(I've been having a few interesting conversations on FaceBook lately.
I'm still processing where I want to go with several of the ideas that have been stirred up, but in the meantime I thought I'd share with yall a few select tidbits.)
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: anything that gets on the news is insignificant. You can tell by very virtue of the fact that it is on the news. It is exactly like the coverage of 500 people dieing in a plane crash, which happens once a decade, while there is exactly zero coverage of the 500 people who die in car crashes EVERY WEEK. We hear about it for months if a cop shoots an unarmed black man, but you've never heard the names of the 10 unarmed non-black men shot by cops in the first half of 2013. We pretend it is a major issue when, every once in a while, some crazy person shoots 10 people, but 30 people shoot one person each EVERY DAY in America. It just isn't dramatic news.
When something like this happens, we put all this emphasis on what that particular person was into, what must have motivated them. They were into satanism, they were into rock and roll, they smoked pot, they listened to violent rap music, they played violent video games, they were anarchists, they were backwoods dwelling preppers, they were anti-government, they were racist, they were cult members, they worked for the US Postal Service, they listened to Glenn Beck, they were a skin head - wrong.
In all cases, wrong.
There is no pattern. The most common reason for shooting sprees is getting fired, but even that's less than half. Thousands of people get fired every day and don't come back and kill their co-workers.
Every once in a while, people go on killing sprees.
Killing sprees happened long before firearms existed. Look up the phrase "run amok". It is something humans do.
And then its something other humans do to try to rationalize it, and especially if they can somehow use it as an example to try to further a pre-existing socio-political agenda. But if you don't accept that mass killings of the past were indictments of (fill in the blank: marijuana, rock and roll, video games, anarchy) then you don't get to claim this most recent one is an indictment of "men's rights groups".
This is not representative of anything, because it is a single isolated and unprecedented instance. A person ran amok. It happens. This particular one hated women. That part is a coincidence. Lots and lots of men hate women and don't go on shooting sprees. The entire thing is a non-issue.
How is it that people miss that the majority of his victims were male?
What an incredibly appropriate analogy, for the "feminist" misogyny I've been trying to point out the past couple years: the belief, even in the face of contrary evidence, that women are inherently victims, that women are weak and helpless and need protection.
You see it in the persistent belief that it is dangerous for a woman to walk alone at night in bad neighborhood - even though statistics say men are at significantly greater risk of attack by stranger.
You see it in the persistent myth of date rape drugs - even though 99% of suspected roofies turn out to be nothing but self-inflicted alcohol ingestion.
You see it in the extremely different reactions (and sometimes even laws) in sex with a minor depending on which gender was the older and which the younger.
You see it in rape laws (and statistic gathering) that defines the word rape as "penetration", which automatically means a female forcing a male is a lesser (or no) crime.
You see it in claims that "society doesn't value women" - while we ignore that men are expected (and often legally required) to go to war and die for society, while women are not only not forced to, but aren't even allowed to.
And then here, when twice as many men are murdered as women, and we all agree to pretend that it exemplifies violence against women. Um, huh?
I'm not denying that sexism or oppression exists. But the trope of woman as victim is not at all helpful in countering them. In fact, it is deeply counter-productive.
You want to end rape? Fuck giving the power to perpetrators, with the slogan "no means no". How about "fight back!" as a slogan? The overwhelming majority of attempted rapes where the intended victim fights back with maximum violence, the rape does not occur. But most don't fight back, because women are taught all their lives that they are weak and defenseless, that they are naturally victims.
It's bullshit.
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
24 June 2014
04 March 2014
Quote from unknown poster on homophobia and its relation to sexual assult
"Oh and while being a straight man myself I've never understood the apparent belief that many straight men have that they are apparently irresistible to homosexuals and that given half a chance all gays would pounce on them and have their wicked way - I often suspect that this reflects their own attitudes towards women. I'm not sure that I find that a pleasant idea but it would go some way towards explaining the truly awful male on female sexual abuse statistics that US Forces seem to suffer from."
Quote from unknown poster on a military forum titled "The Gays won, There goes the military"
28 August 2013
Refuting the theory that physiologically facilitating rape is "self-protective"
I've been surprised to come across more and more references lately to a relatively new theory among some sex researchers that the reason women reflexively lubricate to certain stimuli which they don't self-report as being arousing is that it evolved as the body's way of protecting itself in the case of sexual assault.
Here is an example:
Genital response to sexual stimuli may be an evolved self-protection mechanism. Female genital response is an automatic reflex that is elicited by sexual stimuli and produces vaginal lubrication, even if the woman does not subjectively feel sexually aroused...Female genital response entails increased genital vasocongestion, necessary for the production of vaginal lubrication, and can, in turn, reduce discomfort and the possibility of injury during vaginal penetration. Ancestral women who did not show an automatic vaginal response to sexual cues may have been more likely to experience injuries that resulted in illness, infertility, or even death subsequent to unexpected or unwanted vaginal penetration, and thus would be less likely to have passed on this trait to their offspring....Reports of women's genital response and orgasm during sexual assaults suggests that genital responses do occur in women under conditions of sexual threat.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-sex-and-babies/201105/why-do-women-get-physically-aroused-and-not-even-know-it
Genital response to sexual stimuli may be an evolved self-protection mechanism. Female genital response is an automatic reflex that is elicited by sexual stimuli and produces vaginal lubrication, even if the woman does not subjectively feel sexually aroused...Female genital response entails increased genital vasocongestion, necessary for the production of vaginal lubrication, and can, in turn, reduce discomfort and the possibility of injury during vaginal penetration. Ancestral women who did not show an automatic vaginal response to sexual cues may have been more likely to experience injuries that resulted in illness, infertility, or even death subsequent to unexpected or unwanted vaginal penetration, and thus would be less likely to have passed on this trait to their offspring....Reports of women's genital response and orgasm during sexual assaults suggests that genital responses do occur in women under conditions of sexual threat.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-sex-and-babies/201105/why-do-women-get-physically-aroused-and-not-even-know-it
The theory in regards to the threat of rape is bad enough. But let me start with an even more ridiculous theory - a good number of sex researchers have actually suggested that this same rape facilitation mechanism is the reason that women are found to have physical arousal from various sexually themed images and stories which they subjectively report as not being sexy, including not only depictions of rape, but also lesbian sex and, in at least one case, monkey sex.
