And the Secret Service is just rubbing their hands in anticipation ;-)
Yup, A.O. I trust the Secret Service will deal with these asshats in a way that they are not used to. Local cops and sherrifs aren’t as efective as a bunch of suits carrying full auto weapons.
I’m all for defending the rights of people to voice ther opinions, but seriously. Shouldn’t you at least protest in a place that has SOMETHING to do with what your are protesting? How is a wedding between a man and a woman promoting homosexuality?
Damn, you two! That’s just where I was going! Ya beat me to it!
MEMO:
Attn: Secret Service personnel
RE: Bush Wedding, Crawford, TX
Consider the Kansas protesters as the following:
Target
Rich
Environment
My first real experience with protestors was in San Francisco in the mid-60s. They gave me the general impression of susceptible young dilettantes who’d fallen under the spell of a soap-box orator in the park. Most came from good families but were poorly dressed, in poor health, and high on something half the time. The other half of the time, they were foraging for either food or something to get high on. They seemed to be damaged humanoids from whom someone had purloined their reason, their self-respect, and their rules of decent behavior.
Lately, though that basic impression hasn’t changed much in over 40 years, I’ve begun to associate them with radical Muslims, always fomenting chaos and demanding that society immediately shift to their way of thinking to avoid apocalypse now. Most religious fundamentalists, as well as political activists, want to resurrect some vague idea of “good old days” when times were simpler, rules were simpler, relationships were simpler, and life was perfect.
For Muslims it’s a return to the 9th century caliphate. For many Americans it’s time travel back some idyllic era of horse-drawn carriages, hayrides, women in the kitchen cooking, children playing safely on city streets and neighbors’ lawns, schoolmarms with hoop skirts and buns in their hair and sensible shoes, lemonade on hot summer days . . . . . ah, the good old days.
Well, horse hockey! Back in those 19th century days, nobody had electricity. Very few women were good cooks, and the houses rarely smelled of freshly baked bread with pies cooling on the windowsills and chicken and dumplings on the table every night. Most food went bad after only a day or two because refrigeration didn’t exist. Fresh citrus was unheard of north of the Mason-Dixon line after October and before May. Toilets were outside and smelled really, really bad. Half the population didn’t wear shoes, virtually nobody bathed more than once a month or so, and reading was still the province of the well-to-do, not the everyday family whose kids worked in mills and sweat shops to augment the communal income.
Infants often died before their christening, and outwardly healthy adults just showed up dead one day from mysterious illnesses nobody understood. Doctors went from one patient to another without so much as washing their hands, and if you fell off your horse or got shot more than walking distance from a town, you’d more than likely succumb to infection before a doctor even became aware you were hurt.
We are living in damned good times, damned good times. Our food is plentiful, healthful, and safe. Our government is, although cumbersome and often foolish, generally benign and mostly on our side. We have hundreds of channels of television and radio, portable computers, game players, instant communications, rapid travel means, an enormous variety of clothing and gadgets, air-conditioned homes, and medical attention only minutes away for 95% of the population.
The reasons we have all those things is just good old invention borne of necessity and laziness. Government gave us virtually none of it; we got it from our own minds, from competition, from a system of free enterprise and stay-the-hell-out-of-the-way government. When things got bad from time to time, people protested, yes. But they protested tyranny. They protested graft. They protested corruption. What reasonable people did NOT protest was the private behavior of others when it had no influence on their lives. If government got too big for its britches, people voted in new managers. When politicians became crooked and predatory, they got run out of town on a rail. And when somebody broke too damned many laws or became such a threat and nuisance to good order and discipline that the citizenry couldn’t tolerate it any more, he got hanged or shot.
I think one day a great wind will sweep across the land, turning up the leaves to expose their bottomsides, blowing away the fears and superstitions and myths, the paranoia and hatred and misunderstandings. The dirt and filth will blow into the sea, leaving only fresh, clean soil that something decent can grow from. And when that happens the face of the land will be like a teenager finally discovering Clearasil; the protestors and radicals and looney tunes will dry up like a bad batch of pimples and disappear without a trace.
And for jihadists and other illegals, there’s always Accutane, available through Smith & Wesson, Remington, and other fine companies.
ET,
These home grown neo-Luddites and their kin who wish to return to some fuzzy, feel good “golden age” would profit from spending a year living/working in a strict Amish community. The proximity of 21st century amenities juxtaposed with the Amish community’s rejection of the same just might cause some thoughtful reflection.
My own “if I were King....” method of handling them would be to pack’um all up, including their College Profs and Religious zelaot leaders, and ship all the buggersoff to the Sudan or Ethiopia or Myanmar or Honduras or Haiti.....making certain they were without any diplomatic portfolio.
But that’s just me being a curmudgeonly arse, fed up with my tax dollars being drained off to care for them and/or pay for their legal defense or incarceration.
