ladies?  The politically correct police are once again demonstrating their utter ineptitude when it comes to the state of the world.

The young ladies to the left (and probably happy to sit there) are offended that Mr. Williams would do an improv sketch where he uses a scarf as a headdress as he impersonates a woman in totalitarian Iran.  You know the same place that supports Female Genital Mutilation.  The same place where women do not have the option to not cover their faces?  The same place where a woman speaking out on any issue - not authorized - she might be beaten.  That Iran ladies?

I do get that they are probably children or perhaps young women who are starting out their lives, but is this really the fight they want to wage?  Moreover, who are their friends making these tweets their favorites?

Robin Williams was always working for the little guy, the under dog, but he did so using a right we have in America called the First Amendment.  He used his free speech rights to push the envelope - often uncomfortably for people - and he offended many by doing so, but he wasn't racist.  If you were offended by this you miss the opportunity for comedy to provide a transformative change to policy discussions.  While you might not like Williams' take on stereotypical activity against women in Iran, that does not make it racist.  It must be very convenient to live in a world where you don't see or feel danger because it is all around you.  If anything Williams tried to make an unfortunate situation funny, but he didn't act as a racist.  I wonder if any of these ladies were bothered when Williams started a joke about Pavarotti walking into a comedy club: "Two jews walk into a bar..." or when he pushed at the Roman Catholic Church.  Somehow I doubt it which makes me wonder.  Are they racist...or just stupid?

Welcome Immigrants, Natural Citizens Go Away

I am not sure when we made this left turn, but here we go.

A diner in Vermont decided to take part in a local initiative to plant flower beds in the median to prettify the local area I expect.  They were rewarded with a street sign that said "Yield for Sneakers Bacon."  Sneaker's being the name of the local establishment...bacon being what you serve at a diner pretty much at every meal.

So...a Muslim immigrant who lives in the community decided to complain.  Still okay with it...you're allowed to complain...I am not sure why you are personally offended by a sign about bacon.  No one said you had to eat it.

Meanwhile the town's Mayor, Katherine "Deac" Decarreau was quoted as saying “The cool part of living in a diverse community is that it’s not always comfortable.”  Umm, apparently it is very comfortable if all you have to do is say something offends you and you are off to the races.

I don't make it to Vermont all that often, but the next time I am that way somehow I suspect I will be avoiding this place.  After all, sneakers are shoes that were first worn in the inner city.  I am offended that this establishment would find it comfortable to name their establishment after the shoes of at-risk inner city kids.

I am also offended that the city seems unable to do anything with the pornography that is in its local bookstores and is offensive to both me and many other church members.  You see the slippery slope that occurs when you start to control others speech?

Of course this isn't control because the owners were dumb enough to allow themselves into this.  They said they want to serve breakfast, not politics.  Well, you should keep up with the bacon then and leave the bull to others because you just jumped in with both feet.

Get It Now?

Once upon a time free speech was personally owned by liberals and progressives.  People whose views I disagreed with such as Lenny Bruce or George Carlin, but who made their point about free speech vert well.

It was liberals or progressives who wanted to expand the bounds of speech.  Not so much anymore.

Erin Ching - college student - recently said "What really bothered me is the whole idea that at a liberal arts college we need to be hearing a diversity of opinion."  Ummm, Miss Chang you attend an elitist college with 1500 students that costs more in a year than the three cars my family uses for transport and travel...combined.  You are exactly the person who needs to hear diversity of opinion so you don't become vaccinated against common sense in your own little private protected world of group think.

What does this opinion have to do with terrorism though?  Well, speech has become a sort of terrorism where opposing viewpoints are denigrated.  There can only be conformity according to the former protectors of speech.

Unfortunately, this politically correct group think or group don't-think creates an environment where only one opinion is allowed to exist instead of the exchange of ideas.  In Great Britain there is actually a list of people not allowed to enter the country because of their viewpoints...not their actions, but their viewpoints.

While Great Britain forgets it roots in the Magna Carta and keeps out "hate monger" Michael Savage while not informing anyone which of his views were deemed a threat to national security it seems indifferent to the jihadi-cool system it has helped foster in Britain.

John of the ISIS Execution Squad who recently killed James Foley had a clear British accent and took on the name of John Lennon of the Beatles in an apparent reference to his British roots.  (Wasn't John a peacenik?)  The US Department of Justice has reportedly opened a criminal probe and the Muslim Council of Britain denounced Foley's "abhorrent murder."  What else were they to say though?

You may remember a few years ago the similar attack on soldier Lee Rigby...except that was on the streets of London itself.  It took almost no time whatsoever for the case to move from one of outrage to one of hand-ringing and self-reproach about the Islamophobia that might have caused the murder.  What?  how about these two jihadis had a plan, executed their plan, and went about it in a cold, controlling manner?