Here's a couple examples of this theory being presented:
"women’s genital responses are usually non-specific: self-identified hetereosexual women have been shown to have similar genital responses to stimuli that depict hetereosexual, gay, or lesbian sex (Chivers et al., 2004). Women even show some genital responses to nonhuman primates having sex, while men do not (Chivers & Bailey, 2005). Importantly, this genital arousal in women seems to be automatic: it occurs before women even report feeling aroused (Laan, 1994) and even when they are not aware of its presence (Ponseti & Bosinski, 2010).
Men and women, then, seem to have strong differences in the type of stimuli that causes genital arousal. What might have caused this? It has been suggested that there is a functional account of the nonspecificity and automaticity of female genital arousal: The Preparation Hypothesis. It has been shown that increased blood flow is a precursor to vaginal lubrication (Levin, 2003) and suggested that this may serve as a protective function for women engaged in intercourse – consensual or otherwise (Chivers, 2005)." http://www.jimaceverett.com/genital_lubrication.html
And:
"Men’s genital arousal occurs in response to a limited number of sexual stimuli, whereas women’s genital arousal occurs in response to a wide range of sexual stimuli, including those depicting nonpreferred cues. Researchers have hypothesized that women’s nonspecific pattern of genital arousal prepares the body for sexual activity, thus functioning to protect the genital organs against injury. If this hypothesis is correct, women should show genital responses to any cues suggesting sexual activity..." http://www.centenary.edu/attachments/psychology/journal/archive/mar2011journalclub.pdf
And:
"Women, she says, are physically aroused by non-specific stimuli, everything from copulating primates to two men having sex. Even rape scenes can trigger a physical response...Dr. Chivers looks at the question from an evolutionary standpoint. As modern humans evolved, women who became lubricated at the slightest sexual signal would have been less likely to get injured or to contract diseases during sex, especially if it was forced on them. It could be a protective mechanism." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/incoming/her-parts-desire/article1154587/
First of all, the theory doesn't even fit with available information. One study after another, with different researchers and different methods of determining arousal (vaginal lubrication, blood flow, heart rate, pupil dilation, brain scans) have all consistently found that the majority of women - regardless of stated sexual orientation, fetishes and preferences, exhibit physiological arousal from straight, gay male, and lesbian sexual imagry. Some have even found arousal in response to images of non-humans engaged in sex.
However, one thing that consistently fails to elicit a response is images of an erect human penis without a larger sexual context.
These theories for why women are so easily aroused by so many things (compared to men), echos the theory presented above in regards to assault - women's physical arousal is on a hair trigger for the purpose of facilitating being raped without injury.
It shouldn't take much to realize how absolutely stupid that theory is - which would women in the early stages of human evolution facing a threat of rape be more likely to see: two women having sex, two monkeys having sex, or an erect human penis?
How often in human evolutionary theory were women presented with the threat of injury due to attempted rape by lesbians, gay men, or monkeys? Probably close to never percent of the time.
In contrast, heterosexual non-consensual intercourse forced by a male attacker would include an erect penis exactly always percent of the time.
This theory is so unbelievably nonsensical that I am literally at a loss for how to express just how stupid it is.
And yet it is being suggested by quite a few otherwise respectable intelligent psychologists and sociologists and other sex researchers who work on investigating this sort of thing scientifically for a living!
I won't go any further in debunking the "women lubricate to lesbian porn so they won't be injured by male rapists" line of reasoning, because it is just plain stupid.
Instead, for the rest of this I'll focus on what appears on the surface to at least be logically consistent (although still wrong): that women are physically turned on by the threat of rape as a method of self-protection.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3090633/
"Brown et al. found that many women respondents express a clear preference for dry, tight, sex. Respondents believe that if a man has a small penis, powders help create a good feeling for the woman. One woman explains, “A women feels no pleasure when the vagina has too much liquid.”(11)"
When asked specifically about any harmful effects of vaginal tightness and dryness, some participants admitted that an extremely dry vagina could cause problems. One man reported, “It’s natural for all guys to go crazy for a woman who is dry, but you have to make love carefully. If you want to be rough, you can get hurt. A man can get cuts and wounds and catch diseases” (Judith Brown, personal communication, November 1999)
The materials used for vaginal practices include traditional herbs
and an array of natural products as well as common commercial p
roducts such as alum, boric acid, and bactericides. According to Halperin, many women use these produc ts for ‘dry sex.’ Their partners have been found to suffer penile injuries, lacerations to the foreskin, and bleeding (Halperin 1999).
and an array of natural products as well as common commercial p
roducts such as alum, boric acid, and bactericides. According to Halperin, many women use these produc ts for ‘dry sex.’ Their partners have been found to suffer penile injuries, lacerations to the foreskin, and bleeding (Halperin 1999).
Respondents believe that the man should hurt or suffer a little during penetration [Brown et. al]
Unfortunately, none of them have any mention of the relative prevalence of pain or injury to male vs female partners.
In a cross-sectional survey of general population residents of Cape Town, South Africa, 21% of men and 16% of women reported coital bleeding in the past 3 months,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16688100
Unfortunately, the summary does not distinguish between menses bleeding (the majority of reports) and injury, and it is unclear if the reports were of either partner's bleeding, or of self only. Either way it seems likely that those numbers indicate the frequency of injury to men to be higher. The initial paper likely does, but it has not yet been made available
The most conclusive I could find was this:
In all, 1454 cases of reported coital injuries were reviewed; 790 occurred in men while 664 occurred in women, mainly in the genital area. Physical urological complications were more common in men than in women.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11856110/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11856110/
Which, again, is not specific to insufficient lubrication, but it shows a very clear higher risk of injury to male genitalia from various forms of sexual contact than to female.
This completely undermines the "self-protection from rape via facilitating rape" theory.
