I have been pouring over Facebook recently and two items of interest came up.
One was a poll, posted by a Pro Israeli Facebook group, where it stated that 32% of Palestinians supported the Itamar massacre of the Fogel family. (In case you missed the story) The other was a Facebook question where the question was posed what would be the next big Industry? Jew Burning was one of the options. Two people, last I checked, voted for that option.
Now the numbers aren’t important…really they aren’t.
But what is important is there are people, no matter how small the minority in the overall population, who would do these heinous acts. Or others…like stabbing pregnant women in their bellies. Or hanging Clarence Thomas, or any number of atrocities both on the individual, and on entire groups, or advocate that this should happen.
What do we do about it? Where do we stand? How do we react?
In this conflict and in conflicts passed, like the conflict with the Native Americans, you hear it all the time. Well what would you do? What would you do if someone was invading your home land and occupying your land and forcing you to do things for them? To live with them? To get out of their way? To submit to random searches? Wouldn’t you fight? At least this is the logic used.
And yes I would, I would fight, I am not at the end of the day, a pacifist. I suppose my philosophy here is the Jedi philosophy.
I hate war, I think when you have gone to war and draw weaponry and violence you lost something in the end. But at the end of the day I will fight if pushed to it. In my own, probably non violent, way.
But the logic here is supposed to shame people into supporting the Palestinian cause, or feel guilty about what we did retroactively to the Native Americans…and we should but we should not be tricked into it.
Yes I would, if I felt it the right thing to do, in my own way, fight those individual forces that I deem to be a threat.
In the Israeli situation, IF I was a Palestinian, and IF I felt that I was being wronged, I would fight the soldiers, or the policemen or the people who are directly oppressing me.
I would not advocate wiping out the Israeli Government, all the Jews, or the state of Israel, I would not want to kill them all. IF these circumstances were to result.
I mean could you just imagine that, if during the American Revolution, had a revolutionary group of militia gone in and massacred an entire, completely innocent, had nothing to do with the Brits, family with children, what would be the reaction to this? What would be your, oh member of the audience, reaction to this situation?
Or what if a Native American tribe moved to wipe out and burn down an entire town half way across the country?
What is morally acceptable?
Any of the situations that I laid out in this blog I do not think are. In fact I can guarantee you that killing innocent non combatants is not morally acceptable.
We must continue to make the moral choices in our own lives. And in our own times. We must continue to stand for good, and against evil.
And if it is ABSOLUTLY NECCESSARY that we fight. Then we fight. If our lives and our very way of life is threatened.
Understanding that this is not a good choice, this may not be the right choice, and we should exhaust every single option before we go down this dark path.
We must stand with the good people of the world, and against the mass murder of the innocent.
Time for me to weigh in on this issue. Two things happened to me over this last week that led to this blog.
One was I listened to an interview on the Sean Hannity show between him and three other women about Islam and Sharia law. It was a forum, two against, and one more or less for. In relation to the Imam and his opinions and the Mosque.
The second thing was this video on the Libertarian Facebook page:
Now I want to cover the video first because it was interesting…especially since I just found out the identity of the person who made that video.
Now first off I disagree with many of his assertions and think he did an unfair portrayal of the debate.
In fact I believe he committed the same crime that he accused the ‘Conservative Leaders’ of doing.
Bigotry.
He assumed that the only reason that anyone can be against this Mosque was because those persons are bigots, that they hate Muslims and anyone with brown skin. Even daring to suggest and compare this as being akin to a brown free zone and suggesting that is what the big beef is.
Sure there might be a few people who believe that rushing to condemn this Mosque, but how can he assume this of the entire group and anyone who is against this Mosque?
How can he even go into the hearts and minds of the leader and draw the conclusion that they want a white only zone, when they have not made the assertion themselves. Please show me if I am wrong.
That is bigotry, the same exact thing that he accuses them of doing.
And it is disgusting.
Apparently no one can have legitimate concerns about this Mosque, this cultural center, this whatever.
No one can raise concerns over the rhetoric of the Imam, of the Muslims who are building this, of the funding, of whatever, regardless of their opinion on whether it should be built or not or whether or not they have the right to their property.
