Fox News Special on Food Stamps Exposes Massive Fraud: part 2

In my previous post, as a preface to my review about Fox News’ special report on food stamps, I wrote about Fox’s own much vaunted reputation for being the only major news outlet that has the integrity to report the news without bias. According to Fox, they are just like a baseball umpire who has no vested interest in the outcome of the game. They’re just calling balls and strikes. After an accurate and evenhanded presentation of the news, the audience is left to decide the implications of Fox’s unbiased reporting.

But don’t just take Fox’s word for it. When Fox polls its own viewers, they agree overwhelmingly with Fox’s self-assessment.  Fox also has Rush Limbaugh’s endorsement. And as we all know, or should know, Rush is right 99.6 percent of the time (as documented by an independent auditing agency; that’s why he’s called America’s Truth Detector).  No wonder Fox’s audience is larger, by far, than any other cable news network. Ratings don’t lie.      

However, I also pointed out that this assessment is, by no means, universal. Fact checking organizations such as PolitiFact have documented numerous instances of false information, all of which just happened to go against Democrats and liberals. And these “honest mistakes” (as Fox always says they are) weren’t just trivial details (as you would expect from any news organization) but things that were pretty damaging to the reputation of those Dems and libs:      

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-21-2011/fox-news-false-statements

These critics also point out that practically every single program on that station is hosted by a hard right conservative whose primary goal seems to be to squeeze as many anti-left attacks as possible into their allotted hour while trying as hard as they can to make Dems and libs look despicably bad.    

Fox used to offer a very remarkable defense against these charges. They would point out the one single liberal who “co-hosted” a prime time show with the ultra aggressive Sean Hannity: human punching bag Alan Colmes. They would - get this - say that Bill O’Reilly is a moderate. And, hey, those other shows, which all have conservative hosts? They bring liberals on all the time. This is indisputable proof that the shows are “fair and balanced.”

Check out a previous post on Fox’s “fair and balanced” panels:      

http://liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com/2010/02/limbaugh-hannity-beck-super-geniuses.html

But after years of ridicule for making believe that the obvious wasn’t the case, and after dropping token lib Colmes, Fox finally dropped their pretense, too, and admitted that OK, so every single one of their prime time “opinion” shows is hosted by a conservative. But, they say, this just means that Fox is like any newspaper, such as The New York Times, which reports the news and has an editorial page, as well. Their “straight” news reporting shows’ reputation for being without bias speaks for itself.

Well, you know, when you look at it that way, I would have to admit that Fox is absolutely right... that is, if The New York Times had their editorial opinions on the front page and the next couple of dozen pages, then had the news on the last two pages, and if those last two pages were laced with extreme one-sided opinions; then, yes, Fox News would be exactly like The Times.

Of the two non-prime time hours Fox devotes to “straight” news reporting, out of the 24 hour cycle, one is hosted by Bret Baier. Baier is Fox’s shining example of the unbiased and objective news reporter, the envy of journalists across the nation. Bret delivers the news with a very serious, no-nonsense demeanor that reflects the gravitas he possesses. His permanently furrowed brow tells his audience that this reporter is all business, knows what he’s talking about and demands respect. He reports, you decide.

Baier was the host of Fox’s special report on food stamps, which is the subject of this multi-part review. Bret’s objectivity is apparent by the very title of his report:
The Great Food Stamp Binge.
Now, you might think that the title seems to be “deciding” rather than just “reporting.” It seems to be implying that we spend way too much money on food stamps.
I take that back. It doesn't "seem" to imply. It's telling you outright: The government is flushing our tax dollars down the toilet. Which is exactly where all the food from those food stamps winds up.
Well, you have to understand that Bret knows that some things are just so obvious that it would be silly for him to go out of his way and title his report something like: "A Look at the U.S. Food Stamp Program."

And while the food stamp issue is very contentious and varying opinions about it are held among the public, politicians, economists and other experts; as Baier conclusively demonstrates in his report, the facts overwhelmingly support the view held by the most conservative and libertarian pundits and politicians, most of whom regularly show up on Fox News and/or host all of their shows.  

OK now, let me be as fair and balanced as I possibly can.

Fox News is the most dishonest and blatantly biased news organization I’ve ever witnessed. Saying Fox News is “fair and balanced” is like saying the Nazi Party was a Jewish anti-defamation league.

Fox News is, of course, the brainchild of media monopolist and multi-billionaire movement conservative Rupert Murdock. In his unending quest to control as much of the media as possible (in order to control the information for and opinions of as many people as possible) the ethically corrupt Murdock hired Roger Ailes to create the Fox News Channel.

What did Murdock see in Roger Ailes? Undoubtedly he saw as dirty and underhanded a political operative as there is in the country; someone with a proven track record of manipulating emotions and opinions in both the media and politics.

The key to success for Fox News is its ability to manufacture outrage by using a combination of tactics that are as old as politics itself. While these tactics have been around for centuries and are used by the left as well, I can’t see how anyone can argue against the proposition that Fox has brought the use of these tactics to a level never before seen in American history. If George Orwell were alive to witness this mastery of group-think and double-speak, he would need to find a safe place for his jaw to drop.

Some of these tactics include:

- Twisting, distorting and emphasizing certain facts in order to create a particular impression while omitting other facts that would present a “fair and balanced” picture.

- Repeating those distorted “facts” endlessly, and, in a way that provokes the most anger and outrage towards certain groups and/or policies.

- Reinforcing that anger and outrage with the use of “buzz words” that recall and trigger those same emotions (socialism, makers and takers, big government, tax and spend, taking away our ‘freedoms,’ death tax, death panels, Muslim terrorists, community organizer.)  

