Hate Speech/Free Speech

What would you suggest is hate speech? In my small, narrow minded world, I tend to think of hate speech as, well, words that you use to say that you hate something or someone. A fine example; I hate the Yankees, I am a die hard Boston fan, so of course I would be expected to hate the Yankees and say so loudly, but is that actually “ hate speech” or am I just expressing my opinion. What if a Yankee fan said the same about Boston? Would that be hate speech or, again, just stating their own opinion? I am going to say that in both cases, it's preference and opinion, not hate speech.

But what happens if that opinion of mine goes from , I despise the Yankees, to I want to see the whole team drive over a cliff, does that qualify as hate speech? What if the Yankee fan says that about the Red Sox? Does that now become “hate speech” No it does not. Nothing other than words are spoken, opinion expressed, while we may not care for each other, it's been nothing more than words, in fact it's what we used to call “free speech.”

Free speech used to be the idea that you could express your views and opinions with out the fear of being censored, even when it would be seen as inappropriate or disgusting, and in return, hear someone's opposing view and then debate or even have a heated argument on the issues.

Essentially I can say I hate the Yankees and a Yankee fan could say he hates the Red Sox and we could argue about it and all is fine with the world. It would be different if we actually came to blows, but just to insult or offend, that is far from hate, that's “free speech”

Apparently not any more.

I realize that many of you find the concept of free speech offensive,especially those of you in the millennial generation, who need to have safe spaces and to never be challenged in your collective thinking by anything that might be remotely different, but free speech is the bedrock of our society and to try and censor it, simply because it offends someone is silly and it's very dangerous.

From what I understand, Google and Facebook, among other social media outlets, are going to start censoring what they consider to be hate speech. Who is going to decide what hate speech is? How are they even going to know something is hate speech are they going to be reading our minds as well?? And, once you have started down that slippery slope, where does it end? Who is it that's going to decide whats offensive?

I, not liking the Yankees, would likely offend a Yankee fan, so am I to be censored and edited because I express my own opinion and some how offend? What if the Yankee fan insults the Red Sox? Should I have the right to censor them and shut them down for expressing an opinion? Is this going to fall into the ranks of hate speech?

I know some of you are thinking that it will never happen; Are you sure? If I say I like the name “Washington Redskins” many of you will interpret that as being offensive to Native Americans and therefore hate speech. All I have done is express my opinion on the name of the team but you might have interpreted it as offensive and hateful, and according to today's PC police that would constitute hate speech and I would be cut off or censored.

When I expressed my opinion that the Chick fillet guy had the right to express his opinion on traditional marriage, you would have thought the world just ended. I expressed an opinion validating his right, based on the first amendment, to have his opinion, yet I was accused of being homophobic.

If I do any of that now, at least according to FB or Google, is that going to be considered hate speech?

Sadly, unless something amazing happens, I see free speech as being totally eliminated by a generation that fears it. I read statistics that suggested that 60% of college students already believe that speech should be regulated by the government, not terribly surprising, considering safe zones and all, but it's sad. Is this what we have come to?

I realize that this really isn't the fault of the millennials. They have been taught by the last couple of generations, that they are entitled to everything and have the right to not be offended. They have been taught by those with an extremely “ bigger government is better” movement and, because they don't know history, haven't a clue as to why we have these freedoms, such as speech, in this country.

Also the fact that our Constitution is being systematically destroyed by both parties and the judicial system is not their fault either, they, the millennials, are just the end results of our corrupt government corporation and very poor educational system..

So go ahead censor away. I'm going to continue to write un PC stuff until I get arrested for it. Because after being censored, at least in the Soviet Union,where they didn't like free speech either, the next step was imprisonment.

I think that day is not far away.

Election 2 Cents Worth

I thought I might take a moment and give my two cents worth on the current run for president. In a word; Really? As in this is really the best we can do in this country? 350 million or so people and these are the only ones we can come up with? Set aside your personal political beliefs for just a moment and really look at both sides of the aisle and then tell me we can't do any better.

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz seem to be the ones to beat and I am simply not impressed.

Mr. Trump may be good at business and he may have more money than God but does that qualify him to be president?What are his actual plans and strategy? Can he articulate them with out insulting anyone? More importantly, and this to my republican friends, do you remember that some years ago he stated that if he was to seriously run, that he would run as a republican because he considered them to be stupid? Perhaps he has changed his mind...