But this is especially shocking when Sarah Palin, Newt, and a lot of the ‘leaders’ here are taking the Libertarian way of doing things. Especially in the case of Glenn Beck.
Well mostly. I mean some of the protesters here want the Government to take action and stop this, declare imminent domain, make up a new law prohibiting it, or declare a store a historic site.
But the person making this video is quick to point out that there are many Mosques in New York, in the general area, and there is a Pussy Cat Lounge or whatever also in the vicinity. Why are they even any better to put in an area then a Mosque? He declares.
People are looking at this wrong.
Again shocking because I thought these were Libertarians I was dealing with and not Collectivists.
They (the ‘leaders’ in question) are dealing with this as the individual.
They are dealing with this Imam, with this, Mosque, with this funding base, and with this group of followers.
As an individual. Protesting and trying to apply their own pressure and declaring that they will not help in the building of this Mosque.
No one asks why they are doing it, all they ask, because I guess they assume that they are bigots, is that why are they not protesting the other 100? Now why is that?
Could it be they have concerns about that specific Mosque? About the rhetoric and the funding and all that?
They could be wrong, they could be wrong in their methods (getting the Government to enforce their will), they could be wrong in their opinions about this guy, he could be an angel.
But it is their right and they are dealing with this properly.
Individuals coming together in a group and protesting something that they consider to be a threat.
And also wondering why a Greek Orthodox Church will not be built in the area and why the Government of NY is steam rolling them but so hell bent on extending the rights to these Muslims.
Which brings up that it seems in cases like this that Libertarians are so hell bent on rushing into a situation to ‘save’ people from the evil Conservatives and the evil religious bigots, and rushing into a situation without thinking about that they could be bigots themselves. Such a rush to judgment without thinking or looking at the actual facts of the case or the reasons, just assuming anyone other then them are state-ist, fascist, bigots.
And while they are doing what we should be doing, what any of them should be doing.
You see we have a right to ask questions and form opinions. It is the right and the responsibility of any responsible Journalist, opinion maker, or truth seeker to ask the questions.
Because in the Sean Hannity interview I think he missed the point.
You see he was asking the women about Sharia law, their opinions on what it was.
And over the week two different versions of the Imam have come out.
Either he is a man who believes America is evil and is trying to slap us in the face and make us Sharia Compliant with this Mosque and preach radical views of Islam.
Or he is an agent of our Government, speaking at the FBI about Islam to try to be a force for good, and an agent of our Government going abroad to preach tolerance and bridge building.
Either Sharia law is a radical sect of Islam that preaches the molestation, the rape, and the stoning of women and children who step out of line.
Or it is the Islamic version of Christian Law, the faith, the peace, the tolerance, the building of bridges.
You see Hanity missed the boat. Big time.
You see instead of worrying about the opinion of the three women, instead of worrying about a general consensus of what Islam believes Sharia law to be, we should be worrying about the opinions of the Imam. Ask him the questions, and then form the opinions from those answers.
Are you good? Are you evil? Are you an agent of darkness or an agent of bridge building?
Are you trying to build this Mosque as a symbol to preach faith, to build bridges, or are you doing it as a slap in the face of the American people?
Never mind your opinion about the Jews, or about the United States or their role in ‘creating’ terrorism, never mind any of this, will you join us in condemning Hamas, and any other terrorist network? Will you stand with us in condemning evil or are you going to stand by and be silent? Or worse are you complicate?
We deserve answers to these opinions and these questions, and if you waffle we just might take your silence…well whatever way we want.
We need to find this out, whether they have the right to that piece of property or not. Whether they have a right to build that Mosque is in the end irrelevant.
Because we can still form an opinion and know what we are up against.
And on a sort of btw unrelated note, but not really, I was given a link to an article by a friend of mine called ‘Foxworthy Authoritarians’
Now I disagreed with most of the opinions and the points, good article but one thing gave me a great chuckle.
In his article he made asked the question:
If your world view allows you to make endless exceptions for Israel’s national police to bash heads, erect walls, and turn the Gaza Strip into a concentration camp, you might be an authoritarian.
