Some people just can't handle praise or Wow, they must have been very very tired afterwards.

GREAT JOB on that...thing that you did!

     I very rarely give compliments and today is an excellent reason why.  I went out of my way today to give someone praise for their due diligence in protecting our country from Illegal Immigrants and they got royally honked off at me.  It really isn't fair.  I try to be nice and people get mad at me.  See that is why I am an Ass.  Huh, what?  Do you want details?  Okay fine, if you really want to know the nitty gritty I will tell you.

     So I went by the pharmacy today to pick up some medications and there was a pretty long line.  I was standing behind this elderly couple.  The lady was speaking of how she had to go to the Emergency Room last night and how she had to wait for three hours because of all of the "Illegals" waiting to get free health care.  She ranted on and on and on about how it wasn't fair that she had to wait for so long because they were all there getting their "Free health care."  

     So I was feeling kind, I leaned forward and said, "You must be very tired."  The lady looked back at me and looked puzzled.  I smiled sweetly and said, "You have to be very tired after spending three hours checking all of those 100s (Yes folks, she said there were 100s of Illegals in the Emergency Room even though there wasn't room for a 100 people in that particular place.  I know, I was just recently there because I got my face punched up.) of Illegals Green Cards."

I'M SO CONFUSED!!!!

     The look of utter confusion on her face was saddening to me.  I mean, I had just praised her for her due diligence in protecting our nation from the scourge of Illegal Aliens and she didn't seem to appreciate it.  After several seconds, she seemed to get control of herself and said, "I didn't do that."  This, of course, confused me since if she hadn't checked every single person's green card or ID, then how could she possibly have known that they were all illegals?  Her turn at the counter came up so our conversation ended before I could determine if she was a mutant with the power to detect Illegal Aliens or she had an app for her phone that did it.  Sad, I will never know the truth.

A Christmas Con Artist or the classics never really go out of style do they?

     So, its Christmas Eve and I am out on the town in very busy traffic trying to get a last few presents bought for my wife before everything closes down.  I make the turn onto a very crowded street filled with practically stationary cars.  I pull up as far as I can and I wait patiently for traffic to move.  Suddenly the car in front of me pops into reverse and its rear bumper taps the front of my car.  It doesn't hit  hard enough to even jostle my car.  Immediately afterwards, the people in front pop on the hazard lights and step out.  I pop my own lights and wait.  The man studies his bumper and says "you ran into us."  His wife starts yelling about how the bumper is damaged and how "all of the paint is going to fall off."
     So I get out of my car and examine their rear end.  There are indeed serious scratches across the top of the bumper that really should be repaired and several dents that need to be pulled out.  Problem is that not only is all of the damage noticeably old, but is so high on the bumper that there is no way my much smaller car could have made them.  The man proceeds to tell me that he would ordinarily call the police and have it reported, but he would be nice to me and not report it if I agreed to pay for the damages.  I simply smiled and said, "No I have insurance so lets just call the cops and have all of the reports filled out so that you can get your car fixed."  At this point, the wife suddenly snapped out of her near hysteria in a manner that can only be described as a Christmas Miracle and both she and her husband quickly get back in their car and leave.
     And that dear readers is one of the oldest cons around known simply as a Slider.  It takes advantage of most people's innate distrust and even fear of the police.  It also plays off their "OMG I DID SOMETHING BAD!" fears.  This particular con has been around forever.  Pretty sure someone used it on Hannibal when he was driving his elephants across the mountains.  It is a simple and unusually effective "physical con" that is probably pulled off thousands of times a year all over the world.
     The mechanics is pretty simple.  You need at least two people (Man and Woman work good and Woman and young child works even better) and a vehicle.  They cruise locations looking for just the right situation.  High volume slow moving traffic works best.  When they spot  a possible Mark, they get in front of him and when the time is just right, the driver either puts the car in reverse or if its on a hill, simply puts it in neutral.  (As a side note here, cars with standard transmissions are perfect for these cons because you simply have to push in the clutch and roll backwards.)  Once you tap the car behind you, you simply step out and one of you (here's why kids are best) goes into hysterics.  The Mark gets confronted and has to deal with the hysterical one while trying to figure out what to do.  At this point, the Con artist offers to forget the accident ever happened in return for some amount of money.  The Mark is so confused and frustrated that he gives up the money because he has become convinced it was all somehow his fault.  The Artists collect their money and split leaving the Mark poorer and confused.  The sheer beauty of this particular con is the relatively safe aspect of it.  If the Mark calls you on the Con, you simply smile and say "Hey that is okay" and then move on to someone who isn't as bright.  Very little danger of getting caught.
     In the Con Artist world, there are two adages that hold true 99.99% of the time.  One is "You can't cheat an honest man" and the other is "Never try to con a Con Man."  A Con works on the idea that the Mark understands that what is happening is questionable at best and probably illegal at worse, but he is tempted to swallow the con anyway.  In the Slider case, the Mark knows that he is supposed to call the cops, report the accident and exchange insurance information.  He falls for the con for multiple reasons like he is afraid his insurance rates will go up or that he actually did something bad.  So he agrees to do the wrong thing to keep from getting in trouble.  The second is true because any con man worth his salt will immediately spot a con going on and either call the people on it or play along just to mess with them.
     Thanks to a somewhat shady and adventurous youth, lets just say that I am very very familiar with most of the Cons and their variations out there.  So I am afraid this couple didn't find the easy mark that they had expected.  I knew I had done nothing wrong and even if I had somehow hit their car, I knew I had insurance to cover it.  So I did the one thing a Con Artist never wants you to do, I agreed we should call the cops and get everything down on the record.
     Guess I was literally involved in a Hit and OH CRAP SCRAM!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