Of all the countless misrepresentations of reality Fox has perpetrated, this food stamp “investigation” is easily one of the worst (or best) examples of how far they will go and how low they will stoop to get people to believe something that isn’t true.  

Before I get to the “meat” of Fox’s food stamp “baloney,” I will need another post to finish some background information. I want to show how Fox works in concert with right-wing think tanks, radio talkers, bloggers and the rest of the Republiconservalibertarian media to saturate the country with talking points that are designed to manipulate Americans into accepting their false and misleading narratives.

Fox News Special on Food Stamps Exposes Massive Fraud: part 1

Fox News is, by far, the most watched cable news station in the country. They have achieved this viewership by building a reputation as the most unbiased, even-handed and accurate news reporting network around.
Many think Fox is the only such news show.
This thinking is not far-fetched, as it is a known fact that all of the other networks have an undeniable liberal bias. These stations have a secret and hidden agenda (which everyone knows about) whereby they manipulate their presentation of the news in a way that favors Democrats and disfavors Republicans.
Fox News’ only agenda is to report the news -- straight and as it is.
No bias. No secret agenda. They report, you decide.

Others think this image of Fox News is undeserved and contrary to the facts. They point to numerous instances of alleged false information being reported by Fox that, for some reason, all went against libs, Dems and the Obama administration. But these sceptics are liberal extremists whose words cannot be trusted, PolitFact’s confirmations of those allegations notwithstanding:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-21-2011/fox-news-false-statements

PolitiFact, big deal.
True, they seem to do a pretty good job of determining the accuracy of claims and statements by referencing relevant sources. And it’s hard to call them biased when they routinely make conclusions that go against both sides.
On the other hand, Fox News has two unimpeachable sources that carry much more weight than PolitiFact.

One is Rush Limbaugh. (He weighs at least 600 pounds.)
The other is The Free Market.

Rush says that an independent auditing agency has documented that he is right 99.6 percent of the time. He also says that, besides him, Fox News is the only other news source that can be trusted to give it to you straight. So the odds of Rush being wrong about Fox’s trustworthiness are miniscule.
And if you’re skeptical about the independent auditing agency because, like me, you couldn’t find out who they are after ten minutes on the google machine, just consider Rush’s simple yet ironclad logic:
Rush correctly points out that Fox’s slogan is “Fair and Balanced.” And Fox has the largest audience of any news channel. Ipso facto, the slogan is 100% correct. Market Forces prove it.
While Rush is near perfect, the Market is infallible.

Did you know that Fox has trademarked that slogan?
Makes sense. If you know you’re the only outfit that delivers the news in a fair and balanced way, why let anyone else make that claim? Former comedian and current US Congressman Al Franken learned the consequences of tampering with that trademark when he tried to use it on the cover of a book he wrote some years ago. Fox sued his ass.

Read this account of the lawsuit, which I am reblogging from a post by right-wing blogger Joe Lii over at:
America’s Truth Detector, a Wordpress.com site.

http://rushlimbag.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/who-does-this-liberal-baby-boomer-think-he-is/

Who does This Liberal Baby Boomer Think He Is?

I was surfing the interweb trying to find reliable information on the latest social/political issues. So I came across this blog titled “Fair and Balanced”. At first I figured that there must be some connection with Fox News because I knew that they owned the trademark for that phrase. This fact was clearly established seven years ago when Fox filed a lawsuit against Al Franken for the irreparable damage he caused to Fox News by stealing their very own phrase and using it in his book title, along with an unflattering picture of Bill O'Reilly; Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.

Predictably, the liberal activist judge denied Fox’s motion for injunction. Just as predictably, the left wing media gave Franken a ton of free publicity because they wanted his stupid book to sell a lot of copies.
Truly great writers like Bill O’Reilly don’t need the liberal media to help them sell a ton of books. That’s what Fox News is for.
Fox wisely dropped the suit after they realized that the stranglehold liberals have in the media and the court system could actually help Franken’s book sales. Unfortunately, Franken’s book still shot up to the #1 sales position on Amazon’s best-seller list from number 489.
But Fox still managed to get in some awesome zingers on Franken!

In an eight-inch thick legal filing Fox stated that Franken had “been described as a ‘C-level political commentator’ who is ‘increasingly unfunny’”, and claimed that the comedian was “shrill and unstable” and had “appeared either intoxicated or deranged”.
Yeah, way to go Fox!

Sure the filing cited only two sources for those quotes, one of which was a website to which Bill O’Reilly was a contributor, and the other was a website where anyone could contribute, but the way I looked at it was:
Fox News 1, Al Franken 0.

Getting back to this blog I stumbled across, titled “Fair and Balanced”, it’s written by a Joe Barton who I assumed to be the great Republican politician from Texas who had the courage and integrity to apologize to the BP CEO for the White House’s investigation of the Gulf Oil spill, calling it a “shakedown”.
What a great American, a true Patriot! I really admire great heroes like Joe Barton and Joe Wilson for having the guts to tell it like it is. The American people owe these fighters a debt of gratitude.

But after reading the content on this garbage blog site and noticing the url; liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com,
I realized that this Joe Barton character is a complete fraud. He’s trying the same trick that Franken almost got away with. Does he think that people like me are a bunch of fools?
This site is nothing but a bunch of liberal claptrap. I’ve dedicated my blog to counter Barton’s baloney, which can be found at;
liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com
Its stolen title is “Fair And Balanced”.
So stay tuned for future posts.

Yeah, Joe Lii, thanks for your thoughts.

