Category: Conservative

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Why do we never learn?

I caught an article this morning reporting that the CIA is funneling arms to the Syrian rebels.

Have we learned nothing?

We did the same thing In Afghanistan. Yes, the Russian military got beaten back… in the process we created an enemy that 12 years later we began fighting. 

Frightening isn’t it? Only 12 years after the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan we were there again, this time as combatants. We’ve been there for a decade. 

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So here we are AGAIN! 

We, along with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, are assisting in arming and I’m assuming providing tactical training to the Syrian Rebels…

To what end? 

We claim humanitarian reasons, the fact is many of the Middle Eastern cultures have a vastly different ideas about what humanitarian means.

When are we going to learn that interfering in the internal political affairs of other countries is not in our best interest?

Part of our involvement stems, I’m sure from UN directives.

I’ve noticed that when it comes to UN peace keeping missions it’s the American Military and by extension the American Taxpayer who’s footing the bill.

Yet the very countries where the UN has placed our military in harms way often hate us with a bloodlust that borders on insanity.

I find myself asking again and again, whats in it for us?

Food, oil, gold, silver, aluminum, coal, any raw materials? Uhhh NO!

But there’s a mountain of debt that gets racked up with each little peacekeeping action.

Personally I resent having to pay for the clean up of some despots mess. I might feel differently if I paid $1 a gallon for gas and our military budget was completely covered.

I’ve long thought that our military should be a palms up mercenary force. If the UN wants us to bring peace to an area… Then they or the afflicted country should foot the bill, not the American people.

In the case of Syria… If the Syrian government could pay for our services then I say we send our military in to stop the rebellion. If the Rebels and their supporters can outbid the Syrian government then our military fights on the side of the rebels.

We’d make no judgement about the conflict. We’d take the money do our job and we leave. The smoking ruins and collateral damage would not be our concern. 

If the equation was as simple as the services of the US Military goes to the highest cash bidder, I wonder how many conflicts would end at the diplomatic table before they ever started?

The world wants us to be their Police… Fine. Even cops get paid.

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I’m more than a little uncomfortable with this

This article is disturbing to me on a number of levels.

UAVs

The US government is beginning to use UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) to conduct surveillance over the United States. 

First and foremost, I’m mindful that ALL Governments abuse their power. I have no reason to believe that our government is any different.

In the aftermath of 911 our government enacted The Patriot Act. I, like most Americans at the time thought, “Sure, a temporary abridgment of our rights is worth it to provide for the security of our nation.

At the time I thought that the US government would simply contact everyone that was here on expired visas and give them a deadline to leave. I expected that we’d also severely restrict travel from any countries that were known to harbor extremists. Further I thought that all student visas would be cancelled and foreign students would be asked to return to their home countries while we assessed the threat, and came up with a plan to secure our borders.

All of these logical preventative measures while inconvenient to those affected would have allowed the country some breathing room. Yes it sounds xenophobic… However at the time it was pretty damn obvious that the enemy in an as yet undeclared war was already within our borders.

As we now know… none of these logical steps were taken.

In the period after 9/11 to this day our borders are not secured. There are people from every country in the world who have remained here after their visas ran out, and still others who are here after crossing the border like thieves in the night. Some of these people contribute to the economy and some do not…

The one common element is that all of these people are here and remain so illegally.

Obviously The Patriot Act wasn’t what we thought it was, and it’s purpose was not to help protect the country from external threats.

What I and millions of other Americans forgot is;  once rights are taken away by the State, they are never returned. This truism was brought home by none other than President Obama when he signed the extension of The Patriot Act.

Hope and Change? MY ASS!

Obviously, the government wants to maintain the “Special Powers” so that they can continue the inexorable march toward a police state.

Using Drones over American Soil is another step toward a state wherein the enemy of the United States (AKA Our Government) is in fact the people that are being governed.  