The opposite reaction would likely cause greater injury to an attacker than to the victim, and would therefore discourage rapists from attempting it in the first place.
Of course the fact remains that women do produce lubrication in response to sexually explicit stimuli which they subjectively report as not being arousing, and the reason for that is still in question. I offer no theory of my own at this time (although the very first article I posted - http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-sex-and-babies/201105/why-do-women-get-physically-aroused-and-not-even-know-it - offers 3 alternative possible explanations, and this study goes into much much greater detail than most, and offers a pletora of insights: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2739403/ ).
My only purpose here is questioning the validity of the "facilitating rape is self-protective" claim, the very idea of which I suspect is only possible in a society with a deeply internalized misogyny.
My only purpose here is questioning the validity of the "facilitating rape is self-protective" claim, the very idea of which I suspect is only possible in a society with a deeply internalized misogyny.
[much more evidence of our deeply internalized misogyny here: http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/01/RapeAndFeminismPage1.html ]
Refuting the theory that physiologically facilitating rape is "self-protective"
I've been surprised to come across more and more references lately to a relatively new theory among some sex researchers that the reason women reflexively lubricate to certain stimuli which they don't self-report as being arousing is that it evolved as the body's way of protecting itself in the case of sexual assault.
Here is an example:
Genital response to sexual stimuli may be an evolved self-protection mechanism. Female genital response is an automatic reflex that is elicited by sexual stimuli and produces vaginal lubrication, even if the woman does not subjectively feel sexually aroused...Female genital response entails increased genital vasocongestion, necessary for the production of vaginal lubrication, and can, in turn, reduce discomfort and the possibility of injury during vaginal penetration. Ancestral women who did not show an automatic vaginal response to sexual cues may have been more likely to experience injuries that resulted in illness, infertility, or even death subsequent to unexpected or unwanted vaginal penetration, and thus would be less likely to have passed on this trait to their offspring....Reports of women's genital response and orgasm during sexual assaults suggests that genital responses do occur in women under conditions of sexual threat.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-sex-and-babies/201105/why-do-women-get-physically-aroused-and-not-even-know-it
Genital response to sexual stimuli may be an evolved self-protection mechanism. Female genital response is an automatic reflex that is elicited by sexual stimuli and produces vaginal lubrication, even if the woman does not subjectively feel sexually aroused...Female genital response entails increased genital vasocongestion, necessary for the production of vaginal lubrication, and can, in turn, reduce discomfort and the possibility of injury during vaginal penetration. Ancestral women who did not show an automatic vaginal response to sexual cues may have been more likely to experience injuries that resulted in illness, infertility, or even death subsequent to unexpected or unwanted vaginal penetration, and thus would be less likely to have passed on this trait to their offspring....Reports of women's genital response and orgasm during sexual assaults suggests that genital responses do occur in women under conditions of sexual threat.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-sex-and-babies/201105/why-do-women-get-physically-aroused-and-not-even-know-it
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3090633/
"Brown et al. found that many women respondents express a clear preference for dry, tight, sex. Respondents believe that if a man has a small penis, powders help create a good feeling for the woman. One woman explains, “A women feels no pleasure when the vagina has too much liquid.”(11)"
http://www.consultancyafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1019:dry-tight-and-warm-dry-sex-practices-in-central-and-southern-africa-&catid=59:gender-issues-discussion-papers&Itemid=267
When asked specifically about any harmful effects of vaginal tightness and dryness, some participants admitted that an extremely dry vagina could cause problems. One man reported, “It’s natural for all guys to go crazy for a woman who is dry, but you have to make love carefully. If you want to be rough, you can get hurt. A man can get cuts and wounds and catch diseases” (Judith Brown, personal communication, November 1999)
http://www.wisdomofwhores.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Halperin-1999-dry.pdf
The materials used for vaginal practices include traditional herbs
and an array of natural products as well as common commercial p
roducts such as alum, boric acid, and bactericides. According to Halperin, many women use these produc ts for ‘dry sex.’ Their partners have been found to suffer penile injuries, lacerations to the foreskin, and bleeding (Halperin 1999).
and an array of natural products as well as common commercial p
roducts such as alum, boric acid, and bactericides. According to Halperin, many women use these produc ts for ‘dry sex.’ Their partners have been found to suffer penile injuries, lacerations to the foreskin, and bleeding (Halperin 1999).
http://paa2007.princeton.edu/papers/7131
Respondents believe that the man should hurt or suffer a little during penetration [Brown et. al]
http://www.consultancyafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1019:dry-tight-and-warm-dry-sex-practices-in-central-and-southern-africa-&catid=59:gender-issues-discussion-papers&Itemid=267
Unfortunately, none of them have any mention of the relative prevalence of pain or injury to male vs female partners.
In a cross-sectional survey of general population residents of Cape Town, South Africa, 21% of men and 16% of women reported coital bleeding in the past 3 months,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16688100
Unfortunately, the summary does not distinguish between menses bleeding (the majority of reports) and injury, and it is unclear if the reports were of either partner's bleeding, or of self only. Either way it seems likely that those numbers indicate the frequency of injury to men to be higher. The initial paper likely does, but it has not yet been made available
The most conclusive I could find was this:
In all, 1454 cases of reported coital injuries were reviewed; 790 occurred in men while 664 occurred in women, mainly in the genital area. Physical urological complications were more common in men than in women.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11856110/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11856110/
Which, again, is not specific to insufficient lubrication, but it shows a very clear higher risk of injury to male genitalia from various forms of sexual contact than to female.
This completely undermines the "self-protection from rape via facilitating rape" theory.
The opposite reaction would likely cause greater injury to an attacker than to the victim, and would therefore discourage rapists from attempting it in the first place.
Of course the fact remains that women do produce lubrication in response to sexually explicit stimuli which they subjectively report as not being arousing, and the reason for that is still in question. I offer no theory of my own at this time (although the very first article I posted - http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-sex-and-babies/201105/why-do-women-get-physically-aroused-and-not-even-know-it - offers 3 alternative possible explanations). My only purpose here is questioning the validity of the "facilitating rape is self-protective" claim, the very idea of which I suspect is only possible in a society with a deeply internalized misogyny.