Joe Lii is an intense Rush Limbaugh fanatic. If you want to know why his blog address is

http://rushlimbag.wordpress.com/

read his explanation @

http://rushlimbag.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/fair-and-balanced-my-ass/

Meanwhile, stay tuned at liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com for my in depth examination of Fox’s expose on food stamps. It’s going to take several posts in order to review this incredible report.

An Honest Discussion About Race

Just about every day I dose myself with a heaping helping of right-wing opinion mongering. It’s like a bad acid trip. It feels like torture while you’re going through it, but the suffering helps you to achieve important insights. A feeling of catharsis then follows, like you’ve purged the demons from your soul.

In the wake of the Zimmerman trial, between Rush Limbag, Fox News and the rest, the right has done a lot of demon purging themselves. Well, actually, they haven’t been purging their demons as much as letting them out for a brisk walk and some fresh air. Then the demons are brought back home where they are comfortable and provide conservatives with the fuel they need to keep their anger and hatred burning.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I think conservatives have had a lot of legitimate things to say during this whole affair and the libs have been acting atrociously, as well. I just need to comment on the right-wingers’ comments on President Obama’s comments on the Zimmerman affair.

The cons are just livid. Outraged. There he goes again, using this as yet another opportunity to divide the country along racial lines by fomenting racial animosity. How dare the country’s first Black President try to explain the point of view of many Black people who have to go through life with the burden of being a ‘suspect’ (as Zimmerman described T. Martin.)

Yes. Dividing the country along racial lines. Fomenting racial animosity. It’s just like Barack HUSSEIN Obama, the Kenyan, Muslim, community-organizing, ACORN, Chicago ghetto, Food Stamp President -- who hates White people and is getting even for slavery by putting all Black people on welfare – to use race like that.

I had Fox News on the other day and I’m witnessing the symptoms of full-blown Obama Derangement Syndrome as the pundits describe the evil that lurks in the heart of the President. How dare he remind us that he’s Black by saying that something like what happened to Trayvon Martin could have happened to him thirty five years ago?

It’s amazing. Obama simply states something that is obviously and undeniably true in a calm and non-accusatory manner in order to present the point of view of most Black people, but those conservatives can only see a hateful race-monger. Meanwhile, those same conservatives constantly say racially charged things about the first Black president (see the second paragraph above) in angry, yelling tones that are obviously and undeniably false. Yet, the only racism they can see is coming from Obama.

Then there’s "The Wonder of Rush" (as his announcer occasionally reminds his audience.) Limbag took advantage of the opportunity the Zimmerman trial provided to have one of those honest discussions about race. Yes, the bloated blowhard gave his audience a ‘little history lesson’ on race and slavery. He said: “If any race of people should not have guilt about slavery, it's Caucasians”

Click here: Limbaugh: "If Any Race Of People Should Not Have Guilt About Slavery, It's Caucasians" Video Media Matters for
http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/07/22/limbaugh-if-any-race-of-people-should-not-have/194999

Now Rush wasn't dividing the world along racial lines, or fomenting racial animosity -- he was just giving the facts.
You see, the White race’s brand of slavery was way better than any other race’s, by far. “The white race has probably had fewer slaves and for a briefer period of time than any other in the history of the world.”

Mr. Oxycontin compared the White race’s slaving to the Chinese, the Arabs and Black Africans’ slaving. These races couldn’t even come close to the Whites. My gosh, folks, the Whites were better than the rest of the world combined. Whites had more better slavery in their little finger than the rest of the races had combined. In other words, when it comes to enslaving other races, the White race is the superior race.

Rush singled out American Indians as being particularly bad at the slaving. Rush has long resented the American continents’ original inhabitants’ undeserved image as "the embodiment of perfection." Over the years Rush has taught us that they weren’t ‘noble savages’ at all. There was nothing noble about them. They were just savages.

Now, unlike Mr. Dimbulb, I’m not an expert on the history of slavery. But I am skeptical about his self proclaimed vaunted historical knowledge. I feel this way, not least of all, because he seems to think that Caucasians’ participation in slavery began with the ‘discovery’ of the continent (which was already inhabited) that they named after an Italian explorer (after they named those inhabitants after the people of South Asia) -- and ended with the Civil War.
Also, during his presentation of the evidence for all the other races’ inferiority at slaving, he seemed to forget that the Romans were Caucasians.

Rush went on to credit Whites with being the only race to fight a war for the purpose of ending slavery.
That’s interesting. I always thought that Whites were the only race to fight a war with the purpose of preventing slaves from becoming free. But now I see that you can look at it the other way, too.

So half the country fought to end slavery and the other half fought to keep it.
Actually, at least half the country was OK with Negroes being slaves. Most of the other half didn’t give a shit one way or the other. The real credit belongs to the abolitionists (both White AND Black) and the free Blacks and slaves they worked with. Their efforts gave rise to the liberal intellectual elite that made the abolitionists’ goal a reality through the political system, despite ferocious opposition from the conservatives of the day.

So if Rush was born in the eighteen hundreds, what side do you think he’d be on?

Re: Dad, who are you voting for for mayor?

I haven’t written any posts since April 9th because of a realization that became apparent during the gun control debate which caused me to become very dispirited. I did write an article for this blog explaining how and why I became so dispirited but I have not posted it yet. I wanted to share this email correspondence with my daughter Jessica first.

She wrote to me asking who was I voting for for Mayor, then wrote the following:

I like de Blasio, and it's not just 'cause he's Italian, or 'cause he changed his last name to his MOM's last name, or 'cause he went to SIPA! or 'cause he's married to a black woman, or 'cause they send their kids to public schools. it's because he seems the most progressive.

