Can we learn from Newtown?

   Every morning, I wake my wife up at 6:30, fix her coffee, and head off to work.
   She wakes up our oldest and sends him off to middle school. She wakes up our 2 younger boys, feeds them, gets them ready, and takes them to school.
   Like millions of parents across the country, she sends them off to school with the expectation that, at the end of the school day, they will step off the bus, smiling, frowning, whining about wanting a snack, but safe.
   Like millions of parents across the country, this little dance of normality will be very different tomorrow.
   The senseless tragedy in Newtown CT does not only affect the residents of that idyllic little town. It cuts to the very core of our being as a nation.
   Nobody but the parents of those poor little children can feel the pain, anger, and frustration that they must be going through, but all parents can imagine it.
   A parent's greatest fear is the loss of a child, and so we try not to think about it. We do all we can to keep them safe, while willfully ignoring the things we are trying to protect them from. That is no longer possible.
   Mankind's greatest gift is the urge to make sense of the things around him. The greatest advances in science, technology, and humanity are the result of someone asking a simple question..."why?" As humans, we seek to rationalize, explain, make sense of the senseless. It is how our brains are wired. We have a need to compartmentalize, to take something, label it, put it in a binder, and move on with our lives. The longer we have no answer to that question..."why?", the more uncomfortable we become, and the more likely we are to assign reasons to events that have no reason.
   This is already happening.
   Gun control will be much discussed over the next several weeks. It is a discussion worth having, as long as we understand that it has nothing to do with the tragedy. There are, basically 3 types of gun owners. One group owns them for sport, either for hunting or shooting. Another group owns them for their own protection. The last group, and the most important in this case, are the people that own guns in order to do harm to others. The people that wish to kill, steal from, or otherwise hurt us. If guns are banned, the first 2 groups, and the rest of us, will be at the mercy of the 3rd. That is not what anyone wants.
   Information will come out about the murderer. He has been called a loner, alienated, isolated from his peers, a gamer, a techno-geek. Some have alluded to mental problems. None of these are reasons for his actions. Millions of people play video games, violent ones, millions have been bullied, millions deal with alienation, depression, loneliness. People deal with these issues all the time without feeling the need to force their way into a school and murder nearly 30 innocent people, most of them 6-7 year-old children. This line of discussion does nothing but serve to make the perpetrator the victim, while losing sight of the true victims.
   Religion and faith will certainly come up. The irony can't be ignored that, in an affluent suburb of a decidedly liberal state, the first reaction of everyone is to turn to God and to prayer for solace. This is not a bad thing, but it must be understood that God and religion are personal choices, we cannot stand on our pulpits or soapboxes and shout that, "If only there was more God in our lives, this would not have happened." While there is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole, someone is only in a foxhole because of a war, and renouncing atheism will not prevent war.
   School safety will be a topic, albeit a short-lived one. It appears that, not only did the school take every possible precaution to protect it's students, some of the faculty and staff acted heroically in a time of great crisis in order to save lives. As frightening as this sounds, it could have been a lot worse if not for the actions of these brave souls.
   There are many ways to rationalize the tragedy in Connecticut. To explain to ourselves why it can't happen to us. The fact remains that it can happen to us. And this is why millions of parents across the nation will hug their children a little tighter tomorrow morning as they put them on the bus.  This is why schools across the country will seek to adopt the same high level of security that failed to work in Newtown. This is why millions of people around the world, religious or not, will find themselves saying a little prayer for the community of Newtown, for the tragic loss and unimaginable grief that hangs over that town, and will for a long time.
   We will think of the silence that exists where the laughter of little children should ring. We will think of the parents, trying to cope with their loss. We will think of the presents under trees that will never be opened, the lives that will never be lived. We will do all of these things because we are human. We know, in spite of any attempts at rationalization, deep in our souls, that it can happen anywhere. We know that a monster, bent on destruction, will wreak it, and there is nothing we can do but pray for the victims, and pray that it doesn't happen to us.

You can have my king-size candy bar when you pry it from my cold, dead hand;part one