Hillary Clinton has more baggage than Logan Airport. Since the days of Watergate, where she was fired for unethical behavior during the investigation, there has been an air of contempt of the rule of law. White Water, covering for her husband, Benghazi as well as the current investigation into her email's should make every democrat out there shutter. She has a real chance of being arrested for several violations of federal law over classified material handling ( There is a Marine fighting for his career over one classified document that he turned in once he realized that he had it where they have found over 1300 on her servers) though being a Clinton she will likely get away, but is this really the person you want running your party or being it's leader?

Ted Cruz, I can't say I know a lot about him, best I can tell He is fairly squeaky clean, unless you hate the things that he stands for of course, but I didn't care for his part in shutting down the government, it affected me personally because my pay comes from the VA and we were left with enough uncertainty that I literally went ,with hat in hand ,to my land lord to find out what I needed to do if I stopped getting paid. There has to be a better way to do things. Not sure he knows how.

Bernie Sanders; I actually like him, not because I agree with him on a lot of things but because he doesn't hide who he is and what he stands for. He doesn't engage in double talk and political speech he just says what he believes. But the reality is that our economy simply can not handle a full scale swing to socialism. Everyone, no matter your income would have to pay heavy taxes to even begin to fund some of the things he has proposed, free college, free health care etc. There are no free rides, somebody has to pay for it and I can promise you it won't be the elites in DC doing so.

So there you have it. I don't want to have my only choices being the ones listed. I am neither democrat or republican, I call myself a conservative libertarian because I believe in the old concept of I live my life you live yours and as long as you and I aren't hurting each other let the rest go.

Peace out.

No Fly Lists And Guns

Last night, along with many others, I watched and listened to the Presidents speech. I didn't hear anything particularly new so I'm not sure what the point of it was. He did say one thing though that caught my attention and it surprises me that my liberal friends don't seem to have a problem with it.

The president mentioned no fly lists. More specifically the idea that he'd like to see measures taken that would prevent people on the list from being able to purchase a gun. On the surface it sounds great,though it wouldn't have prevented the California killing, but then I started to really think about it.

Who is on this “no fly list?” Who is the person or entity that makes such arbitrary decisions? The answer is that no one knows. The people who are on the lists don't know that they are on it unless they have tried to fly somewhere. What is known is that there are something along the line of 700,000 people just on that one list and, from what I understand ,there are actually 6 lists.

Whatever happened to due process? What ever happened to the concept of meeting your accusers in a court of law or having the right to appeal? To the best of my knowledge once you are on it there is no appeal process this based on cases of mistaken identity of totally innocent people finding themselves on the list.

The founders of this country understood all to well what it was to be on lists and arbitrarily have what few rights they had removed ,that's why the wrote the Constitution the way that they did, so that the rights of the individual would be protected.

Now,along with secret lists, we have a president openly encouraging congress to enact a law that would take rights away from people, who have never been charged or convicted of anything.

You may not like guns, and that's your right, but are you really comfortable with the government removing a right from a person based on an list with no evidence of wrong doing? Whats to stop them from putting you or me on the list for no other reason than we made someone powerful mad or uncomfortable?

Even more, if we allow this to follow it's natural course, whats to stop the government from going after all of our rights based on lists? How could you stop it? The door would be open, it would only be a matter of time. Freedom of speech has been under attack by the PC police for awhile now, if I make someone in power mad are they going to come and take my computer so that I can't write anymore because what I write might be offensive to them?? The AG has said that she would go after people who spoke out against Islam in a borderline violent way, so if I say I don't like Islam or that I utterly despise the Koran and Sharia, are they going to arrest me or put me on a list that prevents me from ever buying a computer again simply for speaking my own mind. Is that considered “borderline violent”?

Do they come and arrest me for trying to blog. Where does it end?

Bottom line; you don't have to like guns. You don't even have to agree with the second amendment but you want to be real careful of just how far you want to allow congress to go. You may find yourself on a list someday.....

Syrian refugees

There has been quite a not so friendly debate as to the fate of Syrian refugees. If you err on the side of caution you are accused of being bigoted and racist and you have no heart.

I have a heart, I am all about helping those that are in need, but I have a heart that is full of much caution, not from a political point of view, but from a personal point of view.

My own personal experience was during my time in Iraq. One of the things we learned rather quickly was just how fast our enemies could disappear into the crowds and the market places. One minute they were standing there and the next they would vanish into doorways and crowds. Sometimes we had no idea at all that they were even there until they started shooting at us or someone would tell us that they were there and where to find them. The other thing about them is that they had no qualms about using women and children as shields or mosques and hospitals. They would do this because of our rules of engagement. We couldn't fire on mosques or in heavily populated areas with out permission and they knew it. They used our own rules against us.