To which I responded:

I like you, Jess. Does Bill not capitalize the 'de' in his name? Did you know that Weiner is thinking about single-payer med insurance for NYC? That would be wonderful, it would mean that your mother would not have to work forever before she's eligible for Medicare. If Bill 'of' Blasius (Blasio being a derivative of the Latin blaesus [stammering] which was used as a byname for someone with some defect, either of speech or gait. Gotta love those pejorative Italian surnames.) is also for single-payer then I guess I would have to base my vote on the other factors concerning these two candidates.
Do I go with the ethnic-pandering, ivy-league/ivory-tower one world government elitist, color-barrier crossing, practice what he preach, politically correct guinea dago wop?
Or do I go with the social media and sexting pioneer, Anthony Weiner?
Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Oh, by the way, Weiner is a surname originating in the German language (wein meaning wine) which was adopted by German Jews of Ashkenazic descent for reflecting the prominence of wine in the Jewish Scriptures and Jewish ceremonies. Interestingly,in English, it is also a slang expression that is used as a euphemism for a word that I am not comfortable using in an email to my daughter and for which I can find no other suitable euphemism other than the word 'weiner.'

What Happened to The Congressional Progressive Caucus's 'Back to Work' Budget?

First, I’d like to plug a few people, places and things.

Are you into spiritual readings? Check out Lena’s Facebook page @ https://www.facebook.com/CandleLightCustomReadingsWithLena?fref=ts
I promise you, she does a mean reading - you won't be disappointed - and it will be for a worthwhile cause.

Here’s an event worth checking out called: “I’m Tawkin’ Here: Storytelling with a New Yawk Accent”
Actually, it’s five events on five Wednesdays in the five boroughs of New York, and it’s free. Each event will feature a musical ode to the borough, plus true stories from three borough-natives and one “token” non-native storyteller. The evening will conclude with a sneak peek of “If These Knishes Could Talk,” the definitive documentary on the New York accent, which will premiere at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival in May, and has been featured in the WSJ, NPR, NBC, CBS and NY1

The first one kicks off in Queens, this Wednesday, April 10 at 7:30 pm from the New York Irish Center at 10-40 Jackson Ave in Long Island City. Check out the websites below. The Facebook page has some very interesting facts about Queens. Here’s one from me; I can count at least eight Nobel Prize winners who are from Queens or were educated in Queens’s public high schools, including theoretical physicist, and one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived, Richard Feynman (Far Rockaway.)

http://www.fiveborostoryproject.org/

https://www.facebook.com/thefiveborostoryproject

https://twitter.com/FiveBoroStories

My next plug is for Alan L. Maki, Director of Organizing, Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council. His blog is @ http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Alan and I had been having an email correspondence about an alternative to “sequestration.” He outlined some budget priorities in an email to the Occupy Wall Street mailing list. Anyway, I brought up the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s ‘Back to Work’ Budget and we discussed the merits of that proposal. Have you ever heard of it? Here’s how the Economic Policy Institute described it:

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) has unveiled its fiscal year 2014 (FY2014) budget, titled Back to Work. It builds on recent CPC budget alternatives in prioritizing near-term job creation, financing public investments, strengthening the middle class, raising adequate revenue to meet budgetary needs while restoring fairness to the tax code, protecting social insurance programs, and ensuring fiscal sustainability.

You might have heard a little bit about it in the media two or three weeks ago. More likely, you must have gotten some emails asking to sign a petition to support it and urge your Congressperson to do the same. Whatever happened to that, anyway? I guess it was a little too little and a little too late, huh? I wonder what would have happened if the left had made half as much noise about that budget as the right did about the 47% of Americans who only take and do nothing to contribute to the economy or society. Oh, that’s right, there’s no such thing as ‘society.’ There’s only the economy and individuals. Just ask Margaret Thatcher’s ghost.

The Evolution of My Thinking on Guns

Like most boys growing up in the 1960’s, I loved playing with guns (toy guns of course.) I remember having a “cap gun”, a metal western cowboy style revolver that had a roll of paper tape with a small amount of powder imbedded on it. Every time you pulled the trigger a bit of that tape would roll out , allowing the hammer to strike it, producing a tiny explosion intended to simulate the sound of a real gun firing. A lot of fun when you’re (who remembers?) 6 or 7 years old.

As we got older and graduated to playing with fireworks, we noticed that if you slid a lit firecracker down the barrel of the toy gun, the explosion would produce a much more realistic simulation. That was even more fun. More fun yet was when a bunch of us decided to stage a ‘murder’ in a local Chinese laundry. The plan was for one of us to walk into the store and then, seconds later, another one of us would burst in and shoot the first one down in cold blood. Being that we had no laundry or any other excuse going into the store, we decided that the first one would make believe he needed to know what time it was and then ask the proprietor if he could tell us. This was when the second one would burst into the store wearing a handkerchief over his face yelling “there you are, you motherfucker!” Then, pointing the toy gun (which would be prepared outside with a lit firecracker) at the “victim”, a very realistic seeming shot would ring out.

The ploy was executed to perfection. The “victim” then clutched his midsection (just like Lee Harvey Oswald did) and groaned “aaaah, he got me!” Doubled over, groaning in pain, he staggered out of the store. We all then ran around the block, came back around and waited across the street to see if the ‘Chinaman’ called the police. But they never arrived.

There were some obvious flaws in our prank. The first was underestimating the wile of the Chinese Immigrant entrepreneur whose poor English-speaking ability and brief time spent on our shores led us to believe he might not understand the nuances of American culture, thus making him more susceptible to our deceit. But he must have judged that an eleven year old, walking into his store to ask if he knew what time it was when there was a large clock on the wall right behind him (which was easily visible from the street) might be up to something. Then, when the second eleven year old burst in brandishing a “gun”, he must have surmised that was the “something” he was up to. Perhaps the acting performance, after getting “shot”, was not quite Oscar worthy, either.