   Okay, I realize that no one is trying to ban king-size candy bars, any more than anyone is trying to ban salt (New York City), or sugar-sweetened beverages (Cambridge, MA). No one is trying to ban toys in Happy Meals (San Francisco) either, but that doesn't mean they haven't thought of it. The problem is not what they will tell us we can't have next, the problem is that they think they can tell us, and that we seem to give them the power and authority to do so.
   How did this all begin? It's a long story.
   Humanity has a long history of people telling other people what to do, what to think, and how to feel. In fact, until about 2 centuries ago, it was considered normal and right for one group of people to have total control over another group. Whatever they claimed as authority, whether it came from God or the sword, there have always been rulers and ruled.
   That is until the American revolution. For the first time in the history of mankind, a people would purport to rule themselves. They reasoned that, because man is endowed with the capacity for reason, he should be the master of himself. Sounds reasonable.
   So what happened between then and now? What happened to us that we would go from revering a man like Ben Franklin, who said that " A man that would sacrifice liberty for security deserves neither" to people actively supporting policies like the Bush administration's, and continued by the Obama administration's, response to the 9/11 attacks. How did we go from patriotism to the PATRIOT act. Well, I don't have an answer to that. But we need to go back.
   Sacrificing liberty is easy, especially in the face of some grave threat to our safety, be it physical, financial, or phony.
   "Never let a good crisis go to waste." Rahm Emmanuel.
   There have always been crises that have threatened the very existence of the species, but let's just stick to the one's that affected our existence as a nation.
   I will say for the first time, but certainly not the last, that this is not meant to be a history book. There are volumes written about the subjects I will simply touch upon in passing, these are merely my interpretations of the events and their meaning, and I strongly urge you to do your own research and draw your own conclusions.
   Speaking from personal experience, the most recent crisis to our way of life has been the threat of terror. I don't mean the isolated incidents of Columbine or Oklahoma city, or even the most recent tragedy at the Batman movie. What I'm talking about is good-old, raised in the desert, Islamic terrorism.
   Exhibit A would be 9/11. That day transformed this country. It showed us, as a people, that we were not immune to attack. It was the most poignant reminder since Pearl Harbor, or the movie Red Dawn, that it was possible for a foreign invader to wreak havoc on our soil. That day was a sort of loss of innocence for us as a people.
   I remember sitting, glued to the television as the wreckage was cleared. I remember getting misty-eyed as each body was hauled from the wreckage, saluted by the rescuers, and taken away. I remember the anger that prompted me, for the first time in my life, to purchase a handgun. And finally I remember what a stupid idea that was.
   I had no business owning a gun. And George W Bush, as much as I love and respect him for leading this country through a time of incredible hardship and difficulty, had no business pushing for the expanded powers that were included in the PATRIOT act. But, those in power "Never let a crisis go to waste."
   We were ripe for the picking. Even noted America haters like, insert democratic representative or senator here, were compelled to wear an american flag pin on their lapel or risk being called, well, anti-American.
   Those were the days of "Freedom Fries".
   I hate the French as much as anyone, but french fries aren't from France any more than Obama is from Kenya, but that's another chapter.
   Those were the days when we were constantly reminded about the threat of Anti-Muslim backlash, which of course, I am proud to say, never materialized.
   We were told that not all Muslims were terrorists, which is actually true. We were also told by some that not all Muslim terrorists were Muslims, which I can say without a doubt, and any one of them will back me up on this, is decidedly untrue.
   Once the dust settled and the smoke cleared over ground zero, the left and right wing zealots were at it again, fighting for the souls of every American.
   What's worse, an enemy that tells you that it aims to kill you, that despises your very existence and claims, openly, to want to destroy your very way of life, or an enemy that claims to be looking out for your best interest, to be "Looking out for you" in the words of Bill O'Reilly.
   An enemy that comes in the guise of friendship and guidance, or an enemy that says, It's either you or me, and I'm willing to die to see that you don't live.
   In retrospect, this chapter should have been called "The enemy within, the assault on our freedom of thought by the American media", but that may have been too wordy.
   The fact remains that, more than anything or anyone, the media has played upon our fears, stoked our paranoia, and feasted on our dissension all in the name of...what exactly?
   What does the media have to gain by keeping us apart, driving us into sharply defined, easily accessible, and sharply divided camps? They have nothing to gain, but their evil corporate sponsors have plenty.
   Let me now take you on a trip through paranoia the likes of which Michael Moore and Charlie Sheen have only dreamed of. Let me take you on a trip through the mind of... the whackjob.