That of course might qualify me as a threat to the British state though.  Silly me here supporting their soldiers instead of the criminals who committed an act of home grown violence against their own.  According to news accounts, Ms. Rigby, the mother of the slain soldier immediately turned to thoughts of her own son's execution after hearing of the Foley incident.  Perhaps it was the eerily similarity where Muslim militants where trying to cut off someone's head?

Another news account that quotes a British Member of Parliament informs us that twice as many British born Muslims fight for ISIS (The Islamic State of Syria and Iraq) as fight for their homeland where they were born.  This is outrageous and should show the insidious nature of the opponent we both fight.

While conservatives are mocked for asking questions about the opponent and who we fight, it is both liberals and conservatives who will pay the price for bargaining with terrorists.  These terrorism troops have no desire to play nice with others and they are the equals of Hitler's storm troopers...taking horrific orders and executing them with stunning simplicity.  While conservatives are attacked for being Bible thumpers, what do you call Islamic jihadi-cool initiates...Quran Quacks?  Of course not, because that would not be politically correct speech.  We wouldn't want to call evil, you know, EVIL?  That wouldn't be polite and more importantly...it might hurt their feelings.  I doubt it would hurt their feelings any more than it would hurt your neck as they begin to hack away, but that is another issue isn't it?

What is clear is that these people are not criminals, but soldiers fighting their own holy war.  If we had a strong President, he would not have waited for these situations, but would have carpet bombed ISIS while they were marching in columns months ago.  Now they have returned to the guerrilla tactics that make them much harder to stamp out.

While we worry about whether or not we are practicing gentlemanly war or are Islamophobes and speaking with correct verbiage, innocents are having their heads sawed off with six inch knives.  Do not kid yourself.  This is not going to stay overseas.  Eventually they will be here in the United States playing the same game because we are too scared to call them what they are: evil.  Only evil will take an independent journalist and commit this atrocity and do not think they will not do the same here.

That is the issue we face.  Do you get it now?

God Knows?

Once again, I would have to say I am concerned, but not surprised.  Apparently in Tennessee it is a bad idea to say "bless you" after someone sneezes.  You may be suspended.

What?

The assistant principal of the school, Dyer County High School, says the incident had been blown out of proportion on social media.  He is quoted as saying: "In this case, this was not a religious issue at all, but more of an issue the teacher felt was a distraction in her class," he said.

Unfortunately, the situation was blown out of proportion when the teacher decided a student needed to be removed from the class for saying bless you.  The comment is hardly threatening and given the dangers that rock many school campus today, this should have been a welcome comment.

Since there are multiple students who say the teacher is the one with the problem...with faith, perhaps that is the real distraction and perhaps school administrators should focus on that issue.

When Laws Apply

Once upon a time, the Central Intelligence Agency could not spy on Americans (Executive Order 12333).  It seems like a quaint idea now that your own government would not spy on you.  That was the stuff of the old Soviet Union.

Now, we have a CIA Director who freely admits his employees spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the elder house of Congress whose committee's responsibility includes overseeing the CIA.  What?

Something has gone very wrong when the employees of the government can spy on those titulary in charge of the government.  What might be more concerning is the 2008 amendments to Executive Order 12333 indicated that senior authorization had to occur for spying on Americans to occur.  The question that no one seems to be asking is who authorized the spying on the United States Senate, or like the IRS, was this simply "rogue employees."

Finally, how big a leap is it to ask, if the CIA is brazen enough to spy on the United States Senate, why would it worry about a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on a regular individual?  If you were wondering about your rights eroding, look no farther than your leaders.  If they have their rights being dismantled systematically, you and I have no chance at all.

America...land of the almost free, home of the sheep.

Our America?

Wow John Whitehead.  You might have hit the nail on the head with this post.

There's a lot to love about America and its people: their pioneering spirit, their entrepreneurship, their ability to think outside the box, their passion for the arts, etc.  Increasingly, however, as time goes by, I find the things I don't like about living in a nation that has long since ceased to be a sanctuary for freedom are beginning to outnumber the things I love.

Here's what I don't like about living in the American police state: I don't like being treated as if my only value to the government is as a source of labor and funds. I don't like being viewed as a consumer and bits of data. I don't like being spied on and treated as if I have no right to privacy, especially in my own home.

I don't like government officials who lobby for my vote only to ignore me once elected. I don't like having representatives incapable of and unwilling to represent me. I don't like taxation without representation.

I don't like being bullied by government bureaucrats, vigilantes masquerading as cops, or faceless technicians. I don't like being railroaded into financing government programs whose only purpose is to increase the power and wealth of the corporate elite. I don't like being forced to pay for wars abroad that serve no other purpose except to expand the reach of the military industrial complex.

