On the one side you have Barack Obama. On the other side you have a field of candidates who are fighting for the chance to take him on one to one. In that field of candidates there is a woman, with another in the wings, a black, and a number of white males with a great depth of experience. With Herman Cain saying, while embracing some Tea Party members, “To those who say the Tea Party is racist, eat your words.” The Democrats are desperate to find another way to create class warfare and divide and conquer. At the New Hampshire debate last night, they may have found their opening.

The moderator asked Herman Cain a question about a statement attributed to him that he would not hire any Muslims in his administration but, and here is the classic Democrat wedge, he would not apply any similar test to Christians or Jews. Cain, I believe, fumbled the question but he was picked up by Newt Gingrich who said, ““Now, I just want to go out on a limb here, I’m in favor of saying to people, ‘If you’re not prepared to be loyal to the United States, you will not serve in my administration, period. ‘” He then went on to compare that to similar tests for Nazis and Communists in earlier times.

Why Only Muslims?

Where Herman Cain dropped the ball was in not turning the question around and asking, “What other religious groups have members who have pledged to kill Americans, or any group for that matter? If you can point that out, I will add them to the list that needs closer scrutiny before joining my administration.” To back up what Gingrich said I need only point to Major Nidal Hasan. As a member of the military he had to take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Having taken that oath he later opened fire on his fellow Army personnel killing thirteen and wounding thirty others. On his business cards he had the abbreviation SoA, meaning soldier of Allah. His higher loyalty was to Allah and jihad, rather than to the Constitution of the United States.

This is what Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich were talking about. They would not want such an individual in their cabinet, and why would they? To be politically correct? To apply the one-size-fits-all idiocy of the current administration and those on the left? Do we want to have anti-American jihadists in the administration that could compromise national security, endanger CIA field officers, tip off battle plans in the war on terror? Of course not.

So let’s nip this potential wildfire in the bud. Let’s not use the same stupid political correctness that performs body cavity searches on infants and gropes septuagenarian ladies at the airport, while skipping young men from the Middle East because the quota for scrutinizing young men from the Middle East has been reached. This is the thinking that will get Americans killed. But don’t look to the left to adopt policies that would put safety ahead of scoring political points.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

You almost have to wonder, why in the world did he run for president? Was he swept up in the ego trip? Was he reading too much into his own press clippings? Did the historic opportunity of being the first real black president, sorry Bill Clinton, in U.S. history overwhelm a careful consideration of what the job entailed?

For those who believe in federalism, as James Madison said, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined.” As the powers of the federal government are (supposed to be) few, so are the responsibilities of the President of the United States; important and focused, yes, but few. So why does President Obama look to avoid those few responsibilities and get involved in so many that are not in his purview?

From golf, to beer summits, to healthcare, to golf, to conferences on bullying, to golf, and now on guns, he seems to find that which is least related to his job to focus his energies and those of his administration. Even senators from his own party decry his lack of leadership on perhaps the most important issue of the day, spending and the debt. The Middle East is in flames and he talks tough but does nothing.

A Gun Summit

A deranged man in Tucson, Arizona, slipped through the cracks of existing laws that prohibit the sale of a gun, under both Arizona law and federal law to someone who is mentally ill or a drug user. Jared Loughner is guilty of both, but no one bothered to take the step to have a court declare him mentally unstable and no one made sure the system was updated with his drug use. If the laws on the books aren’t enforced, what will the addition of more laws do, other than further curtail liberties?

Of course that does not stop President Obama from wading in. On his team he picks Eric Holder and Hillary Rodham Clinton. I hope I am not being overly critical by saying, with the Middle East crumbling into chaos, a major ally recovering from an earthquake and tsunami in the Far East, and the function of the State Department being how we interface with other nations, am I the only one who thinks HRC is probably a little busy right now, or should be?

Then there is Eric Holder, who wouldn’t know a terrorist if he were jumping up and down on his desk screaming Allahu Akbar, while sweeping a sword inches over his head. Who sees Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philadelphia as just a couple of guys from the ‘hood hanging out. Who will twist himself in paroxysms to avoid saying in Congressional hearings that the possibility that Major Nidal Hisan was a radical Islamist, instead saying, “No, I don’t want to say anything negative about a religion.”