[much more evidence of our deeply internalized misogyny here: http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2013/01/RapeAndFeminismPage1.html ]
15 January 2009
A little perspective
- Jan 15, 2009
A little perspective
[This was written just after the controversy and rioting following the New Years shooting on a train station platform of an unarmed black man, Oscar Grant, by a transit police officer. Grant was being held face down on the ground at that point, resisting arrest, but posing no threat. The officer said later that he meant to use his taser, and supposedly the department had recently had everyone move the taser from the gun side of the belt to the opposite (ironically, to avoid the exact mistake it ended up causing).]
Total number of fatal shootings by Oakland Police in 2008: 5
Of those, number which inspired a wrongful death suit: 2
(both of whom had been resisting arrest, one of whom may have been armed)
Number of potentially unjustified fatal shootings by BART Police: 3.
Not just this year. Ever. Since BART opened in 1972.
Number of homicides (not by police) in Oakland in 2008: 123
Again: One Hundred and Twenty Three.
I'm not saying that police going around shooting people is ok.
I'm not saying being in fist fights on the train is grounds for getting shot.
I'm not saying that cops shouldn't be held to higher standards. They should be expected to be professional, and to have a very small margin of error. We are trusting them with our safety, with our very lives.
If the person Oscar had been fighting had been the one to shoot him, it would have been on the news for one day. There would have been no protests. We wouldn't be thinking about it.
But his family still would be.
Young black men shooting young black men is a far larger problem than cops shooting young black men, yet we seem to take it for granted.
Again, this is not to say don't protest in this particular case, which was obviously over the line, obviously unjustified.
But when we claim it is a pattern, claim it is representative of something larger when in fact it isn't; when we use it as an excuse to condemn all police because we really just have an adolescent resentment of authority, all we are really doing is increasing the polarity,increasing the mutual distrust between the police and the community,which in turn increases the likelihood of things like this happening.
If you have someone who starts out hating and distrusting all cops,and he gets detained for whatever reason, he is a lot more likely to yell and curse, to be resistive, to fight back, and all of these things, understandably, are going to put the officer on guard. When they have to deal with people like that on a regular basis, they are going to become more and more likely to be aggressive right from the beginning, and to take fewer chances with their own safety.
There are larger social and historical issues involved, surrounding the legacy of slavery, poverty is inherited just like wealth is, our education system is deplorable, and as a society we value maximum production of wealth over equitable distribution.
None of these things is in any way an excuse for individual behavior.
Are young black males stopped disproportionately? Of course we are. It might have something to do with committing a disproportionate amount of crime. My advice, if you feel like you are being harassed: Don't get into fist fights. Don't smoke pot or drink alcohol in public. Don't sell drugs. Don't drive like a fucking jack-ass. Don't evade the fare or play amplified music on the train. Don't shoplift. Basically, in general, don't be obnoxious.
Chris Rock explains this very well:
How To Not Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police
Of those, number which inspired a wrongful death suit: 2
(both of whom had been resisting arrest, one of whom may have been armed)
Number of potentially unjustified fatal shootings by BART Police: 3.
Not just this year. Ever. Since BART opened in 1972.
Number of homicides (not by police) in Oakland in 2008: 123
Again: One Hundred and Twenty Three.
I'm not saying that police going around shooting people is ok.
I'm not saying being in fist fights on the train is grounds for getting shot.
I'm not saying that cops shouldn't be held to higher standards. They should be expected to be professional, and to have a very small margin of error. We are trusting them with our safety, with our very lives.
If the person Oscar had been fighting had been the one to shoot him, it would have been on the news for one day. There would have been no protests. We wouldn't be thinking about it.
But his family still would be.
Young black men shooting young black men is a far larger problem than cops shooting young black men, yet we seem to take it for granted.
Again, this is not to say don't protest in this particular case, which was obviously over the line, obviously unjustified.
But when we claim it is a pattern, claim it is representative of something larger when in fact it isn't; when we use it as an excuse to condemn all police because we really just have an adolescent resentment of authority, all we are really doing is increasing the polarity,increasing the mutual distrust between the police and the community,which in turn increases the likelihood of things like this happening.
If you have someone who starts out hating and distrusting all cops,and he gets detained for whatever reason, he is a lot more likely to yell and curse, to be resistive, to fight back, and all of these things, understandably, are going to put the officer on guard. When they have to deal with people like that on a regular basis, they are going to become more and more likely to be aggressive right from the beginning, and to take fewer chances with their own safety.
There are larger social and historical issues involved, surrounding the legacy of slavery, poverty is inherited just like wealth is, our education system is deplorable, and as a society we value maximum production of wealth over equitable distribution.
None of these things is in any way an excuse for individual behavior.
Are young black males stopped disproportionately? Of course we are. It might have something to do with committing a disproportionate amount of crime. My advice, if you feel like you are being harassed: Don't get into fist fights. Don't smoke pot or drink alcohol in public. Don't sell drugs. Don't drive like a fucking jack-ass. Don't evade the fare or play amplified music on the train. Don't shoplift. Basically, in general, don't be obnoxious.
Chris Rock explains this very well:
How To Not Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police
04 February 2008
Evil will always win. But its OK
- Feb 4, 2008
Evil will always win. But its OK
Whether history teaches us to be optimistic or pessimistic is only a matter of when and where you choose to look.
There have been wars at least as long as there has been civilization - which of course continues to today.
Empires have risen, Persian, Chinese, Mongolian, Ottoman, Aztec, Inca, British, USSR.
Some lasted for centuries, some covered the majority of the world (that the culture knew of).
Every one of them fell, for one reason or another, eventually.
That could give hope that the US, which is extending influence both culturally, politically, and militarily throughout the world, will inevitably follow - but its seems obvious that it will be replaced by another - no matter the ideals in begins in, it will inevitably grow corrupt. They all do.
In the 3rd century BC the Egyptian library/museum at Alexandria contained the collected knowledge of the Egyptian and Greek civilizations, the largest in the world. While the circumstances of its destruction are debated, it was apparently due to some combination of war and religious fundamentalism.