The president mocked the idea of women and children being used as weapons of war shortly before a woman blew herself up during one of the raids in Paris. Apparently he doesn't watch the news or pay any attention to history. In Israel Palestinian women and children attacking civilians is a common occurrence. When you teach them hate, and that martyrdom is to be desired, this is what happens.

When I went to boot camp my drill instructors were Vietnam vets. My seniors ,every where I was stationed ,were Vietnam vets, and I heard many stories of the Vietcong using women and children to kill and torture American troops. This is simple history and fact Mr. President.

One stat that I read the other day is that 77% of the “refugees” are military aged men. I don't know the truth to that because I am not there but I can say that I have seen a lot of videos out of Europe that do seem to show a great majority being male. How do we begin to know who is safe and who is a Jihadi terrorist?

The one thing everyone needs to keep in mind is that the end game for ISIS is our destruction and a world wide caliphate. They have said so and they have proven that they will use any means to do it including using our own laws and our compassionate hearts against us.

If my concerns and caution means that I am bigoted and have no compassion then I guess I will have to live with that label, meanwhile I am going to run down to the store, that's owned by a Syrian family who did the whole process some 15 years ago, and get some Ice Cream, yup me the bigot....

What if: Missiles in Texas

Imagine this for headlines in the United States.

In the south; residents of Arizona and Texas came under missile fire from the Mexican border for the third time today, a day after Mexican border leaders called for the destruction of both Arizona and Texas because their residents are “Christian” and because they are building more housing in the southern border areas.

In the north; Canadian officials are cheering the recent stabbings and killings of dozens of New Englanders' sighting New England residents are “occupying” the land and are nothing but animalistic “Christians” who deserve nothing but total annihilation.

At the UN; UN leadership condemned the US security forces for the killing of many of those carrying out the attacks in New England, as well as the “disproportionate” response of the Texas and Arizona security forces as they flew into the Mexican border and destroyed several missile batteries.

Earlier today, as the United States tried to appeal to the UN for help in stopping the terrorists at an emergency security council meeting, 90% of the delegates walked out on a visibly angry US representative. When asked by this reporter, most of the delegates blame the US as being an “Apartheid” state and that it was their own fault because they are continuing to build on their own territories.

This is what is happening in Israel.

Every day, from Gaza, missiles are being fired at civilian population centers in southern Israel.

Every day,especially in the last few weeks, there have been literally dozens of attacks on Jewish people, including babies, women and children, by terrorist thugs. They have killed with everything from cars to hatchets, they have killed with rocks and knives, yet when they are killed by Israel security forces for the killing of innocent Jews, Israel is blamed for the violence.

John Kerry came out and said that this is because Israel is building or is threatening to change things on the Temple Mount, yet the fact of the matter is that Hamas, the PA and their leader Abbas, have openly said that they want nothing more than the total destruction of the Jewish people, they don't care one iota about the land, they want to kill and that's what they are doing.

And while this has all been going on the leader of the UN has called for Israel to restrain themselves, this coming after a huge chunk of reps, including our own, walked out on PM Netanyahu when he came to the UN to make his appeal.

As for calling Israel an “Apartheid” state, you need to go back and look at what real “apartheid” was in Africa and then try to explain to me how Israel fits the bill. Israel is willing to let anyone from any background live among them as long as they become citizens and obey the laws. Abbas has said that he will never let any Jew live in his territories, that he would drive out each and everyone, so tell me again about apartheid in Israel.

Go back to my original “headlines”. Would we put up with it if it was happening here? Not likely, so why do we expect Israel to do so? Gutless, cowardice leadership both in the US and the UN only encourages more killing on the part of terrorists. Israel needs to stand up for itself and our leadership should back them, to hell with what the rest of the world thinks.

Violence is in the heart

Another mass killing. Another battle over guns. Nothing solved. Why? Because the heart of the problem, as always, is being ignored. Blame is assigned to objects when the blame should clearly fall on hearts and minds. Not just the killers heart and mind but all of our hearts and minds.

If I have a heart full of hate and violence and I want to kill, I am going to find a way to make it happen. There isn't any law on any books that would be able to stop me. If my heart doesn't change nothing will stop me. If I can't have a gun OK fine, I'll use a baseball bat or a chain saw, or drive my car through a crowd it doesn't matter, if hate is whats in my heart and killing is my intention I will find a way.

You want something to blame, rather then the person? OK try our so called entertainment industry for starters.