One of the knee jerk comments you hear from the gun opponents if you criticize gun restrictions is, “Should we allow machine guns!!” Considering that the U.S. government and this president have abdicated their responsibility to defend our border, even to the point of putting signs up 100 miles inside our country warning travelers that it is unsafe to travel in parts of Arizona, the idea of a couple of .50 caliber machine guns mounted on the roof of some rancher’s home in that area might not be a bad idea. With drug cartel members active in that area with automatic weapons, why not?

A Simple Approach

Let me suggest a simple approach. The laws should not be about what property you own, but what you do with it. Laws should apply to actions, not who we are, what we own, or what we think. The rules can and should be different for people who have violated laws by their actions or who have diminished capacity to safely operate something that could be dangerous. Felons should not be allowed to buy a gun nor someone who is mentally unstable. We are allowed to drink. We are allowed to drive. We are not allowed to drink and drive. The prohibited action is the combination of the two. If you drink and drive repeatedly, you don’t get to drive at all.

Our government should not stand in the way of its citizens being able to defend themselves. In a Supreme Court case Warren v District of Columbia, it was ruled that a police department is not responsible for failing to protect its citizens. It should be my responsibility to protect myself and my family. The Supreme Court seems to agree that you cannot blame the police if they do not respond.

So Hillary, go back to the State Department and focus on foreign policy not on guns. Mr. Holder, try being our chief prosecutor not a busybody. Mr. President, put away the golf clubs and start figuring out how to cut a very large slice out of the $1.6 trillion deficit you are running. If you didn’t want the job in the first place, you shouldn’t have asked for it.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

“Now, I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly.”  – President Obama commenting on a police incident in Cambridge, Mass. involving Sgt. Crowley and Professor Gates

“We don’t know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions,” – President Obama speaking about Major Nidal Hasan after he killed 13 at Fort Hood.

“There is no credible evidence so far that this attack was more than at least one person, the driver,” said Mayor Mike Bloomberg. “After that there is no evidence that anyone else was involved. It may be, but we can’t say that it is.”…“If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that,” Bloomberg said. “Homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.” – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg commenting on the Times Square bomber

“You know, at this point I have no information that it’s anything other than a one-off,” – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano commenting on the Times Square bomber

“The odds are quite high that this was a lone wolf.” – New York Senator Charles Schumer commenting on the Times Square bomber

“Rep. Andre Carson said he and Rep. John Lewis had racial slurs yelled at them as they left the Cannon House Office Building, with protesters chanting what he referred to as “the N-word” fifteen times.” – CBS News report on the Health Care Vote.  Andrew Breitbart put up $100,000 to anyone who came forward with video or audio proof of Carson’s accusations.  To date, no one has come forward.

If it involves a black and a white, don’t wait for facts, blame the white guy; if it involves a Muslim, not so fast.  If involves an act of violence, it’s probably because of ObamaCare and since the Tea Party opposed ObamaCare, ceteris paribus, they are responsible for the violence.

In the aftermath of the shooting in Tucson, Arizona, instead of focusing on the victims and their well being, and for those killed, on their families, the left wasted no time trying, once again, to play their insipid game of Pin the Tail on the Tea Party.  But like perpetual guests on the reality show “Jackass” they seem to always end up sticking the pin in their own eye.

It is almost as if they believe if they say it first, if they say it loud, if they say it often, it will finally stick.  But as the quotes above show, they are rapidly approaching the point reached by the boy who cried wolf, where no one will believe what they say at all.

This is not about political rhetoric.  This is about a mentally ill person.  A demented person with many, many witnesses to his mental illness long before he pointed a loaded gun at nineteen people at a political meeting.  And yet our society has seemed to succumb to the left’s version of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”  Don’t blame the victim, they tell us, it’s not his fault.  Maybe so, but whose fault is it for not seeing something and saying something?

There were many opportunities to stop what happened before it happened.  His friends noticed his mental state deteriorating beginning in the tenth grade.  He turned from those friends and turned instead to drugs.  He had an encounter with Representative Giffords back in 2007, before the Tea Parties existed, that a friend noticed really bothered the shooter, Loughner.

[At] Mr. Loughner’s first meeting with Ms. Giffords in 2007. Mr. Loughner said he asked the lawmaker, “How do you know words mean anything?” recalled Mr. Montanaro. He said Mr. Loughner was “aggravated” when Ms. Giffords, after pausing for a couple of seconds, “responded to him in Spanish and moved on with the meeting.”