We were not deterred by these flaws from trying this escapade again. We waited about a month in order to give the ‘Chinaman’ enough time to forget the original incident. This time we had someone else go into the store and ask what time it was. However, this second attempt resulted in the same outcome despite adding more dialogue like: “No, don’t shoot’ and ‘I’ll pay you back the money, I swear.’ Two consecutive failures did not discourage us from trying the scheme two or three more times, with less and less days in between attempts, due to our impatience with achieving the desired results.

The hardworking Immigrant from the Far East played to stereotype; his reaction to our antics remained inscrutable.

I liked War Movies and the military themed TV shows Combat and Rat Patrol. We loved to sneak around our neighbors’ backyards and play “War.” The best toy gun I ever had, by far, was my pump-action Dick Tracy Water Rifle, a 1960’s version of the SuperSoaker. I could easily out duel my older brother’s friends, who were armed with garden hoses, by using my water-shooting replica of Tracy’s preferred crime fighting weapon. But my preoccupation with guns didn’t last past adolescence. Apparently, as my fascination with girls increased, I eventually stopped thinking about guns altogether.

I wasn’t precisely aware of the laws concerning gun ownership among adults in Queens, NY, but my general impression was that it was illegal for anyone to have one, except if you were a cop. This seemed to make sense to me for many reasons. Though I loved playing with guns as a kid, I was always fully aware that it was all make-believe fun and that real guns were extremely dangerous. Unless you were a cop, if you had a gun or wanted one, to me that signaled that you wanted to use it, which made you a very dangerous person. Guns seemed much better off in the hands of the police, who did a pretty good job of protecting us from criminals.

For me, another strong reason to keep guns out of the hands of the general population was supported by my observations of human behavior, which had informed me that at least 30% of the general population were complete assholes.

One time, when I was a kid, I was walking down my block when I saw two male adults crouching down by the base of a tree. There was a young kid standing off to the side, watching them. Suddenly, the adults sprang away from the tree. As I approached the tree, I wondered, ‘what the heck are they doing?’ Then, just as I got next to the tree there was a giant “KABOOM.” My body jolted in shock, I felt a concussion of air, my right ear became temporarily deaf and then I realized they had just set off an M-80 firecracker. Apparently, these “responsible adults” were showing the young kid the right way to play with powerful fireworks. I looked at the adults in disbelief, expecting them to be apologizing profusely. But not a word. They just looked right through me as if I was invisible, completely ignoring what just happened. Way to teach your kid, you fucking assholes.

When I was a kid my family used to take country vacations in New Jersey with my aunt and uncle and cousins. We liked to take walks along the countryside while we talked, laughed and had a good time. Once, seemingly out of nowhere, we came across a rinky-dink little amusement park that was closed and not operating. I don’t remember the details, maybe there was a closed gate, maybe it said do not enter or maybe it even said no trespassing. I guess my parents just wanted to let the kids look at the rides up close. Well, in a matter of seconds some fat ugly nasty slob comes out of his house pointing a rifle or shotgun at us telling us to get off his property. His equally fat ugly nasty slob of a wife came out and yelled something at us in a snarling voice. Years later when I saw the movie Deliverance, I thought I recognized that couple pointing the gun at us.

Can you imagine someone pointing a gun at a couple of families with young children under the age of ten? Let me tell you, it was quite a shock. Do you know who imagines pointing guns at people who cross onto his property? Right-wing gun nut and emerging spokesperson for the “right to have any kind and as many guns as you want”, Ted Nugent. Here’s a quote from the demented rocker: “I’m a good neighbor, I have a nice clean borderline, but if you cross it, I’ll kill ya.”

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-february-12-2013/back-in-black---action-stars---gun-control

In some parts of the country that amusement park guy would have been in his rights to blow some heads off.
Hey, they were trespassing on his property. He felt threatened. He saw one of the kids going for a rock. He was standing his ground.
It probably wouldn’t even go to trial.

I didn’t become aware of the extent of the “gun culture” in other parts of the country until I got older. When I would see these gun shows and gun shops with those massive amounts of firearms (hundreds of different types of guns and hundreds of every single type) I couldn’t help thinking, these people are crazy. Why do you need so many fucking guns? Unless you’re Yosemite Sam, you can only shoot one at a time. And even Sam could only handle two at a time. Do you need them to shoot animals for fun? You’re the ones who believe in God, aren’t they His creatures? These nuts looked like they were getting ready to fight World War Three. Then I heard about the Second Amendment interpretation that ‘the right to bear arms’ was to defend us against our government when it inevitably turns tyrannical. WTF? That was the craziest idea yet.

So anyway, I began to view people's love of guns the way conservatives view love of the same sex. Like something sick and perverted. But there’s a big difference between conservatives' disgust for ‘the love that dare not speak its name” and my disdain for “the love that just won’t shut the fuck up.” Homosexuality does not infringe on other people’s rights. The thought of what other consenting adults might be doing in their bedroom might offend your sensibilities, but NOT discriminating against gay people won’t make you gay. Discriminating against gay people won’t protect you from being gay either. On the other hand, your ‘right’ to indulge your gun fetish to your heart’s content, without any ‘well regulated’ restrictions, infringes on my right to be safe.

