Freedom

On Black History Month

/ hsoi

I was sent the following video:

It appears to be from Morgan Freeman’s appearance on “60 Minutes” in late 2005. Here’s a transcript should the video disappear:

Mike Wallace: Black History Month you find…

Morgan Freeman: …ridiculous.

Mike Wallace: Why?

Morgan Freeman: You’re going to relegate my history to a month?

Mike Wallace: Oh come on…

Morgan Freeman: Well, what do you do with yours? Which month is White History Month?

Mike Wallace: (flustered, stammers)

Morgan Freeman: Well… well… come on… tell me.

Mike Wallace: I’m Jewish.

Morgan Freeman: OK! Which month is Jewish History Month?

Mike Wallace: There isn’t one.

Morgan Freeman: Oh! Oh. Why not? Do you want one?

Mike Wallace: No. No.

Morgan Freeman: No, I… I don’t either. I don’t want a Black History Month. Black History is American History.

Mike Wallace: How are we going to get rid of racism?

Morgan Freeman: Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you “a white man”, and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me “a black man.” I know you as Mike Wallace, you know me as Morgan Freeman.

And when I went looking for the date of the video, I found the accompanying article from CBS. The video clipped off at the end, but according to the CBS article the quote continues: “I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You wouldn’t say, ‘Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’ You know what I’m sayin’?”

 

I’ve long felt this is the answer. If you want to stop people caring about race then you need to stop caring about race. Period.

So long as we continue to divide, then well, we’ll be divided. If I’m forced to check a box on a form that says I’m Asian or White or whatever I it is that I am (mutt?), that’s dividing me. If we must hire or promote a certain number of people from some particular group because of some arbitrary quality about that group, then we have to care and divide and delineate and discriminate along that arbitrary quality; that implies that others from other groups may lose out because they don’t have that arbitrary quality when in fact they may possess more of the relevant quality. Is that right? How does such division unify? Maybe it’s that “new math”….

Does this mean we should flat out ignore race? No. We are what we are. My skin is darker than my wife’s skin, and our children have various shades in between. My eyes have more slant, my wife’s more oval. My wife is what she is, I am what I am. Morgan Freeman is what he is. Mike Wallace is what he is. We should not ignore race because it does comprise part of what we are, and it’s impossible to deny what we are. But we need to stop caring about it so much. 

 

On a related note, in watching that video YouTube gave a related suggestion of this video:

Guns in your car vs. employer property rights

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

In a 3-0 decision, the US Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in support of allowing employees to store legally owned firearms in locked, private motor vehicles while parked in employer parking lots. I wonder how this will affect efforts here in Texas, such as HB 1301 and SB 730. 

I’m torn on this issue, because it’s a mix of personal rights to self-protection and property rights.  Here’s some debate on the matter:

And if you spend a little time with Google, you can find a lot more on the debate.

Nancy Pelosi and The Pope

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

So I read by way of Robbie that Nancy Pelosi and The Pope had a meeting. I’m glad to hear this happened.

My wife is a devout Catholic so abortion topics, including Pelosi’s take on it, are a topic of conversation from time-to-time around our household. I don’t want to talk about abortion here so much as I want to talk about integrity and consistency. If you believe in abortion and have all of your other beliefs, ideology, philosophy, outlook on life, behavior, etc. all in line with each other, that’s one thing. But along comes Nancy Pelosi saying she’s “an ardent practicing Catholic”, but then supports abortion. Folks, that doesn’t jive. She goes on to say that the Catholic Church doesn’t even know when life begins! Watch her say this and read the transcript yourself.

Frankly, I don’t see why The Pope doesn’t deny Holy Communion to her or any other Catholic that behaves in this manner. It’s simple. If you’re a Catholic, you adhere to a certain set of beliefs. If you don’t adhere to those beliefs, you’re not a Catholic… especially not an “ardent practicing” one. This is a matter of integrity.

I think Robbie said it best tho:

Ms. Pelosi says she’s a Catholic. But she also supports abortion. Which makes her a pretty shitty Catholic. Kind of like every single professed Catholic who voted for Obama (who in turn voted to allow the murder of babies born alive that were supposed to be “terminated” before birth).

10 Key Conservative Principles

/ hsoi / 9 Comments

Today’s popular definition of “conservative” means little more than “that group of people/notions that stand opposite to what the ‘liberals’ stand for”. And even then I’m not sure how often they’re actually opposing.

Anthony G. Martin has a nice summary of 10 Key Conservative Principles.

Continue reading →

No consent

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Mike-istan didn’t consent.  Maybe he’d be interested in what’s going on in New Hampshire.

 

Updated: My wife passed me this link, which lead to this link, which lead to this link. Interesting stuff, folks.

Gun Free Kids

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Via SayUncle I learn about Gun Free Kids. They are, of course, against concealed carry on campus.

America’s colleges and universities are under attack from the gun lobby.

We’ll ignore the fact they’re under attack by crazy people bent on hurting innocent students.

The Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus is writing to colleges and universities across the country to alert them of the threat and to urge them to band together to oppose the gun lobby’s agenda to push guns into college campuses.

The is no agenda to push guns into college campuses. All there is is a movement to break down artificial legal barriers that keep law-abiding citizens from engaging in law-abiding activities, such as self-defense. Look, Virginia Tech already had policies prohibiting guns on campus, but that didn’t stop Cho Seung-Hui from going crazy. I dare say the only thing that could have stopped crazy would have been an armed student willing to shoot back. But instead all we have are sheep and wolves, and if there are any sheepdogs on campus the law forced them to leave their teeth elsewhere.

The case against guns on campus is strong. There are many reasons why it would be dangerous to introduce guns into colleges and universities.

