THE WESTERNER: Dim, Dimmer, and Blackout

THE WESTERNER: Dim, Dimmer, and Blackout: The State of the Union Dim, Dimmer, and Blackout Repubs, Dems and our Constitution By Stephen L. Wilmeth             ...

Subject: No sense

     http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2017/10/las-vegas-still-makes-no-sense.html?m=1

Saturday, October 14, 2017
Las Vegas Still Makes No Sense


Everything about this case leads nowhere. Exactly as I suspect was intended
from the outset.

We know Stephen Paddock was found dead at the scene.
We know 197 people were shot, ostensibly from a suite comped to Paddock,
from a pair of rooms he began staying in 6 and 1/2 days prior to the
shooting.
We know in it were found thousands of rounds of ammunition and 23 weapons,
at least 20 of which were nothing but props, and which the carting to the
premises was nothing but theatre, and not expediency.
We know that Paddock acquired 33 of the nearly 50 weapons he owned in the
last 12 months.
We know he stayed at hotels overlooking several other concert sites
recently.
We know he had 10-20 or more 100-round Surefire magazines that fit all the
.223 AR-type rifles found in Vista Suite 32-135.
We know Paddock had virtually no online footprint, no political or religious
affiliations, a far-beyond-comfortable nest-egg, and no discernible
reason(s), neither personal, mental, or physical, to shoot 197 strangers and
kill 58 of them, plus himself.
We know cameras were placed to allow a shooter inside the suite to see the
approach of police coming up a long corridor to the room.
We know the emergency stairwell right outside his suite door was secured
shut.
We know that a hotel security person, and a maintenance worker, were
summoned to the exact floor and wing in question mere minutes before the
shooting, by an unsecured door alarm three doors down from Paddock's rooms.
How convenient.
We know someone inside the room fired several bursts at both of these men,
at spitting distance, yet managed only one superficial injury to the guard,
and none to the maintenance man.
We know that hotel security was notified within seconds, several minutes
before shooting began on the concert, but that it took the police 18-19
minutes to arrive on the 32d floor, and who waited another hour and change
after that to enter the suspect suite.
We know that over several minutes after that, hundreds to thousands of
rounds were fired, ostensibly from the suite, at a concert site packed with
attendees, at a range well within the effective range of an AR .223 rifle,
and at a rate boosted to near full-auto cycling by the use of bump stocks.
We know that target was nearly the size of a WWII aircraft carrier.
We know no one on the ground immediately beneath the hotel reacted untoward
after the initial bursts.
We also know that the initial pounding or shooting out of the windows on the
32d floor also produced no alerts, alarms, or anything else below.
We know that most of the exits from the concert venue were locked, trapping
attendees in a large, stadium-lit killing zone for minutes during the
onslaught, with a rat maze of obstacles to contend with to attempt to flee.
We know that after the initial burst down the hall, and after finishing the
6-minute killing bursts on the concert, no further fire was placed on either
venue, and that it was several minutes, perhaps as many as 10, between the
end of firing from the suite, and the arrival of the first LVMPD officers at
the hallway landing on the 32d floor.

And that's everything.

Constitutional Debauchery

Dark Age of Reasoning

Adios to Political Parties

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            I am on a mission.

            We have had a bad week with our 80 year old perimeter fencing. The monsoon is trying its best to offer us some welcome relief, but rains have once again been spotty. Where it has rained there have been repeated rains and where it has not rained it is not just dry it is muy seco. The result is that our cow herd is “chasing green” and fences are being tested.

            Yesterday morning, we put some cows back through our gate from a neighbor’s only to find we had missed another three dry cows. We discovered them when Oscar had given me a ride back to my truck where I had jumped Bailey out. So, there we were in the rocks with a four wheeler and a pickup and trailer. We got them started even cutting them out of the neighbor’s cattle. It went well until I had to leave my wing position and get the gate open where we had crossed the first cows and where I had tied my horse. I got horseback and we got the three to the gate. We put the lead cow through and began to count the reasons we were such good cowboys.

            We didn’t count very far.

            Fifteen yards from an open gate, the lead cow acted just like her mother before and set sail with her head high like a strobe light. The other cow bailed like she had been raised by a quail hen. Needless to say, in the rocks and with a tired horse and a four wheeler, we finally decided we were doing nobody any good and would come back with fresh horses and some patience.

            I am going to pen that cow, though, and I am going to ship her.

            Dark Age of Reasoning

            The ability to deal with congressional partisans, however, is not as easy to fix.

            We are symbolically wined and dined through the election process only to be disappointed with the glaring dismissal of truth and intent. Myth exceeds reality in Washington by at least a margin of one. In the ‘70s, the democrats told us the human population increase would reach such a feverish pitch “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death”. At least 65 million of those would be Americans dying of starvation between 1980 and 1989. Did any of us save a single news paper headline documenting such a doomsday result?

            Today, these chronic professional alarmists remain intent on serving up fear and mass hysteria over the extinction of species, particularly those losses predicated on anthropogenic global warming. If that is the case, name the demise of a single species that has been tied inexorably to global warming in the modern era.

            Their current shock warning is coming from their learned think tanks predicting the deaths of millions of Americans because of the oppositions bungling of the Affordable Care Act or its scores of alternatives. Will it happen? Most certainly people will die, but they will die whether there is an affordable health plan or the one we have now, the unaffordable health plan. Why is anybody still listening to these chumps?

            Although the republicans are not predicting extinction of any species (albeit they should be worrying about their own fall from existence), they are performing in no less splendor. When Senator Cornyn of Texas revealed that nobody is really intent on reducing the federal budget, he was probably as truthful as he had ever been to his constituents. For heavens sake, tell it like it is. Most of us would much rather hear something we didn’t like knowing it was truthful than telling us something and having no intention of performing.