The civilizations of the Mediterranean created, among other things, plumbing, calculus, and democracy (but only for white male property owners) - and at the hight of the Roman Empire, a popular spectator sport involved watching humans fight to the death, and eventually flooding the coliseum to create mock sea battles - but with real weapons - for the entertainment of government and the wealthy.
In the Dark Ages, as Rome fell, much of the infrastructure was allowed to fall to ruins, and everything from libraries to aqueducts was lost - along with the education and intellectual development that had accompanied it, and much already acquired knowledge and technology was lost.
Then came about the forced conversion of people in Europe, Asia, and Africa to Christianity and Islam, as well as wars between the two (the Crusades) - ultimately spreading throughout the world, and, of-course, lasting to the present.
Europe's renaissance consisted largely of no more than the re-discovery of things which had been previously known, but lost.
For every Ghandi there has been a Hitler and a Mussolini. For every Roosevelt and Carter we've had a Regan, A Bush, and a Bush Jr. Lenin's "people's revolution" turned quickly into Stalin's purges.
Che failed to start a revolution, and after all of Chavez's work, today immigrants still work in pesticide laden fields for far less than minimum wage while middle class Americans with far more comfortable lives advocate criminalizing them for it.
For all the noise the anti-war movement made, American troops pulled out because the North Vietnamese won.
In fact, the non-violent success Ghandi seemingly had happened to be at a time when the British Empire was already in decline with Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, and Iraq becoming officially fully independent in (or around) 1931, and their military over extended worldwide - a guerrilla war with Ireland, the aftermath of WWII, and calls (and actions) for independence throughout the British Empire in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. For 40 years India had sought independence, but it was not until these - often violent - worldwide events came along that it was finally granted.
Then, almost immediately, (as British representatives had predicted) the country split, and the potentially violent stand-off between newly formed Pakistan and India (both of which have nukes) has lasted to this day. So much for non-violence.
There have been advances in the Western World in civil rights, and yet they are also under constant attack, and undermined in complex and creative new ways. Spirituality offers some personal growth, health and happiness, while the largest portion of the world knows it through organized religion, the most powerful (Christianity and its estranged twin Islam) are anti-science and reason, anti-democratic, anti-individual, anti-sex, and, basically, anti-happiness. The caste system, subjugation, and untold amounts of violence are attributed to "God(s)". In the past the strength of religion has risen and fallen, and we may well be in an up cycle once again, as Islam and Christianity move towards stronger fundamentalists bases - the latter being the larger threat, since it affects the worlds only super power.
Whether monarchy or republic ("democracy") a small group of wealthy elites rules, with privilege inherited instead of earned.
It should come as no surprise, for one very simple principal:
Evil (or those who are more than willing to bring harm upon others for personal gain), will always be willing to do anything it takes to get ahead, to secure power, to gain wealth. Whatever rules there may be, evil will break. What ever morals society may have, evil lacks. How can anything or anyone compete with that?
If someone with good intentions stays within the rules, they are not only at a severe disadvantage from the start, but if they become too successful, they are risking assassination. He who does not accept corporate campaign contributions is never heard of by the general public.
When one takes the tactic of evil to defeat it, one becomes that which is being fought.
If good, caring, progressive, giving people bend the rules a little for the greater good, the slippery slope snowballs oh so quickly, and they end up just a competing faction of evil.
Our "democracy" works perfectly, because we have the illusion of distributed power, so that no one feels, on principal, repressed, and citizens have an abundance of material goods, which they fear losing too much to ever risk revolution. It makes the system stable. Change will never come from within - not unless things get much much worse first.
Why, then after so much seeming historical negativity, did I begin with the claim that there is equal optimism to be found?
The answer is as simple and clear as the argument that evil will always win;
Life is not, and never has been, about the large scale political and social details which are the focus of so much attention.
Life is about the warm sunshine on an early fall afternoon.
Life is about cold ice cream or a juicy orange on a hot summer day.
Life is about sex and affection with one's partner under the covers at night while the rain or snow falls cold outside and makes little patter patter noises outside on the roof and windows.
Life is an engrossing book, or coming home tired but satisfied after a successful day of work.
Its the extra attention you get when you're sick, and the feeling of getting better again, the smell of dinner just before that first bite, unexpected good fortune, and games on the weekend. Life is friends, music, sport, relaxation, children, learning, conversations, all of these little tiny things that fill up each day that seem to pale in comparison to the significance of war and famine - but in truth those things are only important because they interrupt those little things for a while, those little things which are, in fact, everything.
Of course it would be nice were it possible to end all war forever. But there has always been war, (even before there were mammals) and there always will be, because it will be to some people's advantage to take from others, always. But after its over, and new lines are drawn on the maps, the sunshine will still be there. Love, which exists only inside of us, will exist so long as a human is still breathing on this planet.
Saving the world is futile. The world has been as it is (for all practical purposes) forever, and there seems to be no good reason to think it will not continue to be. This is not reason to despair. Just the opposite. For this entire time, everywhere, there exists happiness. Happiness is not merely a reflection of the political system one lives under, or income. Happiness is an emotion that we, as sentient beings, are capable of experiencing. And so we do.
If you can not save the world, if one person can almost never make a real and lasting difference, it gives good people a little more flexibility. One does not fault them self for not stopping the eruption of volcanoes or earthquakes. At most we may try to predict them, perhaps minimize the damage, but we recognize that its going to happen sooner or later, that no individual or group has the capacity or power to "fix" or eliminate the threat. So to with the nature of humanity. Violence and greed are a part of human nature, as they are a part of nature, as we are a part of nature.
Do good if you can. By all means; most certainly; why not?
Do no harm. If you know better, if you feel a morality based on living things capacity to feel (as opposed to the more common version based on what a book or the community dictates), live your own life in such a way that you do not make things worse.
If it works out well for you, since you must work anyway for you own sustenance, work in a field that in some way, makes things a little better for someone. If it is something you enjoy, volunteer. These things are noble, admirable, and only good can come from them.
