Ward Churchill

Pirate Ballerina has reported on Ward Churchill making new ridiculous and outrageous remarks. This time around he has exceeded his former glory by having sympathy if not good feelings toward a person who opposes the war but rather engages in mutinous murder by rolling a hand grenade under their line officer.

While I don't think he is typical among liberals, I notice that few if any liberals are denouncing him as a cancer on society. His words are evil, and his only intent appears to be to stir violence and hatred between the varied segments of society. This behavior is typical among liberals.

Liberals regularly identify not with the similarities they see in their fellow man, but in the differences. Ward Churchill seems to think that people who disagree with him are evil. Some may point out that I call Churchill's words evil, but I am not making blanket statements about faceless masses; I am speaking of a specific man who says specific things. I equate him with the people support the murder of abortion doctors; they both support evil in the name of what they believe to be good.

Calling this cretin evil will turn maybe a head or two, but people will go on, content with their lives. In our sick and jaded society, it takes more than suggestions to commit murder to get people out of their chairs...and if someday, Churchill is found at the center of a Helter Skelter situation, he'll be changed into some psycho that never received any support from the left, despite the fact that he remained employed and was frequently hired for speaking engagements by people on the left.

Bartleby

Modern "Man"

In modern society, with our obsession toward equal rights, a group that has in recent years been viewed as the 'oppressor' has in fact been significantly marginalized. That group is of course, men.

At what point did it become a woman's job to define masculinity? A man who tried to define what is and is not feminine would be drawn and quartered! Why are women who commit this offense not subjected to the same scrutiny and rage as men who do the same thing?

Wages...if one wishes to compare salaries for women as a whole versus salaries for men as a whole, you'll see differences based on what jobs women choose. A significant percentage of women choose jobs in fields that simply tend to pay less. Additionally, many of the high paying jobs in the world are sales jobs, and while this may result from socialization, the woman to man ratio in sales organizations tends to be low. Furthermore, women who make the same sacrifices as men generally make about the same amount of money as men. Rather than a difference of twenty-five cents on the dollar, it's closer to four cents on the dollar, and though it's terrible that there is any difference, it's significantly less when the same sacrifice is made. Isn't that what a wage is? I exercise my skill and sacrifice my time and freedom and in return am given money, right? What successful men sacrifice is simple: they sacrifice weekends with their family, spend many late nights at work, work while ill, work through vacations, take crappy jobs that involve distasteful, dangerous, or difficult physical labor, and otherwise sacrifice anything for the almighty buck. When women are confronted with this option for 'equality', they grow angry and want to have the same money without the same sacrifices.

That brings us to the truth of what the feminists call 'equality.'

A goodly number of women and self professed feminists do not want equality. They want preference. They want men to hold the door for women, to give them ladies first access, and want the same jobs, at the same pay, with less sacrifice for it. They want to be rude to men, but want courtesy in return. They want to be allowed to slap or hit men when frustrated with them, but a similarly violent response to her slap is reprehensible, because it's against a female. Somehow violence against men isn't as bad as violence against women.

Do you notice a bit of a self-serving dichotomy? I do.

I believe in equality, but there is no room for this kind of manure in the realm of equality. Equality means that there is equal opportunity for equal effort. It means that there is equal treatment in response to equal criteria.

Bartleby

The Second Amendment

There is a tendency among Democrats and liberals to try and do intellectual gymnastics to make the Second Amendment into something it isn't. They try and make it into some sort of 'collective' right. They try and make it into something that is reserved for the states. They try and make it into the National Guard. In rare cases, they try and make it that it somehow reflects the Army.

Rarely do they address the provable fact that this is in fact an individual right that belongs to every American and that it gives them the right not just to sporting or hunting arms, but to military grade and militarily usable firearms. I am speaking specifically of firearms that are designed with the specific intent of killing human beings.

The last time the Supreme Court weighed in on the Second Amendment, they ruled that a sawed off shotgun could be banned because it had no conceivable military value (this was pre-Vietnam - a sawed off shotgun has immense military value in a jungle). Note that they did not rule that it could be banned because it didn't have sporting value - quite the opposite; it was military value that was the determining factor as to whether or not the item could be banned, and if it had military value, it couldn't be.

Let's explore this a bit more.

In the United States of America, there is no such thing as a collective right. Our country's name is not abbreviated with CCCP...we are not a collectivist unit. We are a country of individuals, and our Constitution grants specific and individual rights to individual people. The Second Amendment is no more a collective right than is the Fourth Amendment or the First Amendment. That is to say, not at all. Each person individually holds each right ennumerated by our Constitution.

The states don't have rights. The feds don't have rights. They have powers and they have responsibilities. Within the scope of the Constitution, only people have rights. This is consistent throughout the entire document and requires no intellectual contortions to see. Examine the document and you will find a regular and applied use of the word 'rights' with respect to people only.

The Second Amendment does not apply to the National Guard, Army, or any other governmental agency except as a preventative device to stop interference from said agencies. As stated above, no branch of the government has rights within the Constitution. Only the people do. When they choose to relinquish that right through Constitutional means, it is even then only a power or responsibility of the government...never a right.

So...if you hate the Second Amendment, don't try and make it into something it isn't. Be a man...be an adult...and say you want to change it.

Bartleby

Government Property

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the only ownership American Citizens have over private property is at the sufferance of the government, and should the government decide they have a better use for it, it can be taken away with the only recompense being payment at what they consider to be current market value.

Of course, this has always been true...taxation shows their arrogance and destructive position against private property, but it's never been so directly stated. There are other problems with this though...

What if this property is in the path of development? The value could be much higher in a few short months or years, and yet there is no recompense for that. What if the property has sentimental value? There is no recompense for that either.

Instead, the government has determined for itself that it has the right to determine that you should not own something any longer because they can make that same thing more valuable. What if this were determined to apply to other property? Maybe the government gemcutters could make cuts to enhance the quality of your diamond. Maybe they could more efficiently pump the oil off your property...so they pay you for the value of it with your current pumping capacity, despite the fact that you were in negotiations to add better pumps with deeper capacities.

At what point do we cease to be slaves and become self ruling citizens? According to the current Supreme Court, that'll only happen if we step up and make it happen. Ladies and Gentlemen, I suggest that any and all people who read this stand up and raise Cain with your representatives over this ruling and make absolutely sure that this is changed. If it requires a Constitutional amendment, so be it.

Bartleby