“I really can’t understand why Jared was so interested in Giffords,” Mr. Montanaro said. “I imagine it was simply because she was the most accessible.”

There is no mention of Tea Parties, Sarah Palin, or anything else setting off an otherwise normal person to start shooting people.  In looking at his background, his politics appeared to be decidedly left wing (click on links to see Tweets).

One of Loughner’s classmates in high school and community college, Caitie Parker, voided much of the baseless media speculation with a few Twitter messages Saturday afternoon. Parker, herself a liberal, said Loughner was “a really good friend,” whom she described as having been “left wing,” ”a political radical” and “quite liberal” when she knew him, although she lost touch with him after 2007 when he “became very reclusive.” Loughner was a “loner” and a “pot head,” Parker said in a Twitter colloquy with Anthony De Rosa of Reuters.

His classmates and teacher in community college were also terrified of him and feared for their lives.  At the first Walmart that Loughner went into looking to purchase ammunition, he scared the clerk so much that the clerk went in the back of the store and stalled before returning to say the store was out of ammunition.  If anyone should have had a target on them it was Loughner.  There were numerous red flags raised over  a six year period that someone who cared about this individual or cared for the public’s safety should have said something.  I am all for individual freedom and less government intrusion, but when someone sufficiently loses their grip that they are no longer rationally in control of their actions, it is time to get them the help they need.

Congressional Knee Jerk Reactions

Several Democratic members of Congress leapt into action to craft new legislation to prevent this from happening again.  Anti-gun stalwart, Carolyn McCarthy proposed legislation banning a part of the gun that was used.  One of the heroes who helped subdue Loughner, Joe Zamudio, carries a gun and because of that when he heard the shooting he ran towards the sounds of the shots rather than running for safety.  The left likes to paint gun owners as crazed fanatics.  Judge for yourself if this is fanatic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUmmOWL05r8

Let Cooler Heads Prevail

Now is not the time for action.  It is the time for investigation and reflection.  Let us pray for those who died and pray for the speedy recovery of those still alive.  Let the facts come out about this case and not jump to conclusions over what set him off.  For anyone to use this to promote their political agenda is despicable.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours.  Please comment below.

If you live in New York, you will regularly hear the admonition, “If you see something, say something.”  The idea being that the more people who are on the lookout for solitary packages in a crowded railway station, people behaving erratically, and reporting it, the safer we will be.  Makes sense.  Just be careful not to malign any followers of Islam.  What?

In addition to that public service message you also hear other stories in the news.  A Muslim cab driver refuses to pick up a fare because they are carrying a recent purchase from a liquor store.  The cab driver’s religion is against drinking.  At a public university in Minnesota a coffee cart is prohibited from playing Christmas carols, but public funds are used to construct foot baths so that Muslims can properly prepare for prayer.  At an airport, security personnel cannot ask someone in line to step out for a closer search because they already pulled out two other Muslim young men and they didn’t want to be accused of racial profiling.

The Facts, Ma’am, Just the Facts

Joe Friday, where are you when we need you?  The fictional detective was obsessive in sticking to the facts.  Fact: not all Muslims are terrorists.  Fact:  almost all terrorists you see in the news are Muslims.  So if you are on the lookout for terrorists, who should you look at? eighty year old Italian grandmothers or Middle Eastern men between the ages of 20-40?

Fort Hood

People around Major Nidal Malik Hasan, saw something and said something and were basically told…SHUT UP! Apparently diversity is more precious than human life.  Taking extreme care not to offend, trumps taking steps to prevent a massacre.  There appears to have been abundant evidence that Hasan was ticking time bomb and some spoke out about it, but our sensitivities to giving offence have turned reason inside out.

We have a sub-group of a religion who actively advocate killing all non-members, that is, infidels, and we are scared to death of offending them.  Our liberal friends go out of their way to demand we all accommodate them.  We can criticize all religions but theirs; we can have dress codes, but must make allowances for their dress; if their religion allows a parent to kill a child for converting to Christianity, we must not interfere, but if a non-Muslim parent neglects to buckle a child into a car seat for a quarter mile journey to the grocery store, bring them up on charges of child neglect.