  • Arming students would make campuses more dangerous every hour of every day
  • Armed students would be accountable to no one
  • Arming students would not deter the rare campus shooting
  • Academic debate cannot flourish in a room full of guns
  • There are better ways to make college campuses safer

Ok….

  1. And how is that? Proof please? Just about every state has concealed and/or open carry. There’s no “OK Corral” shootouts going on. The Good Guys are still Good Guys, obeying the law, solving their disagreements by peaceful means. Statistics and data show that after a State implements a concealed carry law, crime rates fall (or at least don’t rise). Concealed carry holders are also statistically less likely to commit crimes than the general populace.
  2. Really? Wow… I didn’t know having a concealed carry license suddenly put you above the law.
  3. Concealed carry on campus will not stop someone from going crazy. However, if someone is going crazy, having lots of armed Good Guys around could certainly minimize the damage crazy inflicts. Furthermore, let’s not just focus on big, rare shooting events. What about college girls walking across campus to their dorm rooms and being sexually assaulted? Let’s not focus on the rare event, let’s look at common campus crime and try to prevent that too.
  4. Why not? Are you saying that just because someone has a gun that they’re crazy? That if there’s disagreement over how to interpret a poem in English class that suddenly a gun owner is going to get all bloodthirsty and blow you away? Who’s calling who irrational here?
  5. Such as?

You’re not going to stop violence and evil by banning guns; in fact, gun bans tend to lead to increases in crime (why? because Joe Citizen is now too weak to adequately fight back). Guns are merely a tool, and guess what? That tool works great in the hands of The Good Guys against Bad Guys! The Good Guys obey the law, so pass a law to ban guns, now the Good Guys won’t have guns — but The Bad Guys still will. 

This group’s tag line is “protecting families from gun violence”. But as I look around their website, I fail to see how they’re doing anything to protect me and my family from gun violence, or even just plain old violence. I’d like them to explain that better. All I see right now are a lot of emotional appeals, no facts, and no real substance as to how they’re protecting anyone from anything.

I don’t deny there are stupid people out there, that there are dangerous people out there, that there are evil people out there. That these people are out to cause harm to innocent lives. And many times these people choose guns as the tool by which they inflict their harm. And when they go to inflict their harm, they have demonstrated they don’t care about social norms, standards, laws, ordinances, agreements, boundaries, signs, or you and your well-being. If you wish to abridge these people, I’m all for it. But until you can present me (y’know, one of The Good Guys) with some failsafe and foolproof way to keep them from injuring me, my family, my friends, and other good people in this world, please don’t cripple me and rob me of my choice of tools.

Guns and church

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Arkansas’s House just passed a bill approving concealed carry in church.

I applaud this. Texas’ concealed carry laws originally prohibited carry in church but the law changed to allow it (unless, like any place they post a valid 30.06 sign). 

Like I said before, having such laws only stop the law-abiding good guys. The law-breaking bad guys don’t care. The wolves will roam where they please, especially to places where it’s easy to pick off the sheep. Laws don’t erect magical force-fields to keep out the bad guys. 

From the article:

Rep. Steven Breedlove, D-Greenwood, a minister at the Valley View Church of Christ, said allowing concealed handguns won’t stop someone from opening fire inside a church.

“Ronald Reagan was completely surrounded by armed guards and he was still shot,” Breedlove said. “And that is why we must put our faith in God and not put our faith in something else … Let us keep the sanctity of churches and put our faith in God and not in guns.”

No, it won’t stop someone bent on crazy. John Hinckley Jr. was crazy. A minister should know that bad things can happen to good people and we can’t stop it all. And although a subject of much debate, it seems rather a Christian thing to defend yourself and others.

Self-defense may actually result in one of the greatest examples of human love. Christ Himself said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:14). When protecting one’s family or neighbor, a Christian is unselfishly risking his or her life for the sake of others.

Theologians J. P. Moreland and Norman Geisler say that “to permit murder when one could have prevented it is morally wrong. To allow a rape when one could have hindered it is an evil. To watch an act of cruelty to children without trying to intervene is morally inexcusable. In brief, not resisting evil is an evil of omission, and an evil of omission can be just as evil as an evil of commission. Any man who refuses to protect his wife and children against a violent intruder fails them morally.”

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.

So while allowing good people to possess useful tools wherever they man roam may not stop crazy, it can act as a deterrent and discourager, and at least give you a fighting chance. Yea, it even appears to be a moral obligation.

I agree. Do not put your faith in an inanimate object — a gun. But perhaps you can have faith that God might be guiding some to do His will, to be the sheepdogs helping The Shepherd guard his flock. Just ask Jeanna Assam.

 

Update: Robb chimes in with his take on the matter.

Cutbacks

/ hsoi

So until we’ve all been fully stimulated and the rainbow-farting unicorns appear, we’ve got to cut back. It’s happening around my household, and I’m sure it’s happening around yours.

It’s happening in your cities too. Massad Ayoob writes about how various municipalities are cutting back on law enforcement because they just can’t afford it. Even here in Austin. APD Top Cop Art Acevedo cut $3.7 million from the police department budget by reducing overtime and delaying a cadet class until September.

What does this all mean? Simple. Less cops on the street.

For those of you that put your safety and security into the hands of others, there weren’t many of those others before, and now there will be even less. That means there’s less to protect you… fewer hands into which to put your safety and security. The corollary is the bad guys will be aware of this reduced police presence, and you better believe they’ll take advantage of it.

It’s your life. It’s your liberty. It’s your property. It’s your happiness. How much do you value it? How much responsibility for it are you willing to take?