Boy Did I Blow The Election!

I have not posted in almost two months, so disappointed was I that President Obama was re-elected to office. But I anticipate a heavier schedule with the new Congress, and all of the shenanigans that they will be getting up to in the near future, so I have to comment on my previous post.

I blew it.  Totally.

And the cruel part of it is that I was truly surprised at the outcome.  I can offer no explanation other than I must have been too deeply embedded in the conservative echo chamber.  I will endevour to keep a more realistic view going forward, but before I do, I would like to make one comment on a remarkable paragraph from this article by the Boston Globe:

"Exit polls told a stunning story. The majority of voters preferred Romney’s visions, values, and leadership. But he had clearly failed to address the problem that Romney’s own family worried about from the start. Obama beat Romney by an astonishing 81 to 18 percent margin on the question of which candidate “cares about people like me.”"

This election was unlike any other that I can remember because the majority of voters voted for a man who they believed was inferior on vision, values, and leadership.  The majority of voters selected Obama because they think that he "cares about people like me".

Incredible.

I'll put it on record right here: President Obama does not really care about anyone, unless they are useful in maintaining his position and power.  Get ready my fellow citizens, because President Obama has a second term, which means that we will see Obamacare fully implemented, increased spending, increased regulations on business, increased spending at the Federal and state levels to support all of the programs that Obama, a dyed-in-the-wool big government guy, supports.  These will result in continued high unemployment and a sputtering economy.

Elections have consequences, and the American people, who voted against their economic best interests in favor of the guy that "cares" will have cause to regret it for the next four years.

Vote Today - CA Polls Open Til 8 PM

I have already voted. Here are some highlights:

Romney/Ryan - YES

Emkin (U.S. Senate) - YES

Prop 30 - NO

Prop 32 - YES: I read the text of the bill, and saw no exemptions for "big oil" or Wall Street. That sounded like FUD, and if I was a union member and disagreed with the political stance of the union management, I would hate paycheck deductions for political purposes.

Prop 34 - NO - It will probably pass anyway, but many of these guys really deserve to die.

Prop 36 - YES

Prop 37 - NO. I will not vote for anymore "boutique" regulations in California. Costs are ALWAYS passed down to the consumer.

Prop 38 - NO

Prop 40 - NO. The Democrats sandbagged the redistricting commissions, and this is the last chance to get some fairness in the district boundaries.  Probably a futile effort.

Presidential Race Prediction:

Romney/Ryan will win by 300+ EC and 5%+ popular vote.  Many polls have been over sampling Democrats, but I don't believe that the energy is there to push Obama over the top.  

Time Magazine - How The Gun Won

I just found this article at Time Magazine.

I posted this comment in response:

I find it interesting that the article fails to mention the increased number of states that have liberalized concealed carry laws.  There are now about 7.7 million people licensed to carry concealed weapons in the U.S., according to this GAO report:

http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/592552.pdf

I am willing to bet that many of them are NOT NRA members, but the media is obsessed with the "fanatical" NRA as the primary reason that Congress has failed to enact "common sense" gun control laws.

I think that this number, 7.7 million, is reflective of a new set of values becoming more common in America, the core of which is the willingness of the citizen to take responsibility for their personal protection, and insisting on having the best means to that end.  I think that these millions of quiet concealed weapon licensees are enforcing these new values at the ballot box in ways that the Main Stream Media have yet to acknowledge or comprehend.

The gun won because increasing numbers of Americans are rejecting the old "common sense" that guns are always bad, the cause of violence instead of the means used to inflict violence, and that guns on the hands of citizens have no social value.

The anti-gun groups know this, which is why these groups have dwindling membership, financial resources, and influence.  But it will perhaps take the demise of the Brady Campaign to make the MSM realize it.

It can't happen soon enough

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2120498,00.html#ixzz2B5FFUeoI

 It never ceases to amaze me that the MSM only sees the NRA as the prime mover of pro-gun legislation, but fails to see how much more popular gun ownership and shooting sports have become over the last ten years.  Perhaps they are being willfully ignorant?  If the population at large is more accepting of guns in society, it kind of blows the liberal anti-gun narrative into tiny bits.  

Radical Environmentalists Hate People

The final sentence in this article states:

When will these groups scurry down from their tree homes and start putting people over plants?

Uhmm, how about never? 

Radical environmentalists do not picture human beings as part of the environment, but as the destroyers of the environment. Hence, they do not care about jobs or the welfare of people who do work that damages the environment.

They would really like all such jobs to disappear, regardless of the human costs, while they salve their conscious with thoughts of the "green jobs" that these people will be retrained to do.

To radical environmentalists, people are the ultimate pollutant.

Oklahoma to Become An Open Carry State on Nov. 1

Oklahoma will become an open carry state on November 1.  While not the first state, by far, to become a shall-issue concealed carry state, Oklahoma has been catching up to the rest of free America fast.  I loved this statement by a lonely Democrat:

State Sen. Judy Eason McIntyre, D-Tulsa, opposed the bill when it came up in the Legislature, and she said her concerns stand. 

"I still think it's a bad bill," McIntyre said. "Like a lot of other people, I'm apprehensive." 

She said many may feel the same, but support for the bill was overwhelming when it came up. If there were detractors, she didn't hear from them. 

"When this bill came up, I don't remember being lobbied by anybody at the Capitol to say this is a bad bill," McIntyre said. 

Now that it's set to become law, she said she will be nervous whenever she sees someone who is armed and will do what she can to avoid that person.

"I'm afraid of guns for one thing," McIntyre said. "I was a social worker, and I saw children killed by guns, whether it was criminal or accidental." 

"It's less frightening if it's someone I know (who is armed), but to be at a place where you don't know the history or the background, it's frightening."

