I’m not a Spring chicken; I’ll be 46 in less than 2 weeks. But I never thought I’d live to see the day where our White House is on the verge of launching the worst attack on American freedoms since the Wilson Administration.
I was born during the Vietnam era. While that was not a war for my generation, I probably would have found myself opposing the war while having nothing to do with the nutjobs who screamed, “Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh!” and spat on our troops. The problem was not our troops–who were fighting a war for which they did not ask–but rather the policy wonks and their Commander-in-Chief.
Still, for all of the faults of JFK, LBJ, and even Nixon, Ford, and Carter, none of them had an interest in assaulting the firearm rights of Americans in the manner that the current President seeks to do. (The Gun Control Act of 1968, travesty that it was, pales in comparison to what Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has on the table, let alone the threats of gun-control-by-executive-order by our Vice President on behalf of his boss.)
I was in 8th grade when President Reagan was shot. I remember his recovery, and watching the speech he made to the joint session of Congress in his return. He could have used his own shooting as a perch to attack “gun violence” and demand more gun control. But he didn’t: he lauded the Secret Service agents who performed valiantly; he lauded the physicians who treated him; he read some of the well-wishes from children; he empathized with the family of James Brady.
In short, Reagan kept his eye on the ball, and cooler heads prevailed. In fact, five years later, he would sign the Firearm Owner Protection Act of 1986, which–in spite of the restrictions on production of machine guns for civilian use–provided badly-needed protections for Citizens who were having their rights attacked by government at all levels. (I mean seriously: before FOPA, duck hunters were being prosecuted for simply driving through the wrong counties. And the ATF’s abuses were so bad that even the DEMOCRATS were recoiling in horror.)
My point: back then, we had a President who kept things in perspective, sought to keep government out of our business, and promoted the best of America. He didn’t do everything right, but he had a grasp of what was really important. AS a result, we were a better country in 1989 than we were in 1981. THAT is how the Cold War was won.
But Obama is literally destroying this country with his threat of gun bans. I’ve never seen things this bad across the board. Every gun store is sold out of semiautomatic rifles, something I’ve never seen in my lifetime. He is taking recent tragedies and using them to promote a fascist, totalitarian agenda that has disaster written all over it. While the left will complain, “Oh come now, government will never try to confiscate guns,” one has reason not to trust them. After all, the Department for Homeland Security has enough ammo to supply every employee of said agency with over 2,000 rounds of .223 ammunition. And we have no idea who is on the “terrorist watch list.” Moreover, we have government entities who have sought to classify everyone from NRA members to Ron Paul supporters as potential “domestic terrorists”.
Against the backdrop of a government that seeks to regulate what you put in your mouth, I’d say that is plenty good reason not to trust government.
What angers me though is not Obama: he is doing exactly what I expected he would do. Nor is it Feinstein: she is doing exactly what I expeted she would do. We all know where Obama, Bloomberg, Feinstein, Schumer, and all their lackeys stand.
No…what makes my blood boil is the inaction by Republican leaders: where the heck is House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)? Where the heck is Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)? Other than our fine Senator–Rand Paul–where are the conservative voices in elective office?
And what about the military leaders who wear the uniform and have sworn to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic? Why aren’t they pulling the President back and telling him, “Mr. President, you need to cool it with your gun agenda. Not only are you on the verge of promoting a societal breakdown from which it will take decades to recover, you are committing an act of war against the American people. For the sake of this great country, knock it off!”?
It is glaringly obvious that we no longer have two parties; what we have is a bicameral fascist system where leaders only disagree on the degree of fascism. The military leaders–with perhaps a few exceptions–are just suckups to the President, as the real leaders have been “retired”. If you expect the Joint Chiefs of Staff to advise the President to knock it off, that will happen about five minutes after Hell freezes over.
I told MrsLarijani that I never imagined that the end of our Republic could happen in my lifetime. But–as the son of an Iranian immigrant of Kurdish ancestry who knows quite well what happened in Iran in the 1970s–that is a very real possibility.
Is it a conspiracy, or is government really that stupid? There was once a time when I would have answered no on the first and yes on the second. Now, it could be yes on both.
The next four years are going to be quite bumpy.