I don't like being subjected to scans, searches, pat downs and other indignities by the TSA. I don't like VIPR raids on so-called "soft" targets like shopping malls and bus depots by black-clad, Darth Vader look-alikes. I don't like fusion centers, which represent the combined surveillance efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement.

I don't like being treated like an underling by government agents who are supposed to be working for me. I don't like being threatened, intimidated, bribed, beaten and robbed by individuals entrusted with safeguarding my rights. I don't like being silenced, censored and marginalized. I don't like my movements being tracked, my conversations being recorded, and my transactions being catalogued.

I don't like how the presidency has developed into a neo-monarchy replete with all the luxury and lasciviousness of the feudal lords of old.

I don't like politicians who spend most of their time running for office, fundraising and enjoying being feted by lobbyists and corporations alike. I don't like being kept at a distance from my elected representatives, including the president (a.k.a. the Emperor). I don't like free speech zones, roving bubble zones and trespass laws that restrict Americans' First Amendment rights.

I don't like laws that criminalize Americans for otherwise lawful activities such as holding religious studies at home, growing vegetables in their yard, and collecting rainwater. I don't like the NDAA, which allows the president and the military to arrest and detain American citizens indefinitely. I don't like the Patriot Act, which opened the door to all manner of government abuses and intrusions on our privacy.

I don't like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has become America's standing army in direct opposition to the dire warnings of those who founded our country. I don't like military weapons such as armored vehicles, sound cannons and the like being used against the American citizens. I don't like government agencies such as the DHS, Post Office, Social Security Administration and Wildlife stocking up on hollow-point bullets. And I definitely don't like the implications of detention centers being built that could house American citizens.

I don't like the fact that since President Obama took office, police departments across the country "have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft."

I don't like America's infatuation with locking people up for life for non-violent crimes. There are over 3,000 people in America serving life sentences for non-violent crimes, including theft of a jacket, siphoning gasoline from a truck, stealing tools, and attempting to cash a stolen check. I don't like paying roughly $29,000 a year per inmate just to keep these nonviolent offenders in prison.

I don't like having my hard-earned taxpayer dollars used against me.

I don't like the partisan nature of politics today, which has so polarized Americans that they are incapable of standing in unity against the government's abuses. I don't like the entertainment drivel that passes for news coverage today.

I don't like the fact that those within a 25-mile range of the border are getting a front row seat to the American police state, as Border Patrol agents are now allowed to search people's homes, intimately probe their bodies, and rifle through their belongings, all without a warrant.

I don't like public schools that treat students as if they were prison inmates. I don't like zero tolerance laws that criminalize childish behavior. I don't like a public educational system that emphasizes rote memorization and test-taking over learning, synthesizing and critical thinking.  

I don't like police precincts whose primary purpose—whether through the use of asset forfeiture laws, speed traps, or red light cameras—is making a profit at the expense of those they have sworn to protect. I don't like militarized police and their onerous SWAT team raids.

I don't like Department of Defense and DHS programs that transfer surplus military hardware to local and state police. I don't like government programs that reward cops for raiding homes and terrorizing homeowners. I don't like local police dressing and acting as if they were the military while viewing me as an enemy combatant.

I don't like being treated as if I have no rights.

I don't like cash-strapped states cutting deals with private corporations to run the prisons in exchange for maintaining 90% occupancy rates for at least 20 years. I don't like the fact that American prisons have become the source of cheap labor for Corporate America.

I don't like feeling as if we've come full circle back to a pre-Revolutionary era.  I don't like answering to an imperial president, who operates above the law. I don't like the injustice that passes for justice in the courts. I don't like prosecutors so hell bent on winning that they allow innocent people to suffer for crimes they didn't commit. 

I don't like the double standards that allow government officials to break laws with immunity, while average Americans get the book thrown at them. I don't like cops who shoot first and ask questions later. I don't like police dogs being treated with more respect and afforded more rights than American citizens. 

I don't like living in a suspect society. I don't like Americans being assumed guilty until they prove their innocence. I don't like the fact that 38 states require that a property owner prove his innocence when police have laid claim to it in a civil forfeiture proceeding, whether or not that individual has done anything wrong. 

I don't like technology being used as a double-edged sword against us. I don't like agencies like DARPA developing weapons for the battlefield that get used against Americans back at home. I don't like the fact that drones will be deployed domestically in 2015, yet the government has yet to establish any civil liberties protocols to prevent them from being used against the citizenry.

Most of all, I don't like feeling as if there's no hope for turning things around.  Now there are those who would suggest that if I don't like things about this country, I should leave and go elsewhere. And there are certainly those among my fellow citizens who are leaving for friendlier shores. However, I happen to come from a long line of people who believe in the virtue of hard work and perseverance and in the principle that nothing worthwhile comes without effort. 