Aerial surveillance is a simple way to bypass the expense of having surveillance cameras mounted everywhere as is done in London. A side benefit is that the populace may not notice a UAV flying overhead sending live video data back to law enforcement. 

There are those that argue surveillance of the kind used in London deters crime.

I agree and disagree. Those people marginally tempted to commit an opportunistic crime will probably be deterred by cameras on every street corner.

A hardened criminal will be undeterred and will actively find methods to obfuscate their identities. The ever popular ski mask and hooded sweatshirt come to mind. 

So while you may not have as many purse snatchings, you’ll still have the really hard crimes.

I’m absolutely opposed to a UAV flying over my house taking pictures of my mundane life, and every other American should be too.This is a violation of privacy, and the potential for abuse is far too high.

Currently thanks to The Patriot Act and other more clandestine laws abridging our rights, our government has the right, desire, and ability to watch virtually every aspect of our lives.

Every communication via whatever media (Landline, Cellphone, Internet, radio) can be monitored without warrant or notification right now!

Don’t forget, your cell phone, and many new vehicles with OnStar type systems can also easily be tracked. My car for example, has the ability to report it’s exact location via GPS. Another thing few people consider is that most cars with all their modern electronics can be disabled remotely.

Sure, it’s called anti theft but the other side of that coin is that if, for some reason the government or law enforcement wanted to arrest you it’s a pretty simple matter to immobilize you in your fancy new car. Spike strips, high speed chases? Nahhh a single command transmitted via the cellular network and your engine simply turns off.

Our government using UAVs simply means that in addition to all the above… Any citizen can be followed, observed, their activities recorded, their acquaintances documented and whatever “evidence” is collected can be used against the citizen by an all powerful, all seeing government.

UAVs don’t have to be large. The same technology that allows you to upload a YouTube video from your cellphone, can be used to allow a small inexpensive UAV to spy on you.

George Orwell’s 1984 is happening right now.

So what are We The People going to do about it?

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Overreaction, Fear, & Technology could be a deadly mix.

And this is an interesting way to get rid of your enemies.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1663686679001/

According to this FoxNew piece; (I don’t watch Fox News but I wanted to know what “Swatting” is.) there are those people that are using the police to exact revenge on conservative bloggers. One wonders who these un-named people might be? 

It’s called SWATTING and that fits because of the over the top police response that has become so commonplace.

Your enemy calls 911 and claims that you’ve just killed someone. Usually this is done when you’re likely to be at home, possibly in bed.

The SWAT team kicks your door down and starts waving guns around. At the same time they’re using intensely bright flashlights to blind you.

So who’s going to be at fault when some conservative homeowner, someone who’s trained with a gun shoots a cop in the panic and confusion?

There are home invasion robberies all the time, just because someone is yelling that they’re the police doesn’t mean that they are. I guarantee that the first scream of pain or terror from your children in the next room and you’re going to assume that these people aren’t cops you’re going to assume they’re criminals out to do you and your family harm.

One the shooting starts it will be a blood bath. The cops will look like idiots and the homeowner will be carried out in a body bag.

Two choices here…

1) Find the people that are making these calls and toss them in Jail

2) Tone down the crazy hyperactive police responses.

Before the liberals point out that there’s a 3rd option

3) Make sure the homeowners can’t have guns

No… that’s not a viable option. It’s against the 2nd amendment so it’s not going to happen… shut the hell up!

 

 

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I was going Write something about Super Tuesday earlier

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Romney wins 60% of the states in the Super Tuesday election. Is there any doubt that he’s going to be nominated?

Unless something really bad happens between now and the nomination, Romney is going to be running against President Obama in the 2012 election.

By really bad… I mean Romney gets caught doing something just awful. Like he’d have to be caught in the act having kinky sex with an underage dude while his wife is tied naked to a chair with a dildo glued to her forehead. With Romney yelling “Make me your bitch honey”.

Even then… there would have to be video!

