Month: February 2017

Some reason from Vox

I saw this article from Vox, Why disabilities rights activists like me sided with the NRA on an Obama gun control ruleand it blew my mind.

At first, I thought is was going to be typical Vox.

As a liberal disability rights activist who worked closely with the Clinton campaign and continues to fight Trump, I tend to be on the side of those condemning actions by the congressional GOP. But this time, I and my disability rights colleagues found myself in an unusual position: siding with the Republicans and, yes, the National Rifle Association.

Here we go, an admitted liberal talking about working with the GOP and NRA like she attended a clan rally.  I feel so bad for her being exposed to so many terrible people with their Nazi ideas.

But then…

Because while congressional Democrats have been admirable allies to the disability community on the vast majority of issues, when it comes to gun violence, both parties use people with mental illness as props — in ways that don’t help public safety, and that put vulnerable people at risk. In this case, it was the Democrats that got the issue wrong.

Her lockstep seems to be faltering.

Predictably, in the run-up to the debate, gun-control groups and gun-rights groups lined up on opposite sides of the issue. But disability rights groups and civil rights organizations were also concerned that the rule lacked a solid connection to public safety and might serve to restrict the rights of people with mental disabilities in other areas.

The light begins to dawn.  A liberal understand the argument of a slippery slope of lost rights.  First they figure out how to take your gun rights without due process and the next thing you know you can be imprisoned without trial, can’t vote, or can’t practice any of your other Constitutionally protected rights.

Around the same time, a coalition of 11 major disability rights groups issued a similar warning, expressing concern that such a measure might set a dangerous precedent going well beyond the issue of gun violence.

Just like the how the “No Fly List” was not the same thing as the Terror Watch List, having a representative payee is not the same thing as being adjudicated mentally ill or defective.

But far from implying an individual is permanently incapacitated, a representative payee is often used as a less restrictive alternative to a court declaration that an individual is incompetent to manage his or her own affairs. Representative payees are used in a broad variety of circumstances, from an aging grandmother delegating finances to a child to an autistic young adult, or a middle-aged man with an anxiety disorder, choosing a representative payee to help them make sure their rent and utility bills get consistently paid on time.

Grandpa has a hard time remembering to pay his bills on time and forgets where he puts his car keys.  That doesn’t mean that Grandpa can’t take the Grandkids out with the Cricket Rifle to teach them to shoot.

During my time at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, I heard from a number of autistic adults who were concerned that their use of a representative payee would prevent them from taking part in hunting and other aspects of rural culture involving firearms.

Wow, people want to enjoy their rights and hobbies even if they have a mental condition that make it hard for them to be fully functioning adults but is not a threat to their safety or the safety of others.  Who’d of thunk it?

Still, despite that, the primary reason I and other disability advocates opposed the Rep Payee rule is less about guns than it is about the precedent the rule might set for other kinds of rights.

Disability advocates are concerned with setting the precedent that needing help with financial matters implies a lack of capacity to exercise other rights. These concerns are rooted in discrimination people with mental disabilities face in other areas of life, such as parenting and voting rights. On these issues, people with mental disabilities often face an assumption of incapacity, forcing disability and civil rights advocates and attorneys to fight to overturn assumptions that a diagnosis or determination of support need in one area should lead to a loss of rights in an unrelated area.

Slippery slope.

 

I read this and almost had  stroke.  It is such a logical and reasonable argument that I’m surprised that Vox published it.  I think it was an accident.

 

Better than Bookmarks or subscribing to a Mailing List: The Old Reader.

If you have several blogs or sites you read regularly and do not have a News Aggregator, you are probably dealing with either email notifications or clicking your life away in your bookmark list.

Enter The Old Reader.

 

For cheap bastards, it is free for the first 100 blogs & sites and then it is really a pittance for carrying more sites directly to your computer. It is really intuitive and user-friendly: just add the URL of the site you want to follow in where it says  “Add a subscription” and you are done.  It has a very flexible set up and organization and you can order your sites by a simple click-and-drag.  It even has an app for your favorite phone (Including Windows Phone..)

