Republican Compromise

The Republican Party is testing their latest compromise on Gun Control at the state level in North Carolina. House member Oli A. Garc has introduced a bill calling for the issuance of large caliber semi-automatic firearms to every registered Republican voter and their children. Gun manufacturers, members of the gun manufacturers lobby and the leadership of the National Rifle Association believe that Republicans are best suited to use their 2^nd Amendment rights to protect everyone from the Mass Murderers that they have been equipping with military assault rifles and large capacity magazines (designed to allow Mass Murderers to kill as many Americans as possible without reloading).

According to Representative Oli A. Garc, an additional benefit of this legislation will be a reduction of unemployment as those killed by so many armed Republicans will reduce the numbers of those reaching majority and entering the job market. Fewer unemployment claims will be filed as those who have lost production jobs will be killed and stop filing for weekly benefits.

As the Republican Party continues to support the export of American jobs to countries that offer corporations slave labor, this issue of jobs and the sky rocketing costs of unemployment compensation require a solution other than Labor Rate Based Import Tariffs that would increase American Jobs at the expense of corporate profits. This might be that solution.

Democrats, typically, refuse to join Republicans and call for Comprehensive Gun Control. They insist on Universal Background Checks, a ban on military style assault rifles and large capacity magazines. Republican elected officials seem to be the only people who understand how important it is that Mass Murderers continue to be allowed to find the assault rifles and large capacity magazines that they need to kill large numbers of Americans. America the Exceptional must have the most successful Mass Murderers. Republicans who pander to their bases and accept large contributions from the Gun Lobby know this, as do too few Democratic candidates with conservative constituents.

Republicans will continue to try and make American Mass Murderers successful and keep the Gun Lobby happy. 

Brian Holian

Dear Senator,

Today I stood in front of Dr. Martin Luther King’s statue at his park in downtown Charlotte and thought about you. Born in 1929, assassinated in 1968, where would he be today? Would he be standing beside you, or with all of us, outside your office?

Senator, you can do the right thing today. It may cost you the support of some of your base. But, you will be doing the right thing.

Gun violence. How many Americans are dead today because of this country’s failure to protect Americans? The last I heard was that 85 Americans a day are killed by guns. And 6 unarmed educators died in Sandy Hook shielding their students with their bodies. And we talk about the hero’s that stand up for us at war. Can you imagine? Making a split second decision and choosing to hold someone else’s child close, rather than running for your life, and dying with just the hope that a child might live?

And you voted against universal background checks?

Why are you choosing to equip mass murderers with assault weapons and large capacity magazines? And allow weapons to be sold without basic background checks? Americans who are legally allowed to own weapons can pass a background check. A father needs to be able to give his son a rifle without a background check? What if the son can’t pass a background check? Can a father give his son a car without a transfer of registration? 

The 2^nd Amendment was passed in order to allow us the weapons we needed in order to fight the British in case they returned, prevent the slaves that some held in bondage from revolting or escaping, use to defend our ancestors from killed by the Native Americans who objected to having their lands stolen and for hunting.

We may need a 2^nd Amendment in today’s world in order to defend our homes from invasion by criminals, but, we do not need assault weapons, large capacity magazines or the freedom to transfer firearms secretly, either to family members, or to criminals. 

Americans do not use assault weapons or large capacity magazines to defend themselves or hunt. Mass murderers are the only people who need these items. And they are the only people that your vote represented. 

In this country, in 2013, we have no shortage of issues for you to address. You can educate your constituents, take the right side of the issue and explain to them that the conservative talking points and downright lies that they’ve been reading and hearing are wrong. Half of your constituents will agree with you. Half may listen and learn and understand why they are wrong. And you may lose their votes. But, unlike members of the United States House of Representatives, whose districts have been gerrymandered to prevent the election of a challenger, you are not going to be victimized by your base. You represent the State of North Carolina and you are protected by the numbers.

You don’t have to worry about your primary. You do, however, have to worry about history. 

Where will your statue be built?

You can stand for Americans. Or you can stand for mass murderers and the gun manufacturer’s lobby.