End of Rant

If Jimmy Carter jumped off a bridge...or Twit for Twa....Um we'll just leave that one be.

   
If there is one thing that  never ceases to amaze me, it is the human ability to rationalize their beliefs no matter how insulting or stupid they may be.  Its universal among mankind to truly be convinced what you think is right and ignore any evidence that proves you wrong.  What is even funnier is when people are confronted with irrefutable proof that what they think or believe is truly messed up because then they start trying to find some way to justify what they believe.  There are a bunch of different ways this happens, but the most common one I have found is the "Oh yeah?  Well X may be a jerk, but your Y did it too!"

   

Who knew Hitler was from Georgia

     Let's take the GOP poster boy for STUPID, Donald Trump.  During his brief run for the nomination, he has shown himself to be a Racist, Misogynistic Bigot (Yeah I know I know, but since he is against Hispanics which is a race and against Muslims who are not, I figured I could use both words.  Hey it's my blog!).  He has agreed with an idea to register all Muslims in the country.  (Hey! it worked for Hitler right?)  He has also said we should ban all Muslims from the US.  Originally that was ALL Muslims including the ones already in the US but he back tracked on that one so we will go with his revised statement of Muslims outside the US just to be nice.  

     Now like most of Trump's truly stupid and bigoted statements, this one caught the attention of anyone who is not a Conservative and the uproar proceeded.  Finally it reached the point where even the most die hard Conservative couldn't ignore the fact that Trump was making the Grand Old Party look like a bunch of Middle Aged White Jerks or MAWJs for short.  So, instead of coming out against Trump and his bigoted statements, they quickly did what they do best.  DAMAGE CONTROL and FINGER POINTING!

     (As a quick aside here, I will point out that some of the GOP members have actually come out against Trump's idiocy including Ted Cruz and old Dick (We'll torture them all!) Cheney.  This just proves that the stupid in politics can get so strong that even the oldest dog can get tired of it.)

     Over the past couple of days I have seen articles like the one linked above appearing on Conservative FB Friends pages.  The articles correctly point out that old Trump is not the first person to suggest banning people from coming into the US.  Carter did indeed do it during the Iran Crisis and old FDR did it during WWII.  Matter of fact FDR went Trump one better and locked up 1000s of innocent men, women and children just because they were different..  So, yes I admit that previous Regime leaders were just as big a jerk as Trump and Carson.  Guess what?  IT DOESN'T FREAKING MATTER!

Oh yeah well they did it first!  Nyah!