Reaganomics and the decline of western civilization

   I had a conversation the other day with an older gentleman. We were doing some work in his yard and he came out to offer us water, and direction, in case we didn't know what we were doing.
   He seemed nice enough, even a bit lonely. He was retired, bored, and his wife was at work. He spoke with the lilting remnants of a brogue about his neighborhood. He had noticed us working at another house down the street earlier in the day and commented on how nice the woman that lived there was.
   He talked about how nice and quiet the area was and how friendly the neighbors were. Then he told me a story about how, a few months back, some young kids had torn up and down the street in a car, drunk, ruining some lawns and destroying  mailboxes.
   I, under the assumption that we were actually talking about kids, 16-17 year-olds, told him that, had I done something like that and been caught, my father would have marched me up to every door of every house in the neighborhood, forced me to apologize, and then offer to do anything I could to make it right.
   He told me that the "kids" had been caught, but nothing happened to them. They merely got fined and were sent on their way.
   Turns out the kids were in their early to mid-twenties, and their parents paid the fine for them. No harm-no foul.
   Then he said, with a straight face, " I blame Reaganomics for it."
   Fortunately I was wearing sunglasses so he couldn't see my eyes roll back in my head. He was, after all, a customer.
   He followed it up with a charming rant about how ever since Reagan came into power, parents have felt compelled to work. One income wasn't enough and so no one was around to properly raise the kids. The parents made up for the lack of attention by giving the kids anything they wanted and ruining the entire generation in the process.
   As I said, he seemed like a nice enough fellow, so I just nodded politely and went back to work, but it got me to thinking. Is Reaganomics the cause of all our problems today? Is it the reason that children and young adults have no respect for anything or anyone, especially themselves?
   I guess it's possible. The main thrust of what we call Reaganomics was to put more money into the hands of the people that earned it. To make us an economy of consumers. The more we consumed, the faster the economy grew. In order to consume more, we were forced to produce more. In order to produce more, we were forced to expand the workforce. In order to expand the workforce, more mothers were forced to work, leaving the kid-raising to...who? The kids?
   I remember the stories about latch-key kids growing up in the 80's. It was a new phenomenon back then. Kids who would come home from school to an empty house, both parents at work, forced to grow up and take care of themselves before their time. Now it seems as if no one wants to grow up at all.
   By the time I was in my mid-20's, I was on my own. Sure, Pops may have bailed me out of jail, but after that, I would have been responsible for any fines or consequences. I was a grown up. Now kids are still kids well into their 20's and even 30's.
   Mark Stein constantly laments the extended adolescence of American youths, and he has a point. Maybe if more of these kids were left alone to take care of themselves, they would show some responsibility for themselves.
   And that's really the key here. Individual liberty does not work without personal responsibility. Everyone is always crying about wanting more freedom. The freedom to choose, the freedom to be what we are, the freedom to do what we want. Nobody seems to want to take responsibility when these choices go awry. We have become a nation of pass-the-buck. The first thing we do when anything goes wrong is look for someone else to blame.
   So, who is to blame for this? We are.
   Parents are free to raise their kids, or not raise them, any way they see fit. If they feel it's more important to have a summer home on the Cape, a second car, or, in many cases, a simple family vacation once a year, who can question their decision to work?
   Can we blame the actions of the kids on the parents any more than we blame the kids for their parents misdeeds? Sins of the father and so forth?
   The fact is, we are all responsible for our own actions, or inactions. We all make choices and decisions that have repercussions. Repercussions span generations. My parents made decisions that affect my children. I make decisions that will affect my grandchildren. My grandparents made decisions that will affect my children's grandchildren.
   Reaganomics wasn't around when my grandfather came to this country, so what will my great-grandchildren blame for their children's misdeeds? Probably George W Bush.
   But hopefully, the kids that did the misdeeding.

Ordinary Average Guy; A view from the middle

So, what if I wrote a book? What if I wrote it, got it published, and no one read it? Would it be like the tree falling in the forest with nobody around?


How do I get you to hear me, to listen?


I could start by writing about something interesting. But what is interesting to everyone? How about themselves. No one doesn't like to read about themselves. The most important person in everyone's life is them. It may sound selfish, but it is certainly true.


So how can I write about everyone else? Because I am everyone else. I am the "Average American", if there is even such a creature.


I was born the middle child in a middle-class family, I live in the middle of the country, aproaching middle age, and middle income. My annual salary is almost exactly the median income for a family of 5 in America. There is nothing outstanding about me at all.


So why do I think anyone would want to read my thoughts about anything? Am I that arrogant? The short answer is yes. Ask anyone that knows me. The long answer is that, of course people will want to hear what I have to say. Not because I say it in a way that is remarkable or poetic. Not because I have any fresh or clear insight on any subjects. I pretty much try to read the works of many people a lot smarter than myself, and then form my own opinions based on my interpretation of their ideas.


I may be right, I may be wrong, but I am not stupid. And neither are you. In spite of the fact that you may have paid money for something you could have read for free.


The fact of the matter is, I am you, and you are me. We are all living in this country, this world, together. We all affect, in some way, each other's lives. Most of us are not elite, pampered, entitled idealogues. One percent of Americans are wealthy, one percent are poor. The rest of us are in the middle, and we need to stick together.


Don't be fooled by what the elitists and manipulators on the right or the left are trying to sell you. Make your own decisions. Make up your own mind.