Since that scene is about as unlikely to happen as Mr. Romney walking across Lake Michigan, the primaries are fait accomplis. So why the hell are Santorum and Gingrich continuing to fight on?

They’re each interchangeable anyway.

Fundamentalist —- CHECK!

No Clear Foreign Policy —- CHECK!

No Clear Economic Plan —- CHECK!

Seemingly anti choice —- CHECK!

Out of Touch with the American People —- CHECK!

Like Obama, they’ve never made a choice between filling their gas tank and eating lunch for a week —- CHECK!

Santorum and Gingrich should step aside, spare the American people the static of the primaries and let us focus with laser like precision on just HOW the Republican candidate differs from the Democratic candidate.

Will that happen? HELL NO!

WHY?

Because the longer the static, noise, and churn continue the less likely the American people will start asking the important questions.

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I’m smoking hot. (Updated)

Smoking MfTD6 28802

Got Pissed off the other day (I know what else is new?)

In this case I was first annoyed, then irritated, then flat out pissed off and I really wasn’t sure why.

Part of it was that I was watching Television. (Almost always assured to make me mad)

Then it hit me… it’s the never-ending series of anti smoking commercials that play hourly in Los Angeles.

The first series of commercials were annoying…

They almost always showed a White person smoking. The first one showed a White man smoking in his apartment dressed in a wife beater reading the sports page. Then they follow the cigarette smoke through the vents in the building to another apartment where like an ominous demonic fog it surrounds a child of indeterminate (but clearly not white) ethnicity.

This commercial is an attempt to demonize cigarette smoking but it also does a wonderful job of re-enforcing the image of  a stereotypical White man. The subtext is that the White man is evil, he doesn’t care about who he hurts and he’s in cahoots with the demonic cigarette companies to kill all minorities.

This one annoyed me on a couple of levels.

A) The portrayal of the White man. If a similar stereotypical portrayal of a Black man, or Mexican man were to be shown on TV, there would be screams of racism from the ALCU, NAACP, LA RAZA, Jesse Jackson, Lou Sharpton, and god only knows who else. But for some reason White stereotypes are allowed. Just as gay stereotypes and gay people are still allowed to be denigrated on stage in comedy routines or in your local bar as a matter of common conversation. (You can’t have a person of Polish origin as the butt of a joke anymore but change Pollack to Fag and all the sudden it’s ok.)

B) Typically vents aren’t directly connected between apartments so it’s unrealistic to portray that smoke is going to move so easily between dwellings. You’d have the smoke cycled into a furnace or A/C unit so while I’m sure there would still be some particulates identifiable from the cigarette, I’m equally sure that you’d have far more pollutants from cars and busses driving by on the street outside the apartments. Those pollutants actually being sucked in by the A/C or Furnace air intakes.

The second commercial in the series shows a white woman, (although in later iterations of the commercial she is less white. It looks like her skin tone was changed digitally)  standing on her balcony smoking a cigarette. In this one we’re treated to the same demonic smoke effect. This time the smoke is  flowing down into the adjacent apartment where we see it pause over an ethnic baby in a crib. Once over the baby the smoke takes on a claw like menacing appearance. The tag line was something like “there are some people that can’t escape cigarette smoke”

This second commercial was as annoying as the first because anyone who smokes knows that smoke typically rises and dissipates.

Yeah… I used to smoke. I finally quit smoking in about 2000. It was tough, but the combination of beginning a workout routine and drinking water like a fiend really helped me make it permanent. I’d quit before for a couple of years but then I was in a bar, with a friend and one of his Benson & Hedges looked really good. That was when I found out the true meaning of “Slippery Slope“.

I still miss one aspect of smoking…

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It’s that post fuck cigarette. I miss laying in the dark an ashtray perched on my sweaty chest and the rush of the first drag from a cigarette. I miss the glow of the end of the cigarette and knowing that my partner & I are going to fuck some more and I’m going to get off a couple more times before we crash for the night.