     I can see the confuzzlement running rampant in your headparts right now.  I will explainate for your enlightenment.  In the Con Game, its called a bait and switch.  You need to distract the Mark from seeing that they are being ripped off, so you toss out some sort of distraction to keep them off balance and not seeing the obvious going on right in front of their eyes.  You see it these days.  One of the most obvious (But far from being limited to that side) is what happens when a dirty cop kills an unarmed Black person.  Instead of just admitting that some cops are racist thugs with badges, pundits start tossing out "Well, yes a cop in Detroit gunned down an unarmed child in the streets, but HEY LOOK AT HOW MANY BLACK KIDS WERE KILLED BY GANG VIOLENCE YESTERDAY."

     See, that is the distraction.  The bait to make you forget that you are being robbed.  People try to use a very solid fact (Gang Violence or Carter/FDR did it too) to distract you and make you not think about the other FACT (Dirty cops killing people/Trump being a bigoted moron).  They seem think that showing other people did horrible things somehow justifies the horrible things they are trying to defend.  It is the school ground mentality of "Well Jimmy did it, so that makes us doing it okay."

     The problem is that it doesn't work that way.  Trump is wrong for suggesting immigration bans on Muslims and Carter was wrong for suggesting bans on immigration from Iran.  (Interestingly enough and giving Trump credit for a bit of intelligence, they both did it for the same reason.  Carter bowed to political and social pressure during the Hostage Crisis and Trump may be pandering to the Anti-Islam crowd in hopes for votes.  Historically speaking, FDR pretty much did it for the same reason as Carter.)  Trying to justify the actions of one man by pointing out that others in the past made the same mistake doesn't make you right, it just proves you are wrong twice.

     We will never make any progress in this country until we stop blindly trying to justify the idiocy and bigotry of our so called leaders and just say, "Well yeah, he is on our team, but what he said was totally messed up."  Quit trying to justify crap people say just because you are supposed to support them.  Man up and just admit they are wrong.

End of Rant

Freedom for everyone or What happens when they come for you?

Be a lert, the world needs more Lerts.

"CLM i am thinking that the Islamic people will come into our country and slaughter all the christian people and probably those who are not , just the way the English, Spanish and others from across the pond slaughtered the American Indians. Looks to me like they have already started. I certainly hope all who stisk up for them and who tell the rest of us we are worng to wnat to protcet our kids and grand kids, have a plan, when push comes to shove"

     So during one of my off the cuff and more than a little insulting FB comments the other night.  (My best/worst ones always come late at night after my brain has shut down.), a good friend whom I have never met posted the above comment in response to this comment from me.

"If you truly believe that it is okay to ban Islam in America, then you are truly clueless about exactly what America means and are a major part of what is wrong with the country today. How people can claim to worship the Constitution but deny a principle that was part of this nation before it was even a nation is mind boggling. These people are a greater threat to the American way of life than radical Islam ever will be because their leaders wear a shroud of patriotism and respectability."