I don't watch a whole lot of TV but when I do, I see the commercials for all the great “entertainment” that I am missing and it makes me sick. The most popular shows involve wholesale violence.”Game of Thrones” is probably one of the most graphic shows of them all yet it's one of the most popular ever. I saw the preview for “Gotham” while watching football yesterday and what do you have? Someone who is crazy, I'm assuming it's a young Joker, taking a knife to some old man tied up in a chair. We glorify violence and we make it look sexy. We laugh as a “Joker” type character's kill and maim as they live in the lap of luxury. We glorify gang life in music video's, showing money, gold and sexy women all the while promoting violence. Even the most popular games out there are usually in some way war based.

You think the gun is the problem? Not hardly, it's the indoctrination of violence that we have raised our youth in that's the problem.

I keep seeing stats talking about the last 20 or 30 years and how much “gun violence” there has been. Has it ever occurred to anyone that there just might be a correlation between that and our declining standards and morals? Oh I know that makes me an old fashion stick in the mud but I don't remember so many mass killings back when I was a kid. Sure you heard about crimes in the “big cities” but nothing like what you see today in places like Chicago and Baltimore. Whole sale killings every day.

This is a direct reflection on our society and how Hollywood and our media glorifies it.

Not only is it a heart problem it is quite literally a mind problem.

The one thing that all of these shootings have in common, at least the big ones that make the news, is that everyone of them had mental and psychiatric problems that were ignored. by parents or colleagues. And even doctors. It used to be that it only took a doctor's word to determine if someone was a danger to society and have someone committed to a facility. Now they are just given psychotropic drugs , which seems to make them worse, and they are turned loose on the world. In today's PC world A doctor or any mental health provider can be sued and lose their right to practice if they, without permission, send out a warning to law enforcement. How do you prevent something like this from happening again if mental health workers are not allowed to warn anyone?

The last thing is that we have a serious morals issue. You don't believe in God or you don't want to go to church or synagogue, that's fine, but how about we go back to teaching our children, from a young age, that there is right from wrong instead of just moral relativism. Teach them that are consequences for doing wrong. I was playing with matches one day and my grandfather saw me, he picked me up by one leg and wailed in my back side till I couldn't sit. I have never forgotten that and I stopped playing with matches. I learned that there were consequences for what I was doing and some of them could be quite painful. I know our society is against spanking and now look at what our youth are doing to themselves and each other. Bottom line; How about we teach them that violence is not acceptable and how about we stop supporting the glorification of it in the media?

You can make all the gun laws you want. You can ban certain weapons and magazines until you are blue in the face but it won't stop mass killings. You can tighten the rules and make gun ownership harder ,if it will make you feel better, though the only people that will hurt is legal gun owners, but until you address the real issues, our societies glorification of violence, and very careful changes to mental health laws,as long as there is a way to, and a will to kill, it will happen.

A Jailed Clerk

From what I understand there is a great deal of rejoicing going on over this clerk in Kentucky going to jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. What I am trying to understand is why she is in jail. What laws did she break? She didn't. As a matter of fact she was upholding Kentucky law. The law in Kentucky says that a marriage license shall only be issued to a couple that consists of one man and one woman. She broke no laws.

I know what you are thinking,and it's sad to know this, you are going to say well yes but the supreme court ruled that gay marriage should be legal in all 50 states. Indeed they did. But here is the sad part.

The supreme court doesn't make laws. If you read the Constitution you would know that only congress can create and pass laws. Article 1 Section 1 “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a congress of the United States, which shall consist of a senate and house of representatives.”See also section 8 right at the end.

So while the supreme court may have made a ruling, there have not been any laws legalizing gay marriage passed by congress, and because they have not done that it falls to the states (see amendment 10) to pass such laws. This also has not happened in most states, some have made it legal legislatively but most have not, so in fact this woman has committed no crime. She up held the laws of her state and her only “crime” is for expressing her faith as being her reason.

If you want to go to extremes with this, which for arguments sake I will, if you are going to arrest and jail a clerk for breaking a law ,which does not exist, then you should have to arrest and jail the president for violating and not upholding laws that do exists simply because he doesn't like them. The defense of marriage act ,just as an example, we are talking marriage after all, was passed by both houses of congress and signed into law by President Clinton. President Obama was against it so he instructed his staff not to defend it. He has also ignored or violated immigration law and yet no one is sending him to jail for it. Just to name in example or two.

The bottom line is that all that has been accomplished is that you have created a martyr and you have ticked off quite a large number of Christians. Good luck with that.