You know all the issues I’ve been having and people are still missing posts because the HostGator screw ups makes the sit appear static since the beginning of the month and there is nothing I can do till their browser caches expire or get delete. But Old Reader has not failed to update and I consider it less annoying than email notifications.

Give it a try, I know you will be very happy to use it.

“Mom” Michelle Gajda Wrong Again.

Our “friend” Michelle Gajda, following the idea of not fully investigating or not giving a damn and lying anyway, gave us the following morning treat:

The links she provides is woefully short on details, but the inferred idea is clear: Gun Owner got mad and shot a poor innocent man. Unfortunately the truth (that elusive bitch) is a tad different:

Investigators said the incident involved the drivers of a gray Chevy SUV and a light colored pickup truck. “Both the drivers were traveling southbound on Northwest 12th Avenue from Northwest Seventh Street, at which point in time, according to witnesses, both vehicles stopped,” said Miami Police Officer Christopher Bess. According to a police source, the man in the pickup truck got out of his vehicle and approached the SUV while holding a long screwdriver-type tool. Inside the SUV, the driver opened fire with the window rolled up, striking the man

Source: Police: Road rage likely sparked shooting that hurt 1 – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports | Fort Lauderdale

Oops! The shooter did not follow the “accepted” Gun Control protocol, started to foam at the mouth and mowed down and innocent preacher on his way to church, but he actually defended himself against a road-rager?

THAT IS NOT HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! HOW ARE WE GOING TO HAVE GUN CONTROL WHEN PEOPLE USE GUNS TO DEFEND THEMSELVES?

Answer: You are not going to get Gun Control.

The inconvenient Lobbying of Marissa Alexander.

Ms. Alexander was finally freed on Jan. 27. She plans to take up the fight for domestic abuse victims and push for a change in what advocates have called the uneven application of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. She will advocate amending the law in order to take the burden of proof off defendants who have to demonstrate in pretrial hearings that they acted in self-defense and deserve immunity from trial.

In Florida, the law allows for the use of deadly force in self-defense with no duty to retreat when a violent intruder breaks into a home or car.

That shield was denied her in 2011, when a judge in a pretrial hearing rejected her attempt to use the law, saying she did not meet the burden of proof because there was a “factual dispute” on her Stand Your Ground defense. That led to her trial and ultimate conviction, said Faith E. Gay, one of Ms. Alexander’s lawyers.

Florida Woman Whose ‘Stand Your Ground’ Defense Was Rejected Is Released.

Marissa Alexander is a problem for the Gun Control/Left community: She is a woman, she is Black, she was given prison time because the Narrative says Stand Your Ground was not equally applied to her issue as it was to George Zimmerman… and she is coming out in favor of extending SYG.  What I love the most is that the Media is so stuck with its own creation, they are forced to repeat the lies it created or risk taking the side of the husband who has been portrayed as a violent abuser.

Let’s how much time and ink will be given to her testimony to the Legislature on Thursday. I know the new champions for the Gun Control side were the League of Women Voters of Florida who although have been supporting Gun Control issues for a while now, this is the first time that they loudly proclaim their allegiance to Michael Bloomberg above the causes you would think a league of voters were suppose to defend like, you know, voting rights?

We in Florida are going to have an interesting Legislative session.

Heil Pelosi

The San Francisco Bay Area has become Germani circa 1934.  Conservatives and Republicans have to meet in secret using fake names  to avoid harassment, violence, or reprocussions from tolerant San Francisco liberals.

I give it another two years before an we will see the first anti Republican pogrom in the Bay Area, in which Republicans are outed and attacked.

It’s just too bad for them that they have been disarmed.  But that is how the liberal mob wants it.  When the Jews Conservatives shoot back, it’s hard to bash them.

What passes for news

Fusion Comedy bills itself as a comedy outlet.  It is not.  It is a radical Social Justice network that presents its particular line of hateful bullshit with what people who are allergic to humor think is comedy, as opposed to the typical SJW hysterical bullying.  Sort of like getting beaten up by a clown.

They’ve done two anti-gun videos, perhaps more, but this was all I could stomach.

Ah yes, starting with the “ammosexual” implication, because gun owners love their guns in an erotic way because we are all sick people.  Cliche old hat.

They love to present just enough information to enrage the liberal to action, but not enough to create an informed person.