This book will discuss several issues that are important to me, not for the specifics, but for the overarching theme. For instance, I don't care if that Fluke chick wants to have sex with as many guys as she can before she graduates from Georgetown Law school, I just think she should pay for it herself. It is sort of the theme of American life today that we should be allowed to act in any way we see fit, with no consequences whatsoever for our actions.


This is not how I see America, or Americans. I don't care if Miss Fluke wants to spend the rest of her life in a prolonged adolescent state of denial. She will, at some point, graduate, get a job, probably at some prestigious Washington D.C. law firm, and live to regret the fact that she was one of the prime players in a movement that will force her to pay even more of her salary in order to ensure that irresponsible people have the right to be irresponsible with their own lives, just as she wants to be with hers. The difference is that she, as one of the priveleged few, has the ability to act without consequences. There is a light at the end of her tunnel. For most of us, that light is receding faster than we can approach it.


America, as I see it, is not a place, it is an idea. It is the idea that intelligent people, when given the choice, will make intelligent decisions. When that choice is obscured, whether through political, cultural, or religious means, people no longer have free will. Given the choice between A and A, is it any wonder we will all choose A?

The gift that keeps on giving

Oh the magical health-care bill. The goose that lays the golden eggs, the gift that keeps on giving.

"We need to pass the bill in order to see what's in it." So said Nancy Pelosi on that fateful day, before she walked to the capital building, arm in arm with her accomplices, eager to put the final nail in the coffin of individual freedom and personal reponsibility for Americans.

The recent furor over the contraception clause in the Obamacare monstrosity is the latest example of the creeping Liberal Leviathan, hungry to gobble up the last vestiges of freedom and liberty in this land. It's not enough for them to control our wallets and our bodies. Now they want to take away our freedom of conscience as well.

Obama has, in the past, lamented the fact that the constitution is a set of negative liberties. "It spells out what the government can't do to you, not what the government can do for you." Only he and his kind would see that as a negative. The fact that the framers wanted to limit the size and scope of the power of the state is only a bad thing to those that wish to increase the power and authority of the state, that wish to control every last facet of our lives, that think they know better than us what is best for us.

Naturally, many in the media are portraying church-sponsored abortion as a women's rights issue. Women should have the right to choose what they do with their own bodies. They should also have the right to pay for it themselves.

In this new era of "no harm, no foul", responsibility is transferred from the actor to the innocent bystander. The auto companies don't have to suffer for bowing to the unions and creating an unsustainable business model. The investment companies, at least those deemed too big to fail, don't have to pay for their shaky investment strategies. Homeowners that signed up for mortgages they couldn't afford are allowed to walk away from their contracts, not only without any repurcussions, but now with a nice little check from the taxpayers, courtesy of the extortion tactics of the Obama regime.

They don't have to pay, but we do. Big government has taken over the banking industry, the automotive industry, and the healthcare industry. "We're looking out for the middle-class" they say. How, by making us foot the bill for other people's mistakes? Does anyone in the middle-class want that kind of looking out for? We'll find out in November.

The purpose of the constitution is to protect the citizens from the government, not the other way around. The "Wall of separation" between church and state was not erected to protect he state from the church, or the church from the state. It was intended to protect all of us from collusion between the two. Each and every right granted by the constitution is an individual right.

The Catholic church got into bed with the democratic party a long time ago. They bought into the ideology, and now they are seeing where that ideology leads. The church is no longer the sheppard, but the sheepdog, herding the flock to where? Wherever the state tells it to.

Most Americans, Catholics included, now agree that reproductive rights are a personal issue. It is really up to the couple, not just the woman, to decide for themselves. But shouldn't that decision come with some consequence? If abortion is, as it has become, socially acceptable, should it be free as well? By free I mean, of course, funded by the taxpayers through organizations such as Planned Parenthood, or in this case, the other people covered by the insurance companies that will be forced to provide these services at no cost to some people, forcing them to raise rates for all people.

Individual freedom only works when it is combined with personal responsibility. When there are no consequences, people are willing to take more risks than they normally would, "insert mortgage meltdown comment here."

The new statists are using the back door on us. Instead of limiting our freedom directly, they are taking away our sense of responsibility, then using that as an excuse to curtail our liberty. There are no longer any consequences to our actions, we make reckless choices, we can no longer be trusted to make these decisions for ourselves, they will make them for us.

To paraphrase W.B. Yeats, what rough beast, it's hour come round at last, slouches towards Washington to be born. It is the quasi-socialist, semi-fascist, soft totalitarian ideology of the left that will be our undoing.

It may be halftime for America, but if we are to survive for the second half as America, let's hope it's the fourth quarter for the Obama regime.