Finally, something you really can blame bush for.
Well I hope the smelly protestors get ran over by and American built SUV, driven by clean cut American boys, all carrying full auto weapons.
Congrats to the new couple.
Well, Sven, like many of us here, I grew up pre-TV in a Midwestern house with no A/C and only football, baseball, basketball, fishing, and stuff like that for entertainment. A really good day was puttin up hay at a quarter cent/bale for a farmer who had a radio in the barn so we could listen to the ball game. Work from the time the dew lifted ‘til around 2200 and make $10 plus two great meals and plenty of well water and think we wuz rich as Rockefeller.
In the 60s, I set up housekeeping in the P.I. where the power went out almost every night, water pressure dropped to near zero until after midnight, guns were the law of the street, and jeepneys were the only transportation. Half the year it was so too goddam hot and muggy to drink beer, and the other half was so wet we got mold between our toes.
When I got back to SanFranFreakShow, I just couldn’t see what the fletcher’s farkle anybody had to protest ABOUT!!!!! It was indeed by comparison the land of milk and honey, with several TV channels—IN COLOR, yet—clean running water, reliable electricity, trustworthy doctors in clean hospitals, food all over the goddam place . . . hell, the stuff people had been dreamin about all over the world for millennia, and I was smack-dab in the middle of it and assholes were running around complaining about it.
There has always been much I have failed to grasp at first sight. When I wanna protest, I write a letter or go knock on the door of the guy in charge who could actually make a difference, like a congresskritter or mayor or cop . . . you know, “protect and defend” stuff.
ET,
Yeup! Agreed on the growing up scenario.
The eye opener for me was spending a year in Guatemala. While in the capitol, electricity and water were, at least nominally available 24/7.
There were times when one, or the other, or both utilities went south for no apparent reason.
The junta in charge instituted Marshal Law when the Commies began guerilla activities in the hinterlands. We could not go out after dark without having all interior lights on. It is pretty intimidating to be stopped a jeep, its 50 cal. tripod trained on you while a pair of AK wielding Federales demanded to see current Visas and full gummint issued transit ID’s.
I did spend a two week stint helping out at a Mission Hospital in the sub-tropical outpost, Mariscos on Lake Isabel.
The only power was a WW II vintage diesel generator which ran from sun-up til 2200 hours. The first few times it shut down, the opressive darkness and the utter silence turned me into a quivering mass of protoplamic fear. I had never been in complete darkness, under the jungle canopy, with no stars and little moonlight filtering down.
Yep, coming back to the U.S. made me extremely greatful for what we have here. Although I do miss the laid back life in the Guatemalan highlands....if only the political climate were different.
Like THAT’S gonna change anytime soon!
On a happier note:
City News Service
North Hollywood, CA
A 26 year old man was charged Thursday with sexually assaulting a 6 year old boy, police said. Pedro Ortiz a previously deported felon was arrested Tuesday. Detectives believe Ortiz rented a room at the home next door to the victims Sun Valley residence, befriended the childs mother and then molested the boy. Police also suspect he molested another juvenile though no details of that assault were made available. Police believe Ortiz may have molested other children. Anyone with more information about him or other alleged victims can call Detective Karen Crawford @ the LAPD North Hollywood Division at 818 623-xxxx
IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY, OR WHAT?
VIVA MESSICO
“...a previously deported felon...”
And Hizzoner, Antonio Villaraigosa, current mayor of the City of Angels, continues to declare that no problems exist with these undocumented immigrant workers scumbag gangbangers and illiterate peasants pouring across our unprotected borders.
Damnnation.........!
Just.
Plain.
DAMNATION!
Cuchieddie,
Keep stocking up on ammo!
Hey Sven, don’t forget about the illegal beaner who knocked up that 10 year old.
IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY OR WHAT?
Cuchiman,
-OR.......the illegal, stoned, gangbanger beaner who tried to enter a private party and was refused by two off-duty Denver police hired as security. He came back with his 9mm Glock (also illegal), snuck up behind the two, shot one LEO twice in the head killing him, shot the other in the back, seriously wounding him.
He fled back to Mexico.
Six months or so later his own Grandmother turned him in.
Now THIS is what really cranks my sense of justice:
Mexico refused to extradite him unless The Colorado AG agreed to not pursue the death penalty!!!!!!!!!!!
STG!
The worst the State of Colorado could do was hit him with 2nd degree murder. He was convicted and is spending 25 to 50 in Supermax.....on my tax dollar.
FARK!!!!!!!!
IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY OR WHAT?
*cough*
I need a stiff drink
IS THIS A GREAT CUNTRY OR WHAT?
As Claire would say *splork splork*
I’ll join you for a double after 5 PDT
I wanna see the WBC weenies hit with the puke ray!
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/08/flashlight-vomi.html
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