However, because I always try to consider other points of view as carefully as possible, my opinion on guns has moderated to an extent. I no longer think that all guns should be banned. I now think that concealed-carry laws should be relaxed. But I also believe in much smarter and stricter gun controls. Oh, I still think that the idea of ‘the right to bear arms to defend against government’ is really crazy. It really is. I know that statement would outrage conservatives. And even most other Americans seem to accept conservatives' 2nd Amendment interpretation to a degree. But have you ever given that interpretation some thought? I mean, if you follow through with the idea of arming the population so that 'they' can wage a revolution, you will inevitably run into a myriad of problems. I'll delve into that in a future post.

Why Does Anyone Need an Assault Weapon?

In previous posts I’ve expressed a deep frustration with the Left’s inability to effectively expose the specious and fallacious nature of many of the arguments conservatives use to promote right-wing ideology and attack liberals. Over the years we’ve seen the left lose arguments that they should have won. The right has managed to push policy way over toward their own preferences even when the majority of Americans don’t agree with them.

In the aftermath of the horrific Newtown shootings I expected to see the same ineptness that I’ve seen in the past regarding the debate about gun control. However, I’ve been heartened by the way the pro gun-control side has finally begun to give the gun ‘rights’ side’s arguments the scrutiny that they deserve. And that scrutiny has resulted in those arguments beginning to crumble under the weight of logic and reason.

A couple of weeks ago I came across an article on Reason.com (the web site of the libertarian magazine Reason) titled:
 Why Does Anybody Need an Assault Weapon? Because They Want It. - Hit & Run : Reason.com
http://reason.com/blog/2013/01/17/why-does-anybody-need-an-assault-weapon

In my last post I made the following observation:

“… guns are a double edged sword. In some instances they can do good. They can prevent crimes and even save lives. They can diffuse dangerous situations. Of course in other instances they can do great harm. They can make dangerous people and situations exponentially more dangerous. And the more dangerous and lethal those guns are, the more dangerous and lethal those people and situations become.

The biggest obstacle, that I see, preventing us from achieving the healthiest and safest society we can is the refusal of the most passionate of us, on both sides of the gun issue, to see and acknowledge the reality of guns’ double edged nature.”

Well,  J.D. Tuccille, the managing editor of Reason 24/7 and the writer of the 'very thoughtful' and 'reasonable' article about why we need assault weapons demonstrates the mental block that most conservatives and libertarians have on the topic of  'free' societies and guns:

“Because in free societies, you don't have to justify owning things. You get to own them because you want them and have the means to acquire them. And you get to acquire more than just the basic necessities, if you so choose.

As I look around my office, I see a lot of stuff I don't need. There are two dogs aggressively shedding on the upholstery, a hat collection (panamas and vintage fedoras), CDs and DVDs, a shit-load of books ...If I owned only what I need, I'd be living in a spartan efficiency apartment, wearing a Mao suit and eating gruel. I have no interest in living that way.

My ability to acquire pets and stuff that I want without having to justify the acquisitions is an expression of my personal freedom. If I had to go, Stetson Stratoliner in hand, to some puffed-up bureaucrat to beg permission to purchase the boxed set of Firefly DVDs or a mutt rescue dog, I would very obviously be living in a state of severely constrained liberty. I would be unfree, even if that hard-working civil servant ultimately signed off on my acquisitions without extracting too hefty a bribe.

The appropriate answer to "Who the hell needs ... ?" is "hey, if you don't want one, don't buy it." The right to own stuff without an explanation is the right to be free.”

Here he is displaying little thought and no concern whatsoever with the idea of ‘the people’ taking on ‘the government’ whenever ‘they’ decide that it’s being ‘tyrannical’:

“At this point, many self-defense activists respond that the need for guns has to do with the ability to defend against tyrannical government. Then gun controllers chirp, "but you can't defeat tanks and nuclear weapons with rifles!" thereby demonstrating that they don't keep up with the war in Afghanistan and skipped their history lessons about some difficulties the U.S. military ran into in a place called Vietnam.”

Guerilla warfare! Sounds like fun! Where do I sign up?
How dare the Government take away my freedom by regulating my light bulbs! Hitler Fascist Commie Kenyans! Will the NRA train me how to hit a jack-booted government thug with a well deserved gigantic high-velocity bullet to the head? Maybe the thug will be related to me!
I can stand to lose some family members in the crossfire, too. They’re such a burden. My Mom is 93, it's time for her to go. Those Medicare cuts will only be eating up my inheritance just when I won’t have to pay any taxes on the money I did nothing to earn.

So, anyway, this article irritated me enough to leave the following comment:

“As a flaming liberal who grew up with a strong bias against guns (being how the bullets they fire tend to rip holes in people's bodies whenever they are headed in that direction) I still always valued the ability to reason well. That is why I always try to listen carefully to both sides of an argument so that I'm sure that I'm thinking in an orderly, rational way and not letting my emotional biases interfere with that process. This is why I eventually changed my opinion from a preference to ban all guns to an acknowledgement that in some instances guns can help to defend against and/or prevent crimes. So, I now favor relaxed concealed carry laws along with much stricter gun control laws. My motto: Less guns, less lethal guns, more of those fewer 'safer' registered guns in the hands of more trained and licensed law-abiding citizens and much less crime than any wild, wild west strategy you gun lovers propose.
However, according to you, the only thing that can safeguard my 'freedom' and 'liberty' is having to worry about some gun nut like James Yeager who wants to kill me because of my ideas. Thank God this guy hates tyranny that much. It's so comforting to know that there are many more people like him running around armed to the teeth just itching to use all of that fire power they've been stockpiling for all these years. It makes me feel so free -- I'm using irony of course, that's the opposite of how I really feel.

