1/29/13
Good morning, All,
Warning: We're on the soap box this week: Michael Arrington posted this about journalistic integrity: Truth, Money, Right, Wrong. The issue is that CBS, which own c|net, is dictating policy and according to Arrington, journalists have rules “designed to ensure their objectivity and impartiality.” As if that concept exists anymore in a world of ‘All the news that we see fit to print.” It was social media and the online press that organized to defeat (at least for now) PIPA and SOPA. And this from Yahoo! News: Press Ignores Lives Saved Because Of Firearms, Says CCRKBA “In the month following the tragic Newtown school shooting, more than 65,000 people used firearms in self-defense, yet the national news media has virtually ignored this important aspect of gun ownership.” And lest we forget: Queens residents arm themselves in the post-storm blackout from looters. In Hurricane Sandy's aftermath, the police were busy elsewhere and the rule of law broke down. A hugely vocal proponent of the gun ban, what we find amazing is that Mayor Bloomberg always travels under a heavily armed guard, even when visiting his home in Bermuda and note: Bermuda is a gun-free zone – but Mr. Bloomberg saw to it that he received a special dispensation. Yet the Mayor blasts NRA call for armed school guards. Hey, as long as we’re all equal under the law… We are not advocating either way: we are saying that we have a Constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms, and we cannot allow a bifurcated system where our Mayor can bring armed officers to a gun free zone in the name of protection, yet he favors denying the electorate the same rights. Our heart goes out to the Newtown families who lost loved ones, and if our elected officials are so concerned with protecting the children, why are they fighting legislation to protect them: namely, by installing armed guards in the schools? TSA – how long did it take for that to be instituted? Not long at all. The larger issue is: Americans have the inalienable right to own guns based on the Second Amendment. Think the attack on your rights ends – or starts – there? You have the right to personal property, right? The government can seize your property in the name of Eminent Domain. Formerly, if the government felt they needed your property, they had the right to seize it. That's been changed. Now, if they want your property, done deal. And you have no recourse.
Thomas Jefferson said, “If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” In NYC, Mayor Bloomberg has legislated the kind of oil used in the popcorn at movie theatres (vegetable oil has replaced the far healthier coconut oil), and the size of sodas that you’re allowed to buy. Nationally, foods do not need to be marked if they're Genetically Modified. But wait! There’s more! Unlocking your cell phone became a crime as of Saturday, January 26. And it will carry fines between $2,500 and $500,000, and in some cases, prison time. You need the approval of your carrier. So, who owns your phone, after all? We witnessed prosecutorial overreach in the suicide of Aaron Swartz a few weeks ago. And that was not that’s prosecutor’s first suicide, thanks to her political ambitions: Prosecutor of Aaron Swartz Linked To Another Suicide Of Defendant. Nor was that an isolated incident: do the government's right supersede the rights of the governed? This is what led to the founding of our country in the first place. We believe in the Constitution and only bring up the fire arms issue as it is center stage at the moment. But make no mistake about it: this is very much about all of our rights that are currently Constitutionally protected. No matter how you feel about fire arms, once you’ve allowed one of your rights to be legislated away, the precedence has been set for any and all of your rights to disappear. We cannot allow our lawmakers to show a blatant disregard for the very laws and tenets upon which this country was founded, and which they swore to uphold. Let us not forget the many lives that were lost to secure those rights in the first place. More frightening still: if we lose them, what’s next and what will it take for us to secure them once again? Onward and forward.