A disturbing magazine cover crossed my desk last week announcing, in big bold print, that Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and the NRA are hosting a "Restoring Honor" rally next month.
It's being held at the Lincoln Memorial, a place that honors America's most revered president: the one who saved our union, freed African slaves, and breathed the healing balm "of malice toward none" at the conclusion of our bitter Civil War -- and who was killed by a gun.
It's also being held on the 47th anniversary of the "March on Washington." The march where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke so eloquently of his dream that one day his children would live in a nation where "they will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Where this same civil rights giant, and pacifist who won the Nobel Prize for Peace, was joined on the podium -- and in the 200,000-plus audience -- by Americans of all races, backgrounds, and religions.
And where the transformative power of non-violent protest and forgiveness traveled deeply into the racially scarred American consciousness, and prodded political leaders to pass laws that struck down decades of discriminatory practices that had relegated a group of people to the desert of second-class citizenship.
Now picture the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, on the anniversary of I Have a Dream, with Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and the NRA's Wayne LaPierre at the podium, and our National Mall teeming with their followers to, in Beck's words, "pick up Martin Luther King's dream..."
Calling the date of his rally "Divine providence," (as noted ironically by the Colbert Report) this is the same Glenn Beck, a life-member of the NRA, who has insulted the Anti-Defamation League; challenged Keith Ellison, a Muslim who had just been elected to Congress to "prove to me you are not working with our enemies"; repeatedly called President Obama "a racist" and accused him of having "a deep-seated hatred for white people." This same Beck recently urged Christians to leave their churches if their ministers ever spoke about "social justice" -- the very foundation of King's leadership during the 1950's and 1960's -- because he considers the term code for "communism and Nazism."
This is the same Sarah Palin, who has purposely stoked fears and resentment among gun-owners by wrongly accusing President Obama of wanting to ban guns; who disregards the 70 percent of Americans who want restrictions on semi-automatic assault weapons; and rejects the medical community's assertion that gun violence in America is a national health problem.
This is the same Wayne LaPierre, who insists that "...it's the guys with the guns make the rules." Not Jefferson's 'We, the people,' the American voters, or their representatives. No, "the guys with the guns" -- a statement that bears eerie similarity to the one John Wilkes Booth authored in a letter on April 14, 1865, the morning before he assassinated Lincoln, that "Might makes right."
The same LaPierre who just weeks ago debated me on PBS's NewsHour and argued that laws, such as requiring criminal background checks on all gun sales at gun shows are the equivalent of a "poll tax."
Yes, you read that correctly. LaPierre equates laws restricting access to guns by dangerous people with a tax designed to keep African-Americans from exercising their 15th Amendment right to vote, which had been blocked for a century after the Civil War. A tax that ultimately was consigned to the dustbin of history by the groundswell of support for the 24th Amendment, which became law on the heels of the 1963 March on Washington. Somehow a proposal designed to slow the mind-numbing gun violence touching so many in this country equals -- in LaPierre's mind -- the century-long disenfranchisement of former slaves and their descendants.
On that podium also will be Ted Nugent, a guitarist and NRA board member, who has insulted women and gays, and who told the Detroit Free Press magazine that, "Apartheid isn't that cut and dry. All men are not created equal. The preponderance of South Africa is a different breed...."
A large part of the audience likely will be those who identify themselves as members of the Tea Party, some of whom at past public events have openly carried guns and used tactics of intimidation; brandished racially offensive posters depicting President Obama; and shouted racial and anti-gay slurs at congressional leaders outside of a rally to allegedly protest health care legislation. One of the spokespersons for the Tea Partiers even wrote a facetious letter "from the Colored people" to Abraham Lincoln praising slavery, to challenge the NAACP's claims that the party harbors racist elements.
Most jarring is the sad irony of all of these people at the podium, with their supporters spread across our National Mall, celebrating, in part, their worship of guns, while invoking, quite blatantly, the legacies of two great Americans whose magnificent lives were cruelly cut short by bullets.
And as you hold that image in your mind, consider the words of Dr. King, who, while mourning with all Americans the loss of President John F. Kennedy to gun violence, suggested: "While the question 'Who killed President Kennedy?' is important, the question 'What killed him?' is more important. Our late President was assassinated by a morally inclement climate. It is a climate filled with heavy torrents of false accusation, jostling winds of hatred and raging storms of violence. It is climate where men cannot disagree without being disagreeable, and where they express dissent through violence and murder."
Are Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre, and Ted Nugent, at this place and time, the new keepers of King's dream and of Lincoln's legacy? Or do they, with this event at this place and time, in one of the boldest and most public ways imaginable, mock, and indeed, slander, everything for which these men so nobly stood, and for which they died?
Paul Helmke is president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Follow the Brady Campaign on Facebook and Twitter.
Kaile Shilling: Fewer Guns in Public Means More Freedom
It is already federal law that all legal immigrants in this country have with them at times proof of their legal immigration status (e.g. visa, green card, etc.). Arizona's law is meant to allow police to ask individuals they are dealing with to produce these items which they are already legally required to carry. What would have been the collective reaction if Arizona had taken their law further and required that all legal immigrants within its borders be made to register with a national or statewide database so that the immigration status can be verified, for those that have run in with law enforcement?
I can only imagine the outrage at such an idea. So why do so many of the same people that would object to such a hypothetical idea being applied to immigration actually support a political agenda that wants to force law abiding citizens of this country have to register with a national database simply for exercising one of their Constitutionally protected rights?