If only my freely elected government officials, who are obligated by the Constitution to promote my general welfare, could do something about this. Oh, wait. That's right. They can't be trusted because I’m told by well reasoned thinkers like you that they are hell bent on taking away my 'liberty.' Only right thinking, heavily armed patriots with hair-trigger tempers like James Yeager can be trusted. He just wants to take away my life. I can see it now, that’s the price I have to pay for my freedom. Finally, I can relax.

Speaking of 'reason' and the ability to do it well, it doesn't seem like you thought your positions out very much, because if you did I can't see how you overcame the numerous logical fallacies and problems they run into.

Comparing guns to dogs, clothes, CDs and books? Come on man, you can do better than that. I suppose you don’t see any difference between nitroglycerin and bleach. They’re both just chemicals, right? And bleach can be dangerous too! Ironically, your dogs need to be licensed (and 'shot' with vaccines) but your guns don't. Your clothes, CDs and books are regulated too. What an intolerable abridgement of your freedoms! Aren't you going to do something about that? Maybe James Yeager can help you with that. You can trust him; he's a gun loving patriot!

And, yeah, the ability to defend against tyrannical government. That's, by far, the soundest reasoning in your entire arsenal. (More irony)
Have you ever thought that concept through? Because it's riddled through with as masny holes as those Newtown children's bodies were from a magazine load of 2nd Amendment 'freedom' bullets.
Not enough room for me to go through those problems now but you should give it some thought and see if you can find some. That's what reasoning is all about.”

If you don’t know who James Yeager is, check out this charming video he put out on YouTube:
Video: Tactical Response CEO James Yeager Threatens to “Start Killing People” If Obama Strengthens Gun Laws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv4E7eDdVzg

Recommendations for Gun Control

I got some heat from several people for my last post where I recommended relaxation of concealed carry permits. Karen Duda (Duda – that’s Spanish for doubt, but much more likely a Slavic surname) commented the following:

But allowing everyone to carry a gun does NOT make us safer. Case in point: when Gabrielle Giffords was shot and nine others injured by a nut job who never should have been able to get a gun, there was a young man in the crowd who had his gun, for which he has a legal permit, on him. He did not use it to try to stop the attack. He later said that he was afraid if he pulled out his (legal) gun people would have thought he was the shooter or an accomplice. So the fact that he had a gun did NOTHING to protect anyone that day.

I replied thusly:

Karen, I agree, allowing everyone to carry a gun would not make us safer. And you bring up a very good and important point about the Giffords incident. Not only that but, in a situation like the Giffords one, besides the risk of being mistaken for a homicidal maniac, if a person with a legal permit and gun did decide to shoot at the person who started the shooting -- assuming he knew for sure who started the shooting -- he might risk hitting innocent bystanders by mistake, like those trained and authorized cops did by the Empire State Building in Manhattan some months ago when that nutjob decided to shoot and kill his former boss. You also bring up a very good point about 'accomplices.' Can you imagine the havoc some crazed killers could produce if two or more of them started blasting away in a crowd where everyone had a legally authorized gun? More guns, less crime? If I sound like I'm contradicting myself, I can understand that. But I can explain my position, and I will, in my next post.

Well, I won’t be able to explain my position in detail this time because I want to use this post to get my policy recommendations out before Obama presents Biden’s task force recommendations. Let me say this for now; guns are a double edged sword. In some instances they can do good. They can prevent crimes and even save lives. They can diffuse dangerous situations. Of course in other instances they can do great harm. They can make dangerous people and situations exponentially more dangerous. And the more dangerous and lethal those guns are, the more dangerous and lethal those people and situations become.

The biggest obstacle, that I see, preventing us from achieving the healthiest and safest society we can is the refusal of the most passionate of us, on both sides of the gun issue, to see and acknowledge the reality of guns’ double edged nature. Our emotional biases tend to allow us to see only the side that comforts, supports and reinforces those biases. Acknowledging the other side of the sword is crucial in figuring out the best things to do.

Here are my policy recommendations:

1. Relax concealed carry laws. Ultimately, local governments/authorities are and should be the deciders of if and how to implement these laws but I would strongly recommend that they be relaxed with specific and stringent safeguards in place.

2. Put in place an immediate moratorium on the production and sale of all firearms.

3. Require that all guns in circulation be accounted for and registered by the owners.

4. Confiscate all illegal guns. That’s right, I said ‘confiscate.’ I agree with Wayne LaDouchebag, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association (who always says how that no good tyrant President of ours – who was twice elected by a majority of the voting public – is responsible for the gun massacres because of his absolute refusal to enforce the laws that are already on the books because he wants things to get so bad that he will then use that as the excuse to take away all guns from everyone except for the blue helmeted UN forces in the black helicopters who will now be in charge of running the US of A.) I think it’s about time the government started enforcing the laws that are already on the books.

5. Here are the ‘well regulated’ parts: Require a license to buy, own and carry a gun that includes a background check, the passing of a training class and the registration for each and every gun and…

6. Redesign all new guns manufactured to strict specifications that limit the trigger speed, caliber/velocity of bullets and magazine size and…

7. Finally, dare I say it; limit all purchases to one gun per person.

Sound crazy Wayne? Well then call me crazy!
Sound farfetched? Naïve? Of course it is. How could we possibly stand up to the ferocious rage of the heavily armed gun nuts who would love nothing better than to finally get to use all of that fire power that they’ve been stockpiling for all of these years? Plus, who the hell is going to listen to me? But if anyone with any influence were to listen to me I could give a series of tactics and a strategy that might actually make these proposals seem much less farfetched.
These would include lessons on how to frame and win the debates with the anti-gun control side.
Removing the credibility of the NRA by pinning the blame for these gun deaths on the NRA’s depraved indifference to the consequences of their efforts to sabotage any and every effort to regulate guns.
 Conceding on concealed carry permits is also a crucial tactic, but not a Machiavellian one. This is the one single argument that the pro-gun people have that would probably save lives if important safeguards are taken.
 One other tactic may be the single best strategy for getting these proposals enacted: present these proposals to the American people to be voted on, yes or no, in a national referendum! If the American people vote yes and the gun nuts want to fight the will of the people, well who are the tyrants now? The gun nuts would have no choice but to overthrow themselves!