     There is much more to the conversation, but that was the parts that inspired this blog.  Before I go any further let me state very clearly that I am not mocking CLMs (Name abbreviated to protect the innocent.) opinion or comment in any way.  In a very real sense, with the addition of one word, her comment could be seen as very accurate.  That word is Radical because Radical Extremist groups like ISIS (ISIL, Daesh woteverdafug they are calling them now.) and other such groups do indeed want to destroy America and any other part of the world that doesn't adhere to their codes.  There is no arguing this unless you are a few nuts short of a fruit basket.  (Wait, that didn't make sense...oh well moving on!) No one should argue that we should do everything REASONABLY and LEGALLY possible to protect ourselves and our country from all threats domestic and abroad.  However, the operative words there are legal and reasonable.  
     There are forces at work in the US that want to ban Islam.  Think about that for a second and really mull it over.  Leaders of a nation who's very founding principle which existed even before we were a nation was Freedom of Religion want to ban a religion.  That should scare the crap out of anyone.  The State wants to tell people what religions they can follow and which ones they cannot.  Two things you hear a lot today from our so called leaders is "the slippery slope" and "police state" usually used to describe any of the current regime's policies.  Funny how both of those things directly apply to the idea of banning Islam.  No, really!  Read on as I explainate it all.
     First let's look at the Slippery Slope Analogy or SSA as I will henceforth call it.  So whats say we ingnore the foounding principle of our nation and that pesky little thing called the Constitution for a second or three and we BAN ISLAM (OORAH!)!  Poof, yay that nasty nasty evil religious CULT is gone!  You've successfully gotten rid of (in the US anyways) that religion that you really really really don't like.  Congratulations!  So what happens when it happens to you?
     Say all the Atheists (Hey Mary Anderson!), Buddhists, Wiicans etc in the US decide that they are sick and tired of Christians?  They are tired of Christmas moving further and further back on the calendar and they are tired of Jehovah Witnesses banging on their door when they are trying to eat dinner.  Suppose this imagined majority decides to ban Christianity for good to save the calendar and dinner for all good folks?  They vote and poof, Christianity is banned from the US.  Are you okay with that?  I mean if a majority of people felt that Islam was bad and banned it then it must be okay that a majority of people could ban Christianity.
     (Of course I already know what the answer is, but that is what they call a rhetorical question.)  
     Second like, lets look at the Police State Issue (or PSI as I will call it.)  People are always going on and on and on about how Obama is trying to install a police state and declare himself dictator.  (For the record, he isn't just FYI.)  If our leaders were to instigate a ban on Islam or any other religion for that matter, they would be directly contravening the Constitution of the US which promises absolute freedom of religion without government intervention.  (Yes yes, there could be a vote to amend the Constitution, but it would never garner enough votes to pass.  Keep in mind that the majority of people support the freedom for all people to worship as they please.  The Ban Islam group is very much in the minority.)
     So the only way our so called leaders could possibly ban Islam is to essentially issue a writ from on high stating that the Government has elected to ban Islam.  That means that the State is telling people how they can and cannot lead their lives.  Sounds like a police state to me.
     We have an almost unheard of amount of freedom in the US.  We have "inalienable rights" promised to us when our nation was born.  It is one of the things that makes us great.  However, those freedoms and rights come with a high price.  They bring risks that people both foreign and domestic will abuse those rights and freedoms to do harm to us and our friends.  This is the price we pay every day for living in a free nation.  We cannot and should not restrict the rights and freedoms of others in the US just so that we can feel safer.  Should we do everything within our power legally and morally to protect all of the citizens of the US?  Heck yeah. but beware taking the freedoms and rights from people that you don't like because there will always be people that don't like you too.

End of Rant

Bigotry 101 or "Why yes, your question does make you look racist."

Two sides to every argument.

     So I am seeing a lot of people posting "shocking revelations" about the gunmen responsible for the tragedy in San Bernadino and one of them is that some neighbors were suspicious of the couple because they spotted "6 or 8 Middle Eastern people" hanging out around their apartment.  Some have asked if the whole shooting could have been prevented if these neighbors had reported this "Suspicious activity" to the police.  One bright soul even asked if they should have reported the people or if that would have been "Racial Profiling?"  Well the short answer and the only answer reall needed is...HELL YES IT IS RACIAL PROFILING!

     Now having done a tad bit of research, I have discovered absolutely zero evidence that these ME people engaged in anything more suspicious than coming to dinner or hanging out with friends.  No mysterious clandestine meetings in the middle of the night occurred.  No furtive deliveries of strange packages under the over of darkness.  Nothing out of the ordinary at all.  So the only reason any one would have of them being suspicious is that they were Muslims.

Getting dizzy yet?  Hang on it is gonna get worse.

     Now armchair quarterbacks on both sides LOVE to critique events after the fact.  It's like they think their sudden 20/20 vision should be applied retroactively to the past because of what they KNOW in the present.  So, people are saying that people should have reported "Suspicious behavior" to the cops because knowing now that the couple was indeed terrorists, any actions taken by them or their associates HAD to have been an obvious red flag before it was actually known.  Basically they are saying, "Well we know they are bad guys now, so it should have been obvious then."

     So lets imagine another scenario using this analogy.  Dylan Roof, the young White Terrorist who shot up a Black Church and killed many people because he believed that they were a threat to his way of life.  So suppose neighbors had spotted "8 or 10" Young White guys hanging out at Roof's house a day or so before he went berzerk and killed a bunch of people.  They are hanging out, drinking beer and talking about guns.  Should the neighbors have reported these suspicious activity to the cops.  After all, a hell of  a lot more shootings in the US are done by White Folks than Muslims, so shouldn't tabs be kept on all White Males just in case they turn out to be Terrorists like Roof or Deare?

