While I do not feel that the enemy is “infiltrating” our military, the possibility is there.  The fact that this man was able to rise to the rank of Major shows that we are perhaps not doing as much screening as we should and in the right places.  Those of us who have held a security clearance know that the screening process for thes clearances is fairly thorough, but not until you get up to the higher clearance levels.  There is no indication that Nidal Hassan ever had any type of clearance and as a psychiatrist I would not necessarily expect him to.  So what processes are in place to ensure that a muslim-american with these types of religous beliefs does not slip through the cracks again?  And should our men and women in uniform trust those muslim-americans they currently serve with?

This could have been much worse.  Had Nidal Hassan been something other than a psyciatrist, he could have caused far more damage than he did.  Of course, he would have gone through more screening to get access to that kind of firepower so maybe the system would have prevented him.  We will never know.  But can we even screem out people based on religous beliefs?  I believe under current law, we cannot.  I think we need to take a harder look at just how much “political correctness” is going to end up costing us in the future.

Rich

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Reporters Calvin Woodward and Tom Murphy did a little fact-checking (thats gotta tick the administration off) and found that health insurance profits on average were far below other large companies (Tupperware, Coors, railroads, its a long list…).  For example, communication network companies ran profits of around 20% compared to a little over 2% for the health insurance companies.  Maybe the Democrats have a different dictionary than the rest of us, but I would hardly call 2% of ANYTHING obscene!  And these people have the nerve to attack FOX news for distorting reality?  Really?

The more I write about this one, the more ticked off I get.  What is it going to take to make the bleeding heart wanna be do gooders realize that this is not about health care, its about power!  The party that currently has control will do everything they can to gain as much power and grow government as much as possible while they control all three branches.  As much as I dislike their ideology, I can not say they are stupid.  They have an agenda, and they are following it.  Its time for all the sheep to wake up and realize that the shepherd only takes care of them because they serve a more profitable purpose down the line.

Full text of Wooward and Murphy’s story here: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091025/D9BI4D6O1.html

Rich

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Chris and I have both mentioned various statistics in our discussions on gun control, both on this blog in other conversations amongst ourselves and other colleagues.  We have all pretty much concluded that the statistics are relatively meaningless (at least right now).  Depending on what statistics are used and how they are intrepreted, a wide variance of conclusions can be drawn.  These conclusions are invariably affected by the biases of the persons doing the interpreting.  The end result is that one really cannot prove or disprove the effectivenes of an armed population as a deterrent to crime.  I would however argue that common sense tells us that an armed and trained individual is less likely to become a victim of violent crime than the converse.  Again, this is a matter of opinion and won’t solve the issue.  For these reasons, I have decided to focus my discussions on the roots and history of firearm ownership in this country vice the current debate.

The majority of the people in the anti-gun crowd really do not grasp the basic issue at hand and continually make statements such as ”Why do you need to have a gun?”  or “The reasons the Second Ammendment was inserted just are not relevant anymore”.   In response, I have a question for all of those people who feel the need to disarm the law abiding citizens of this country – “Why do you feel the need to take our guns away?”  Yes, I know, nobody wants to take the guns away right?  Wrong.

      “Senator, If I could have banned them all- ‘Mr. and Mrs. America turn in your guns’ -I would have!”  Diane Fienstein 1995

In that statement, Senator Fienstein vocalizes the emotion that many of our elected leaders share – Fear, irrational fear.  I simply cannot believe the excuse that their desire to take away the right to bear arms is driven by a desire to lower crime.  Absolutley nothing backs that up.  We already have a plethora of laws and agencies designed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and those who have shown that they cannot be trusted.  I must then conclude that this actually a fear of  the citizens having the means to revolt against the tyranny that they would like to impose.  That sounds a bit harsh.  I do not believe that anyone currently in any meaningful position of power intends to impose an outright tyrannical system in this country.  I cannot say that for those who will come in later generations though.  History has shown us that once we surrender a liberty to the government, we lose it forever. 

       “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”       Thomas Jefferson

Here is where the “Thats just not relevant anymore” argument always comes up.  Those who use this quote (or any of the dozens of other Founding Father quotes that say the same thing) are labeled as fear mongers and anarchists.  As I said before, I don’t think the current sate of our government will result in tyranny, but what of 50 years from now?  100 years?  Does it really matter how long it will take?  I believe we owe it to our children and grand-children to preserve for them the ability to prevent just such a thing from happening.

 I know that I said earlier we could not trust statistics, and I still stick to that statement for the most part.  I do want to leave you with this interesting tidbit though:  In New York City, Mayor Bloombergs push to rid the streets of illegal guns was widley hailed in liberal circles as a success.  In fact, the number of guns recovered from crime scenes did drop by 13% and the number of people shot to death dropped from 347 in 2007 to 292 in 2008.  The only problem with this whole line of thought is that from 2007 to 2008, the OVERALL murder rate in NYC increased due to an increase in knife related homicide.  Sounds like a murder problem and not a gun problem to me.

Rich

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So I haven’t really had the time or the energy to rant about anything lately but I will soon.  I have a few topics rolling around on the waves of my brain and I will try to get them here over the next few days.  I am still playing around with WordPress so the look and content will be changing frequently over the next few days.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!  You will notice several test posts which I will eventually get around to deleting.  If I change or remove something and you think I should have left it, please let me know!  Keep checking back!

Rich

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