Just don't expect miracles. Don't sacrifice your life to a cause. We have only this one life (probably) and a life not enjoyed is a life wasted. A life not enjoyed is the most tragic thing imaginable.
Have the courage to change the things you can, but also accept the things you can not change.
Do something good for yourself.
Go out and enjoy the sunshine.
Yes, evil must inevitably win in the long run, every time.
But that's ok.
It's sunny out today.
There have been wars at least as long as there has been civilization - which of course continues to today.
Empires have risen, Persian, Chinese, Mongolian, Ottoman, Aztec, Inca, British, USSR.
Some lasted for centuries, some covered the majority of the world (that the culture knew of).
Every one of them fell, for one reason or another, eventually.
That could give hope that the US, which is extending influence both culturally, politically, and militarily throughout the world, will inevitably follow - but its seems obvious that it will be replaced by another - no matter the ideals in begins in, it will inevitably grow corrupt. They all do.
In the 3rd century BC the Egyptian library/museum at Alexandria contained the collected knowledge of the Egyptian and Greek civilizations, the largest in the world. While the circumstances of its destruction are debated, it was apparently due to some combination of war and religious fundamentalism.
The civilizations of the Mediterranean created, among other things, plumbing, calculus, and democracy (but only for white male property owners) - and at the hight of the Roman Empire, a popular spectator sport involved watching humans fight to the death, and eventually flooding the coliseum to create mock sea battles - but with real weapons - for the entertainment of government and the wealthy.
In the Dark Ages, as Rome fell, much of the infrastructure was allowed to fall to ruins, and everything from libraries to aqueducts was lost - along with the education and intellectual development that had accompanied it, and much already acquired knowledge and technology was lost.
Then came about the forced conversion of people in Europe, Asia, and Africa to Christianity and Islam, as well as wars between the two (the Crusades) - ultimately spreading throughout the world, and, of-course, lasting to the present.
Europe's renaissance consisted largely of no more than the re-discovery of things which had been previously known, but lost.
For every Ghandi there has been a Hitler and a Mussolini. For every Roosevelt and Carter we've had a Regan, A Bush, and a Bush Jr. Lenin's "people's revolution" turned quickly into Stalin's purges.
Che failed to start a revolution, and after all of Chavez's work, today immigrants still work in pesticide laden fields for far less than minimum wage while middle class Americans with far more comfortable lives advocate criminalizing them for it.
For all the noise the anti-war movement made, American troops pulled out because the North Vietnamese won.
In fact, the non-violent success Ghandi seemingly had happened to be at a time when the British Empire was already in decline with Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, and Iraq becoming officially fully independent in (or around) 1931, and their military over extended worldwide - a guerrilla war with Ireland, the aftermath of WWII, and calls (and actions) for independence throughout the British Empire in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. For 40 years India had sought independence, but it was not until these - often violent - worldwide events came along that it was finally granted.
Then, almost immediately, (as British representatives had predicted) the country split, and the potentially violent stand-off between newly formed Pakistan and India (both of which have nukes) has lasted to this day. So much for non-violence.
There have been advances in the Western World in civil rights, and yet they are also under constant attack, and undermined in complex and creative new ways. Spirituality offers some personal growth, health and happiness, while the largest portion of the world knows it through organized religion, the most powerful (Christianity and its estranged twin Islam) are anti-science and reason, anti-democratic, anti-individual, anti-sex, and, basically, anti-happiness. The caste system, subjugation, and untold amounts of violence are attributed to "God(s)". In the past the strength of religion has risen and fallen, and we may well be in an up cycle once again, as Islam and Christianity move towards stronger fundamentalists bases - the latter being the larger threat, since it affects the worlds only super power.
Whether monarchy or republic ("democracy") a small group of wealthy elites rules, with privilege inherited instead of earned.
It should come as no surprise, for one very simple principal:
Evil (or those who are more than willing to bring harm upon others for personal gain), will always be willing to do anything it takes to get ahead, to secure power, to gain wealth. Whatever rules there may be, evil will break. What ever morals society may have, evil lacks. How can anything or anyone compete with that?
If someone with good intentions stays within the rules, they are not only at a severe disadvantage from the start, but if they become too successful, they are risking assassination. He who does not accept corporate campaign contributions is never heard of by the general public.
When one takes the tactic of evil to defeat it, one becomes that which is being fought.
If good, caring, progressive, giving people bend the rules a little for the greater good, the slippery slope snowballs oh so quickly, and they end up just a competing faction of evil.
Our "democracy" works perfectly, because we have the illusion of distributed power, so that no one feels, on principal, repressed, and citizens have an abundance of material goods, which they fear losing too much to ever risk revolution. It makes the system stable. Change will never come from within - not unless things get much much worse first.
Why, then after so much seeming historical negativity, did I begin with the claim that there is equal optimism to be found?
The answer is as simple and clear as the argument that evil will always win;
Life is not, and never has been, about the large scale political and social details which are the focus of so much attention.
Life is about the warm sunshine on an early fall afternoon.
Life is about cold ice cream or a juicy orange on a hot summer day.
Life is about sex and affection with one's partner under the covers at night while the rain or snow falls cold outside and makes little patter patter noises outside on the roof and windows.
Life is an engrossing book, or coming home tired but satisfied after a successful day of work.
Its the extra attention you get when you're sick, and the feeling of getting better again, the smell of dinner just before that first bite, unexpected good fortune, and games on the weekend. Life is friends, music, sport, relaxation, children, learning, conversations, all of these little tiny things that fill up each day that seem to pale in comparison to the significance of war and famine - but in truth those things are only important because they interrupt those little things for a while, those little things which are, in fact, everything.
Of course it would be nice were it possible to end all war forever. But there has always been war, (even before there were mammals) and there always will be, because it will be to some people's advantage to take from others, always. But after its over, and new lines are drawn on the maps, the sunshine will still be there. Love, which exists only inside of us, will exist so long as a human is still breathing on this planet.
Saving the world is futile. The world has been as it is (for all practical purposes) forever, and there seems to be no good reason to think it will not continue to be. This is not reason to despair. Just the opposite. For this entire time, everywhere, there exists happiness. Happiness is not merely a reflection of the political system one lives under, or income. Happiness is an emotion that we, as sentient beings, are capable of experiencing. And so we do.