 Um, then Senator, perhaps it is not such a bad bill after all?  Just because she is afriad of seeing guns in public does not mean that it is a danger to the public.  Criminal are already carrying, have always carried, and do not do so openly.

Comments from police officers in the article indicate that they are not expecting any problems, so it seems that Senator McIntyre is simply afraid of guns being visible in public.  This one sums up the law enforcement view nicely:

"My prediction would be that this is going to be a non-issue for Oklahoma just like it has the other states," Jordan said. "Gun ownership by good, law-abiding citizens is not a danger to the public."

University of Miami Law School Seems to Admit Idiots

At least that is the only thing that I can conclude from reading this article written by Christopher Ivory, a 2nd year law student at the University of Miami.  What follows is the reply to the article that I posted in the comments section.

"We have strayed away from the purpose of the Second Amendment. Our founders afforded the right to bear arms to citizens for the purpose of a “well-regulated militia” and to insure the following: locals could organize and defend themselves in the event of an English invasion, and citizens could protect themselves from government officials illegally entering their homes and taking property as the English government had done."

Completely and totally wrong.  The Second Amendment exists to codify a natural right that pre-existed the Constitution. The purpose of the right was to defend against "any" invasion, not just an English 18th Century invasion, as well as to defend against a tyrannical domestic government, and to provide a means for self-defense against criminals.

"Guns were far less dangerous at the time the Second Amendment was drafted. Semi-automatic rifles, uzis and 12-gauge shotguns did not exist. As Michael Moore told Piers Morgan, “There were only one-shot, long rifles back then. Guns couldn’t spray hoards of people like they can today.” "

This is a specious argument.  The flintlock musket of 1780 was a state-of-the-art military grade weapon. To argue that the 2nd Amendment protects the right to keep and bear only those weapons is the same as arguing that the 1st Amendment only protect speech that is transmitted via a hand-operated printing press, but not television, radio, or the Internet.

"A study by the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that there tend to be more gun deaths in states and regions where guns are more populous and accessible."

Another specious argument. There tend to be more traffic accident deaths in places that have more roads and automobiles.

"Gun ownership allows the antsy Zimmermans of the world to shoot people when the altercation could be solved without deadly force. It allows the young child to take daddy’s gun to school to scare the kid that has been picking on him or her. It allows the jealous boyfriend to threaten his girlfriend."

The trial of George Zimmerman has yet to take place, so we do not know if his actions are self defense or murder, nor do we know if Zimmerman had any other recourse other than deadly force.  The author of this article simply assumes so. Gun owners have a responsibility to secure their firearms against unauthorized access, and boyfriends do not need firearms to abuse their girlfriends.  More specious arguments. 

"There is logic in the argument that legal gun ownership protects against criminals. However, that we would always have to be armed to be prepared to defend ourselves against criminal activity – bad idea."

So, there is logic to the argument that firearms are useful for self-defense, but there is no logic to the idea that citizens should always be armed in case of confrontation? This is just a swipe at the increasingly common liberalized concealed carry laws that have swept the nation in recent decades.  Millions of concealed weapon permit holders would flatly disagree with Mr. Ivory on this, as would the individuals involved in these 50 incidents of successful armed self-defense:

http://leftcoastconservative.blogspot.com/p/armed-citizen-self-defense.html
 

"As for the protection of our homes, we are safer via alarm systems that trigger lights, sirens and immediately alert local authorities upon a break-in, as opposed to criminal hunting in the dark while panicking under ill-advised, adrenaline inspired judgment."

Firearms are not a self-defense panacea, but rather an additional layer of protection, another option to be used in the gravest extreme. What happens if the "local authorities" do not arrive in time? Is the author of this article aware that the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled in Warren v. District of Columbia that despite demonstrated ineptitude and abuse on the part of police that innocent victims are not entitled to police protection, that there is no duty for police to protect any individual?  In essence, each citizen is on their own when confronted with a criminal.  If the author, a 2nd year law student does not know this, then perhaps he should pay better attention in class, or request a refund from the law school.

"In 2008, the Supreme Court struck down a Washington D.C. law that banned handgun possession. The court said that lawful handgun possession was constitutionally protected. In disagreement with the majority, Justice Breyer stated that the Second Amendment protects militia-related interests, not self-defense-related interests."

The author, a 2nd year law student, should know that dissenting opinions do not make binding case law.  The Heller decision blasted the militia-service view on the 2nd Amendment into bits.

"This case set the precedent that gun bans in any state or municipality will likely be struck down. Sadly, this means the Second Amendment will probably not be overturned anytime soon, or ever."

Thank God!

"But regardless of what the law says, the proof is in the pudding. Maybe Batman will teach us how to not use guns because we have proved incapable of doing so ourselves."

Why should anyone pay attention to anyone who opens an argument with an appeal to the behavior of a fictional character?

 So much for the quality of education if this is what passes for "critical thinking" in modern academia.

Joan Peterson - Still Irrelevant

Joan Peterson writes on her blog:

"Can we at least have a national conversation about one of our biggest national public health and safety problem? We all know we have too many gun violence victims. But we sit back as a country and just let them happen because of one mythically uber powerful lobby group- the NRA. This is ludicrous, unacceptable, irresponsible and just plain wrong and dangerous. If you agree with me, check out the we are better than this web site to let Jim Lehrer know you want a question asked about guns asked at the debate. Or check out the demand a plan site to demand that our Presidential candidates and other elected officials come up with a plan to deal with too many people being killed and injured in daily senseless shootings."

Joan, we have had a "national conversation" about this issue, and your position has been rejected by a majority of citizens.  You're complaining about it will not make you any more relevant to the political reality that gun-rights are civil rights, and people want to protect them from the restrictions you would impose.