Now you would think that since the Israelis have been the most conspicuous victims of ‘Concentration Camps’ you think they would know how to build them better.
Because its funny I did not know that the Germans could not control the area or let weapons and missiles through.
It’s funny that I did not also realize know that the Jews could have launched rockets out of their concentration camps and kill thousands of German Civilians.
Or that they pledged to wipe Germany off the map.
Its funny, I know. (not really, tragic comes to mind)
A while back I read a comment in the Libertarian Facebook group where a person basically said ‘I call myself a Libertarian because I would rather, and it is easier, to be for Liberty then to call myself an Anarchist which is against Government.’
Now this did not get me thinking at the time but in thinking about this blog, I realized that it is all apart of a point.
A little later a quote had suddenly shot into my head, it was for one of my Novel projects, but it was about two types of people.
Now for a pseudo sort-of good guy but maybe not a nice dude with a really dark background, the quote in question makes sense. But for the purpose of a blog trying to make a point, oh well I do not want to get into trouble now do I? *shivers*
But I still realized, with the basic point raised in the initial statement in the blog, that you can still make the blog work. Just take out any generalizations and just roll with it.
It is better to fight for something, then to fight against it.
And oh have I realized how I have been trying to live my life this way.
You see fighting against something is a path to hate and anger. You are fighting against the forces of X or the group of Y.
You are fighting against a specific thing and that unites you.
But its sort of meaningless.
Like the Whig Party of old. They were against Andrew Jackson.
Sure they may have had their platforms, their ideals, and their principles. But the one unifying feature of the party was a want to fight against Jackson, that was the only thing holding them together. And oh I probably would have been one.
But no wonder the party did not last long. This is just a microcosim of the point actually. In this case once the enemy vanished, they quickly dissolved.
Which of course leads us to today, and to me.
I am not the enemy of anyone. Heck I do not want to hate, I do not want to exclude someone from my circle because they are of one ideology or another, I do not want to be against anyone and fight against them, I want to be friends with all and judge you based on your own personal character.
Heck I have even had an…uh…crushes on liberals. Well probably more than one.
It does not matter to me.
People make a big deal about a defensive war, about just waiting around and waiting for your enemy to act. And in life and death wars that can be a point, sometimes to prevent being nuked you want to strike first. (oh I wish I could blog about that.)
But the point is for liberty, and standing on principle that is exactly what you must do.
Because you often do not have to act to defend your Government, your principles, and your freedoms until after they try and take them.
After all I would not be ‘woken up’ if they did not try to take our rights, if the last two administrations were not messing with us so much, if we did not need to get the Government off of our backs in so many cases, then this blog probably would not exist and I could watch me some Doctor Who and worry about my date. (I find as I edit this that is exactly what I am doing.)
I would not want to, have the desire to be, a radio host, or be a political writer or write novels with such political and social points about our times in Galaxies far far away.
At the best I would be a Conservative and at the worse I would have been a progressive to get along. I would most certainly not be a Libertarian.
And I would not care so much, or be so concerned about others and my liberal…uh…crushes.
If they did not come after us. After all I hold sacred and dear.
Even the founders said it, Thomas Jefferson himself said this about the second amendment.
“The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”
It is better to know where you stand, to know what you stand for.
What principles and morals, what documents and foundations, your sense of honor and sticking to your guns in the best of your ability. To know where you stand, for your God, your Government, your Liberties.
To know where the line is so that they must never cross it.
Because fighting for something, whether it is a woman, a country, or an ideology is a statement of love. Because that is so sacred for it that you are willing to live, to die for, that you are willing to sacrifice your life, your time, your wealth, your what ever in its defense.
And if you are fighting against something that is a statement of hate about it. Whether it is a woman, a country, or a political ideology. That you hate it enough where you want to tear it down, transform it, control it, and then enforce your will on others.
I mean we see it all the time even in our movies and throughout human history.
You have people fighting against the dirty huns, the ragheads, but is it not better that you are fighting for something?
For freedom, to set other people’s lives free and give them a better life.
I do think restoring this principle is one of the most important of them.
After all in the quote above we are the defendersof our own freedom when Governments and people get out of control.