If you can not save the world, if one person can almost never make a real and lasting difference, it gives good people a little more flexibility. One does not fault them self for not stopping the eruption of volcanoes or earthquakes. At most we may try to predict them, perhaps minimize the damage, but we recognize that its going to happen sooner or later, that no individual or group has the capacity or power to "fix" or eliminate the threat. So to with the nature of humanity. Violence and greed are a part of human nature, as they are a part of nature, as we are a part of nature.
Do good if you can. By all means; most certainly; why not?
Do no harm. If you know better, if you feel a morality based on living things capacity to feel (as opposed to the more common version based on what a book or the community dictates), live your own life in such a way that you do not make things worse.
If it works out well for you, since you must work anyway for you own sustenance, work in a field that in some way, makes things a little better for someone. If it is something you enjoy, volunteer. These things are noble, admirable, and only good can come from them.
Just don't expect miracles. Don't sacrifice your life to a cause. We have only this one life (probably) and a life not enjoyed is a life wasted. A life not enjoyed is the most tragic thing imaginable.
Have the courage to change the things you can, but also accept the things you can not change.
Do something good for yourself.
Go out and enjoy the sunshine.
Yes, evil must inevitably win in the long run, every time.
But that's ok.
It's sunny out today.
19 December 2006
on so called "conspiracy theories"
· Dec 19, 2006
on so called "conspiracy theories"
The pain ray, and the video I saw, and the comments on it, and looking up the PNAC, and from there about the "conspiracy theories" surrounding 9/11/01, got me thinking about all that again.
Obviously there are some theories out there which are born of hear-say, conjecture, misinformation, and ignorance.
Others have not really been addressed in any serious way - and probably could not be.
The people who object to them, (Popular Mechanics, John McCain, 9/11myths.com) tend to point out the reasons why such and such could have physically happened the way the official version says it did, or why such and such theory is impossible.
They then also say something along the lines of it being both unscientific and and detrimental to America to suggest such things.
But how it happened is not the point, and never was.
Never mind that they were supposedly unable to find any of 4 blackboxes at the WTC center site (which are specifically designed to withstand a crash - that is the entire point of their existence - and give of a signal to aid in their recovery) but they were able to find a passport made of paperwithin hours - which happened to belong to one of the "terrorists"; it could happen.
Never mind that the damage to the pentagon was substantially smaller than the size of the plane which was supposed to have hit it, and that there was no sign of pieces of wing, engine or other plane parts visible anywhere on the site (or that video of the event was confiscated, or that it just happened to hit the one wing of the building which had just been reinforced and was largely empty due to the renovation), perhaps the engines vaporized but the fuselage punched through, could happen.
Never mind that WTC 7 (which housed the FBI, CIA, and SEC - including the files on prosecuting Enron and dozens of other corrupt corporations) collapsed entirely due to fire and being hit with falling debris - unlike WTC 3, 4, 5, 6 and every other building in the area - which is unprecedented in all the rest of history. That too could be a coincidence.
If every thing physically happened exactly the way the official version says, that does not in anyway make it less likely Americans - and specifically the government - was directly involved.
If they were, we would likely never know.
They certainly had a lot to gain from it, much more than the Islamists did.
It would not have taken much.
Say 1/10 the members of the PNAC ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNAC , http://www.newamericancentury.org/), 5 high level, trusted CIA agents, and 2 or three trusted Saudi Arabians, Bin Ladens perhaps. The PNAC is the primary think tank of the neocon movement, and includes people who have held high government positions for the past half century and other rich and powerful people, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Zalmay Khalilzad, Richard Perle, Richard Armitage, Dan Quayle, and Steve Forbes.
They plan what the targets should be, maximum effect, minimum actual damage, and believable. Something symbolic, but not catastrophic. A military target to justify a military response, and plenty of civilian deaths to get the American people agitated. They provide limited cash, but that's it, for fear of ever being caught. Mostly what they would have provided was the idea, what to do, how to do it. They would have wanted clues planted well in advance - for example, having the volunteers train at a US flight school, when they could just as easily trained in their own country. They might have made sure to set up certain training exercises, certain security camera angles, stuff which could seem perfectly innocent, but which would help make it easier to carry out, and easier to know who to blame. Bin Laden's original idea was to hit some 10-20 targets at once, on both coasts, but they would have shot that idea down, because they wanted to limit the actual damage. Then, through the Arab contacts, they found some people looking to martyr themselves. The actual hijackers have no idea that they are actually enacting a plan partially developed by and for the US leadership, they feel they are doing Gods work by killing thousands of corrupt infidels. And the end result is the Islamists are able to up their recruiting a million percent, and the PNAC gets almost absolute power and one step closer to their stated goal of world domination.
Their principals (emphasis mine):
• we [the US] need to increasedefense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global Obviously there are some theories out there which are born of hear-say, conjecture, misinformation, and ignorance.
Others have not really been addressed in any serious way - and probably could not be.
The people who object to them, (Popular Mechanics, John McCain, 9/11myths.com) tend to point out the reasons why such and such could have physically happened the way the official version says it did, or why such and such theory is impossible.
They then also say something along the lines of it being both unscientific and and detrimental to America to suggest such things.
But how it happened is not the point, and never was.
Never mind that they were supposedly unable to find any of 4 blackboxes at the WTC center site (which are specifically designed to withstand a crash - that is the entire point of their existence - and give of a signal to aid in their recovery) but they were able to find a passport made of paperwithin hours - which happened to belong to one of the "terrorists"; it could happen.
Never mind that the damage to the pentagon was substantially smaller than the size of the plane which was supposed to have hit it, and that there was no sign of pieces of wing, engine or other plane parts visible anywhere on the site (or that video of the event was confiscated, or that it just happened to hit the one wing of the building which had just been reinforced and was largely empty due to the renovation), perhaps the engines vaporized but the fuselage punched through, could happen.