Not really sure if it has anything to do with the blog, I just saw it and thought it was funny.

     Just like with NYCs now defunct "Stop and Frisk" program or its illegal, CIA sponsored targeting of Mosques, if the only reason you are targeting anyone is because they are members of a group that has been guilty of crimes, then yes you are indeed racial profiling and you are indeed a bigot.  No one thinks that all White people should be targeted because White People shot up Sandy Hook or killed a bunch of people in a theater.  If someone suggested it, the moral outrage would be deafening.  However, bigots seem to think it is okay to target ALL of a group for the actions of a few as long as it is a group that they don't like.  

     In the end, when you ask yourself "Is this racial profiling" you should also ask yourself "How would I feel if people did this to me?"  If the answer is "I'd be mad as hell" then yeah it is more than likely racial profiling.  Just sayin...

Why can't we all just get along?  Oh yeah because Bigots are stupid.

End of Rant

Hoist the Double Standard Again or Painting for dummies.

     So there has been a shooting where armed men in bulletproof vests fired at a group of Black Lives Matters protesters.  Now all the details aren't in yet and with cries of White Supremacists and a marvelous conspiracy theory running around that the shooters were actually undercover cops, I am actually going to wait to through in on the good/bad in this situation.  (One video purporting to be of BLM people there seems to say that the shooters were chased from the scene and attacked and then opened fire, but like I said actual facts are still coming in.
     What I am going to comment on are the ever so predictable "All BLM members are terrorists!" bs running around.  Because a small number of BLM protestors have made comments such as "Pigs in the blanket, burn em all up!"  and one BLM member may have shot an police officer, the White Logic(TM) seems to be that ALL BLM members are terrorists and out to kill cops.  Course, we shouldn't be surprised.  After all these are the same people that say all Muslims are terrorists because of the actions of a few so like I said predictable.  
     Now what's so durned knee slapping funny is these are the same people who say "Well you can't judge all gun owners for the actions of a small number of murderers"  or "You can't blame White people" when a white man goes into a church and shoots and kills a bunch of Black people.  It is a classic case of the old double standard.
     In the classic case of US vs THEM (Pick any us or any them, it will apply.  Trust me!) the double standard always flies high, especially when it is a volatile and controversial idea.  You will always find the US condemning the THEM for acts of not niceness while doing everything they can to make sure that all of their fellow US aren't painted with a broad brush as well.
   Fer example, Terrorism!  US loves to show all of the horrors committed by THEM, such as bombing innocents or gunning down whole groups of US.   By US standards, all of THEM are indeed terrorists of the worst sort because a small number of THEM have done bad things.  Now spin around and THEM accuses US of being terrorists because we fly armed drones into hospitals or homes or neighborhoods in the blind hope of possibly killing one THEM.  In the process, US kills hundreds and hundreds of THEM who's only crime was being in the place being bombed.  But US aren't terrorists, no no no!  US is waging a war on terror so US cannot possibly be terrorists.
    That is just one example.  There are many more out there.  Don't even get me started on politics where OUR party is all okay even the idiots, but THEIR party is completely corrupted and evil and out to destroy the country.  GAWDBLESSMERRICA!  OORAH!  
     Something in the human nature seems to force this blind, adversarial mindset where if people aren't part of your little group then they must be the bad guys.  Or even better, if some of a group (as long as it isn't your group of course) do something bad then all of said group must be bad too.  We can't seem to help it.  Bad wiring maybe?
     People say that all cops aren't bad because some cops commit horrible acts of violence against Blacks.  Then they turn around and say that all members of BLM are bad because some might be bad.  That is the highest I have ever seen the Double Standard flown and I have seen it flown pretty durned high.  So just remember, if you want to paint all of a group with broad strokes don't come whining back when someone else hits you with a spray painter.  Just saying.

Charity vanishes at home or Homeless, I don't see no stinking homeless.

Wow, look at that empty street!

How was that again?

     So here we are a few days after the horrific Paris attacks and, after a brief period where no one tried to blame the Refugees or Obama, things have returned to normal.  You got memes galore blaming Obama for the bombings, the crisis in the Middle East that caused the flood of Refugees to begin with and, of course, you have Conservative Politicians blustering about making completely useless claims that they would ban any refugees from entering their states.  (Newsflash for the dim minded, they can't but hey its all show and circuses anyways right?)