Dear Senator,

Today I stood in front of Dr. Martin Luther King’s statue at his park in downtown Charlotte and thought about you. Born in 1929, assassinated in 1968, where would he be today? Would he be standing beside you, or with all of us, outside your office?

Senator, you can do the right thing today. It may cost you the support of some of your base. But, you will be doing the right thing.

And I haven’t even mentioned the issue. That’s because, in this country, in 2013, we have no shortage of issues for you to address. You can educate your constituents, take the right side of the issue and explain to them that the conservative talking points and downright lies that they’ve been reading and hearing are wrong. Half of your constituents will agree with you. Half may listen and learn and understand why they are wrong. And you may lose their votes. But, unlike members of the United States House of Representatives, whose districts have been gerrymandered to prevent the election of a challenger, you are not going to be victimized by your base. You represent the State of North Carolina and you are protected by the numbers.

You don’t have to worry about your primary. You do, however, have to worry about history. 

Where will your statue be built?

Tea with Mr. Charlie

I received the following on a local blog:

"Mr. Holian,
I've never met a true conservative that feels the way you do. If you haven't looked at this web site you should, usdebtclock.org. You will see what President Reagan was saying about Medicare, not to mention the other failed government programs. If you are OK with all of this you can not be a true conservative. There is no further discussion needed on the Constitution and interpretations, because I presented you actual proof. Thank God for the Tea Parites, because they may have stopped Obamacare and more socialism. And our Republic is in trouble, because of groups like ACORN, no proof of who is actually voting, foreign money involvement and all the money from speical interest and lobbyists. Our so called elected officials are not representing us like the founders estabilshed. When they vote they do not vote for us. 60% of Americans do not want Obamacare and they continue trying to ram it down our throats. You may be happy with all this, but I hope you do not have any children or grandchildren because they are going to pay dearly. We should have the fair tax and we will have plenty of jobs. Look at the depression of 1920 and see what Harding and Coolige did and the results. And as far as Social Security it should have been privatized many years ago before the government rob the money. A county in Texas opted out of Social Security in 1980. They will now pay their retirees 3 times what S.S. is promising with full disability, $250,000 of life insurance and when the person dies, all the money goes to the families. I'm all for help those in true need, but we have funded welfare since the early 60s and now we have a 40% dropout rate in school and a 40% out of wedlock birth rate. Personal responsibitity, only help those that are truly mentally or physically challenged not lazy baby making people. You are capable of working and don't you don't eat."

This individual actually ran for Mayor of the Town of Mooresville, NC. What's shocking is that he wasn't elected. I de-constructed his rant, pointed out that virtually everything he typed was a FOX sound byte. 10 word bits of red meat thrown at Tea Parties and by Hannity and Beck. Not an original thought in this poor man's head.

"Personal responsibitity, only help those that are truly mentally or physically challenged not lazy baby making people. You are capable of working and don't you don't eat."

And that is the solution of a 'true' conservative. Cut off social programs to 'lazy baby making people' and let the unemployed and their families starve. He would deny his code for blacks and other minorities, of course. But, he can't run from his words. Unfortunately, he neither understands his words nor the contempt they show, not just for the people he's talking about, but, for those Founders who actually cared about the people they sought to build a nation for.

We the people deserve better than this man. Better than the FOX News talking heads that toss him his daily dose of hate and vitriol and contempt for people who are so much better than he is.

This man's name doesn't matter. Nothing, in fact, could matter less than this man's name.