Jumping to Conclusions

Our Commander-in-Chief cautions us not to rush to judgment by calling this an act of terrorism.  Wasn’t this the same Commander-in-Chief who spoke from the White House calling a certain police department in Cambridge, Massachusetts stupid without a clue about what happened.

Political correctness, multiculturalism, an emasculated fourth estate, President Obama’s worldwide apology tour, strong arming a small Central American country, Honduras, because they followed their constitution and instead calling it a coup, all point to an embarrassing campaign by the left to drag down our country. 

Please don’t try to make us like the rest of the world.  We are greater than that.  If you prefer the way the rest of the world behaves, move there.  Don’t try to make the shining city on the hill, a city run amok. 

It’s simple really. If the world really believed that America is such a terrible place, why do we have an immigration problem?  Why do our universities teem with foreign students?  Why, whenever there is a flare-up in the world, do all eyes turn to the good old USA to see what we are going to do about it?  Where’s Ronald Reagan when you need him?

There was a time when people came to our shores to find a better life.  To escape persecution and poverty and to build a better life for their children was their goal.  They found Lady Liberty lifting her lamp beside the golden door.

What happened next was that people assimilated.  Their children went to school with other children and learned to read and speak English.  Their names may have sounded different but before long their voices didn’t.  Sure, New Englanders sounded different than those from Mississippi, but they sounded very much like their neighbors.  They became Americans.

I just finished reading Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen’s historical novel, To Try Men’s Souls, which is the story of the George Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776, and attacking Trenton.  Trenton was guarded by Hessian mercenaries, who were some of the most elite soldiers in Europe.  It was a mismatch beyond belief, but in a last ditch effort, their password that night was “Victory or Death,” and with the element of surprise, they prevailed.  In one passage it mentioned American soldiers of Dutch and German extraction shouting to the Hessians to surrender, in German.  They were probably closer to the Hessians in culture and blood than to their fellow Americans from Boston, but they considered themselves Americans and were willing to die for their country.

The Balkanization of America

Today, we are mired in multiculturalism.  I remember the story of an Hispanic man loudly protesting to his local school board regarding bilingual education to which he was opposed.  “You’re teaching my son to be a janitor!” he said, “I want him to learn in English, so that he can get a job with a future!” 

We should not lose track of our roots.  It is right to celebrate where we came from.  One of the great things about New York is the different neighborhoods and parades that teach and celebrate about where we came from, which is good.  But if carried to the point where we no longer assimilate; where we remain pockets of groups with their own identity and politics, we are in grave danger of ceasing to be America.

During World War II, what if people of German heritage refused to fight against Hitler or for that matter felt a greater allegiance to him than to America?  Some did.  They were tried for treason. What if they were protected instead?  What if their differences were looked at with admiration rather than suspicion?

Fort Hood

Commentators in the news are twisting themselves in knots trying to disassociate Major Nidal Hasan’s slaughter of 13 Americans from his jihadist proclivities, despite evidence of outright hostility toward America and contact with a radical imam.  It is politically incorrect, to speak of his religion.  The Army Chief of Staff raises concern about negatively impacting the military’s record of diversity, if we focus on anything but a lone gunman who snapped.

But what if there is a larger plot?  What if there is an effort on the behalf of some Muslims to purposely not assimilate, to infiltrate the military and become a fifth column within?  Multiculturalism makes it far easier for this to occur because if everyone looks different, no one stands out.  On the other hand, if everyone assimilates, those who speak, act, or plot against America become more obvious.  Again, imagine multiculturalism in the United States in 1943.  You might have whole communities that were German to the core, did not like non-Germans among them and quickly spread the alarm when a stranger approached.  How much easier would it have been for Hitler to build a network of saboteurs?

Kill Multiculturalism Before it Kills Us

We must reinvigorate the idea of assimilation.  Speak any language you want at home; dress any way you want; practice your faith as you please, but where government is involved, we should be treated equally. We should speak one common language for all official business.  If not, where do we draw the line?

In Minnesota in 2007 a public university coffee cart was banned from playing Christmas Carols, but public money was being used to install foot baths to accommodate Muslims before prayer.  After the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and now another terrorist attack at Fort Hood, we have to be able to tell the good Muslims from those out to kill us.  We must have true peace loving Muslims, become true Americans.  We have to engender that we are Americans first, like those early Americans of Dutch and German decent, and not have divided loyalties particularly where the “other loyalty” insists on killing us infidels.