     So the two biggest trends I see in these memes are Homeless Children and Homeless Veterans.  Now I also see Homeless in general and some just using the Poor.  However, the main ones are Kids and Veterans.  Now I get the trends.  I mean nothing pulls at the old heartstrings more than hungry waifs and abused Vets, so when you are trying to fan the fires of hate, who better to use?  Hence, the dozens of memes I have seen working off those heart-wrenching images.

     Now, here is the part that I find absolutely pathetic and simultaneously hilarious at the same time.  I have to wonder, out of all the people posting "Well we should take care of the homeless kids and vets first" memes, how many of them actually give a flying backwards half gainer flip about the very people they are posting memes about?  Do they even notice them when they walk down the streets?  

     I have seen dozens of social experiment videos that pretty much prove the answer to that one is no.  One really great one had the filmers dress family members up as homeless and position them in plain view of another family as they walked down the streets "begging" for food or money.  Even though their faces were clearly visible, the "homeless" were completely ignored.  Here is the link to the social experiment video.

THEY'RE INVISIBLE!

     As for homeless Vets, our so-called leaders on both sides of the aisle have already proven that they are damned good at sending men and women to war, but really don't give a damn about them once they get home again so that little meme is a bit of a joke.  How many people even notice a man standing on the side of the road holding a sign saying "Homeless veteran, please help?"  

     So to all of you "We need to help the  homeless children and Vets out there, I just have one simple question.  What the hell have you done today to help?  Did you "round up your change" at your local grocery store to help the homeless?  Did you buy food and donate it to the local food banks or homeless shelters?  Did you volunteer your time to help out at those same institutions?  Did you stop and speak to a homeless family on the side of the road to see how you could help?  (Wow that's more than one question isn't it?)  The answer for the vast majority of you is probably no.

     There is a great series of books where they introduce the concept of the SEP or Somebody Else's Problem.  It is a comical way of rendering things nearly invisible by making people just not notice them.  The Homeless are basically SEPs, but not in a humorous way.  People ignore them because they think one of two things.  The first is that the people are obviously faking it so they can rake in huge amounts of cash and treasures begging on the streets.  The second is that people actually need help, but helping them is other people's responsibility.

     (As an aside, anyone who thinks you get rich panhandling has obviously never begged for food and money.  You should try it sometimes, you might make enough for a Big Mack.  No fries or soda, though.)

     So here is the deal and it is a simple one. Until you actually care about the homeless and do something to help them, you don't get to post stupid memes about turning away refugees and...well helping homeless Vets and Kids.  Until you spend a few hours in a soup kitchen serving food or hand out blankets to people who are freezing to death, you don't get to pass laws banning refugees from your states.  Until you are willing to give a handful of change to the guy on the street, you don't get to comment on "helping the homeless."  In simple words, put your actions where your mouth is.

End of Rant

Friend one and Friend two, Friend two and Friend one or No, sorry you are not being oppressed.

That's what he said...

 I have a friend. He isn't the sharpest pea in the haystack, but he is my friend. He loves to argue against equal rights and treatment under the law because “You cannot legislate morality.” He argues that men should be allowed to find equality and balance without the pesky intervention of laws and legislation. Now anyone with even the smallest understanding of humanity and history will know this isn't true and probably question said friend's sanity. God knows I often do. However, in a sense he is correct.

Wait wait, before you start hitting me with rocks, let me expand further. I have another friend who is actually extremely intelligent and wise that I disagree on with one or two issues. He feels also feels that people would just be better off if people were allowed to do their own things without interference from the Government. What these two friends have in common is that their views are pretty much a Utopian ideal. (Admittedly the second friend's idea of Utopia is a bit different from most, but that is one of the reasons I love him.)

In an overly simplified sense, both are right. In a Utopian world where everyone could be trusted to play nice and work towards the common good of everyone, their ideas might work. If man was not a greedy, selfish animal interested only in his personal well being, things might work out okay. (Funny side note here, Friend #1 keeps arguing we don't need laws because we are no longer the greedy selfish “robber barons” of a hundred years ago while blissfully ignoring the facts.) Unfortunately for the world, man is just as bad as he has ever been. How many 1000s of acres of Rain Forest will be destroyed this year? How much poison will be pumped into our air and water? People are still hell bent on destroying the world simply for their own advancement.