So I'm not giving up, at least not anytime soon. But I'm also not waiting around for the government to clean up its act. I'm not making any deals with politicians who care nothing about me and mine. To quote Number Six, the character in the British television series The Prisoner: "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!"

I plan to keep fighting, writing, speaking up, speaking out, shouting if necessary, filing lawsuits, challenging the status quo, writing letters to the editor, holding my representatives accountable, thinking nationally but acting locally, and generally raising a ruckus anytime the government attempts to undermine the Constitution and ride roughshod over the rights of the citizenry.

As I make clear in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, we're at a crisis point in American history. If we don't get up off our duffs and get involved in the fight for freedom, then up ahead the graveyard beckons. As Martin Luther King Jr. warned, "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality."

I get that he seems mad, but if you haven't looked around, he is right throughout.  As ordinary Americans we have abdicated our responsibility to keep our government, ours.  The center of power needs to be restored to those governed.

Focus

Again I must beg your forgiveness.  For some reason I thought we had the freedom to speak our minds in this country - even when it is offensive to someone else.

Apparently the right to speak only extends to certain people who are allowed to say what they like and that right also seems to extend to those who don't wish to speak - but only certain folks.

The Department of Justice has recently send out a team to investigate a Nebraska parade float.  They meanwhile do not apparently have enough agents to deal with an IRS crisis that demonstrates that employees used the IRS for political purposes.

Again and again, the warning signs are apparent as the US government is using the NSA to spy on ordinary Americans, the DOJ attacks reporters who question their motives, and will use the full force of the federal government against a man with a beat down blue pick up who poked fun at the President, yet they do not police themselves when it comes to the political use of government agencies against its citizens.

This President seems to believe his own press.  I know it sounds crazy President Obama, but you are not God.  You may wish to think you are and send out your jackals to stifle dissent, but while you enjoy a vacation in Martha's Vineyard - children are washing up on to the shore of the Rio Grande.  You worry about people criticizing you, but not the criticism.  You are a poor excise for a leader and you needn't worry about the criticism of today because it is the history books that will bring you the most shame.  A President who could not focus on anything, but the mirror.

Ground Zero Victory

Forgive me that I do not understand atheists and the offense they take at other people's religion.  If you believe there is no God, why are you offended that I have one?  If you are sure that you are right, really you must simply look at me as childish.  If I am accused of having a child like faith in my Lord and savior, so be it.

Well, a similar message was given earlier to the atheists who are "offended" by the Ground Zero Cross.  What about the Cross violates your rights the federal appeals court asks as it should.

If indeed, atheists believe there is no God then the two steel beams should be regarded as just that.  Together they are certainly no worse than some of the other "art work" eyesores that seem to populate downtown neighborhoods across the United States.

If on the other hand, they are admitting that they have a deeper issue, one that requires reflection, and that the Ground Zero Cross represents something more.  Well, that is something else entirely.  It is at that moment that the atheists who brought the suit should consider their own issues of morality and life.  Perhaps their suit is an admission that the Cross does represent something more than downtown art work and if that is the case, can they truly call themselves atheist anymore?

In any case, if my choice is being on the side of God or believing Earth is the creation of gas, I will take God's side as I remember the movie Oh God and suspect George Burn's lines about finding the theory offensive to be true.  In any case, score a victory for the cross it looks like on this one.

I Guess It Happened...

Okay, it has happened.

Hell has officially frozen over...or so I am guessing.  Bill Maher, the comic and liberal nutjob, has finally stumbled uncontrollabnly into the truth on an issue.

Please don't ask me how or why and I am confident he will screw this up somehow, but he is right. In the case of Donald Sterling he is right.

This case isn't about racism.  It is about who controls your speech and therefore your thinking.

Did Donald Sterling say things that were inappropriate?  Yes.  Did Donald Sterling say things that were reprehensible?  Of course.  Should he be denied the ability to own a team?  No.

Bill Maher speaks almost as a Free Speech advocate when he mentions a Washington Post editorial that says we should edit our thoughts.  "Even at home?" he quips

He raises an important point as the editorial continues "speaking one's mind isn't all it's cracked up to be."  How in the world do you come to that conclusion given you just wrote an opinion piece?  You know...speaking your own mind?

For me this is a simple issue.  If you don't like what Donald Sterling said, don't buy his product.  If you work for him companies and don't like how he behaves, find another job.  He isn't stepping on your rights by expressing his.  The last time I checked that was what the country was about.  I disagree with quite a bit of what he said, but isn't the idea to defend his ability to say it?

Perhaps things are so upside down that not only do Bill Maher and I agree, but speech isn't a freedom anymore.  I guess it might have happened...