The Republican Plan 2010 to 1787

Republican/Tea Party(s)/Religious Right/Corporate Plan for America

Social Agenda
1. The Constitution protects the rights of the rich to enjoy exemption from taxation. According to the Constitution the Government is allowed to raise taxes by collecting tariffs. We'll continue to waive import tariffs since they are Protectionist (Communist) and interfere with Free Trade between nations that provide slave labor to corporations that are exporting the jobs that created a Middle Class.
2. The Constitution protects our right to discriminate against Gays and Lesbians by protecting the sanctity of marriage (which, according to the Constitution, is a union between a Christian Man and a woman who has been purchased from her Father or Brother).
3. The Constitution protects our right to stop Gays and Lesbians from dying in Service to Our country in the Armed Forces. The Constitution makes clear that Gays and Lesbians should only be killed by stoning, being dragged behind trucks (preferably with 8 cylinder engines), or being forced to end their own sinful lives after a Christian period of harassment (in order to protect Our children from gayness).
4. The Constitution does not have Social Agenda in it. Social Programs, according to Glenn Beck, are Communist Programs, and the United States is a Capitalist Country, so, there should be no social programs. And the Founders were wrong when they created the post roads. Roads, libraries, police and fire protection and schools should only be available to those who can pay for them, in cash, whenever they need to use them. The poor must work or die. Or beg at the back door of the nearest church and be stacked at the service entrance of hospitals in case a doctor has time to treat them in a charitable moment. The poor also have the right to pray.
5. The Constitution makes it clear that the Government has no business being involved in our Health Care, so, we must end Obamacare and immediately place a paid volunteer member of the Heritage Foundation in every doctor's office to ensure that no doctor can discuss abortion with a patient. There is no Constitutionally guaranteed right to an abortion, and, therefore, it is the right of every member of the Right to monitor the doctor patient relationship to ensure that no one who disagrees can have a medical procedure that the Right doesn't support.

Political Agenda:
1. End taxation of the rich. The rich create jobs. Once the rich are free from the yoke of taxation everything will take care of itself.
2. Repeal the amendments to the Constitution and start over. When the Constitution was originally ratified by the States only 10% to 16% of the population could vote. We don't remember what it was like in this great nation when only Property Owning WASP Men could vote. This will make it easier for the rich to create jobs.
3. Make Obama a 1 term President by requiring every American to watch FOX News when they aren't working or looking for a job. Or begging for food. Or dying because they have no Health Care.

(Note: I would mention that this is a satirical post, but, since this is exactly what the Right is promoting, it isn't funny.To the few fiscally conservative Republicans who still exist, as Vice President Biden pointed out, this is not your Grandfather's Republican Party)

What if President Obama Succeeds?

The following was posted on The Huffington Post on 12/24/09. Before you read it? This is what Benjamin Franklin had to offer us regarding his dear friend John Adams:

"He means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise man, but sometimes and in some things, absolutely out of his senses." -- Ben Franklin, 1783, about John Adams (in a letter to Robert Livingston)

Without knowing Dr. Breggin it is difficult to say if he means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise man, or how many hours each day he spends watching FOX "News", but, please, read on.

Comments regarding Dr. Breggin's thoughts will be found in bold text.

What if President Obama Succeeds?

Dr. Peter Breggin

Psychiatrist
Posted: December 24, 2009 10:41 AM


What if President Obama succeeds in giving enemy combatants -- terrorists -- the same rights as American citizens? Will terrorists be won over by our superior values? To the contrary, terrorists demean our values as weak and ungodly. They will, if anything, feel empowered by our weakness. Instead of dying in Afghanistan or Iraq to get to all those virgins in heaven, they will be motivated to come to America to enjoy the protections of our Constitution. Actually, our decision to treat them like U. S. citizens will probably have little or no effect on terrorists, other than to make it harder to seize them, hold them, and render them harmless through incarceration.

Any rights afforded to terrorists by the Obama administration are intended to communicate to this nation and to the international community that the United States has once again become a nation of laws and that torture, rendition and secret prisons have been abolished.

What if President Obama gets to put the Guantanamo terrorists on trial in an American court in New York City while imprisoning others in American jails in places like Illinois? Will the terrorists come to respect our system of justice, as Obama supporters claim? Don't be naïve. They hate our system of justice and plan to replace it with their own atavistic system of Sharia Law. But the terrorists do yearn for high profile soft targets -- and we're busy creating them on our own soil. We're placing giant "kick me" signs on our own behinds.

Putting the terrorists charged with the 9/11 attacks on trial in New York, where the attacks took place, out of the jurisdiction of the United States Military ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act } was a decision made by the Attorney General, not by President Obama, contrary to FOX "News" and Dr. Breggin.