(Funny aside the second, Friend #1 argues that this is okay and that these people aren't being destructive robber barons because they “obey the law” while ignoring the fact that the laws are being written by the rich and powerful to further the interests of the rich and powerful while leaving everyone else to choke in poisons.)

Anyhoo, I have actually wandered away from the main subject of this rant. The idea of legislating morality. See in that mythical perfect world, no one would have to legislate morality because it would be inherent. But since the people in power want to stay in power and certainly don't want to share that power with anyone else, especially “them,” (The them being spoke of varies but the idea is constant.) they find or invent ways around sharing.

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that ALL men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain rights.” Okay slightly edited but you get the idea and the full text appears at the start. See that is a very simple statement. It should be all anyone needs to understand. ALL (Everyone regardless of race, color or religion) MEN (Well in this case mankind not just possessors of the Y Chromosome (Total aside here, WTF do I always try to spell Chromosome with an N instead of an M on the end?) are created equal and they all have the exact same rights. See nice and simple. No ambiguity, no confusion. Right?

See unfortunately, that is not the case. People of power interpreted that to mean all WHITE CHRISTIAN MEN (in this case the people with that Y Chromosome) had certain rights. Not Women, not Blacks, not Native Americans but WCMs and as a side note, not all groups of Christianity were included in that. For an easy reference, look at all the uproar when Roman Catholic JFK was elected POTUS.

My Friend (1 not 2) argues that special interest groups will always try to pass laws and legislation that give them special rights and privileges. In a sense he is right. What he ignores is that he is a member of the #1 Most Powerful special interest group in the country being that he is a White Male. He ignores the fact that his group has been making laws that benefit it for the entire life of the US and still is. He gets peeved off because now, other special interest groups are enacting laws that provide them equal treatment under the laws.

Throughout history, the moment the ruling force is challenged in any government, those in power and those with all the protections, start screaming that they are being oppressed and predicting that their freedoms will be destroyed in the near future. See, what they fail to understand is that just because other people are now being given the same rights and protections as the majority does in no way shape or form reduce the rights the majority has. It just means the majority isn't more special than everyone else. Sucks for the, but is great for everyone else. So suck it up, Buttercups because in a way, you are right. As far as you are concerned, it is only just going to get worse.

End of Rant

Grumpy Old Dude at 12 O'Clock! or "What if it was your kid?"

Let me put forth a scenario for you all to ponder.

Your Daughter is sitting at the mall food court, talking about stuff and just generally being teenagers. They are being loud and maybe a little disruptive. (Teenagers remember?) The family at the next table over suffer through this for awhile and finally get tired of it all so the father gets up and comes over the kids table. He asks the teenagers to keep in down and stop being so disruptive. Your daughter, being annoyed that some old dude is telling her what to do, mouths off and refuses to quiet down. With me so far?

Okay so now you've got grumpy older dude and confrontational teenager. Both are annoyed and both aren't really feeling the spirit of cooperation. Grumpy older dude decides to literally take matters into his own hands, so he grabs your daughter and proceeds to drag her around the food court until she calms down.

Now if anyone saw a video of some random guy physically assaulting some teenager just because that teen had a smart mouth, they would be outraged. (Well most of you would, judging from some commentary I have seen, some of you are perfectly okay with people assaulting children when they mouth off.) Most people would be screaming for the man to be arrested for child abuse. If the old dude in question happened to be the kid's dad, he'd probably be arrested and his kids taken away from him.

So, why pray tell is everyone somehow okay when a man does that to a kid in a school just because he is wearing a police officer's uniform? The man has a badge and suddenly it is okay that he grabs a non violent kid and drags them all around the room? Why is what would normally be a horrific act okay because he is a Cop?

Being a cop does not make you into some mythical being that can do whatever they want or never do the wrong thing. Cops are people, people are fallible and cops make mistakes. Just like when everyone else is caught making a mistake, they should be held accountable for their actions. Instead people try to enshrine them and take any attacks against bad individuals as an attack against the whole. Why is that?