If they see you as a person and not the "wannabe-Rambo" boogeyman they visualise, they'd have to face the quite undisputable fact that what they're doing is wrong.
They misrepresent their suggestions as "sensible" because they've demonised you such that they can't see the hypocrisy in their actions, as who could oppose sensible regulation?
To them, one registration is used by those who dehumanise and vilify those it would affect, and the other is just prudent planning. That they're guilty of the same thing doesn't occur to them.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
"Hypocrisy," that, too, is thine, NRA.
Here's another "misappropriation" to add to your list:
"The black man has never had the right either to keep or bear arms," and until he does, "the work of the Abolitionists was not finished."
That's Clarence Thomas paraphrasing Frederick Douglas to defend Otis McDonald's right to own a handgun. That's a three-for-one in the face of the race baiters.
Over time, many of those individuals began to embraced more and more conservative beliefs and ideals. They all said this change in their ideals was directly due to their belief that their party had forsaken them by refusing to accept their belief regarding the 2nd Amendment.
Sure, die hard lefties like yourself can mock the beliefs of those that vote democrat but aren't as far left as yourself on every issue. All this does is further alienate more and more of the less liberal and more moderate members of your party that vote along side of you. By all means, keep doing this.
That roster has been around for some time, and things just keep going against the BC's agenda.
Ain't it a wonderment?
Sure, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, but it had to pass the House and Senate to get to his desk. Take a look at the breakdown of how the bill passed the House and Senate.
Since the Dems had the majority in the House and Senate they naturally had more total Yea and Nay votes, so try comparing the percentage of Yea vs Nay within each party:
Vote totals
Totals are in "Yea-Nay" format:
By party
The original House version:[10]
* Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
* Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)
Cloture in the Senate:[11]
* Democratic Party: 44-23 (66%-34%)
* Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)
The Senate version:[10]
* Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%-31%)
* Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)
The Senate version, voted on by the House:[10]
* Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
* Republican Party: 136-35 (80%-20%)
A greater percentage of Republicans voted in favor of Civil Rights than Dems did.
Just keep in mind, my point isn't to suggest that Republicans did more for Civil Rights than Dems did, its just to point out that they too were instrumental in Civil Rights and have just as much right as the left to honor the leaders of the movement.
Seriously? We have from day one stated that we abhor any and all violence, not just a selective subcategory of violence. In fact, your side won't even acknowledge the existence of violence that is not committed with a firearm. If anyone is "making excuses" for violence, it is the gun-banners. The gun-banners are the ones that give the actual person using the gun a pass so that the gun-banners can continue to focus on blaming the firearm for the violence, and not the user of the firearm.
These anti-gunners are the same "caring" and "compassionate" individuals that object to strict punishments for those criminals commit violence. These anti-gunners make excuse for the crimes committed by these individuals, such as broken homes, poverty, beaten as a child, etc, which puts these criminals right back out on the street to commit more violence. And then when it involves a firearm, the replay their "blame the firearm" record.
What is even worse, the work done by the anti-gun side diverts finite resources away from efforts addressing the real causes of violence and perpetrators of the violence, just so that they can further their agenda of getting an inanimate object they don't like banned. This, to me, is deplorable, as it actually helps to perpetuate the cycles of violence that these hypocrites say they are wanting to stop.
Yes, we know.
This statement basically summarizes the reason why gun control and gun ban organizations like the Bradys and the VPC are spiraling into a chasm of irrelevancy. Their continuous need to blame inanimate objects and give criminals a free pass just isn't flying these days.
How exactly is differentiating between a particular type of weapon or between a particular type firearm going to do more for addressing the root causes of violence than actually studying the motivating factors for why individuals commit their acts of violence?
For example, how would discovering that say 55% of a sample were killed by a firearm and 45% were killed by other means be of more importance to addressing violence than discovering that say 85% of those that committed violence were repeat offenders that were once again given probation instead of incarceration or that 65% of the offenders had a treatable mental disorder that wasn't in fact being treated?
There are a great many things we can learn about those that commit violence and the conditions surrounding their violent act that could help change such behavior. What weapon they chose to use is at the bottom of this list, if even on the list at all.
That is the "what".
And as you hold that image in your mind, consider the words of Dr. King, who, while mourning with all Americans the loss of President John F. Kennedy to gun violence, suggested: "While the question 'Who killed President Kennedy?' is important, the question 'What killed him?' is more important. Our late President was assassinated by a morally inclement climate. It is a climate filled with heavy torrents of false accusation, jostling winds of hatred and raging storms of violence. It is climate where men cannot disagree without being disagreeable, and where they express dissent through violence and murder."
Excellent article stating some of the saddest and yet most profound truths in our nation 2010. As we look back to our true heroes, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., this year looks like a very difficult year, indeed. The question comes to mind: is there a subliminal message the think tanks of the billionaires who support events like this with TeaPartyers are attempting to convey that may not be immediately obvious because of the crazy-making charade? If so, what could it be?
http://www.pinkpistols.org/index2.html
They are open to anyone, and I admire their mindset of live and let live, but don't mess with me.
Nothing "awful" will happen unless some rogue from JournoList or some other leftists make something happen.
But there is sure to be ample oversight to control any troublemakers. Hint: you won't find any among NRA members and Tea Partiers. Want to bet on it?
Semper fi
Just gloves though. They only issue the complete suits at G8 summits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1cYzATHcqA
Watch and see their hypocrisy.