The NRA Created the Problem That Requires the Solution They Always Wanted

In the same way the Republicon Party deliberately drove up the debt in order to use it as the excuse to get rid of the social programs they’ve always despised, the NRA deliberately caused the country’s gun problem in order to use it as the excuse to get rid of the gun laws they’ve always despised.

The Republicons drove up the debt with a strategy they called ‘Starve the Beast.’ This economic policy was implemented by the Reagan and Bush Jr. administrations by cutting any and every tax they could get their hands on while hugely increasing spending. They grew the Beast to mammoth proportions and simultaneously cut off its food supply. Now they are saying we need to solve the problem of the debt by getting rid of those programs they hate. A conservative’s dreams come true.

The NRA’s strategy was to ferociously oppose, thwart and sabotage any and every gun control law that ever came up. They worked together with the gun manufacturers to flood the country with a dizzying array of diabolical weapons, some of which can kill a hundred people in seconds. Thanks to the NRA, these weapons are unregistered, unaccounted for and easily obtained by any criminal and homicidal maniac who wants one. Now they say we need to solve this problem by allowing guns to invade every single space in our lives. A gun lover’s dreams come true.

Both of these groups circumvented the will and the wellbeing of the general public. They both used specious, fallacious and underhanded arguments to support their positions and attack their opponents. They both employed the unfair and undemocratic use of money to target politicians who wouldn’t bend to their will. They both pursued policies that only benefited their own narrow self-interests while damaging the health and wellbeing of both the people and the economy. And they both appear to be on the verge of accomplishing their goal of imposing their extremist views on the entire country, the vast majority of who oppose those views.

(An interesting aside. The radical-right is always accusing the Government of being tyrannical whenever it does something they don’t like. That’s why they say we need guns in the first place. To ‘take out’ the politicians ‘we’ think are tyrannical. But why would ‘we’ want to ‘take out’ the politicians we voted into office? Well, of course ‘we’ wouldn’t. The ‘we’ is actually ‘they’ and the ‘they’ is actually the radical-right nutbags. And what is those nutbags’ definition of ‘tyranny?’ Like I said, it’s whatever policy they don’t like, which happens whenever they lose an election. Here’s a better definition of tyranny: two unelected creeps – Wayne LaPierre and Grover Norquist – pay themselves millions of dollars and then circumvent the democratic process in order to impose their harmful and dangerous minority views on the entire country, depriving citizens of their Constitutional rights in the process. What a couple of scumbags.)

There is one major and unfortunate difference, though, between the Recons’ ‘Starve the Beast’ policy and the NRA’s ‘unfettered access to any kind of gun they feel like having’ policy. There is a much better and fairer alternative to the ‘Starve the Beast’ policy of even more tax cuts for the rich and service cuts for everyone else. That would be significant spending cuts to the Military, a single-payer universal healthcare system and a restoration of the Clinton-era tax rates, for everyone, with higher added brackets for the super-wealthy that top out at 50%, the same top rate as Reagan’s first term when the conservalibertarians bragged that that tax rate got us out of the second worst recession since the Great Depression and created millions of jobs.

However, in the case of gun-control policy, because of the terrible predicament that the NRA has put this country in, there is no better alternative than to allow guns to invade every single space in our lives, and by this I mean allowing law-abiding citizens to carry guns in places many of us might think to be inappropriate, repugnant or downright crazy. As hard as it is for many of us to admit, the logic and the evidence of concealed carry permits seems irrefutable. Most Americans realize this. This is why the NRA has been winning the debate so far. (Their positions on other forms of gun control are a completely different story, though.) The sad truth is guns have already invaded every single space in our lives. The NRA never allowed our society to adjust from the 18th century world when the 2nd Amendment was written to the modern one we live in today. The NRA forced us to live in a wild, wild, west society where the gun-nuts and the free market rule us and our gun control laws are a ridiculous joke. And, instead of muskets or even six-shooters, we have gun manufacturers making and selling with impunity the most lethal 21st century weaponry devised by man. Under those circumstances, it’s better to have a gun yourself than not to.

I’m not the only liberal to come to this conclusion. I recently saw an interview with Craig R. Whitney, a former reporter and editor at The New York Times, about a book he wrote called “Living With Guns: A Liberal’s Case for the Second Amendment.” Jeffry Goldberg wrote an article in the Dec. issue of The Atlantic titled “The Case for More Guns (And More Gun Control).” Ezra Klein recently hosted Rachel Maddow’s show where he covered the same ground and interviewed a criminologist named Richard Rosenfeld. All of these persons elaborated on some of the points I made in this post, plus they offered policy recommendations that go beyond relaxing certain gun restrictions like concealed carry.

I agree with and appreciate most of what they said. They all acknowledged some realities that most liberals find very hard to accept. I give them a lot of credit for this. This is the first step in formulating a best course of action. Goldberg, in particular, wrote a very good article. However, I do have some complaints. These have to do with things they didn’t say and the way they said some of the things they did say. Also, they didn’t go far enough in their policy recommendations.

In upcoming posts I will outline specifically what these things said and not said are. I will also give my own policy recommendations. And I will give my explanation of why the NRA has been winning the debate on guns despite the fact that their gun policies (except for concealed carry) are completely insane.