It can also be argued that, since the attacks of 9/11 took place prior to Congress authorizing President Bush to conduct war on a concept rather than on another nation, treating the 9/11 suspects as military combatants by having their cases heard before a Military Tribunal would occur ex post facto and that such action would violate Article 1 Section 9 of The Constitution.

What if President Obama succeeds in reducing the power of our military, including our capacity to fight conventional wars with superior army, navy and air power and superior atomic weaponry? Sure, Afghanistan and Iraq are different kinds of war. But have Russia and China gone away? Will they make equal reductions in their military capacity to fight a large-scale war? To the contrary, China is building submarines and aircraft carriers, and a huge conventional army. Do we imagine they will not take advantage of their coming military superiority?

It is safe to assume that President Obama and the Joint Chiefs can all see Russia and China from Dr. Breggin's front yard. What is debatable is whether China has any intention of launching a ground war against the United States with submarines and aircraft carriers. Stay tuned to FOX "News" for more of this sort of inflammatory rhetoric.

What if President Obama succeeds in passing cap-and-trade or, as he currently plans, what if he succeeds in directly imposing new bureaucratic regulations on emissions such as CO2 without even troubling Congress? Will it save the planet? Hardly. China, India, Brazil, Russia and the lesser emerging nations will soon outdo our entire history of potentially toxic emissions with no end in sight. Will they be moved by our moral example to inhibit their own industrialization? Hardly. Much like promising the terrorists that we will be nice to them, our self-inflicted economic wounds will only make the emerging nations realize how weak we have become. The Chinese will celebrate the acceleration of their economic eventual triumph over us.

Not to mention the Canadians.

What if President Obama is allowed to continue to run America through dozens of henchmen aptly called "czars" -- leftist political enforcers accountable only to him? Political enforcers whose job descriptions are left to the imagination and whose salaries are often kept secret. Since the inception of this nation, Congress has prized and exercised its constitutional authority over the selection and monitoring of cabinet members. Huge battles have been fought between the Senate and the president over these presidential appointments. Without firing a gun, our president has won a revolution that has successfully undermined the U. S. Constitution and shifted power dramatically to the Executive Branch, essentially obliterating the treasured checks and balances created by our Founders.

Henchmen. Who are called "czars". Leftist "czars" who are henchmen.

According to Dr. Breggin the President of the United States has won a revolution without firing a gun. By appointing advisers, like every other President.

The Senate continues to advise and consent regarding cabinet appointments. Just like in the days of our Founders.

What if President Obama's Congress manages to pass health care "reform" legislation? Will it expand coverage of currently uninsured people? Of course it will. But it will do so by government force, spreading thin existing resources and leading to rationing. Will it save money? Don't be ridiculous; it's the government. Think Post Office. Think Medicare. Think Welfare. Will the costs be contained? That's never happened in the history of government. Will it improve medical care? No, it will reduce innovation, making American medicine more like British or Indian medicine. The whole world will be deprived of our pioneering research and medical science. The ongoing rush to approve health care coverage sight unseen has only one real intention behind it -- plunging America deeper into socialism. In that it will surely succeed.

Insurance companies ration care today. And insurance companies kill Americans. But, according to Dr. Breggin, if all Americans become eligible to receive affordable Health Care, America will be unable to continue to provide Health Care to those who deserve it.

Dr. Breggin doesn't mention that all Americans today are eligible to receive unaffordable health care. At the expense of those Americans who have Health Care Insurance and who pay their bills. Anyone without Health Care Insurance or the means to see a doctor can walk, stagger or be delivered by ambulance to any Emergency Room and receive expensive life sustaining medical care that would not have been necessary if everyone could afford less expensive well care.

The Founders provided for the Postal Service and for Post Roads. They provided for no rights whatsoever for Native Americans, Blacks, women or the unborn. The Founders were not perfect, they never had any idea how our population would grow, or how medical costs incurred by the poor and the uninsured would burden the population of the United States in 2009. Imperfect Disinterested Liberal Gentlemen founded this nation. They did the best that they could. However, it is up to Americans who live in this century to use the living document they created to care of our citizens and not abandon them because of the selfish, the ignorant or the invested.

