Cato Institute has just released a report along with an infographic (below) which illustrates what sort of impact we can expect on Pentagon spending if the sequester takes place. John McCain, supporters of the military industrial complex, and the more hawkish elements of the GOP are doing their best to scaremonger to stop the sequestration on national defense grounds. But as you can see, this is hardly a cause for alarm in terms of the military being able to defend against any kind of threat from a nation or terror group.
While I have my doubts about some of the more asinine gun control measures passing at the federal level, here in Colorado things aren’t looking so good for gun owners. Among the measures that stand a good chance of passing both houses of the legislature is banning concealed carry permit holders from bringing guns on college campuses. This is a massive pity. Nonetheless, permit holders should continue their insurance policies. A CCW insurance policy can protect you in a worst-case scenario and some offer $1,000,000 in protection for civil defense & damages.
Additionally, this legislation would reverse a 2008 Colorado Supreme Court decision which stated that the CU Board of Regents could not prohibit permit holders from carrying concealed weapons on campus because college campuses were not exempted according to Colorado’s Concealed Carry Act of 2003.
“Students and guns are a bad mix,” said Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, the sponsor of the bill, adding that college student engage in risky behaviors like heavy drinking and drug use.
“As the research shows, you don’t need a gun on a college campus to be safe,” Levy said, saying data overwhelmingly shows students are at low risk of violent crime on campus.
I’ve made this point before that every school campus (which would include college campuses as well as K-12) can expect to have a murder on campus once every 12,000 years. Rep. Levy is quite right that college campuses are low risk in terms of violence. But isn’t the entire impetus behind these calls for more gun control in response mostly to these tragic mass shootings in schools, malls, theaters, etc? If these events are so rare, why then do we need laws limiting the number of rounds in a magazine or clip, banning certain cosmetic features, or expanding gun free zones to include college campuses? I thought the point was that law makers need to “do something” to make our schools, malls, theaters, etc. safer (“if it would save one life…”).
It seems to me that since we are relatively safe, perhaps the best answer is to do nothing.
Are you or someone you know a victim of what Glenn Greenwald calls “the drone mentality”?
[Emphasis original]
I was predictably deluged with responses justifying Obama’s drone attacks on the ground that they are necessary to kill The Terrorists. Reading the responses, I could clearly discern the mentality driving them: I have never heard of 99% of the people my government kills with drones, nor have I ever seen any evidence about them, but I am sure they are Terrorists.That is the drone mentality in both senses of the word; it’s that combination of pure ignorance and blind faith in government authorities that you will inevitably hear from anyone defending President Obama’s militarism.
If you are or have been a victim of this mentality don’t feel bad. I was once a victim of this mentality myself. I once believed that the government was completely incompetent domestically but somehow very efficient in its execution of the so-called war on terror.
The article continues [Emphasis original]
As it turns out, it isn’t only the President’s drone-cheering supporters who have no idea who is being killed by the program they support; neither does the CIA itself. […] Obama’s broad standards for when drone strikes are permitted, and noted that the “bulk” of the drone attacks — the bulk of them – “target groups of men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose identities aren’t always known.” As Spencer Ackerman put it: “The CIA is now killing people without knowing who they are, on suspicion of association with terrorist groups”; moreover, the administration refuses to describe what it even means by being “associated” with a Terrorist group (indeed, it steadfastly refuses to tell citizens anything about the legal principles governing its covert drone wars).
Kill ‘em all, let [insert deity here] sort ’em out…is this the policy for combating terrorism now? Is anyone else reading this disturbed by this?
[T]he internal dissent [inside the U.S. government] is grounded in the concern that these drone attacks undermine U.S. objectives by increasing anti-American sentiment in the region (there’s that primitive, inscrutable Muslim culture rearing its head again: they strangely seem to get very angry when foreign governments send sky robots over their countries and blow up their neighbors, teenagers and children)[…] Remember, though: we have to kill The Muslim Terrorists because they have no regard for human life.