Yes, Vermont allows people 16 years or older to carry loaded handguns.  Teenagers still can’t violate Federal laws however and Vermont doesn’t issue CCW permits (it is Constitutional carry).  Laws like these are a lot less about letting a 16 year old pack IWB at the mall and a lot more about possession of firearms while hunting.  A number of states have various regulations that allow minors to be in possession of loaded firearms while hunting, hence the quip about the 30 states with no minimum age to have a long gun.

Oh no, in 17 states it is completely legal to store your CCW pistol in YOUR car while at work.  How terrible that your boss can’t tell you what you what YOU can’t have in YOUR car.  It’s almost as if Fusion thinks that when you park your car at work, your car becomes your employer’s property.  Holy Hell North Dakota, how dare you stand up for employee privacy.  Maybe an employer should be able to ask what books you have in your car, just in case they want to root out anybody they want to discriminate against for other reasons.

Holy shit Iowa, how dare you allow someone to retain their civil liberties despite a physical handicap.  Don’t you know the truly progressive thing to do is to affirm that only able bodies people enjoy the full gamut of Constitutionally protected civil rights?  Not being able to see well enough to drive doesn’t mean you are totally blind, but who cares, you are an unperson who deserves no rights.  Maybe this guy with no arms shouldn’t be allowed to own a gun either?

Carrying guns on public college campuses?  How horrifying.  Of course a public college should be allowed to suspend civil liberties of licences CCW permit holders.  It’s not like a group of radical leftists are training to beat up Nazis, a.k.a. Republicans, on college campuses.  Just vote lockstep Democrat and then you won’t be targeted for violence and you won’t need a gun to defend yourself.

So what’s next?

Oh great.  We have an immigrant from Egypt, one of the world’s grossest violators of human rights which is ranked No. 144 out of 159 on the Human Freedom Index, who is going to lecture us in the US about our rights.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love the freedom of speech.  But of you come to the US from a place where you can get thrown in prison or murdered for speaking out against your government and you decide that what you want to do is criticize and lecture us about how bad we are, go fuck yourself.  With a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.

He fully admits that in the Arab world, only dictators and their oppressive thugs, or terrorists have guns; yet somehow that is better.  They only throw rocks at each other, it’s harmless.  Unless you are a women accused of adultery, then 81% of Egyptians will want to throw rocks at you until you die.  But sure, Egypt has the moral high ground on this.

Because Fusion’s comedy is as inspired as a wet fart, how will Bassem ridicule Americans.  I know, how about dressing up like what a typical liberal thinks a gun owner looks like and going to a gun show – or as I like to call them “Freedom Festivals” – and bating people into saying something dumb and/or xenophobic.  That’s not played out.

Yeah, he found the one asshole at every gun show that shows up with the Nazi paraphernalia, and has to make a half-assed joke about “something for your anti-Semitic uncle.”  I’m glad that Bassem can hold the moral high ground again seeing as ONLY 94% of Egyptians hate Jews and want to drive them into the sea so badly that they will murder any Muslim leader that tries to strike a peace agreement with Israel.

Where I really started to lose it is when he as the audacity to lecture us about the Second Amendment.  Let’s not forget that in his homeland, it is punishable by death to become an apostate to Islam, or to preach any other religion to a Muslim, and that Coptic Christians are being persecuted to the point of genocide.  But sure, our inalienable right to bear arms and defend ourselves is silly.

Lastly, to compare America’s homicide rate to the Arab Spring is beyond the pale.  The Arab Spring killed directly 180,000 people, led to the rise of ISIS and reignited the war in Iraq.  Our gun rights are not butchering people alive, lighting people on fire in cages. throwing accused homosexuals off buildings, amputating the hands of children; but tell me again how we are so wrong.

This is infuriating.  Only among the radical Progressive left can someone who comes to the US as a refugee from complete barbarism be encouraged to openly criticize America in favor of the barbaric nations that the refugee fled from.  Fuck this guy, everybody at Fusion, and everybody who liked his video.

This stuff is pure evil.  It is the naked hatred of our civil rights and the people that enjoy them, mixed with the self ridiculousness of Social Justice.  It is intolerable.