We are not the attackers, we are not the enforcers we are the people who needs to say, ‘hold on, time out, what? What do you want to do to me?’.
And it is one of the fundamental ways when you can tell if someone is a friend of liberty and principle and morality, and if someone is hateful and mistrustful of groups and people.
That is one of the most fundamental ways to tell the good, from the bad.
Over the last few weeks I have been doing a lot of….well too much…want to go back to the friendly confines of Gateworld…debating on Facebook.
Over the course of these debates I have observed a curious phenomenon. Liberals, Progressives, Left Wingers, and Big Government types all saying that they have been being confronted by Conservatives and Righties who have had the audacity, the spine, and the immorality to suggest that they leave the country if they do not like it. And then I have saw Conservatives suggest it.
First of all, before I continue I want to say I do not think that is the best approach to go, and not how I want to handle things. I think this Country truly can embrace and have all types in it, living and working together for a better tomorrow. Except for those that want to take over the Government, collapse the country, and hate the opposition.
But the various positions got me thinking.
This is a position that gives one freedom, and thus is not too unreasonable too me, beyond the norm. While I do not like it, it is a reasonable position to take.
That you have the right to say, if I do not like what is going on in this country I can leave. That if you do not like it you have the option to go elsewhere with a Government more in line with what you want and a society who has morals you support.
That as Ronald Regan said, you can vote with your feet. And that is one of the many, and principal ways of protest and to show your disdain.
But apparently that is not good enough for a lot of people.
But meanwhile you have people, some of them the same person so up in arms when you suggest them exercise their rights to freedom of movement, who tell people that they should shut up about Obama: That they are too dumb, stupid, hateful, racist, etc. and hypocritical for not coming out against similar policies during the Bush years.
So on the one hand you have that Freedom of Movement is unacceptable and evil when someone dares to suggest it, but on the other hand you have name calling at the least and at the worst muzzling of free speech just because it took you awhile to see that our Government has been going out of control.
While this is an interesting phenomenon I am hardly surprised. And it seems to me that in this specific case it is the only way that the Lefties in question can point to and say, ‘see the righties are evil, they are trying to Muzzle us!’ when in the end it is nothing of the kind, and is in fact, one way to look at it, encouragement for freedom.
But in the end it is a distraction. A curious and interesting distraction that bares thinking about, and when I did thought the answer interesting enough to blog about.
Lately I have been on Facebook engaging in political conversations. One of the people I have been posting with and debating, not liking much at all really but debating, posted an article about the rise of Neo Nazism on the border and the rise of a group that is a ‘Super Minuteman’.
A group that has wanted to work with the police to help patrol the border, has apparently fired on smugglers, and has no ties to Neo Nazi groups, nor are self identified as being as such, the article just tells us so.
Now they may be racist, they may be a lot of the article claims them to be, I do not know them and this was the first that I have heard of them. That is not the point.
The point is that you cannot paint everyone on the right as Nazi’s or Neo Nazi’s, that is bad.
Nor is it good to paint all of your opposition as racist and then link that to Nazism.
Racism was only one part, though tragic, of the Nazi and other similar big Government regimes.
Specifically institutionalized racism as supported by the Government and carried out by Governmental decree. That is what is at the heart of Nazi racism.
This is not to limit the threat of the Modern Nazi’s, they are out there and some of them might even be in this country.
But wanting a stronger border, wanting to help, and wanting to defend yourself from an invader is not inherently an out of control Government, nor racism. Illegals are not a race they are a legal status.
If they are out there I will stand with you and I have made my opinions, the good and the bad, of this law extremely clear in the past.
But we need to come together and let common sense prevail on this issue.
Last year around this time I saw the first clips, on YouTube, of the HBO special John Adams. One of the clips was of the reading of the Declaration of Independence to a group of people outside a square in Philadelphia.
I teared up. Sad scene given what is going on.
Fast forward one year and on the Tea Party Patriots Facebook group…must be a Facebook time of the year…going through a faze…I will stop I promise….but on the Tea Party Patriots page the suggestion was made by the admin that maybe we should hold off celebration since our liberty is so under attack.
I responded…well that is stupid.