Never mind that WTC 7 (which housed the FBI, CIA, and SEC - including the files on prosecuting Enron and dozens of other corrupt corporations) collapsed entirely due to fire and being hit with falling debris - unlike WTC 3, 4, 5, 6 and every other building in the area - which is unprecedented in all the rest of history. That too could be a coincidence.
If every thing physically happened exactly the way the official version says, that does not in anyway make it less likely Americans - and specifically the government - was directly involved.
If they were, we would likely never know.
They certainly had a lot to gain from it, much more than the Islamists did.
It would not have taken much.
Say 1/10 the members of the PNAC ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNAC , http://www.newamericancentury.org/), 5 high level, trusted CIA agents, and 2 or three trusted Saudi Arabians, Bin Ladens perhaps. The PNAC is the primary think tank of the neocon movement, and includes people who have held high government positions for the past half century and other rich and powerful people, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Zalmay Khalilzad, Richard Perle, Richard Armitage, Dan Quayle, and Steve Forbes.
They plan what the targets should be, maximum effect, minimum actual damage, and believable. Something symbolic, but not catastrophic. A military target to justify a military response, and plenty of civilian deaths to get the American people agitated. They provide limited cash, but that's it, for fear of ever being caught. Mostly what they would have provided was the idea, what to do, how to do it. They would have wanted clues planted well in advance - for example, having the volunteers train at a US flight school, when they could just as easily trained in their own country. They might have made sure to set up certain training exercises, certain security camera angles, stuff which could seem perfectly innocent, but which would help make it easier to carry out, and easier to know who to blame. Bin Laden's original idea was to hit some 10-20 targets at once, on both coasts, but they would have shot that idea down, because they wanted to limit the actual damage. Then, through the Arab contacts, they found some people looking to martyr themselves. The actual hijackers have no idea that they are actually enacting a plan partially developed by and for the US leadership, they feel they are doing Gods work by killing thousands of corrupt infidels. And the end result is the Islamists are able to up their recruiting a million percent, and the PNAC gets almost absolute power and one step closer to their stated goal of world domination.
Their principals (emphasis mine):
responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interestsand values;
• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;
• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
They spelled out in better detail how to achieve this in a report they released in 2000: (http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf)
"while the unresolved conflict in Iraq provides the immediate justification [for US military presence], the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein"
"Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region".
"...advanced forms of biological warfare that can target specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool"
"...the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor."
This last one is most telling, since there is strong evidence that the US government, including possibly President Roosevelt, knew that the Japanese were planning the attack, and deliberately failed to warn the base because a surprise attack would better appal the American people and build their support for the war.
( http://www.thenewamerican.com/departments/feature/1999/070499.htm http://www.fff.org/freedom/1291c.asp http://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?eventID=28 )
Had someone suggested in 1972 that the president of the United States personally knew about and authorized secret agents to literally break into his political opponents hotel room in order to find information to be used against him in the coming campaign, most ordinary people would have called them a "conspiracy theorist". But they would have been right. Had some one suggested that the US government sent CIA officials to assassinate the democratically elected rulers of socialist South American countries, or that the administration was making arms trade deals with Iran to fund insurgents in a democratic society, they would be labeled a "conspiracy theorist". But these things happened. There is this stigma attached to the word "conspiracy" as though it belief in one automatically makes them insane or at least without credibility. But the fact remains that conspiracies exist. A conspiracy is just a group of people getting together to discuss the details of a crime. The rich and powerful commit crime just as often as anyone else. And often times they work together. Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair, and CIA support of military coups against the democratically elected governments in Chile, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, including the murder of their leaders, as well as the many unsuccessful attempts to do the same in Cuba, were all conspiracies. The only reason some ideas are conspiracy "theories" is because insufficient evidence exists to prove them. Which you would expect, if the conspirators had covered their tracks well.
We know these things happened, and yet, being so long ago (20 years?) we conclude they are no longer relevant, and choose to continue to believe that something like that could never happen.
What is important is not proving whether or not the official version of 9/11 - physically - is accurate. To say that one should never question the purity of the American government is to insure that if they ever tried to do something like that, they would succeed. Indeed, if they were in anyway involved, the best way to prevent any real investigation, to prevent being questioned, is to accuse anyone who doubts them of being unpatriotic. This is exactly what Pop Mec and McCain have said (and I used to really like him). This is what millions of American citizens think to themselves. This is what we are up against. That is the major element which 1984 failed to fully address - the strength of internalization of patriotism, the support for a leader - any leader. The government does not need to have a two way screen in your living room TV so long as your neighbors will report unAmerican activity. Reporting unattended bags may be just the first step. Of course, doesn't hurt to watch us as well. The British government is planning to use their extensive network of public cameras to track the trips of every vehicle in the country. I doubt the computer power to do that exists, but it certainly will soon.
This should be an interesting next few decades, if nothing else.
08 September 2006
19; in which America has no moral grounds to disarm anyone
- Sep 8, 2006
19; in which America has no moral grounds to disarm anyone
In all of history, nuclear arms have been used only one time.
It was by the US.
We bombed two civilian cities, not military targets.
We did nothing to help in Rwanda
We have more biological and chemical weapon knowledge and reserves than anyone (even if we promise to never use them)
We do not set out to save the world, we set out to protect our own interests.
We didn't care that Hitler was engaged in genocide before we were attacked.
There are no examples which show that we are benevolent, moral caretakers of the world.
We are hardly in a position to tell others they can't have weapons.
Funny thing is, a lot of those in support of an armed America and unarmed everyone else, are often the same ones who oppose gun control, because the government has no right to say who should be armed and who not...
It was by the US.
We bombed two civilian cities, not military targets.
We did nothing to help in Rwanda
We have more biological and chemical weapon knowledge and reserves than anyone (even if we promise to never use them)
We do not set out to save the world, we set out to protect our own interests.
We didn't care that Hitler was engaged in genocide before we were attacked.
There are no examples which show that we are benevolent, moral caretakers of the world.
We are hardly in a position to tell others they can't have weapons.
Funny thing is, a lot of those in support of an armed America and unarmed everyone else, are often the same ones who oppose gun control, because the government has no right to say who should be armed and who not...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)