The Preamble to The Constitution of the United States establishes that, among other things, we the people, will promote the general welfare.

While the Founders may not have intended for the least among us to benefit from those words, perhaps they should have. There is no reason that we today can not rise above the intentions of the Founders as past generations have.

What if...? It's already happening. We are in the midst of one of the most threatening assaults ever on our most cherished Founding institutions and values including the U. S. Constitution and our basic political and personal freedoms. All of us most mobilize.

A majority of Americans mobilized in November of 2008 when they elected Barack Obama. It was time for change. That change is taking place today. In spite of an obstructionist Republican Party, the ignorance and fear of the lunatic fringe and FOX "News".

Dr. Breggin's posts on The Huffington Post are closed for comments. That is understandable.

Bart and Ben and a Woman's Right to Choose

Why are Bart Stupak and Ben Nelson so concerned with the reproductive rights of American women? How can men seriously claim to have any right to voice an opinion with regard to women's bodies and the choices that women have a right to make?

Unless the answer is that women are chattel, the property of their fathers, husbands, boyfriends, or society in general, what answer is there? Are women the birthing machines of the nation or the individual states? Do we require women to produce offspring so that consumer spending and the tax rolls can be maintained?

Is the abortion issue a religious issue, a moral issue, a matter of law, or of The Constitution? All of the above.

All of the above, and a bit more, perhaps. Is the abortion issue and the controversy over federal funding for abortion one of the last attempts on the part of the men of America to control women and their bodies?

Everyone who reads a paper or watches the news has heard of Roe v. Wade. Not many people have ever taken the opportunity to read it. Like so many topics of discussion, it pays to do some homework before voicing an opinion or having an opinion that is ill-informed.

http://www.tourolaw.edu/Patch/Roe/

After a read of the Supreme Court decision, take a look at The Constitution of the United States.

http://www.usconstitution.net/

There are very few people in our society who don't have an opinion when it comes to abortion. The real question, though, is how many people have a right to have an opinion about a woman's right to choose.

If a woman and her doctor agree that an abortion is necessary who else really has a right to know about the procedure or offer advice or demand to be a party to the discussion or the decision?

If the denial of federal funding for abortions that aren't necessary to save a woman's life or preserve her health, or for abortions that aren't performed due to rape or incest are considered elective medical procedures, and federal funds aren't available for any elective medical procedures, then there would seem to be at least one rational argument for the denial of federal funding for those services.

That isn't the argument that is generally heard, though. Generally those who support the Hyde Amendment, the amendment passed that denies federal funding for elective abortions, say that they don't want 'their' tax dollars to go to fund abortions. Or they say that Americans, the majority of Americans, don't want their tax dollars spent on abortions. And those who oppose abortions in general usually say that abortion is murder and that abortion is wrong and that God is in opposition to Roe v. Wade and that Pro Choice is really Pro Abortion. The argument against a woman's right to choose isn't usually a rational, legal or constitutional one.

The Hyde Amendment is discriminatory if it denies federal funding for elective abortions but not all other elective medical procedures.

The Constitution of the United States, ironically the document that Conservatives and Tea Baggers and the right wing activists and bombers of abortion clinics and assassins of those who work to perform abortions waive at Tea Parties, doesn't provide for the life or the rights of the unborn.

The Constitution, as originally framed by The Founding Fathers provided no protections for anyone other than white men. Native Americans, Blacks and women enjoyed no protection under The Constitution or the Bill of Rights. The white men who cobbled together The Constitution made no provision for abortion. If The Founding Fathers gave abortion any thought at all, they apparently assumed that since white women were chattel and most black women were property, that the white men who controlled them would decide if abortions would be performed or were necessary.

There has been much talk about how government should not come between a patient and their doctor during the Health Care Reform debate. The Hyde Amendment does that.

Abortion, like any other medical procedure, is a matter for a patient and a doctor. Women have been granted the right to choose and they should be allowed to choose without the interference of someone else's God, moral code, personal opinion or legislation. Government should not be involved. And judgmental hypocrites and religious fanatics should spend more time examining issues that concern them and less time trying to manage American women.