The Fourth of July is the perfect time to celebrate, celebrate the birth of the greatest country that has ever been on the planet, and to reflect on the ideals and the principles of our birth.
To remember our history as a people and where we came from, to figure out where we are going.
History is hard, it is not easy, there is so much information out there, almost as much as in politics with all of our silly labels. And all the different political theories.
But it is never more important, the History of who we are, of where we have come from. History is the most important subject in the world.
So celebrate, remember, reflect, and honor the sacrifice of our founders and what they gave us.
And then promise to be better in the service and the defense of our liberty then we were in the past.
Last Week,well maybe a little longer. I came across two points of interest on Facebook.
First was a Facebook post. Now I do not know if she was doing this, advocated doing this, or was just reporting something she had heard but basically she wanted to tell a specific guy that she was pregnant so she could get abortion money, and then to use it for something totally unrelated.
She was going to lie, maybe, and game the system and do something that is quite probably illegal. Not to mention immoral.
Have we come so far?
And then on another Facebook page I saw a video, a comedy video, from I think the Jon Stewart show. But they were likening, and parodying, ‘open carry’ people. Now they were likening it to the oppression felt by gay people, and that they were oppressed by others who would feel the behavior to be odd.
Now it was funny but I paused to think in the middle of it. Now towards the end the guy who was doing the parody went into a coffee shop, one or two guns holstered, what I hope was an AR-15, slung over his back. The people looked at him oddly and he yelled at them, something about him having the right to carry weapons and he was still a person too.
Now this was just a comedy sketch on a comedy show but it still got me thinking because there is an element of truth to this.
We live in the United States of America. A Country born on the philosophy of being able to defend yourself from invasion, attack, or an over reaching government. A Nation with that enshrined in its founding documents that we have the right to ‘bear arms.’ That right is now under attack.
The fact of the matter is that if we have the right to do so, then it should hardly be a surprise when people go out into public armed.
Now you can be nervous about it, I sure am…or was when I saw a cop with a firearm, at the same time I found it really neat. But, that does not change the fact that we have the right, and the responsibility to bear our arms and defend ourselves.
In so much that a Gun Rally in Washington DC was carried out. People with weapons, some of them loaded, gathered around Washington and Virginia. No shots were fired and they even wore yellow stickers to proclaim that their guns were safe, and had legal ammunition compliant with the law. And this is according to the LA Times.
A gun rally, no shots fired.
I will state this, again, Guns being showed out in the open is not a real danger to anyone like the President or anyone else, it is those who try to hide their weapons or sneak around with them concealed are the ones that we should be worried about. At least more so then the ones in the open.
If this is odd behavior then there is something wrong, and it is not with the people doing it, they are exercising their rights and as far as I know own their weapons.
But this can go out to many areas of our rights, everything from our right to a fair trial, to our right to speech, to almost anything.
Cass Sunstein has advocated that we ban ‘conspiracy theories’. What is a conspiracy theory? Anything that the Government defines as one?
Conspiracies are speech aren’t they?
And meanwhile we are called racist, violent, homophobic, haters of minorities and children, that we do not want the disabled to have their rights, this that and the other thing. All for speaking out against a Government that we believe to be out of control.
We are attacked by our Government, said we should thank them, and have boycotts led against people that they perceive as our public figure-head.
Where will this end? All this has happened before.
Woodrow Wilson threw people in jail for speaking out against his government, the Japanese were interned in Camps during World War 2, McCarthy led a crusade against supposed enemies of the state, and MLK was called crazy for speaking out and his actions caused some in the press to wonder if we were heading for violence.
We all know because of history that did not happen, now MLK is called a hero of peace, and rightfully so.
But the fact remains if we do not use our rights, if we do not constantly excercise them when we think there is something wrong…or just because we can. Then we will lose them.
Rights are like this nation’s muscles. Without them we would be nothing and without them being constantly strengthened and improved they will disappear.
And then the people who have let their rights atrophy will be like, oh my gosh where did this happen. And then they will engage in acts of violence.
Remember, we are not racists, we are not violent, but we are no longer silent.
We are exercising our rights and giving it all for our freedoms.
On a wide variety of issues.
We must continue to use these rights lest the government decree they are not needed anymore.
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