I think one of the main reasons we don't want to admit that bad cops do bad things is the same reason people try to dismiss horrific, racially motivated acts of terrorism such as the Church Shooting as something else other than racism. People like to pretend that the world is a magical little place where things like violent cops and racism no longer exist. They want to believe that we have moved past all of that even when the evidence proves them wrong.

If bad cops exist then people actually have to think whenever someone claims police brutality. If they don't exist, then all of those claims are lies meant to make cops look bad. Whenever an innocent person is assaulted or murdered by bad cops, it threatens the imaginary world view that so many people seem to have built up about how far we have grown and evolved.

Things will never improve or get better till people stop hiding from the truth and start working to fix things. I fully believe that 95% of all cops are good cops. I also believe that of the “bad” cops, well over half of them aren't bad. The stress of the job and perhaps stress in their own lives make them make mistakes. However, they still make mistakes and the mistakes they make can hurt a lot of people. If they cannot do their job without hurting innocent people, they need to find another kind of work.

End of Rant

And now a word from our Sponsor or...Gonna make him famous.

This looks kind of like my brother but more belly and less hair.

     Now occasionally y'all know I get lazy and instead of doing a blog of my own, I steal one from my brother who is a much better writer and pundit than I will ever be.  I use the excuse that he has  come up with some brilliant observation that I feel should reach more of the world than his blog usually does (rimshot!) but in reality, I just don't feel like writing anything and doing that is a sneaky way of legally plagiarizing someone else's wprk.

     Ever since the death of Trayvon Martin several years ago, there has been a dramatic and overwhelming amount of attention being paid to police deaths and deaths committed by police.  Videos shot by people with camera phones and even videos coming straight from police dash cams and body cams have shown far too many deaths caused by police officers that seemed questionable and even some that could only be described as outright murder.  Hue and Cry has arisen from both sides of the aisles over the issues and the fight is still ongoing today.

     Let me state right here that I believe that the majority of cops are good, hard working honest men and women who uphold our laws and risk their lives every day.  They deserve far more praise than they get for the dirty job they do.  However, I also feel that, as with any large group, there is also a significant number of dirty cops out there who let their own personal rage and bigotry drive them to do horrible things.  The first should be defended to the death and the second should be prosecuted at all costs.

     People on both sides love to toss out "numbers" without context to prove their points forgetting that statistics are just numbers, not facts.  They can tell you how much of X happened, but not the underlying reasons for it.  So generally I tend to avoid articles that have (SHUDDER) math in them, but my brother's work has some math in it, but is still mostly harmless to read.

   Well enough of my ranting (even though it is my blog), enjoy my Brother's piece.

Let my brother Mathify y'all a little.

End of Rant

Y'all might be a Cantservative if or Really? That makes no sense at all.

YOU MIGHT BE A CANTSERVATIVE IF...

1.  If you think Obama is a Gay Muslim Illegal Alien, you might be a Cantservative.

2.  If you believe the best way to bring peace in the Middle East is to go to war, you might be a Cantservative.  

3.  If you believe that Hillary Clinton should be arrested and prosecuted for deleting emails from a private server, but that it was okay for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to do the very same thing, you might be a Cantservative.

4.  If you believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are all Obama's fault, you might be a Cantservative.

5.  If you think arresting, holding and torturing dozens of people for over a decade without trial or conviction is okay because.. MURRICA!  You might be a Cantservative.

6.  If you really and truly believe that a party who cuts funding for the poor and passes laws that make it illegal to feed the homeless cares about anyone but the Rich, you might be a Cantservative.

7.  If you believe that a party that wants to cut funding for women's healthcare and limit their access to life saving care really cares about women's health and rights, you might be a Cantservative.

8.  If you go on and on about the threat of Sharia Law taking over the US but are perfectly okay with laws based strictly off of Christian faith being the law of the land, you might be a Cantservative.

9.  If you really believe that people who have had multiple divorces can run on a program of "family values" for President, you might be a Cantservative.

Finally...

10.  If you read this list and found more than one thing that you objected to, YOU ARE A CANTSERVATIVE

End of Rant.

(Thank you thank you!  I'me here all week.  And before people start griping, I have one for Liarberals coming up next.)

Tha tha that's all folks!