Nah, that can’t be it. They hate us because of our freedom. Just ask John Bolton, Rick Santorum, and the rest of the Neocons who are chomping at the bit to start a war with Iran.
How is it that this drone mentality persists and what is the cure?
This is why it’s so imperative to do everything possible to shine a light on the victims of President Obama’s aggression in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere: ignoring the victims, rendering them invisible, is a crucial prerequisite to sustaining propaganda and maintaining support for this militarism (that’s the same reason John Brennan lied — yet again — by assuring Americans that there are no innocent victims of drone attacks). Many people want to hear nothing about these victims — like Tariq — because they don’t want to accept that the leader for whom they cheer and the drone attacks they support are regularly ending the lives of large numbers of innocent people, including children. They believe the fairy tale that the U.S. is only killing Terrorists and “militants” because they want to believe it…
For far too long, I believed this fairy tale myself. I couldn’t handle the truth but I eventually saw the error of my thinking. Government is just as blunt an instrument on foreign battlefields as it is in virtually every domestic aspect of our lives but even more destructive and deadly.
How about you, can you handle the truth?
The truth (according to sources cited in the article) that between 2,359 and 2,959 people (nearly 200 of whom were children) have been killed in 306 documented drone strikes, 85% of which were launched during the administration of the Nobel Peace Prize winner President Barack Obama?
If you are willing to confront the drone mentality head on, I would strongly encourage you to read the rest of Greenwald’s article.
By now most of you have probably listened to the testimony before Congress of Bill Stevens – father of a girl who was at Sandy Hook Elementary the day of the shooting. Despite the grave danger, his daughter was in that day, Stevens recognizes the importance of the right to bear arms and correctly places the blame on the person who committed this heinous act rather than the tools he used to commit them. This video has been viewed over 1.6 million times on YouTube and is incredibly powerful. If you haven’t heard this man’s testimony and his defense of his right to bear arms you should definitely listen.
A lesser watched YouTube video (below) by MrColionNoir is also a must-watch IMO. MrColionNoir argues that the media needs to stop giving these losers* the fame they so desperately crave making them instant celebrities (even “demigods”) but give the fame to the heroes who put their own lives on the line to stop the loser from finishing his rampage. How many of these losers can you name vs. the number of heroes?
There’s really not much more I can add to this wonderful rant on how more mass shootings can be prevented without sacrificing the liberties of those who wish to bear arms to defend themselves.
*And when we must refer to these individuals, we should stop calling them by their name, “the shooter,” or “the gunman,” but simply “the loser who will not be named.”
Immigration, especially of the illegal variety, is one of those important issues that is difficult to have a rational discussion about. The discussion quickly devolves into the need to “secure” the border with a wall or fence…at least on the Southern border (the Northern border is more porous but I don’t recall the last time anyone mentioned anything about building a wall or fence there). Though a fence probably would slow down illegal border crossing somewhat, all a determined border crosser needs to get over a 20′ wall is a 21′ ladder (or a shovel and a great deal of patience). Of course a fence would have zero impact on those who overstay their visas.
Most opponents of illegal immigration say that before any reforms to immigration policy are made, the border needs to be secured (the points mentioned above notwithstanding). I happen to think they have it backwards. If anything, immigration policy should be focused on those who are here already. The idea that every single illegal immigrant can be rounded up and sent back to their country of origin is absurd. There are simply too many of them.
I think the important question that should be asked is: why aren’t these illegal immigrants not going through the immigration process legally? Why would so many people risk everything to pay a Coyote to sneak their families over the border when there is a process in which they can legally immigrate to the U.S.? What part of “legal” immigration don’t they understand?
This infographic (click on the image to enlarge) by Reason does a great job illustrating just how difficult going through the U.S. immigration process is (for the rest of us who don’t know).
This problem isn’t just limited to the U.S. The leading UK immigration solicitors agree that making an immigration process can be a hugely difficult and stressful process. Maybe if the immigration process was a little less of a cumbersome, bureaucratic nightmare, maybe fewer people would break the law in coming here.