But I don’t miss it enough to start smoking again,  while I can write about it fondly I like breathing easily better.

The most recent set of commercials from LAQuits (Los Angeles Department of Health) are the commercials that really got me fired up and took me from annoyed… to PISSED off.

These commercials show people with emphysema. They’re on oxygen and they’re wheezing and clearly in a great deal of distress. I don’t know if these are real people or actors and I don’t care.

I find these commercials offensive in so many ways I can’t see straight. If I had to pick the top reason for my annoyance it’s this…

Lucky strike usa

I visited my Father in the hospital when he was very much like the people being portrayed. I loved my Father, but I don’t appreciate watching TV and being taken back 20 years to my Fathers death, every 16 minutes.

I watch local TV for the News, and some entertainment (4 shows)… The rest of the time I’m watching DVDs or Netflix. So it’s surprising that a commercial like this would rise above my annoyance threshold.

The other night it seemed like every other commercial was of these people suffering for their next breath. All I could see was my Dad, lying in that hospital bed and knowing that he was going to  die soon.

Oh I’m not asking for pity. Nor would my Father. He smoked and he drank, and most importantly… My Father accepted responsibility for his own actions and the consequences of those actions. My father smoked pretty much every day of his adult life, and possibly well before he became an adult. He smoked Lucky Strikes, to this day I can’t see a package of Luckies without thinking of my Dad.

Yeah, I agree Smoking is bad. I say that as an ex-smoker myself, But… and this is a very important but. I believe that each and every one of us should be allowed to choose to smoke or not to. Moreover all of us must accept responsibility for our choices.

I think putting offensive ads like this on TV doesn’t put people off smoking… I think these shock tactic ads serve no purpose other than to offend some of us, and add to the desensitization of the rest of the population.
If, as it’s been postulated seeing violence on TV makes us more violent then doesn’t it follow seeing suffering on TV makes us less compassionate?

For those of you outside the Los Angeles area…

The small cities that make up LA have become little gestapo headquarters.  You can’t smoke in a bar, on the beach, within 1000 feet of a public entrance or exit to a building. There have been moves to prohibit smoking in apartments, and even within the confines of YOUR OWN HOME in certain cities.

Is this freedom? NO… This is a socialist state.

This is a small group of people deciding “For the greater good… we appoint ourselves messiah and will enact laws to protect you poor ignorant savages from yourselves.”

This kind of thinking is offensive for a whole bunch of reasons. The biggest deals with my belief in minor things like the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights. I know these are foreign and archaic concepts to a lot of people, but they’re important to me.

I went to the LAQuits website. I was going to post a simple little message asking them to stop airing the latest commercials and explain why… That was when I found that their web site didn’t even have a way to contact them.

And then… I GOT REALLY MAD! Which led to my writing this blog. I needed to get it out of my system before I tracked down the numbers for the LA County Department of Health. Where I plan to express my concerns without being emotional about it…

Hopefully!

—– UPDATE —–

After writing a polite letter explaining that I was offended and why… The Los Angeles County Health Department hasn’t responded (4 weeks now) . Not that I’m at all surprised. After all I’m just another evil White Man trying to oppress someone, somewhere, right?

Apparently I’m not alone in being offended. When I tweeted about my annoyance over these adds There were a few responses expressing the same feelings. These were folks that like me didn’t want to relive their loved ones passing.

Of course these anti smoking commercials are “For the Greater Good” So it doesn’t matter that people like me just aren’t watching TV anymore. I’ve seriously been considering discontinuing my satellite service for a variety of other reasons anyway. Being terrorized every fucking time I sit down to watch TV is just another reason.

Those of you in the rest of the country, are soon going to know exactly what I’m talking about. Apparently, the Federal Government is going to spend 54 million on a nationwide campaign. I figure that should help KILL the rest of public television in this country.