            The Westerner’s discovery on Friday that the republican controlled Appropriations Committee bill for U. S. environmental public lands programs is roughly $4.3 billion more than President Trump’s budget request tells the real story. It displays not just a fundamental absence of courage, it demonstrates that getting reelected trumps (no pun intended) promises any and every day.

            That party is in the throws of glaring ineptitude. They are demonstrating many worst case nightmares and that starts with remembering it is much easier to talk than it is to commit to a course of action and defend it to their political deaths.

            Constitutional Debauchery

            Both sides stand in the shadows of the Constitution without regard to its purpose. They believe in it when they need to make a point. It gives credibility to their message regardless of intent. Three examples have been used out of context on the basis of such constitutional protections.

            The first is the promise of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Even O’Reilly used the point in a “constitutional” rebuttal before his own fall from grace. The problem is it doesn’t appear in the Constitution, but, rather, it comes from The Declaration of Independence. It isn’t law. It is a statement of passion.

            The second example is Of the People, By the People, For the People. There is no connection with this phrase and the Constitution at all. This was crafted by Lincoln in his three minute address at Gettysburg.

            The final example is  political parties. Americans have come to believe that political parties are part of the system as much as the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, and the Judicial Branch. They dominate the news outlets and expand the polarization of this country. The dems adhere to party marching orders as if they are automatons of the underworld. The repubs try to make sense of the Grand Old Party, but keep tripping themselves up by play acting in uniformity, a condition that is contradictory to their being.

            Both views of the absurdity of rule by mob is about to bring us to our knees. The Constitution was predicated on the sovereignty of the individual although it took until the Bill of Rights to be ratified before that little promise was remembered.

            It is time to throw off this yoke of polarization and special interest hatred that two party mob rule has brought to our Union. We need to outlaw political parties on the basis that no such mention or intention was set forth in the Constitution. Let’s see how the individual acts when he is guided solely by his conscience and abilities. If he can’t perform, limit his ineptitude to the idiots who elected him and … leave the rest of us alone!

Maniacal; ungovernable frenzy

http://www.wnd.com/2017/07/the-lefts-maniacal-war-on-common-sense/

Based on a true story.

Democrats don't get democracy!

https://medium.com/@zachhaller/7-jaw-dropping-revelations-from-hearings-on-the-motion-to-dismiss-the-dnc-fraud-lawsuit-bee1723b713f

Islam exposed again. . .

Seriously, can the modern world discipline children?


https://heatst.com/life/australian-teacher-quits-after-islamic-students-threaten-to-behead-her/

The right to have rights

Column - The right to have rights - 700 words

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.

“… that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Thomas Jefferson

            We have a national conversation going about our “rights” in society. In 1776, the three were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness which in earlier drafts read the pursuit of property. During the time of President Franklin Roosevelt there was a push to increase the rights.

            In 1941 Roosevelt spoke about the four freedoms considered four rights that should be available to all Americans. They are: the freedom of speech, freedom to worship God, the freedom from want and the freedom from fear. The controversy was freedom from want and fear. Is it even possible to be free of wants and fears?

            Later Roosevelt proposed eight additional rights: the right to a useful and remunerative job. The right to earn enough money. The right of farmers to have a decent living.

            Also, the right of businessmen to have freedom from unfair competition. The right of every family to a decent home. The right to adequate medical care along with the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.

            Finally, there is the right to a good education. Not any education, a good education.

            So, do you have a right to clean water and air? Do you have a right to transportation? Do you have a right to retire when you wish? Do you have a right to entertainment?

            The problem is that some rights come with a price tag. Someone must pay, whom will that be? If each of us has the right to a good education, do we have to pay for it? Is it a right and other Americans must provide this or medical care regardless of if we pay because it’s a right?

            That is a slippery slope when we start taking the productive ability of Americans and without compensation giving their productiveness to other Americans. It is like the notion of a one hundred percent tax on some people. Sounds like government would get lots of money but that is not true because if we were taxed at one hundred percent, taxed such that we received nothing for working, it is likely we would quit.

            It’s a convenient talking point that all Americans have a right to adequate medical care. Do they have that right without compensation to the people providing the care? Do care professionals have a right to be compensated? Where is the line?

            Usually at a traffic accident, each of us is obligated to help, but is it a right for injured people? By getting into an accident do they have the right to compel us to act? Perhaps, or is that an ordinance rather than a right? Different things when we call that a right.

            Years ago, I was working as a school photographer and that day set up at an elementary school in Tucumcari, New Mexico. During the morning, a rough looking hombre walked up to the seat and before sitting down said to me, “I’ve got a Constitutional Right not to smile.”

            I said, “You’ve got it Bud.” He was happy and looked happy as I took the picture. I understood that he didn’t want one of those cheesy pictures. He wanted dignity. I was glad to give it to him but I didn’t think it a Constitutional Right. It was professional.

How do we deal when two people with rights are in conflict? It is like the question: if one endangered species is eating another endangered species what should we do? It is tough to decide since if you do not let the first species eat that species will die. And if you do then the other species becomes more endangered. It is fundamentally the same issue with rights.

            The Income Tax which came about in 1913 takes part of your productivity. It is considered the right of society to take your productivity. How much of a right is there? Can you take most of someone’s wages because of the supposed right of redistribution? Very slippery slope. Maybe we should go back to only three rights.

Email: drswickard@comcast.net - Swickard’s new novel, Hideaway Hills, is available at Amazon.com